December 13, 2017 • 31 mins
Tasty treats associated with winter holidays - candy canes, wassail and gingerbread - have some slightly hazy origins, because the evidence of their histories was eaten. What do we actually know about these foods and their place in the holiday menu?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Honley Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson Tracy Yep.
It's time for delicious holiday snacks for some people to
(00:22):
celebrate Christmas or other winter holidays. The snacks are the
best thing about the season. I think Tracy and I
have told the ridiculous story of us being two of
the only people in the office during Christmas holidays one
year and making s'mores with um chocolate moose peeps and
peppermint bark and running around like we were wild animals.
It was amazing because the sugar rush was more than
(00:45):
we can handle. Yeah, and it was super fun. And
even if you like don't celebrate the religious holidays, or
even like the more cultural like the people who are
more culturally Christian and celebrate Chris Christmas in a more
secular way, like even if you don't know why any
of that, a lot of these things is the only
time of the year that you really find them. Yeah uh,
(01:06):
and yummy snacks or yummy snacks, But many of these
snacks have histories that go back hundreds of years. But
because of the nature of the subject, things get really
confusing in a hurry, because, after all, all of the
historical evidence is pretty much eaten. Uh. And so there's
a lot of apocrypha going on. Uh. And So in
the interest of examining the stories behind some of the
(01:26):
most ingested holiday consumables, we're going to sort through that
apocrypha and the known facts, and we'll probably all be
craving something sweet and delicious by the end. Expectations management
right out of the gate. We already talked about eggnog
and its origins a bit in our Eggnog Riot episode,
so we're not going to talk about eggnog today. We
do have another drink, which is wattle, and we'll also
(01:48):
cover candy canes and gingerbread. I'm excited because, uh, a
lot of these things are delicious. So candy canes bright
and cheerful six of peppermint goodness, but no one really
knows exactly where they came from. There are a lot
of unsubstantiated stories about the origins, though, and three of
(02:11):
them are the ones that are the most commonly repeated.
So one version of this story goes that candy canes
were originally invented in Germany in the sixteen hundreds, And
in this apocryphal version, a choir master at a cathedral
invented candy canes as a way to keep children who
are normally a little bit fidgety and sometimes noisy, occupied
(02:32):
and quiet in church. And he had the candy sticks
made by a confection or with a crook at the
top so that they echoed the shape of a shepherd's staff,
making the idea of candy in church more acceptable to parents.
Sometimes this story is told, along with color symbolism, that
the choirmaster specifically chose white sticks of candy to represent
(02:54):
purity and Christ. But there is absolutely no record of
such a thing, and no one seems to know who
this choirmaster was, even though they're an awful lot of
details about his thought process. So again it's a lovely story,
but unsubstantiated. I'll say I would have much preferred candy
as a way to keep quiet in church then what
I actually had, which was doodling on the church bulletin.
(03:18):
Church bulletins are generally not delicious, no shade to any
church bulletins, but no, but I would draw on them.
So another origin story attributes the invention of the candy
cane to a particularly devout confectioner in the United States,
specifically Indiana, who carefully designed the candy cane as an
expression of the story of Christ. And this similarly sites
(03:42):
the white of the candy cane is a symbol of purity,
and the red stripes this symbolic of the blood of
Christ with the crucifixion, and then the cane shape, according
to this version, is actually the letter J for Jesus. Again,
there's no evidence for this story. Uh, that's that's similar
to like the one that I heard the most growing up,
although I heard the combination of the colors being this
(04:04):
one and then the crook is the shepherd's. Yeah, And
it's one of those things like if people like to
think of them that way, that's great, but like there's
not really any historical backing for that being how and
why they were invented. Um. A third story is less
about the invention of the peppermint treat and it's more
about the introduction of it to the US. And this
(04:26):
tale features a German immigrant named August m Guard and
according to the legend, m Guard put up the Christmas tree. Uh.
The first in Ohio when he decorated his in eighty seven,
and it said that m Guard's tree had paper ornaments
and candy canes on it. At least that is how
some versions of the story go. There are other accounts
(04:47):
that say that it was actually a type of decorated
Bavarian cookie that was used to grace the tree, along
with the paper ornaments, as well as nuts that were
painted gold. M Guard does remain associated with one of
the earliest Christmas trees in the US, although I think
he is no longer referenced as the first Christmas tree
in the US, But the candy cane aspect of the story,
(05:09):
in terms of him bringing it to the United States
and decorating with it, is again not substantiated in any way.
As for the striped peppermint sticks themselves, they're clearly described
in the book The Complete Confectioner, Pastry, Cook and Baker
by Eleanor Parkinson. In a section of the text titled Clove,
(05:29):
Ginger or Peppermint Candy. The process of making striped candy
is described this way. For clove, the mixture whilst boiling
is colored with cocon heal ginger with saffron, but the
peppermint must be kept perfectly white except the stripes, which
is done by cutting off as many pieces from the
bulk as you have colors which should be in powder.
(05:52):
Put a sufficiency in each piece to give the desired
tent and keep them warm. When the remaining portion of
the sugar is pulled, lay the over the surface and
narrow stripes double the roll together and the face each
way will be alike. Pull them out into long sticks
and twist them, make them round by rolling them under
the hand, or they may be cut into small pieces
(06:12):
with a pair of shears or scissors. Yeah. So in
terms of that, it's more a matter of put in
stripes to make them colorful and festive, not so much
with any kind of meaning. Uh. And while we may
not be able to trace the invention of candy canes
back to its origin point, we do know a bit
more about the mass production of candy canes and where
(06:34):
that started. Bob's Candies, founded by a man named Bob
McCormick in Albany, Georgia, was the first confectionery company to
start mass producing candy canes, which they did in the
early nineteen twenties. Incidentally, Bob's Candies was also the first
to offer cellophane wrapped candy canes. Tracy, I don't know
about you, but I accidentally ingested a lot of cellophane
(06:55):
as a child because I cannot always peel it off
the candy cane. Initially, the hooks that were being added
to the canes were done by hand before the candy
cooled and hardened. But this method had a high rate
of waste, because more than one fifth of the candy
canes broke and consequently could not be sold. Bob McCormick's
(07:16):
brother in law, a priest by the name of Gregory
Harding Keller, invented a machine to automate the hook shaping process,
which had a much lower rate of candy breakage. The
Keller machine not to be confused with the one on doctor,
who was further refined by too Bob's Candies employees named
Dick Driscoll and Jimmy Spratling, and then after that, almost
(07:36):
all the candy canes produced were perfect. This novel invention,
which was really the start of the modern candy cane
industry one killer his fifteen minutes of fame. He even
appeared on the game show what's my line, so contestants
could guess his profession. Yeah, I would imagine that was
a stumper. Most priests do not also invent machinery for
the confectionery trade. Um. There is a great picture of
(08:00):
him that I found online and he's in his full
like you know, priest caller and everything, standing next to
this machine and it's very charming. Next up, we're going
to talk about a winter beverage that's been having a
bit of a resurgence in popularity in recent years, and
that is wostle. But first we're gonna take a quick
break for a word from one of our fantastic sponsors. Okay, so,
(08:24):
if you're like me for a long time, maybe you
aren't sure if you've ever had wostle before. Odds are yes,
because there are a lot of different versions of it, Like,
there's no one this is what equals true wostle. So
probably something you have had could fall into the very
loose definition. Uh. And also there's a bit of confusion
about whether wastle is a thing you drink or a
(08:45):
thing you do, and it's actually both, and we'll get
into that. It's a word that has pretty soft edges
around its definition. Of course, there's also a wastle song,
which I'm not going to sing to you because no
one needs to be subjected to that. You might have
heard it with the reference to whastle subseeded out with
another term, So it's the one that goes, here we
(09:06):
come a whastling among the leaves so green. Here we
come a wandering so fair to be seen. Love and
joy come to you and to your your wastle too,
and God bless you and send you a happy New Year.
So sometimes a wastling has swapped out for a caroling,
and instead of to you your whastle, it's us something
along the lines of plaid Christmas or a merry Christmas. Yeah,
(09:30):
the really popular version in the United States that was
recorded by Perry Como definitely subs out whastl ing for
a caroling and glad Christmas, and there have been other
recordings as well that do the same. I'm not sure
if that was because they didn't want any reference to alcohol,
or if it was because they thought people might not
know what whastling was. But in any case, uh, it
(09:52):
gets subbed out. But you know the song, even if
you don't think you do, it always makes me think
of the version of Little Women's Starring One to ride
uh And One of the earliest mentions of wastle as
a form of toasting and well wishing is found in
the Old English epic Beowulf, most likely pinned somewhat sometime
(10:12):
between the eighth and tenth century. It's exact date is unknown,
and the word is evolved from the greeting veshile an
Old Norse, and it's Old English counterpart washaw, both of
which convey a wish to someone for their good health
or good fortune. But aside from a fairly clear connection
to root words, the path of the wastle tradition through
(10:32):
time is a very winding one with many branches. According
to Robert Dors, writing for the Colonial Williamsburg Journal, it
was England's Danish speaking community that started using it as
a toast, but it caught on so quickly throughout the
country that by the time William the Duke of Normandy
brought the Norman French army to the Battle of Hastings
in ten sixty six to have an episode about an archive,
(10:56):
the invaders believed that it was an English custom e yees,
So even though it probably did not originate with um
natives of England, they adopted it so quickly that it's
now very much associated with England. And one of the
more specific origin stories of the wastle toast is the
tale of Vortigern and Rowena. Vortigern, a fifth century British king,
(11:17):
was allegedly struck with Rowan his beauty, and when she
approached him and uttered the greeting washa, he, after conferring
with an interpreter, answered drink how and then the two
shared a drink of spiced wine, which would have been
a luxury item. Uh. And while this story is unverifiable
and it has taken on many variations throughout time UH,
(11:38):
including versions that happened later where they were sharing a
cup with a whole group of people. And there was
also a play which was allegedly written by Shakespeare but
was eventually revealed as a forgery. Uh. This exchange of
greetings continues into modern time, although now it is not
linked to romance as the original story was, but merely
to revelry and merriment, like as a call in response
(11:59):
to people to start sort of a drinking party. By
the thirteenth century, this idea of a communal drinking vessel
filled filled with wastle had become popular. This was a
bowl of the drink which you would dip baked goods
into to like soak up the wastle. And this is
allegedly where the use of the word toast comes from
to mean a greeting before a group drinks together, because
(12:23):
pieces of toast were sometimes dipped or floated in the
wattle bowl, So wet alcoholic toast, Just putting that out there. Uh.
The wostle bowl became part of a roving street party
practice in the fifteen hundreds, so revelers also called wostlers
would visit homes sort of similar to the way that
(12:43):
carolers might, offering drinks and well wishes. And some locations,
whastling was part of the pagan winter Solstis festival Saturnalia,
dressing into skies or inverting social roles as part of
this practice, and it became a time when the wealthy
would share their bounty with people who had less financial fortune,
although there were also accounts that suggest the sharing had
(13:05):
been demanded by drunken mobs rather than being offered magnanimously. Yeah,
so some you know, versions of this were a case
where people would pass this wastle bowl around, maybe get
a little bit of liquid courage, and then go to
the rich guy's house and demand that he share his
wealth with them, or it was you know, feudal lords
(13:26):
would then kind of have the people under them come
to their house and go, hey, you should share with us.
That is a very very watered down version of it. Um.
The pagan wattle tradition was also part of farming life
in Britain. Farmers would drink to the health of their
animals and their orchards, and they would leave wastle soaked
bread and trees, or just pour the wazzle directly onto
(13:46):
tree trunks. And this could also involve groups of farmers
and their families moving from one farm to another throughout
the course of an evening to wish prosperity on the
crops of everyone in the community. So obviously, all of
these various iterations of watling also evolved to coincide with
the different beliefs and celebrations in different areas. While there
(14:07):
were paying roots to some of the farm practices, which
included the desire to ward off bad spirits from orchards
as part of Christian holidays, wostling became part of twelve
Night festivities, and in more relaxed definitions of wastling, the
word has been used in a modern way to refer
to almost any instance of in winter where neighbors visit
(14:28):
each other and bring some sort of wostle or other
libation to enjoy together. Yeah, like I said, it's got
very soft edges on the definition of this word. Uh.
And all of this drinking around the holidays, we should
point out, was not always looked upon as good cheer.
So in both England and the North American colonies where
the wostling tradition had moved along with the colonists, seventeenth
(14:51):
century Puritan church leaders were not enthused with the practice
of drinking to celebrate a Christian holiday in the sober
with Saturnalia on the calendar further wrankled them. Uh. There were,
in fact, attempts to banish wasstle and watling and many
other Christmas activities completely, while the practice and the beverage survived,
(15:13):
and they were romanticized in nineteenth century literature. As part
of a traditional English Christmas celebration, carrying a giant bowl
of punch door to door is maybe a little too
cumbersome to remain a popular practice. Yeah, there are still
places where people do it, and and villages and towns
where it is a big part of the tradition, but
(15:33):
it's really not as common as it would have been
several hundred years ago. Um And we mentioned earlier that
if the story of Rowena and Vortigern were true, the
wine spiced with ingredients that would have been imported would
have been highly valuable. But while that drink was merely
present according to the lore at the moment when the
idea of wastling was born, and would not have been
(15:55):
called wostle itself. There are plenty of other drinks that
have been called wostle through the es so. Some were
made with more affordable spiced ale rather than wine. Some
replicated that more expensive wine with spices. Some have been
made by whipping beer or ale into a froth and
then dropping roasted crab apples into the foam. There are
(16:18):
a lot of versions. And then, of course, considering the
orchard focused traditions of watling and more rural areas, it's
really no surprise that most modern wastle recipes are really
apple centric. If you search online, you'll find that most
start with apple cider and then add some combo of
other fruit juices, including orange, pineapple, and even cranberry. The
(16:39):
whole cider fruit juice mixture is cooked with spices like nutmeg, cloves, allspice,
and ginger, and some include eggs. The drink is served hot,
often with a fruit garnish or a piece of fruit
stewed in the beverage as it's simmered, and then alcoholic
Wasastle recipes can start with cider and spices combined with sherry, brandy, rum,
muld wine, and so on. I feel like I should
(17:04):
confess that this is not my thing. It's fine, not
at all. I feel like a bad celebrant. But I'm like,
please don't hand me hot sugar water. Well, I am
fond of like a hot mulled cider um with like
lots of cinnamon and whatnot. Um, I am not find
(17:26):
fond of the idea of communally drinking from the same
bowl maybe strangers. That's true. That's another thing that I
didn't mention in in these notes that there is also
like a hygiene element that may have made this lose
a little bit of favor over the years. Um yeah,
to me, I mean I have that thing where it
was somewhere along the line ingrained in me that apple
(17:49):
cider served warm is very dangerous as a potential haven
of bacteria, and my brain cannot get past that possibility.
Even if someone shows me all of the ways they
have maintained in safety and food standards throughout prep and serving,
I'm still like all I see is auger well as
a person who worked in food safety for part of
(18:10):
my career, Like, it is true that, um that like
fresh pressed apple ciders and stuff, if they're not pasteurized,
can be dangerous. Um My, my dad kind of caught
around this. Uh. Often the the apple cider would be
way too hot to put it in your mouth when
you put it into the cup, like you needed to
(18:32):
give time. So had there been anything in it, it
was dead. Yeah. Yeah, I'm more of an eggnog drinker
than a wattle drinker, but ER's to anyone who likes
their wastle. I do love eggnog. Yeah, me too. Uh.
We're going to move on to some more sober but
very delicious baked goods. We'll talk all about gingerbread right
(18:55):
after we first pause for a little sponsor break. Gingerbread
is closely associated with Christmas celebrations, but its history is
truly international and it is not tied in its origins
to any holiday. Gingerbread has been popular in some form
or another, We'll talk about its many forms for hundreds
(19:18):
of years. There's even a reference to it in Shakespeare's
Loves Labor's Lost, because it was so wildly popular already
by the sixteenth century. The earliest known existence of gingerbread
is all the way back in Ancient Greece around ce
Or it was used in ceremonies. Ancient Egyptians also used
(19:38):
some form of baked ginger spice food and ritual customs.
The earliest known instance of an Asian baked good cooked
with ginger is from China in the tenth century. Yeah,
Asian countries were using ginger in all kinds of other ways,
but this is specifically two baked goods um and we
know gingerbread was in Europe by the eleventh century, possibly
(20:00):
almost entirely, likely brought back from the Crusades, and for
the remainder of the medieval period, gingerbread's popularity grew and
it spread throughout Europe, and it actually became a staple
at festivals. But through this early period, while words that
equated roughly to gingerbread were being used in various languages,
it did not really refer to what we call gingerbread today,
(20:22):
and there really was not a consistent meaning for it
at all then, so sometimes it would simply be referred
to preserve ginger that was edible. Early versions of gingerbread
is a baked item in Europe included ginger, of course,
but also ground almonds, stale bread crumbs, rose water, and sugar.
And then this made a paste that could be pressed
(20:43):
into molds before baking, and the dense mixture retained the
shape of those molds really well. And as gingerbread's popularity grew,
so did the variety of shapes that it was baked in,
and the level of detail that was used in the
molds also got a lot more intense, uh and it
wasn't long before animals and flora were crafted from gingerbread.
(21:04):
Soon this baked treat became a way to mark current
events and theme the gingerbread to specific celebrations. By the
fifteenth century, though, the various translations of the word gingerbread
all started to refer to some sort of ginger cake
with varying degrees of denseness along the spectrum between spongy
cake and hard cookie. Even today, the term gingerbread can
(21:26):
refer to a cake or a cookie, and recipes really
very pretty greatly. You've probably had thin, crisp ginger cookies,
thick bready cookies, and everything in between, with Baker's experimenting
and regional ingredient differences that have led to a huge
wealth of different kinds of gingerbread, and over time, of course,
the recipe shifted. By the sixteenth century, flour was used
(21:49):
instead of bread crumbs, and eggs and other sweet spices
were incorporated, and it was actually during the sixteenth century
that the first gingerbread man was allegedly baked. So, according
to counts Queen Elizabeth, the first had miniature gingerbread replicas
of prominent guests baked, and so when they arrived at
court to visitors were presented with their tiny tasty dopplegangers
(22:11):
that might treat me out a little bit, they were
apparently delighted. It was. It was a cute little thing,
not something spooky I'm just imagining, like a very meticulous,
uncanny valley kind of gingerbread representation of myself given some
meat to eat that might be weird. So gingerbread had
also become a token of luck. Was sometimes given to
(22:32):
nights by ladies wishing them well in tournaments. Hard gingerbread
was also crumbled and use it as a topping on
other foods, not for luck, but to hide the scent
of items that had maybe lost their freshness. Ginger to
the rescue again, Yeah, they're allegedly meat that was maybe
starting to turn would sometimes be treated in this way
(22:52):
to cover its smell. Um. An additional gingerbread lower started
to crop up, so some believe that if a maiden
ate gingerbread man intended to represent a husband, that they
would put sort of cosmic forces of luck in motion
to bring her a marriage. Ginger is also well known
as a stomach settler, so it's not surprising that by
(23:13):
the hundreds gingerbread was also being tatted for its ability
to soothe your tummy. Henry the eighth that said to
have hope that ginger baked goods would stave off illnesses.
I mean, I have to wonder if that's just a
case of like this is delicious. It's medicinal. Uh, I
don't know. I think there's there is some definite suggestion
(23:34):
that chewing candied ginger can help if you have motion sickness.
Oh for sure. I'm literally meaning Henry the Eighth going
gingerbread cures all got Yeah. Yeah. Uh. Gingerbread became so
beloved in England the entire fairs popped up just to
celebrate it. So it had been sort of a food
that was served at other fairs and festivals, but eventually
(23:57):
there were literal gingerbread festivals, and then gingerbread morsels that
were served at these events got the nicknames fairings for
the wealthy. Gingerbread was even decorated with gold leaf, and
the idea of gingerbread became associated with finely detailed design
and luxury. Yeah. Even today sometimes uh you will hear
(24:19):
of houses being built with um gingerbread style details, and
usually that means very sort of meticulous, slightly uh you know,
I want to say fussy, and that can have a
negative connotation, but that's not my intent. Just with a
lot of you know, kind of ornate work on them
that is still used as a reference. And in the US,
gingerbread is a tradition as old as the colonies themselves.
(24:42):
George Washington's mother's gingerbread recipe is still shared and baked
our previous guest that was on the podcast, and Burn
included it in her book American Cakes, and after the
colonies gained independence from Great Britain, gingerbread baked into the
shape of an eagle actually became popular, and some American
politicians over the years even took gingerbread on the road
(25:03):
to share with prospective voters in an effort to gain favor,
gingerbread cookies and German traditions took on a roll that
was similar to that of conversation hearts traded in the
US around Valentine's Day. Leb cooking, as these cookies are called,
often heart shaped with little sweet nothings, stole messages written
on them in icing in cities throughout Germany, as well
(25:27):
as Poland, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic. In France, gingerbread
became so revered and so vital to regional culture that
gingerbread guilds were established, and in some European cities, antique
gingerbread molds are still on display in museums. Uh They
will occasionally also press like beeswax into them to make
limited edition ornaments that are super duper popular. Germany is
(25:51):
also the home of the first gingerbread house, often said
to have been inspired by the candy House and the
Gram's fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. That story was originally
published in eighteen twelve as part of the book Grim's
Ferries Grimm's fairy Tales, and there may also have been
gingerbread houses even before that, as far back as the
sixteenth century. But the brothers Grimm's writing made the cookie
(26:14):
do missiles more popular. Yeah, they really exploded in terms
of their popularity after that came out. So from Germany,
the tradition of creating feats of confectionery architecture spread uh,
although it never really caught on in Europe in sort
of like the the widespread way that it did in
the United States, where gingerbread houses are really popular new Today,
(26:39):
gingerbread houses are so popular that there's ongoing international competition
to build massive ones that are as large as real houses.
The current record holder as a house built in in Bryan,
Texas by a group called Traditions Club. And then that
house is sixty by forty two ft which is eighteen
point three by twelve pot meters, had more than two
(26:59):
thousand square few of interior space visitors could pay to
have a visit with Santa Claus at the house and
with all the proceeds going toward a new trauma center
at St. Joseph's Hospital. That is a lot of gingerbread,
just a whole lot of gingerbread on a much smaller scale.
Prior podcast subject, the growth part In has a uh
(27:21):
gingerbread house competition every year. But they're little ones, a
little incredibly ornate ones. Yeah, the um. We have talked
about Disney a couple of times in Disney's Haunted mansions.
If any of our guests are in Disney World around
the holidays, one of the coolest things you can do
is spend a day not going into any of the
parks in Disney World, but going from hotel to hotel
(27:44):
because they all have their own special gingerbread house display um,
and some of them are amazing and I love like
the Polynesian usually has like a really cute little Hawaiian
style one that is sort of goofy and sweet. But
if you are in Anaheim at Disneyland during the holidays,
you go see the Haunted Mansion holiday where they do
the Nightmare before Christmas overlay. Usually in the ballroom, there
(28:06):
is like an astonishing feat of gingerbread physics going on. Um,
and it just smells amazing in there, and it's really lovely.
Who doesn't love gingerbread? Yeah, it's so good I would
make I think we should start making gingerbread year round.
And I also if you have not had a gingerbread
(28:27):
cake versus the cookies, I highly recommend it because some
of those are really delicious. Um. Do you have listener mail?
I do. It's not related to food, but it does
mentioned potato starch. Uh. This is from our listener, Gretchen Uh,
and she says, Hi, guys, I'm a book conservator uh
working in collection care and I loved your recent podcast
(28:48):
on the Loomire Brothers. I listened to podcasts all day
while I work, and yours is one of my favorites.
I especially enjoyed this most recent one as it brought
me back to when I was studying to become a conservator.
And we did a whole week on identifying photographic processes,
which is where I first encountered autochrome plates. You're right there,
absolutely stunning, and I love studying them because they're very
(29:09):
easy to identify. Under a microscope. You can see all
the little dyed areas and they look like miniature stained
glass windows. Perhaps the stained glass manufacturers should have been
the nervous ones. Gretchen, in case you did not hear
that episode, is referring to um the fact that there
was some concern when color photography first began, and autochromes,
in particular, that that painters would be put out of work. Uh.
(29:33):
The instructor, she goes on to say, failed to mention
the fascinating story behind their eventual creation, though, So thank
you for enlightening me further. And the archive you visited
referring to Tracy's story was very right. Keep those old
photos cold. Another film photography fun fact. Early acetate films
are kept very cold to prevent them developing what's called
vinegar syndrome, which occurs as acetate plastic degrades and creates
(29:57):
acetic acid, which, in addition to causing further dick nation,
also makes everything smell like vinegar. Early nitrate films are
kept very cold so they don't come bust. Thank you again,
already looking forward to the next episode. Thank you so much, Gretchen.
That's cool. I would love to look at one of
these potato starch color photo plates under a microscope. I
think that would be mind blowing, um like magical, kaleidoscopic wonder.
(30:23):
If you would like to write to us, you can
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We are also across the spectrum of social media as
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also our website where you can come and find an
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worked on together. So come and visit us at missed
(30:43):
in History dot com and uh We'll study history together.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
housetop works dot com.
Welcome to Steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Honley Fry and I'm Tracy B. Wilson Tracy Yep.
It's time for delicious holiday snacks for some people to
(00:22):
celebrate Christmas or other winter holidays. The snacks are the
best thing about the season. I think Tracy and I
have told the ridiculous story of us being two of
the only people in the office during Christmas holidays one
year and making s'mores with um chocolate moose peeps and
peppermint bark and running around like we were wild animals.
It was amazing because the sugar rush was more than
(00:45):
we can handle. Yeah, and it was super fun. And
even if you like don't celebrate the religious holidays, or
even like the more cultural like the people who are
more culturally Christian and celebrate Chris Christmas in a more
secular way, like even if you don't know why any
of that, a lot of these things is the only
time of the year that you really find them. Yeah uh,
(01:06):
and yummy snacks or yummy snacks, But many of these
snacks have histories that go back hundreds of years. But
because of the nature of the subject, things get really
confusing in a hurry, because, after all, all of the
historical evidence is pretty much eaten. Uh. And so there's
a lot of apocrypha going on. Uh. And So in
the interest of examining the stories behind some of the
(01:26):
most ingested holiday consumables, we're going to sort through that
apocrypha and the known facts, and we'll probably all be
craving something sweet and delicious by the end. Expectations management
right out of the gate. We already talked about eggnog
and its origins a bit in our Eggnog Riot episode,
so we're not going to talk about eggnog today. We
do have another drink, which is wattle, and we'll also
(01:48):
cover candy canes and gingerbread. I'm excited because, uh, a
lot of these things are delicious. So candy canes bright
and cheerful six of peppermint goodness, but no one really
knows exactly where they came from. There are a lot
of unsubstantiated stories about the origins, though, and three of
(02:11):
them are the ones that are the most commonly repeated.
So one version of this story goes that candy canes
were originally invented in Germany in the sixteen hundreds, And
in this apocryphal version, a choir master at a cathedral
invented candy canes as a way to keep children who
are normally a little bit fidgety and sometimes noisy, occupied
(02:32):
and quiet in church. And he had the candy sticks
made by a confection or with a crook at the
top so that they echoed the shape of a shepherd's staff,
making the idea of candy in church more acceptable to parents.
Sometimes this story is told, along with color symbolism, that
the choirmaster specifically chose white sticks of candy to represent
(02:54):
purity and Christ. But there is absolutely no record of
such a thing, and no one seems to know who
this choirmaster was, even though they're an awful lot of
details about his thought process. So again it's a lovely story,
but unsubstantiated. I'll say I would have much preferred candy
as a way to keep quiet in church then what
I actually had, which was doodling on the church bulletin.
(03:18):
Church bulletins are generally not delicious, no shade to any
church bulletins, but no, but I would draw on them.
So another origin story attributes the invention of the candy
cane to a particularly devout confectioner in the United States,
specifically Indiana, who carefully designed the candy cane as an
expression of the story of Christ. And this similarly sites
(03:42):
the white of the candy cane is a symbol of purity,
and the red stripes this symbolic of the blood of
Christ with the crucifixion, and then the cane shape, according
to this version, is actually the letter J for Jesus. Again,
there's no evidence for this story. Uh, that's that's similar
to like the one that I heard the most growing up,
although I heard the combination of the colors being this
(04:04):
one and then the crook is the shepherd's. Yeah, And
it's one of those things like if people like to
think of them that way, that's great, but like there's
not really any historical backing for that being how and
why they were invented. Um. A third story is less
about the invention of the peppermint treat and it's more
about the introduction of it to the US. And this
(04:26):
tale features a German immigrant named August m Guard and
according to the legend, m Guard put up the Christmas tree. Uh.
The first in Ohio when he decorated his in eighty seven,
and it said that m Guard's tree had paper ornaments
and candy canes on it. At least that is how
some versions of the story go. There are other accounts
(04:47):
that say that it was actually a type of decorated
Bavarian cookie that was used to grace the tree, along
with the paper ornaments, as well as nuts that were
painted gold. M Guard does remain associated with one of
the earliest Christmas trees in the US, although I think
he is no longer referenced as the first Christmas tree
in the US, But the candy cane aspect of the story,
(05:09):
in terms of him bringing it to the United States
and decorating with it, is again not substantiated in any way.
As for the striped peppermint sticks themselves, they're clearly described
in the book The Complete Confectioner, Pastry, Cook and Baker
by Eleanor Parkinson. In a section of the text titled Clove,
(05:29):
Ginger or Peppermint Candy. The process of making striped candy
is described this way. For clove, the mixture whilst boiling
is colored with cocon heal ginger with saffron, but the
peppermint must be kept perfectly white except the stripes, which
is done by cutting off as many pieces from the
bulk as you have colors which should be in powder.
(05:52):
Put a sufficiency in each piece to give the desired
tent and keep them warm. When the remaining portion of
the sugar is pulled, lay the over the surface and
narrow stripes double the roll together and the face each
way will be alike. Pull them out into long sticks
and twist them, make them round by rolling them under
the hand, or they may be cut into small pieces
(06:12):
with a pair of shears or scissors. Yeah. So in
terms of that, it's more a matter of put in
stripes to make them colorful and festive, not so much
with any kind of meaning. Uh. And while we may
not be able to trace the invention of candy canes
back to its origin point, we do know a bit
more about the mass production of candy canes and where
(06:34):
that started. Bob's Candies, founded by a man named Bob
McCormick in Albany, Georgia, was the first confectionery company to
start mass producing candy canes, which they did in the
early nineteen twenties. Incidentally, Bob's Candies was also the first
to offer cellophane wrapped candy canes. Tracy, I don't know
about you, but I accidentally ingested a lot of cellophane
(06:55):
as a child because I cannot always peel it off
the candy cane. Initially, the hooks that were being added
to the canes were done by hand before the candy
cooled and hardened. But this method had a high rate
of waste, because more than one fifth of the candy
canes broke and consequently could not be sold. Bob McCormick's
(07:16):
brother in law, a priest by the name of Gregory
Harding Keller, invented a machine to automate the hook shaping process,
which had a much lower rate of candy breakage. The
Keller machine not to be confused with the one on doctor,
who was further refined by too Bob's Candies employees named
Dick Driscoll and Jimmy Spratling, and then after that, almost
(07:36):
all the candy canes produced were perfect. This novel invention,
which was really the start of the modern candy cane
industry one killer his fifteen minutes of fame. He even
appeared on the game show what's my line, so contestants
could guess his profession. Yeah, I would imagine that was
a stumper. Most priests do not also invent machinery for
the confectionery trade. Um. There is a great picture of
(08:00):
him that I found online and he's in his full
like you know, priest caller and everything, standing next to
this machine and it's very charming. Next up, we're going
to talk about a winter beverage that's been having a
bit of a resurgence in popularity in recent years, and
that is wostle. But first we're gonna take a quick
break for a word from one of our fantastic sponsors. Okay, so,
(08:24):
if you're like me for a long time, maybe you
aren't sure if you've ever had wostle before. Odds are yes,
because there are a lot of different versions of it, Like,
there's no one this is what equals true wostle. So
probably something you have had could fall into the very
loose definition. Uh. And also there's a bit of confusion
about whether wastle is a thing you drink or a
(08:45):
thing you do, and it's actually both, and we'll get
into that. It's a word that has pretty soft edges
around its definition. Of course, there's also a wastle song,
which I'm not going to sing to you because no
one needs to be subjected to that. You might have
heard it with the reference to whastle subseeded out with
another term, So it's the one that goes, here we
(09:06):
come a whastling among the leaves so green. Here we
come a wandering so fair to be seen. Love and
joy come to you and to your your wastle too,
and God bless you and send you a happy New Year.
So sometimes a wastling has swapped out for a caroling,
and instead of to you your whastle, it's us something
along the lines of plaid Christmas or a merry Christmas. Yeah,
(09:30):
the really popular version in the United States that was
recorded by Perry Como definitely subs out whastl ing for
a caroling and glad Christmas, and there have been other
recordings as well that do the same. I'm not sure
if that was because they didn't want any reference to alcohol,
or if it was because they thought people might not
know what whastling was. But in any case, uh, it
(09:52):
gets subbed out. But you know the song, even if
you don't think you do, it always makes me think
of the version of Little Women's Starring One to ride
uh And One of the earliest mentions of wastle as
a form of toasting and well wishing is found in
the Old English epic Beowulf, most likely pinned somewhat sometime
(10:12):
between the eighth and tenth century. It's exact date is unknown,
and the word is evolved from the greeting veshile an
Old Norse, and it's Old English counterpart washaw, both of
which convey a wish to someone for their good health
or good fortune. But aside from a fairly clear connection
to root words, the path of the wastle tradition through
(10:32):
time is a very winding one with many branches. According
to Robert Dors, writing for the Colonial Williamsburg Journal, it
was England's Danish speaking community that started using it as
a toast, but it caught on so quickly throughout the
country that by the time William the Duke of Normandy
brought the Norman French army to the Battle of Hastings
in ten sixty six to have an episode about an archive,
(10:56):
the invaders believed that it was an English custom e yees,
So even though it probably did not originate with um
natives of England, they adopted it so quickly that it's
now very much associated with England. And one of the
more specific origin stories of the wastle toast is the
tale of Vortigern and Rowena. Vortigern, a fifth century British king,
(11:17):
was allegedly struck with Rowan his beauty, and when she
approached him and uttered the greeting washa, he, after conferring
with an interpreter, answered drink how and then the two
shared a drink of spiced wine, which would have been
a luxury item. Uh. And while this story is unverifiable
and it has taken on many variations throughout time UH,
(11:38):
including versions that happened later where they were sharing a
cup with a whole group of people. And there was
also a play which was allegedly written by Shakespeare but
was eventually revealed as a forgery. Uh. This exchange of
greetings continues into modern time, although now it is not
linked to romance as the original story was, but merely
to revelry and merriment, like as a call in response
(11:59):
to people to start sort of a drinking party. By
the thirteenth century, this idea of a communal drinking vessel
filled filled with wastle had become popular. This was a
bowl of the drink which you would dip baked goods
into to like soak up the wastle. And this is
allegedly where the use of the word toast comes from
to mean a greeting before a group drinks together, because
(12:23):
pieces of toast were sometimes dipped or floated in the
wattle bowl, So wet alcoholic toast, Just putting that out there. Uh.
The wostle bowl became part of a roving street party
practice in the fifteen hundreds, so revelers also called wostlers
would visit homes sort of similar to the way that
(12:43):
carolers might, offering drinks and well wishes. And some locations,
whastling was part of the pagan winter Solstis festival Saturnalia,
dressing into skies or inverting social roles as part of
this practice, and it became a time when the wealthy
would share their bounty with people who had less financial fortune,
although there were also accounts that suggest the sharing had
(13:05):
been demanded by drunken mobs rather than being offered magnanimously. Yeah,
so some you know, versions of this were a case
where people would pass this wastle bowl around, maybe get
a little bit of liquid courage, and then go to
the rich guy's house and demand that he share his
wealth with them, or it was you know, feudal lords
(13:26):
would then kind of have the people under them come
to their house and go, hey, you should share with us.
That is a very very watered down version of it. Um.
The pagan wattle tradition was also part of farming life
in Britain. Farmers would drink to the health of their
animals and their orchards, and they would leave wastle soaked
bread and trees, or just pour the wazzle directly onto
(13:46):
tree trunks. And this could also involve groups of farmers
and their families moving from one farm to another throughout
the course of an evening to wish prosperity on the
crops of everyone in the community. So obviously, all of
these various iterations of watling also evolved to coincide with
the different beliefs and celebrations in different areas. While there
(14:07):
were paying roots to some of the farm practices, which
included the desire to ward off bad spirits from orchards
as part of Christian holidays, wostling became part of twelve
Night festivities, and in more relaxed definitions of wastling, the
word has been used in a modern way to refer
to almost any instance of in winter where neighbors visit
(14:28):
each other and bring some sort of wostle or other
libation to enjoy together. Yeah, like I said, it's got
very soft edges on the definition of this word. Uh.
And all of this drinking around the holidays, we should
point out, was not always looked upon as good cheer.
So in both England and the North American colonies where
the wostling tradition had moved along with the colonists, seventeenth
(14:51):
century Puritan church leaders were not enthused with the practice
of drinking to celebrate a Christian holiday in the sober
with Saturnalia on the calendar further wrankled them. Uh. There were,
in fact, attempts to banish wasstle and watling and many
other Christmas activities completely, while the practice and the beverage survived,
(15:13):
and they were romanticized in nineteenth century literature. As part
of a traditional English Christmas celebration, carrying a giant bowl
of punch door to door is maybe a little too
cumbersome to remain a popular practice. Yeah, there are still
places where people do it, and and villages and towns
where it is a big part of the tradition, but
(15:33):
it's really not as common as it would have been
several hundred years ago. Um And we mentioned earlier that
if the story of Rowena and Vortigern were true, the
wine spiced with ingredients that would have been imported would
have been highly valuable. But while that drink was merely
present according to the lore at the moment when the
idea of wastling was born, and would not have been
(15:55):
called wostle itself. There are plenty of other drinks that
have been called wostle through the es so. Some were
made with more affordable spiced ale rather than wine. Some
replicated that more expensive wine with spices. Some have been
made by whipping beer or ale into a froth and
then dropping roasted crab apples into the foam. There are
(16:18):
a lot of versions. And then, of course, considering the
orchard focused traditions of watling and more rural areas, it's
really no surprise that most modern wastle recipes are really
apple centric. If you search online, you'll find that most
start with apple cider and then add some combo of
other fruit juices, including orange, pineapple, and even cranberry. The
(16:39):
whole cider fruit juice mixture is cooked with spices like nutmeg, cloves, allspice,
and ginger, and some include eggs. The drink is served hot,
often with a fruit garnish or a piece of fruit
stewed in the beverage as it's simmered, and then alcoholic
Wasastle recipes can start with cider and spices combined with sherry, brandy, rum,
muld wine, and so on. I feel like I should
(17:04):
confess that this is not my thing. It's fine, not
at all. I feel like a bad celebrant. But I'm like,
please don't hand me hot sugar water. Well, I am
fond of like a hot mulled cider um with like
lots of cinnamon and whatnot. Um, I am not find
(17:26):
fond of the idea of communally drinking from the same
bowl maybe strangers. That's true. That's another thing that I
didn't mention in in these notes that there is also
like a hygiene element that may have made this lose
a little bit of favor over the years. Um yeah,
to me, I mean I have that thing where it
was somewhere along the line ingrained in me that apple
(17:49):
cider served warm is very dangerous as a potential haven
of bacteria, and my brain cannot get past that possibility.
Even if someone shows me all of the ways they
have maintained in safety and food standards throughout prep and serving,
I'm still like all I see is auger well as
a person who worked in food safety for part of
(18:10):
my career, Like, it is true that, um that like
fresh pressed apple ciders and stuff, if they're not pasteurized,
can be dangerous. Um My, my dad kind of caught
around this. Uh. Often the the apple cider would be
way too hot to put it in your mouth when
you put it into the cup, like you needed to
(18:32):
give time. So had there been anything in it, it
was dead. Yeah. Yeah, I'm more of an eggnog drinker
than a wattle drinker, but ER's to anyone who likes
their wastle. I do love eggnog. Yeah, me too. Uh.
We're going to move on to some more sober but
very delicious baked goods. We'll talk all about gingerbread right
(18:55):
after we first pause for a little sponsor break. Gingerbread
is closely associated with Christmas celebrations, but its history is
truly international and it is not tied in its origins
to any holiday. Gingerbread has been popular in some form
or another, We'll talk about its many forms for hundreds
(19:18):
of years. There's even a reference to it in Shakespeare's
Loves Labor's Lost, because it was so wildly popular already
by the sixteenth century. The earliest known existence of gingerbread
is all the way back in Ancient Greece around ce
Or it was used in ceremonies. Ancient Egyptians also used
(19:38):
some form of baked ginger spice food and ritual customs.
The earliest known instance of an Asian baked good cooked
with ginger is from China in the tenth century. Yeah,
Asian countries were using ginger in all kinds of other ways,
but this is specifically two baked goods um and we
know gingerbread was in Europe by the eleventh century, possibly
(20:00):
almost entirely, likely brought back from the Crusades, and for
the remainder of the medieval period, gingerbread's popularity grew and
it spread throughout Europe, and it actually became a staple
at festivals. But through this early period, while words that
equated roughly to gingerbread were being used in various languages,
it did not really refer to what we call gingerbread today,
(20:22):
and there really was not a consistent meaning for it
at all then, so sometimes it would simply be referred
to preserve ginger that was edible. Early versions of gingerbread
is a baked item in Europe included ginger, of course,
but also ground almonds, stale bread crumbs, rose water, and sugar.
And then this made a paste that could be pressed
(20:43):
into molds before baking, and the dense mixture retained the
shape of those molds really well. And as gingerbread's popularity grew,
so did the variety of shapes that it was baked in,
and the level of detail that was used in the
molds also got a lot more intense, uh and it
wasn't long before animals and flora were crafted from gingerbread.
(21:04):
Soon this baked treat became a way to mark current
events and theme the gingerbread to specific celebrations. By the
fifteenth century, though, the various translations of the word gingerbread
all started to refer to some sort of ginger cake
with varying degrees of denseness along the spectrum between spongy
cake and hard cookie. Even today, the term gingerbread can
(21:26):
refer to a cake or a cookie, and recipes really
very pretty greatly. You've probably had thin, crisp ginger cookies,
thick bready cookies, and everything in between, with Baker's experimenting
and regional ingredient differences that have led to a huge
wealth of different kinds of gingerbread, and over time, of course,
the recipe shifted. By the sixteenth century, flour was used
(21:49):
instead of bread crumbs, and eggs and other sweet spices
were incorporated, and it was actually during the sixteenth century
that the first gingerbread man was allegedly baked. So, according
to counts Queen Elizabeth, the first had miniature gingerbread replicas
of prominent guests baked, and so when they arrived at
court to visitors were presented with their tiny tasty dopplegangers
(22:11):
that might treat me out a little bit, they were
apparently delighted. It was. It was a cute little thing,
not something spooky I'm just imagining, like a very meticulous,
uncanny valley kind of gingerbread representation of myself given some
meat to eat that might be weird. So gingerbread had
also become a token of luck. Was sometimes given to
(22:32):
nights by ladies wishing them well in tournaments. Hard gingerbread
was also crumbled and use it as a topping on
other foods, not for luck, but to hide the scent
of items that had maybe lost their freshness. Ginger to
the rescue again, Yeah, they're allegedly meat that was maybe
starting to turn would sometimes be treated in this way
(22:52):
to cover its smell. Um. An additional gingerbread lower started
to crop up, so some believe that if a maiden
ate gingerbread man intended to represent a husband, that they
would put sort of cosmic forces of luck in motion
to bring her a marriage. Ginger is also well known
as a stomach settler, so it's not surprising that by
(23:13):
the hundreds gingerbread was also being tatted for its ability
to soothe your tummy. Henry the eighth that said to
have hope that ginger baked goods would stave off illnesses.
I mean, I have to wonder if that's just a
case of like this is delicious. It's medicinal. Uh, I
don't know. I think there's there is some definite suggestion
(23:34):
that chewing candied ginger can help if you have motion sickness.
Oh for sure. I'm literally meaning Henry the Eighth going
gingerbread cures all got Yeah. Yeah. Uh. Gingerbread became so
beloved in England the entire fairs popped up just to
celebrate it. So it had been sort of a food
that was served at other fairs and festivals, but eventually
(23:57):
there were literal gingerbread festivals, and then gingerbread morsels that
were served at these events got the nicknames fairings for
the wealthy. Gingerbread was even decorated with gold leaf, and
the idea of gingerbread became associated with finely detailed design
and luxury. Yeah. Even today sometimes uh you will hear
(24:19):
of houses being built with um gingerbread style details, and
usually that means very sort of meticulous, slightly uh you know,
I want to say fussy, and that can have a
negative connotation, but that's not my intent. Just with a
lot of you know, kind of ornate work on them
that is still used as a reference. And in the US,
gingerbread is a tradition as old as the colonies themselves.
(24:42):
George Washington's mother's gingerbread recipe is still shared and baked
our previous guest that was on the podcast, and Burn
included it in her book American Cakes, and after the
colonies gained independence from Great Britain, gingerbread baked into the
shape of an eagle actually became popular, and some American
politicians over the years even took gingerbread on the road
(25:03):
to share with prospective voters in an effort to gain favor,
gingerbread cookies and German traditions took on a roll that
was similar to that of conversation hearts traded in the
US around Valentine's Day. Leb cooking, as these cookies are called,
often heart shaped with little sweet nothings, stole messages written
on them in icing in cities throughout Germany, as well
(25:27):
as Poland, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic. In France, gingerbread
became so revered and so vital to regional culture that
gingerbread guilds were established, and in some European cities, antique
gingerbread molds are still on display in museums. Uh They
will occasionally also press like beeswax into them to make
limited edition ornaments that are super duper popular. Germany is
(25:51):
also the home of the first gingerbread house, often said
to have been inspired by the candy House and the
Gram's fairy tale Hansel and Gretel. That story was originally
published in eighteen twelve as part of the book Grim's
Ferries Grimm's fairy Tales, and there may also have been
gingerbread houses even before that, as far back as the
sixteenth century. But the brothers Grimm's writing made the cookie
(26:14):
do missiles more popular. Yeah, they really exploded in terms
of their popularity after that came out. So from Germany,
the tradition of creating feats of confectionery architecture spread uh,
although it never really caught on in Europe in sort
of like the the widespread way that it did in
the United States, where gingerbread houses are really popular new Today,
(26:39):
gingerbread houses are so popular that there's ongoing international competition
to build massive ones that are as large as real houses.
The current record holder as a house built in in Bryan,
Texas by a group called Traditions Club. And then that
house is sixty by forty two ft which is eighteen
point three by twelve pot meters, had more than two
(26:59):
thousand square few of interior space visitors could pay to
have a visit with Santa Claus at the house and
with all the proceeds going toward a new trauma center
at St. Joseph's Hospital. That is a lot of gingerbread,
just a whole lot of gingerbread on a much smaller scale.
Prior podcast subject, the growth part In has a uh
(27:21):
gingerbread house competition every year. But they're little ones, a
little incredibly ornate ones. Yeah, the um. We have talked
about Disney a couple of times in Disney's Haunted mansions.
If any of our guests are in Disney World around
the holidays, one of the coolest things you can do
is spend a day not going into any of the
parks in Disney World, but going from hotel to hotel
(27:44):
because they all have their own special gingerbread house display um,
and some of them are amazing and I love like
the Polynesian usually has like a really cute little Hawaiian
style one that is sort of goofy and sweet. But
if you are in Anaheim at Disneyland during the holidays,
you go see the Haunted Mansion holiday where they do
the Nightmare before Christmas overlay. Usually in the ballroom, there
(28:06):
is like an astonishing feat of gingerbread physics going on. Um,
and it just smells amazing in there, and it's really lovely.
Who doesn't love gingerbread? Yeah, it's so good I would
make I think we should start making gingerbread year round.
And I also if you have not had a gingerbread
(28:27):
cake versus the cookies, I highly recommend it because some
of those are really delicious. Um. Do you have listener mail?
I do. It's not related to food, but it does
mentioned potato starch. Uh. This is from our listener, Gretchen Uh,
and she says, Hi, guys, I'm a book conservator uh
working in collection care and I loved your recent podcast
(28:48):
on the Loomire Brothers. I listened to podcasts all day
while I work, and yours is one of my favorites.
I especially enjoyed this most recent one as it brought
me back to when I was studying to become a conservator.
And we did a whole week on identifying photographic processes,
which is where I first encountered autochrome plates. You're right there,
absolutely stunning, and I love studying them because they're very
(29:09):
easy to identify. Under a microscope. You can see all
the little dyed areas and they look like miniature stained
glass windows. Perhaps the stained glass manufacturers should have been
the nervous ones. Gretchen, in case you did not hear
that episode, is referring to um the fact that there
was some concern when color photography first began, and autochromes,
in particular, that that painters would be put out of work. Uh.
(29:33):
The instructor, she goes on to say, failed to mention
the fascinating story behind their eventual creation, though, So thank
you for enlightening me further. And the archive you visited
referring to Tracy's story was very right. Keep those old
photos cold. Another film photography fun fact. Early acetate films
are kept very cold to prevent them developing what's called
vinegar syndrome, which occurs as acetate plastic degrades and creates
(29:57):
acetic acid, which, in addition to causing further dick nation,
also makes everything smell like vinegar. Early nitrate films are
kept very cold so they don't come bust. Thank you again,
already looking forward to the next episode. Thank you so much, Gretchen.
That's cool. I would love to look at one of
these potato starch color photo plates under a microscope. I
think that would be mind blowing, um like magical, kaleidoscopic wonder.
(30:23):
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History podcast at house to works dot com.
We are also across the spectrum of social media as
Missed in History and Missed in History dot com is
also our website where you can come and find an
archive of every episode that's ever existed, plus show notes
for any of the shows that Tracy and I have
worked on together. So come and visit us at missed
(30:43):
in History dot com and uh We'll study history together.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
housetop works dot com.
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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