Toast: As in browned bread

Toast is bread that has been browned by heat. It's delicious. This is our ode to toast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's hanging out too, and that's
making this Stuff you Should Know episode. So welcome everyone,
and welcome back Chuck. Yeah, welcome back Josh, Welcome back Jerry.

(00:25):
This is Uh, this feels weirder than ever before. I think, well,
we should explain we're recording our first our first episodes
of the year. M uh. And it feels even weirder
to ramp back up because we had such a long,
great break. I grew a beard. Now you didn't. I
just saw you in person, but I almost felt not nervous,

(00:50):
but I was like, do I remember how to do this?
Of course you do. I guess are you feeling right now?
A little shaky? I mean, we're doing it, so I
guess this is how we do it. This is how
we do it. Also, Chuck me, you're doing great. By
the way. Um, we have a big announcement to make.
We want to bring everybody up to speed. We hit

(01:10):
the one million dollar mark. Uh, we being Stuff you
should Know listeners, and um, we hit it a little
bit after the turn of the new year, right, that's
right for our our friends at co ED. They're the
Cooperative for Education that does such great work helping you
break the cycle of poverty in Guatemalan. And I know

(01:30):
a sort of beat you over the head with at
the end, but we really wanted to get the Stuff
you should know army over a million bucks because that's
a that's a big number. And we did it. Yeah, yeah,
we did it. So congratulations to everyone in Stuff you
should Know land in a special thanks to everybody who
opened up their hearts and their wallets and contributed to
all those people in Guatemala all the key to all Right,

(01:53):
just wanted to let everybody know, and sorry for keeping
you in suspense. I know this is going to come
out in like late January, but yeah, themes of the
breaks everybody. Yeah, and our big beautiful stash of episodes
that we recorded to take that long break are almost gone.
They're dwindled like a like a yule log burned down
after the new year. Yeah, it's kind of what it

(02:14):
feels like. It's just seeing that shrink is exhilarating and sad.
It is I've I've missed um, you know, being kind
of up to date. When people send in a listener mail,
I'm not like, what what episode does because we're, you know,
a couple of weeks out, we're like right there on
the edge, like cal Paccino and heat. I know, but
I was getting episodes. I was like, oh, yeah, I

(02:36):
forgot we recorded that one, you know, six weeks ago.
Pleasantly surprised. So yeah, we're back in full form again,
I guess is the point of what we've been talking
about for the last three minutes. That's right, I'm ready
to go. I'm feeling totally normal now, not weird at all.
So I'd like to talk about something that's not weird
at all, and that would be toast. Yeah, who doesn't
love toast? I genuinely don't know. I've I've never met

(02:59):
anybody who was I hate toast. Maybe it's like I
don't like toast a certain way, but I've never met
anybody who just generally didn't like toast. And I'm sure
they're out there. If you are, go ahead and right in,
let us know why you don't like toast. But I've
never met an individual who didn't like toast. Well, I
think we should clarify. If you like bread, then you

(03:19):
probably like toast. Okay, I think they're non bread eaters
and likers. But if you like the bread part, surely
you like it. And it's well grittled is pretty great too.
But toast, I would argue, is its best form. Yeah,
and I guess we are talking about a specific way
of heating and crisping bread. I think people actually get

(03:41):
that pedantic about when actually does bread become toast in
the toasting process, etcetera. We're not gonna go down that road.
We're gonna keep this fun and light and talk about toast. Yeah,
this is my pick, and Livia helped us out with it.
And uh, here's my deal is. I don't I hardly
ever eat toast because it's just, especially when you're carrying
a few pounds extra around your middle. It's not like

(04:04):
you jump up and say, let's throw a few slices
of bread in the oven and and butter and start
our day that way. Uh. Toasts as a treat for me,
a semi rare treat when I'm maybe out to breakfast
or recording an episode on toast, Because after studying this morning,
I was like, I gotta go eat a piece of toast.
I have to You know, what's weird is I finally

(04:24):
got to that point. I was telling you me last night.
I was like, it's so weird. I've been researching toast
all day and I don't have a hankering for toast.
And it finally got me this morning. How I started, no,
not yet. I started looking up all we have our
tortillas in the house. I'm like, you can't make toast
out of this. But so I started looking up the
best white bread and I found a serious eats I think,

(04:46):
no eat this, not that um basically taste test and
they said that it was a type of pepperage farms.
But they said it's it's pretty good. It makes better toast.
But they said the overall better bread was nature's own
perfect white bread. I believe it's what it's called. So
I'm gonna get me some of that and make some toast.

(05:08):
That's a pretty bold name. Uh perfect white Yeah, I'm
pretty sure that's what it is. What it's called. Yeah,
I had and I have a written down. I made
a draft of my email folder so I didn't forget it.
Let me tell you, Chuck, it is nature's own perfectly
crafted white bread. Okay, okay, perfect white that has some
bad insinuations. I think right perfectly crafted. Their their marketing

(05:31):
team is like whoo woa whoa. Well, uh so here's
what I did uh and I want to shout out
a listener. I use the uh. We have had some
oat nut wheat bread uh in the in the old pantry.
So I threw that in a toaster oven, a Breville
toaster oven. Uh. And we'll talk about the different kinds

(05:53):
of toasters. We honestly just don't have counterspace. We don't
have a huge kitchen, so we don't have enough room
for the beautiful superior stand up toaster mhm. And then
I use the butter beell. And this is from Amanda
who just wrote in. Amanda plash All wrote in like
last week, they said, hey, you gotta use a butterbell croc.

(06:16):
You know what those are. Yeah, we had one in
the butter kept growing mold. Are you changing your water
every three days? Yeah? I'm taking it like a shot,
a little buttery water shot. Alright, Well, that's weird. Mine
hasn't molded yet. Uh. So I use that, which keeps
the butter nice and soft and spreadable. And then I

(06:38):
on a whim. Took a little and I go for
a sort of a medium dark I like it. I
don't like it, yeah, not a really light toast, but
not dark dark either. But I really love that sound
when you're spreading it, you know. And then I put
some cloister cinnamon honey, like the spun spreadable honey on there,
and it was so but butter and honey. But it

(07:05):
could have been just butter or just I mean, there's
a lot of things that can put on toast and
enjoy it. I like butter and jam for toast. If
I do honey, I need to do peanut butter. I'm
not crazy about the butter and honey combination, although I
do love a good honey butter, but that's not the
same thing because butter and honey and I just don't

(07:27):
I don't know why. They sound like they'd be spectacular together,
but they just don't hit me quite right. Kind of
like bourbon and grapefruit juice sounds like it'd be great,
it's actually kind of awful. Yeah, I don't think that
sounds great though. Okay, all right, should we talk about
butter or toast? Is that what we're talking about today?
We should do one on butter though. That's a good idea. Sure,
that's a great idea. So um, we should probably start

(07:50):
with the history because we don't exactly know who started
making toast, but um, most people chalk it up to
the ancient Egyptians. They think the Greeks are the Romans
stole it from the Egyptians and um kind of made
a big deal out of it. Actually named the stuff
we called toast toast because um in uh I guess
ancient Roman Latin Latin, it's the new year toast um

(08:16):
is uh is Latin for scorched, So that's kind of
where we get other word toast from. So that's where
toast kind of first appears. But they're basically saying, like
Olivia helped us out with this, that Um, as long
as people have been making bread, they probably very quickly
after that started making toast. Yeah, and that's toast um
as in t O s t u M. It's not

(08:38):
t o a st apostrophe might because that's probably some
highly manufactured food product probably yeah uh yeah, So yeah, exactly,
there was fire, there was sort of stalish bread probably
and they said, hey, we can uh the air fryers
not around yet that we can revive this sort of

(09:00):
stale thing by putting a little brown on it, meaning
toasting it. Sure, okay, oh are you going dirty? Yeah?
It was okay, so really, um, I guess the in
medieval times they were kind of like, okay, we'll see
what we can do with this toast and um. That's
where cinnamon toast comes from. The fifteenth century, there was

(09:22):
something called golden SOPs, which is kind of a predecessor
of French toast um, and that came around in the century.
I think it was associated with the alchemists because it
was supposed to be associated with gold, which was attributed
to immortal life. That sounds really alchemist e to me.
And I think that's just like dip in toast and

(09:43):
egg yolk, right, yes, not like you fry it up
or cook it in some way. Oh. I thought you
would just eat the toast and dip it in that
yolk and eat it. I don't think so. I think
you dip the bread in the yolk and then cook it. Okay, Well,
there's like French toast, but none of that matters. It
does not matter. From the time of ancient Egypt through

(10:05):
to the fifteenth century because nothing important happened until I believe, Um,
the people, the great people of Naples, Italy, invented cinnamon toast. Yeah,
and this is straight up cinnamon toast. Uh. They toasted
the bread over fire, and we'll get to the implements
they used to do that. Uh. And they would put
butter on it, they would put cinnamon and sugar on it.

(10:26):
But this sounds so key and delicious. Uh. It says
here that they would add a creamy cheese and then
cook it some more. Yeah, I can't. I mean, does
that mean cream cheese because it can be kind of good.
It sounds delicious to me. It does sound pretty good. Um.
But regardless, I think cinnamon toast is one of the
pinnacles of human cookery. Have you ever had Have you

(10:49):
ever had Welsh rare bit? No? Uh? And I want
to try it now, but and I know I've looked
it up before and realize it's not what I thought.
But I always thought it was a rabbit e meati
ish and just always avoided it. No. Well, the legend
goes that the poor Welsh peasants called it Welsh rabbit
because they used the cheese instead of meat, because cheese

(11:11):
was cheaper and easier to get than rabbit meat was.
They also heard that that was kind of a derogatory
or scornful thing, like to the Welsh, this is what
rabbit is. You know, this cheese substitute. But it's a cheesy,
really delicious, cheesy sauce teeth that includes beer and worst
just shut and then you put that over toast. And
I can't remember there might be some other component to it. Yeah,

(11:33):
I had it at this restaurant in d C. And
I can't remember the name of it, but it's where
um JFK proposed to Jackie. Oh, so I'm sure there's
some d C people who know. But they had Welsh
by bit and I was like, I gotta try this,
and it was really good. I'm gonna try it, and
it's again, it's nothing to be scared of. And I
didn't feel as dumb knowing that it originally like it

(11:54):
may have had rabbit and they used cheese instead. Yeah,
because it felt like a dummy comes because it doesn't
even say rabbit right well, I mean, yeah, it's a
it's a bastardization of it. It's like um instead of rabbit.
It's like R A B B apostrophe. I t h.
Things really cooked up though in a big way, no

(12:16):
pun intended. In the Victorian era in Britain when they
went wild for toast. Uh, all kinds of great recipes.
We're gonna highlight a few of them here that Livia
dug up, including bone marrow toast. I have kind of
turned on bone marrow. I was enjoying it for a

(12:37):
little while, but the last time I had it, I
didn't really like it, and it kind of gross me out.
Oh yeah, I can see that if you stop and
think about it, it can gross you up pretty easy. Yeah.
So I think I'm off of it now, or maybe
just a tiny bit goes a long way for me.
I think, yeah, not too much marrow. So the marrow
toast was from a book in eighteen sixty seven from

(12:57):
Charles elm uh friend Catelly, I guess, and he was
in Queen Victoria's kitchen and said the Queen ate this
basically every night for dinner. Uh. And that was kind
of a fun line. And it's fun reading these old
recipes always. One of them says that, uh, you should
get the butcher to break the bones as this is

(13:20):
a rather awkward affair for ladies, right, I guess to
to break those bones not very late. I mean it's
it's an awkward affair for anybody really. And what's the
other funny line in that recipe? Um that it should
have just a mere suspicion of shalott. I love that. Yeah,
it's a it's a strange way to put it, but
I like that. Guys, well you say a hint of something,

(13:43):
so that makes sense, right, A mere suspicions. I've never
heard anything like it in either So. There was another
cookbook in Victorian England called The Book of Household Management
by Isabella Beaten. I think everyone referred to her as
Mrs Beaton, and she um came up with a couple
of good ones, A good A couple of good contributions.
One is the toast sandwich, and it's exactly what it

(14:06):
sounds like. Yeah, it's like the Blues Brothers wish sandwich.
Do you remember that no, huh? Where you had two
slices of bread and you wish you had some meat.
That's basically it is. It was a meat substitute if
you take two pieces of bread and your meat was
a piece of toast. Yeah, like the bread would be
buttered and everybody calmed down, but it was just dry

(14:27):
toast in the middle. That was the substance of the sandwich.
People would eat them. It's kind of yeah, I guess
a little bit, but without the meat, without the dressing,
without the sesame seed bun, without the lettuce, without any
of that. I'm surprised you didn't say it like the
old commercial. I can't remember. I've got the bak jingle
in my head and it's not it's not gibing. I

(14:48):
think it was too all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles,
onion on a sesame seed bun. Yeah, there you go.
I've got um have it your your way, have it
your way in my head all the time, not just
right now. By the way, What did that mean? Was
Burger King known for like saying you can get a

(15:09):
special type of hamburger, and not yeah, get you know,
spit on. It was hold the pickles, hold the lattice,
special orders. Don't upset us. All we want is that
you let us have it your way. I don't remember
going to McDonald's though, and then being upset when I
said no pickles or whatever. Oh man, they were well
known for their people just going into a rage if
you asked them to hold anything like you knew better

(15:32):
in the eighties than to open your mouth and McDonald's,
aside from ordering directly off the man, hold this, buddy, right, Uh,
this recipe is pretty fine. Toast water. I think if
you gave people a test and said, guess three guesses
on what toast water would be, they probably wouldn't guess
what toast water is, even though it's exactly what it

(15:53):
sounds like, which I think the mind repels it thinking
of it. You know, it's just making toasts, pouring boiling
water over the toast. Uh. And that's not the meal.
It's not like milk toast, which we'll get to in
a second. You just let it get cold and then
you strain out that toast and have toast flavored water,

(16:14):
like kind of as Olivia puts a toast based iced tea.
I kind of want to try this. I don't. I
don't want to try it at all. I think it's
really awful, But let me know how it is. I'm
totally gonna try this. Okay, seriously, dude, let let me
know how it is so you mentioned milk toast, we
can't not mention milk toast, not to be confused with
milk steak. This is milk toast. And although it was

(16:36):
a rage in like the nineteenth century, they think it
was actually invented in New England. And it was basically
toast with warm milk and then something like cinnamon, sugar,
maple syrup something like that. Uh. It could be eaten
as a breakfast. It was frequently given to people on
their sick beds Um. It was just comfort food, early
comfort food. UM. And it actually gave us UM a

(17:00):
comic strip character's name, Casper Milk Toast, And I looked
up Casper milk Toast. I've I've heard of him plenty
of times, but I never actually saw Casper Milk Toast
comic strip. And it was like looking into a mirror.
I actually didn't look it up. I'm doing so right now.
This guy. Life is just so hard for this guy

(17:20):
because no, no, no, his his like the things that
the way he sees the world just like looking into
a mirror. Everything is so hard and difficult, and everybody
just wants to beat him up. And it's just I
was like, wow, I got more than a little strain
of Casper milk toast. To me, it's worth looking up
for sure, like a tear in your eye. Uh So,
milk toast is um. I had kind of had a

(17:43):
vision for it as like toast floating and like a
thin plate of milk, And it turns out there's kind
of all kinds of ways. I've seen it recipes where
it's toast with like a milky cream that you kind
of drizzle over it. But then I've seen it also
like as if you just chop up toast and eat
it like a bowl of cereal. Yeah. I don't think

(18:03):
there's any specific rules on eating milk toast. I'm going
to try that too. I would try that for sure.
It sounds pretty good. Um. One thing I came across
chuck that it just kept popping up is apparently toast
back in this time was was way thinner. I saw
it cut. It should be cut to about a quarter inch,
which is really thin toast, almost appallingly thing. Yeah, it

(18:27):
is very much Melbourne, like I think, maybe twice as
wide as as your standard Melbourne toast, but I mean
it's still pretty thin. It would be brittle really fast.
If you asked me should we take a break, we should?
Did you forget that part? All right, we'll be right
back everybody. So this is going so so far, so far,

(19:16):
so so so far. Yeah, it's harder to say than
it sounds. You got to practice in your head right
before you said, I did not by the way, I
really love I didn't want it to go unmentioned that
I really dug your milksteak ref so you slid it
in there so quickly that I didn't want to get
because sometimes we'll do that and we'll get letters or
like could blue choked left when he said milk steak

(19:40):
boiled over hard? Uh? Okay, there's one other thing we
got to talk about, and that is means of creating
toast from bread. Yeah, these are the implements that I
that I mentioned, which it's funny a lot of these
implements look basically are just like modern camping implements. There

(20:02):
are all kinds of little camping toasty things, including telescoping,
which was invented it looks like in the Victorian era. Um,
they're not as fancy as they used to be, but
all kinds of things that are basically kind of like
camping toasters. Yeah, because that's basically what everyone was doing
in the nineteenth century was camping indoors, so they had those.

(20:24):
They had toasting forks, and they had toasting forks for
hundreds of years. There was not a lot of innovation
on that, although they tinkered with you know how many
times it had or just kind of trying to improve
the toast fork, but that that was how you made
toast for a really long time. And then they came
up with stoves and somebody very quickly said we can
attach like a little thing onto the front of the

(20:44):
stove and direct some of that heat onto a little
toast rack and make toast that way. That was a
pretty big innovation, I guess, but it wasn't until electric
power came along that toast really started to come into
its own if you ask me, H for sure. But
I also want to shout out the toast track because
that is the thing I didn't know as a thing

(21:05):
until I saw it, and I was like, I love this,
It's brilliant. Why don't they still have these? And they do?
They do. I saw somebody and on like some toast
form or whatever, thing like do not eat toast? Without
a toast track. And if you don't have a toast track,
like lean your toast up against like a glass or
something like that. Like that's how you store toast until
you eat it, and you should be eating it pretty

(21:27):
quickly after you make it. Yeah, and to be clear,
this is not a means of cooking. But if you're
serving like a brunch or a breakfast at your house, uh,
you you toast all the toast, and it's sort of
like a little miniature bike rack with a caddie handle.
I think of it more like a little remember those
little forty five record stands? Sure, oh yeah that too,
kind of like that. Yeah, but it keeps you know.

(21:49):
I think the ideal way to like you said, to um,
store toast until it goes in your mouth is not
laying down on the plate where it can collect that
condensation and moisture because heat gets the heat, my god,
the heat. Like you pick up a piece of toast,
if you see um water on your plate, you're doing

(22:09):
it wrong, right, And the toast track gets around that. So, yes,
hats off to the toast track. And yes, if you
were a toast afficionado and you're not using a toast track.
You've got a whole world that's about to open up
to your buddy, that's right. But we were talking about
electricity and specifically the innovation that came along, which was
uh nichrome. And you think, what is nichrome? And I'll say, well,

(22:32):
it's a nickel and chromium composite invented by an engineer
named Albert Martia nine five. And he said, well, what
is that. It's just a heating coil, right, It's this
this really neat alloy that has a high electrical resistance,
which means that if you run an electrical current through it,
it doesn't like that. And um, it responds by getting

(22:53):
really really hot, putting out infrared radiation and turning bright red.
And if you say, well, that sounds a lot like
a toaster's heat the element. That's why. Because apparently nichrome
is still in use today. I think Court says as well,
but I think in your average fifteen dollar toaster that
your bank gives you for opening an account, I don't
know if they still do that or not, it's gonna
have nichrome heating elements in it. Yeah, And it's I

(23:15):
assume it's the same thing in like a space heater,
right or is that different the most dangerous ones? Yeah? Man,
I don't like a space heater unless it glows. You
know what I'm saying. Oh really, yeah, I love those
I do too. It's kind of nice. It's fire like
because it almost is fire. It's it's it's almost fire.
That's how they should market it, right, That actually would

(23:38):
be good marketing. Uh. Can we talk about the D
twelve because I'm in love with this thing? Hm. That
was a GE product and they basically say this is
the first mass marketed commercial toaster. When you're in a
safe space, you're not driving your car something, you can
look this thing up. Just look up on an image
search g E D twelve toaster admitted by Frank Shayler.

(24:02):
And this thing is beautiful and its simplicity. I would
love to be able to find one and have an
electrician like rig it to work in my modern kitchen
because it just looks super cool because I love those coils.
That thing would catch on fire so fast, it would
I mean, you just plug it in and it just
immediately catch fire. I think for the first time. Can

(24:22):
you describe the shape it's It's like if you took
the guts out of a toaster, one side of the
gutside of a toaster, and kept the cord and plugged
it in and did not have any kind of guard
or anything around it, and you just laid the toast
on it. That it looks to me kind of like
um uh, like it's the toaster version of a wicker wheelchair.

(24:44):
I find it deeply uncomfortable like that. You know your
long standing fear. I don't think it's ever going away.
I don't see my fear of what their wheelchairs ever. Man,
I'm gonna upon retirement, you're gonna find one of those
on your front porch with a big bow on it.
Oh man, I wouldn't come out of the house for

(25:05):
so long. That's a great Casper milk toast comic strip.
Uh so the D twelve. But the toast leans like
you said, it's at a bit of an angle, so
it's like a little pup tent with heating coils. The
problem with the D twelve was that you had to
obviously flip it over. And I don't say it's a problem.
I think that's a fun, interactive way to make toast.

(25:26):
But you have to flip it over to toast both sides, um,
And I think the first pop up toaster was the
first one where they said, hey, why don't we see
if we can toast both sides of this thing. Yeah,
the guy named Charles straight from Minnesota invented the first
pop up toaster in it went on to be manufactured
and marketed as the Toastmaster. I think that brand might

(25:50):
still be around. It sounds familiar. Um. So the thing
is is Charles strike like invented this thing pretty much
perfectly right out of the gate. Where again, if you
go to a bank and you ask for the toaster
that that they give you when you open your account,
they probably are giving you a Charles strit version of

(26:10):
a toaster. He just created it correctly right out of
the gate, that's right. And the plus here again is
you don't have to flip it and had a very
key component which was a timer, so you don't have
to sit there and watch it, and it would just
pop it up, spring loaded. And here's well we'll get
to in a second. But the startling revelation of this

(26:32):
episode to me is I thought that's how all modern
pop up toasters worked today. Was he set a little
brownness variation which was just essentially a timer and put
a pin in that because that's not how modern toasters work.
And I was blown away to learn that. Well, I say,
we talked about that right now, because I'm raring at

(26:53):
the bit. Yeah right, Um, So I guess somebody came
along and said, how can we make this harder or
more complex? And they did. They took the timer element
out of it and instead they now have the the
current that's created, I guess the circuit is closed, right,

(27:14):
which means that the electricity can flow through it, which
heats up the heating element. That happens when you press
down the lever the handle to sink the toast into
the toaster, but it also triggers something that connects an
electro magnet that holds that basket that the toaster and down.
But eventually enough electricity flows through that. A capacitor that

(27:35):
I guess is set to some certain voltage, reaches its limit,
turns off the energy to the electromagnet, which now releases
the basket, which pops the toaster up, so the handle
comes up with it, which means that the circuit is
now open. If there's no longer electricity, that can flow
through it and the other way. And this is the
one that really blew me away, because to me, nothing

(27:56):
is more simple than just a timer. But it can
be controlled by a switch that is made of two metals.
It's bimetallic, and these two metals expand at different rates,
so one of them is getting hot at a rate
that the other one is get not getting hot at
and once they reach a whatever certain point, they will

(28:19):
push apart and break that circuit. So I always just
figured it was a timer, and it's one of these
two things, which, like you said, just seems infinitely more complicated.
But uh, there's gotta be a reason, right, I guess
it's probably because it's cheaper to make, and that's what

(28:41):
I would guess. Yeah, I can think about it. The
timer has that you gotta do. You have to have
a clock, you gotta have some spring, You have to
have a mouse attached to the string that sets off
that ball. Yeah, the little pole with the Buddha attached
that knocks over the water that ends the timer. I
forgot about all that stuff. Yeah, that's expensive. I also

(29:04):
do want to shout out my favorite toaster, which I um,
I guess people might have these in their homes. There's
probably a home version, but the one you get at
the Hampton End Lobby Breakfast or in the Delta sky Club.
The beautiful conveyor belt toaster, the quiz Nos toaster. Oh
I love. I've never been to quiz Nos, but I
love those conveyor toasters. Oh you're missing out. Quiz Noses

(29:29):
one of the best. Yeah, because they toast everything. They
don't ask you if they you want your sub toasted,
they do it. And it was on this cool little
conveyor belt toaster and it comes out delicious every time. Man,
they needed. Why aren't they sponsoring us? I don't know.
They've really greatly diminished in size. I thought maybe they've
gone out of business, but they just closed a lot

(29:49):
of their stores. But they're still around apparently. But I
guess that's probably why. Well, I mean, we're given him
pre advertising. I called out Jared from Subway years before
his great cha like, we're doing everything for Quitness we
can do. That's that's true, man, zero dollars. Anyway, I
love the conveyor toaster. It's I think they're awesome. Uh,
I wish I had one in my house. Maybe I'll

(30:12):
do that one day. Yeah, just go to stay at
a Hampton Inn and walk out with their toaster. Yeah.
Oh and those little waffle irons. Yes, they need to
triple the number of waffle irons that they have in
my experience that don't and don't let children uh operate
them because they screw everything up. Um, did you see
the Balmuda toaster Balmuda toaster I sent you. Yeah, that

(30:35):
is very appealing it but boys, it expensive. It is.
It's three but it does other things rather than just toasts.
So if you hear somebody says the three toaster, just
be like, actually it does a lot more than just toast,
butter it is first of all. Yeah, so I mean
three toaster oven is. I mean that's an expensive toaster
of them, but it's not astronomical compared to other toaster ovens,

(30:59):
I think, compared to like the fifteen dollar Bank toaster. Yes, sure, no, no, no,
give it you mean it was It wasn't a thousand bucks,
but it's it's a luxury item. I think the trick
here is at least they say what I want to
do is try one out because you pour a little
bit of water in it, right, and that's supposedly the
steam helps the toast taste better. Yeah. They you toast

(31:20):
your bread with steam, which apparently heats up faster than air,
which makes sense because steam can burn your face off
faster than air can um. And that's what they do
to the toast. They burn the face off of the
bread using hot steam, and it crisps the outside, turns
it pretty brown if you want it to be, and
then the inside stays like chewy and soft. It's kind

(31:42):
of like searing the juices inside a steak. Hold on
a second, it is only steam. Yeah, it's hot hot
steam air. That's what that's my understanding of it. I
thought it was a coil and with some steam addition.
So it's the same thing. If you're you're not actually
cooking the bread it on your heating element and a toaster,

(32:02):
the air is cooking the toast, right Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
this is just a variation on that. They're using steam
rather than just air, so they're using water and air
heated up rather than just heated air. Okay, I didn't
know it was only steam. That is. That is pretty wild. Yeah,
weird wild stuff in that company. I've never heard of
that company, and I looked into a little bit. It's

(32:23):
a Japanese company that, um, I think they have like
four things they make a tea kettle, a toaster, a
Bluetooth speaker, and what else, oh, a lantern? Right for
very disparate things, even weirder than the parent company of
quiz Nos. They should be doing pretty well then with
those three dollar products. That's right. Can you take a break?

(32:48):
Oh boy? Yes, sure? All right? Or should we wait?
I don't know, man, it's all bets are off. How
about this. Let's uh, let's tell this awesome angent story
that Olivia dug up, which I think is kind of
one of the coolest parts of this episode, and then
we'll take a break. Okay, fair enough, alright, hit hit
me with it. Who was Alan McMasters, the inventor of

(33:10):
the toaster dummy? He invented it back in don't you know. Yeah,
he was from Edinburgh and he was electric electrical engineer
and he worked for the British electric company Crompton and
Go and came up with the first toaster ine And
we know because it was on Wikipedia and there was
even the picture of this old timey picture of this guy. Yeah,

(33:32):
so it had to be true, but it turned out
it wasn't true at all. And there's a fifteen year
old British boy who said that picture does not look
like it's from the nineteenth century. And if you look
at the picture, it doesn't look like it's from the
nineteenth century at all. I mean, just running a slight
CPO filter on it does not a nineteenth century picture
make right. Uh huh. But it was enough to fool

(33:53):
everybody for a very long time. So in two thousand
and twelve, there was a college student I did not
see where he went, but his name was al Alex,
and he had a friend whose name was Alan McMasters.
And just as a joke, Alex edited the Wikipedia entry
I believe for toasts or toasters to say that that
Allen McMasters was the inventor of the toaster joke. It

(34:16):
is a good joke. But then it got picked up
by the press, starting with the Daily Mirror. Yeah, and
not the hoax picked up, but just the story. And
there are articles in libbyas innocent link. There's one from
twelve that is still not corrected online. Uh. I think
it was from the Daily Mirror, right, Yeah. The Mirror
said they did a list of things that were invented,

(34:38):
invented in Great Britain, and they they chalked it up
to Allen McMasters, but he didn't. He didn't exist at all,
Like there wasn't Alec Allen McMasters. But again, he was
a college student in the two thousand tens. He wasn't
an eighteen nineties Scottish inventor. And yet once that Daily
mirror Um article went up, it's kicked off other citations.

(35:01):
And then the beauty part of all of it, chuck,
is that those citations are those articles that sprung from
the fake Wikipedia entry um became citations in the Wikipedia
entry so it was a self sustaining support system for itself.
It was amazing that there was a BBC show called
Great British Menu that uh created from scratch a dessert

(35:25):
named after McMasters. Uh. There was apparently a school in
Scotland that had a Alan McMaster's Day in his honor.
And really, and it's a harmless prank. That's why I
think it's so great, Like I'm normally not a big
fan of pranks, but I don't think this really hurt
anybody that I can think about. Yeah, can you imagine

(35:46):
it hurting someone or my being. I I don't know. Well,
I wonder if they ever told the school kids that
there there was no Allen McMasters after they celebrated Allen
McMaster's day. Okay, so maybe a small life to school children,
But otherwise I think it's hysterical because it really I mean,
I'm sure these guys were like, I can't believe this
works so well, but they were eventually found out and

(36:08):
uh McMasters was revealed. But I think that's one of
the great pranks. Uh yeah, I agree, and you misunderstand me.
I think the fact that these school kids were lied
to accidentally makes it even funnier, not like that's a problem, okay.
And this is also why we've never used Wikipedia as
a source, which we really haven't. It's um, I kind
of had to just tune out people that in our

(36:30):
reviews over the years say these two numb skulls just
read Wikipedia pages when we've literally never and it's a
point of pride. And we told when we started getting
freelance writers, were like, can't use Wikipedia as a source,
and and now I can say, and this is a
great reason why excellently put Chuck all right break time.
It is finally break time. Everybody all right, So now

(37:18):
we get to talk a little bit about the mall Yard.
I always said Mallyard, But is it Mallard? Uh, because
the eye is not after the yell like I thought
it was. So his name was Louis Camille Mayyard. Okay,
I'm I don't think it matters at this point. That's
the reaction. If you've ever heard fancy chef types or

(37:39):
people at a dinner party trying to impress someone else
talk about the Mayod reaction, that is this. You know,
there's a chemical reaction that takes place when you heat foods,
and this specific one is like when you make toast
or toasted tortilla, or make popcorn or like sea steak.
I think that's the same thing to write, yeah, the

(38:01):
chicken skin browning. Yeah, that's this reaction named after this
French chemist. And uh, that's kind of the magic of
where this taste comes from. It's how these chemicals are
reacting to one another. Yes, specifically amino acids and sugars
that form all sorts of new smells and new tastes.
Um one of the new compounds that they create as

(38:25):
a setal tetrahydropyridine um, which is the the the smell,
the taste, the aroma that gives toasts. It smell, gives popcorn,
it smell corn tortillas, baking, it smell um. It's just
one of many compounds that are made by the mayard reaction.
But in the case of toast, that's where it comes from.
And um. Apparently depending on the kind of bread you use,

(38:49):
you'll get different kinds or or different color toast, like
darker toast or lighter toast. And the more alkaline a
toast is um, the browner it will it, which is
why it's very difficult to toast sour dough to a
deep brown color, because it's actually very acidic as far
as breakes go. Yeah, and if you've heard in the

(39:10):
news over recent years that um like toast can be
bad for you, or or anything sort of seared might
be bad for you, it's because the jury is kind
of out whether or not. Well. I think the the
American Cancer Society said that there's definitely potentially carcinogenic compounds definitely,

(39:31):
maybe definitely maybe that can be created through this toasting
and searing. Uh. And that's like grilled meats. We talked
about that before. Um, but they don't know if, like,
if you're eating enough of that stuff to really be
dangerous to you. Yeah. They just basically said, like, just
just be careful, don't eat don't eat dark toast. No
one likes burned toast anyway, So don't be a jerk

(39:53):
and say you like it. Yeah, you gotta keep your
eye on it because caramelization can happen, which is great
if you're an onion. Uh and maybe a tiny bit
if you're some toast, but you don't want to You
don't want to make that toast black, that bitter black,
and no amount of knife scraping mom will make that
taste any better. I totally agree with you, man. You

(40:16):
want to talk about toasts around the world. Yeah, this
is all this does is make me hungry. These all
sounds so good. So there's one called Kaya toast from
Singapore and Malaysia. So you charcoal grill the toast. You
would love that, right, and then you um make a
sandwich out of the toast with butter and a jam

(40:36):
that's made from coconut and eggs called Kaya. The name
Kaya toast. I would try that any day of the week,
all right, what about our friends from Italy? Of course
they're gonna serve you something with garlic, uh and olive oil.
And that's exactly what they do. It's called hunt. We
call that garlic toast in the Midwest. Yeah, garlic, maybe

(40:56):
a little salt, little olive oil. Bing bang boom done.
I've got one I want to try as soon as possible.
It's from Sweden, where I'd like to go, by the way,
I have a real hankering to go visit Sweden. Sometime.
They have a toast called toast coggin and you um,
it's basically a shrimp toast mixed together crim fresh butter shrimp.

(41:19):
You put a little dill on it, some capers. You
put it all on a toast, maybe with a slight
a little bit of lemon juice or or a lemon
slice on it as a garnish, and then you eat
it and say, man, I feel like I'm in Stockholm.
Are friends down under? What's going on down there? I
love you. We get so much support from Australia. But

(41:40):
and you've got your vegamine of course, which is divisive,
of course, but we're not here to talk about vegamine.
We're here to talk about making toast, buttering it and
then covering it with like ice cream sprinkles. Yeah, also
called um yes sprinkles, non perils. That's what we call
them here down there, and I think in in the

(42:03):
UK they call them hundreds and thousands. But there's those multicolored,
tiny little round sprinkles. I know we're gonna get email
saying like, just try it, mate, trust me. Yeah, they
call it fairy bread. Which if you put that together
with a good you know, Instagram photo of of that stuff,
it's like, wow, I would try that sometime. Which other
ones should we highlight here? I think, um, the pan

(42:27):
kuan tomate, because I would like to try that one too,
all right, that's Spanish, right, mm hmm. Then what do
you do? How do you make it? Well, you just
grill some bread again little olive oil. So you think, well,
I'm making futuna. We already talked about that wrong, because
you add some grated on a box grade or a
big old beef steak tomato, so that you just have

(42:47):
the enters of the tomato and not the skin, and
you mix that with some stuff like some basil or
some other spices and you, um, put it on some
toast and eat it almost immediately. Maybe put it single
anchovy on there, Maybe put a little ioli dap on
there too. I saw what's your buddy's name, Kenji all

(43:07):
lopezez Ultore. Yes, Uh, they put a They had a
pretty good, um little entry and and recipe for pancone
tomate that I would like to try to. That sounds
really good. Uh. It almost started out sounding like, what's
the nice Italian appetizer which just the tomatoes and olive
oil on the toast points brush. Yeah, brusquetta. I love

(43:30):
a good bruschetta. I used to make that all the time.
I don't make it much anymore. Yeah, it's good. The
simpler the better with that I've found. Yeah, I do
want to shout out toad in a hole or toad
in the hole, which I've only had a few times,
but whenever I see it on a menu, I'll order that.
And that's when I think they are like casserole variations.
But the kind of scene is just toast with the

(43:52):
center cut out and then you uh fry an egg
in the middle of it, and then you top it
with a live toad where it's cool. I would try that.
I mean, it's just I love toast with Fridays. So
I don't know about losing any of the toast by
cutting a hole out of it. What do you do
with the whole toast? I don't know, make a big mac. Sure, Uh,

(44:16):
there's one other thing we got to talk about, Chuck, Well,
maybe two. But if you'll remember back not too long ago,
less than a decade ago, there's a pretty big toast
craze going on in the United States. It was hipsterrific.
It's where we got avocado toast. So I'm very glad
that it happened. I love avocado toast, but that's where
it all came from. There was a toast movement for

(44:38):
a little while, and it just was a huge flash
in the pan. It came and went faster than you
can say, lickety split. But it's it was still kind
of interesting because again, it gave us some some good toast.
It introduced people to toast. But at the same time
people were like, well, this is millennial's problem. This is
why you can't buy a house because you're spending five
bucks on a piece of toast. Yeah, no, no, man,

(45:01):
I've seen, uh, you know, I watch a lot of
Top Chef and there was a couple of seasons there
where there was a lot of like little toasts added.
But to me, it's just sort of like beautiful, simplistic cooking,
like toast with some you know, some nut butter and
banana or you know, any little like nice thing you
can throw on top. Is it nice? I think it

(45:21):
just it's one of those things that got like Instagram
too much, probably cost a little too much, and there
was a bit of a revolution against it. But at
its core, I love the idea of taking toasts and
putting delicious things on them. Yeah. Um, just to kind
of button that up, that artisanal toast fad was traced

(45:42):
back by Pacific Standard to a woman named Julietta Correlli
who owns Trouble Coffee and Coconut Club, and they said,
this is this is ground zero for where people started
getting the idea to make toast. She there was just
offered in San Francisco, of course, and she just offered
like a really good cinnamon toast that would knock your

(46:03):
socks off. And then other people were like, yeah, toast,
that's a great idea, and it just kind of spread
from there. Yeah, that's kind of a become a thing
in more recent years, which I like, uh in in
the chef world, which is like back to simplicity, uh
and just like a few simple ingredients and you don't
have to you know, because for a while they're like
molecular gastronomy was the thing and making needs foams and

(46:26):
you know, beads that popped and smoke would come out.
And there's there's room for all of it. I love cooking,
and I love cheap dining and I love fine dining.
I love it all, so I think there's a place
for all of it. And just I don't know. I
hate when something delicious happens and people are like hipsters
like it, so I hate it. Right. Yeah, you shouldn't

(46:46):
do that, I mean, just make your own mind up.
Don't identify with something or against something because someone else
you don't like likes it. And why don't you like
those people in the first place? Have you really stopped
and invested any time or thought it into yourself. Maybe
you don't like what you see in them that reminds
you of yourself. Maybe that's what you don't like about

(47:07):
people like hipsters from the mouth of Casper milk toast himself.
That's right, all right, we're gonna finish up a little
bit with Olivia just knocked this one out of the
park with a fun little thing that I wouldn't even
even thought to research. Probably is the word toast as
a uh it's like a lot of things, but like
as a verb, like, uh, the we're making a toast.

(47:30):
That started apparently, um, because they would drop spice toasted
bread into a drink to help flavor it up a
little bit and then pull it out let the dog
eat it maybe, and then that was a toast. Yeah,
and that that just became um the word that was
used anytime you held up a glass and said something

(47:51):
nice about somebody else. Makes sense, Sure, I like that.
There's an actual origin story to it, right. And then
apparently from that all sorts of other usages of toast
kind of spread, like the toast of the town, something
that's really great. Um. That's that dates back to the
eighteenth century. Apparently, um toast was used in the early

(48:13):
seventies to mean like awesome today, that's toast, Okay, she
put in here eight four there was a phrase something
was bad as toast. I've never heard that before in
my life. I've never heard that before in my life either.
But speaking of the way that you and I used
toast all the time, like they're toasts, they're done for,

(48:34):
they're finished. That actually traces back to Bill Murray and Ghostbusters?
Can this be true? George Will said in And George
Will knew what he was talking about. He was a
language columnist, and in he traced it back to Bill Murray. Uh.
Instead of saying, Um, I'm gonna turn this guy into toast,

(48:55):
which the script called for, Bill Murray said this chicken
toast instead, and it just kind of took off from there.
If that's true, I love that because what a great
sort of tie into a movie that we used to
talk about a lot. Yeah. Remember we used to mark
time by how many years before? After Ghostbusters? It was? Yeah,
And I think I mentioned on the show that I

(49:17):
thoroughly enjoyed that brand new version even though it got
widely panned. Yeah. And speaking of pan, that's another name
for bread or toast. Look at that. What was I
nervous about? I don't know, Like I said, this one
went pretty so, so okay, I'll take it Okay, yeah,
same here, especially for the first one back. Since Chuck

(49:39):
said I'll take it. That means, of course, everybody, it's
time for listener mail. That's right. I guess the first
thing we should mention is a quick correction. Uh. In
the Edmund Fitzgerald episode, we got the location, well a
couple of things on that. We got the location of
Zoog Island. Incorrect in that right. Yeah, we said it

(50:01):
was in Lake Michigan. Wrong. It's in the Detroit River
which flows into Lake Erie. It was never in Lake Michigan. Uh.
And boy, I made a lot of Canadians angry because
I did not like that song. And Gordon Lightfoot is
apparently the Pride of Canada. Did not mean to knock anyone.

(50:21):
I do not like that song. But I gotta say
this though, Um, I got accused of young yucking, and
I think that phrase has been taken a bit too far.
Now that's when used you Well, let's all stop using that. No.
The way it was written in was basically people were saying, like,
you're not allowed to express an opinion about something anymore

(50:45):
because that's young yucking And that's not true. You can
have opinion, you say, I don't like this thing. I
think young yucking is when you're like, I don't know.
It's a step further, which is like, how can you
like this awful thing or something? Well? I think some
Canadians feel like you hit that line across the yeah,
and I can people would like it if they If
you like that song, fine, if you like that garbage song,

(51:07):
that's your basis. All is right with the universe again? Boy?
All right, So onto the mail. This is a very
sweet one from Anna and Carter and the great city
of Cleveland. Hey, guys, been listening for many years. I'm
an army sergeant and about every two years ago, we
were in a month long field exercise. One week. Every night,

(51:29):
helicopters practice night landings in the same field we were
sleeping in um. After a few nights constantly being up
to what felt like a mechanical tornado, I decided I'd
be up anyway, so I might as well put the
podcast in my earbuds, and I fell straight to sleep
and slept all night. Am I doing it? Ever since?
Flash forward to present day, my son and I have

(51:49):
made the podcast part of our nightly routine. We played
on the phone under a shared pillow to snuggle and
cover mostly bugs and animals. It makes for great discussions
with a four year old. Last night he wanted Godzilla's
or butterflies. Uh and Tracy and Holly have covered Godzilla,
so that my son requested you guys with butterflies. Uh.

(52:10):
So my son, Carter, and myself say thank you for
the info. Work peaceful sleep for an exhausted mom and soldier,
have a good night. And that is Anna and Carter
in Cleveland, Ohio. Thanks a lot, Anna and Carter. It's
a great email. And uh Ani made reference to Holly
and Tracy. She was saying that stuff you missed in
history class apparently did an episode on Godzilla, which I

(52:31):
didn't know which I want to go listen to immediately.
Colleagues that we don't get to see anymore, but we
go way back and they're the best. We presumably still exist.
I got an email from Holly and that they're alive
and well, okay, it's confirmed. So thank you from us
and from Tracy and Holly to Anna and Carter. And
if you want to be like Anna and Carter, you

(52:53):
can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
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