September 8, 2022 • 9 mins
You might be surprised by just how powerful a bit of history can be, as these curious tales attest.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeart
Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Look inside your spice cabinet and you're likely to find
all kinds of herbs and seasonings to punch up that
pot pie or add some sparkle to your stew. Thanks
to centuries of international trade and exploration, spices once only
available in specific countries are now found throughout the world,
allowing people to discover flavors that they never could have
dreamed of before. But not everything in the kitchen has
(00:57):
been good for us. Some spices have been right dangerous,
including one you might have in your pantry right now.
We typically see and taste the ground up version of
this spice, which is part of the genus Myristica. The
tree it comes from, Myristica fragrance produces two spices from
its fruit. Mace is cultivated from the seed covering, but
(01:18):
the seed itself is sprinkled into everything from pumpkin pies
to the occasional meatloaf. I'm talking, of course, about nutmeg.
It's a spice noted for its strong fragrance and reddish
brown color. Asian countries such as China and India have
used nutmeg and their cooking for thousands of years. It
is believed that China was among the earliest nations to
grow nutmeg outside of the Indonesian islands of the Banda Sea.
(01:42):
In the early fifteen hundreds, as Europe was exploring the
rest of the world, nutmeg was one of the many
spices brought back for trade and consumption. Portuguese General Alfonso
Day Albuquerque traveled to Southeast Asia in fifteen eleven. His
targets the city of Malacca, which was a major Asian
trade center at the time. He took it over and
placed it under control of the King of Portugal before
(02:04):
learning of a series of islands just off the coast.
He sent several ships to investigate, and when they got there,
his men discovered a treasure trope of spices. They loaded
up their ships with mace, nutmeg, and clothes, all of
which were brought back to Portugal and spread throughout Europe.
One years later, the Dutch East India Company set their
sights on Banda and massacred the local population. Out of
(02:27):
fifteen thousand indigenous people living there, only a thousand survived.
The rest were murdered, starved, or captured and sold as slaves.
Few managed to get away, and all of this was
done so that the Dutch could build a monopoly on
the nutmeg trade. Unsurprisingly, the British also made their way
to Banda and for a short time took control. Nutmeg
trees were uprooted and moved so the spice could be
(02:50):
grown in colonial health countries. Since then, nutmeg has gone
from a spice mostly found in Asia to a commodity
sold in grocery stores all over the world. But was
a time when nutmeg wasn't just for putting on your
egg nog at Christmas. For example, it was used as
medicine by those living on the Arabian Peninsula. They would
mix it with things like juice from the quince fruits
(03:11):
to alleviate stomach problems or other minor ailments. Doctor has
also found that consumption of fresh ground nutmeg in high
enough doses could trigger psychoactive effects such as hallucinations. Around
nineteen sixty, nutmeg was being used in animal testing to
calculate how it behaved as a drug. Scientists noted a
variety of results, including trouble walking, slower reflexes, and pupil dilation.
(03:36):
Two adult humans died after experiencing severe drowsiness brought on
by nutmeg ingestion, and the cause of these effects is
a compound called myristas in and how the body breaks
it down. That process affects the central nervous system in
a similar way to LSD, causing dizziness, hallucinations and a
spike in the brains nor epinephri in response. Take enough
(03:58):
nutmeg and you could find yourself on one heck of
a trip lasting as much as two days. But ing
too much of the earthly spice and that trip can
turn bad quickly. In fifteen seventy six, a pregnant english
woman eight about twelve nutmegs to get herself drunk. Hers
became the first recorded case of nutmeg poisoning. Since then,
(04:18):
more cases have been reported, especially during the drug fueld
sixties and seventies. Sadly, those affected most by nutmeg poisoning
have been teens and younger adults. Looking for a cheap
and easy alternative to harder substances like marijuana. No substance, though,
is inherently good or evil. Cocaine used to be taken
in small doses and was considered medicinal. It was even
(04:40):
part of the original coca cola recipe, but eventually it's
devastating effects were too great to ignore, and it was
officially declared illegal in the United States in nineteen fourteen.
Will nutmeg follow the same path. It's doubtful, but anything's possible.
For now, It's probably best to use measuring spoons when
dealing with such a potent and flavorful spice, and maybe
(05:02):
don't drink so many eggnogs. It doesn't matter if a
volcano hasn't erupted in a hundred years or ever. For
(05:22):
that matter, its existence within spitting distance of a major
metropolitan area is caused for concern for the people who
live there. After all, it may never go off, but
there's always the chance right Take Sitka, Alaska, for example.
Sitka was originally colonized by Russian explorers in sevent They
had named the city fort of Archangel Michael, but that
(05:43):
settlement was destroyed a few years later. By the Tinglet
the indigenous people living there. After days of fighting, in
August of eighteen o four, the Russians forced the Tinglet
to surrender and new Archangel was formed on the same spot.
It became known as the capital of Russian America. In
the background of all that violent turmoil was Mount Edgecombe.
But Mount Edgecombe wasn't just a mountain. It was actually
(06:05):
a dormant, previously active volcano, rising three thousand, two hundred
feet out of the ground west of the city. It's
hard to miss on a bright sunny day, it's perfectly visible,
with its snow covered peak blending into a grayish brown
hue halfway down. And of course, because it was active
in the past, the residents of Sitka have always lived
with a kind of weariness about it going off again.
(06:27):
The last thing they'd ever want is to see plumes
of smoke shooting out of its center. So they must
have been terrified when they noticed exactly that happening in
the spring of nineteen seventy four. Looking out their windows,
they watched as waves of black smoke billowed out of
the old volcanoes central event. This was it. The day
had finally come. The massive volcano in the distance, looming
(06:48):
over Sitka ominously for thousands of years, was finally going
to pop and destroy everything in its path. The Coastguard
called in a helicopter to swoop over the site and
see what was going on. They also sent a whale
boat to investigate closer to shore. Minutes later, a transmission
from the chopper pilot came in over the radio. He
hadn't seen lava crawling down its sides, nor burbling magma
(07:11):
in the center of the pit. All he had seen
was a flaming pile of tires and a spray painted
sign that read April Fool. The whole ordeal had been
nothing but a joke. It's mastermind, Sitka shop owner Porky
Oliver Bicar, who had woken up early that April first
with a song in his heart and a plan in
his head. Porky had actually chartered three separate helicopters to
(07:34):
help him pull off his dastardly scheme, but when they
heard what had entailed, they all declined to participate. He
wound up recruiting the help of his friend and local
bar owner Harry Sulzer, who knew a guy with a
helicopter who loved Porky's idea and wanted to pitch in.
While he waited for his flying chariot to arrive, Porky
got to work making two rope slings capable of holding
(07:55):
about fifty car tires each. He also collected fuel for
the fire, like stern and diesel oil, as well as
oily rags and a bunch of smoke bombs. Once the
helicopter finally arrived, Porky and several of his buddies all
put their supplies on board and flew over the center
of the volcano. They dropped the tires in first, then
the chopper landed to let them out. They poured oil
(08:17):
and stern o all over those tires before spray painting
April Fool in fifty foot letters directly onto the snow.
Porky then lit the spark and watched as his creation
went up in a blaze of glory. The f a,
a controller guiding the chopper home, was reported to have said,
the son of a gun looks fantastic, but the coast
Guard commander hadn't been in on the joke, hence his
(08:38):
request to have his own helicopter and a whale boat
investigate the smoke. He had even called his admiral in
Juno about it. Sitka radio phone lines and police lines
were inundated with calls from citizens wondering if this was
really happening. The vice president of Alaska Airlines called the
city and asked that the plane currently departing the airport
fly over the volcano so passengers could get a good
(09:01):
look at Porky's prank. Not everyone, though, was happy about
the joke, but Porky sure was. He had fooled them all.
In fact, he had done such a good job of
it that, according to some stories, after Mount St. Helen's
erupted in, one of Porky's neighbors wrote to him and
told him, this time you've gone too far. I hope
(09:24):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with How
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(09:46):
you can learn all about it over at the World
of lore dot com and until next time, stay curious
ye
Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeart
Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Look inside your spice cabinet and you're likely to find
all kinds of herbs and seasonings to punch up that
pot pie or add some sparkle to your stew. Thanks
to centuries of international trade and exploration, spices once only
available in specific countries are now found throughout the world,
allowing people to discover flavors that they never could have
dreamed of before. But not everything in the kitchen has
(00:57):
been good for us. Some spices have been right dangerous,
including one you might have in your pantry right now.
We typically see and taste the ground up version of
this spice, which is part of the genus Myristica. The
tree it comes from, Myristica fragrance produces two spices from
its fruit. Mace is cultivated from the seed covering, but
(01:18):
the seed itself is sprinkled into everything from pumpkin pies
to the occasional meatloaf. I'm talking, of course, about nutmeg.
It's a spice noted for its strong fragrance and reddish
brown color. Asian countries such as China and India have
used nutmeg and their cooking for thousands of years. It
is believed that China was among the earliest nations to
grow nutmeg outside of the Indonesian islands of the Banda Sea.
(01:42):
In the early fifteen hundreds, as Europe was exploring the
rest of the world, nutmeg was one of the many
spices brought back for trade and consumption. Portuguese General Alfonso
Day Albuquerque traveled to Southeast Asia in fifteen eleven. His
targets the city of Malacca, which was a major Asian
trade center at the time. He took it over and
placed it under control of the King of Portugal before
(02:04):
learning of a series of islands just off the coast.
He sent several ships to investigate, and when they got there,
his men discovered a treasure trope of spices. They loaded
up their ships with mace, nutmeg, and clothes, all of
which were brought back to Portugal and spread throughout Europe.
One years later, the Dutch East India Company set their
sights on Banda and massacred the local population. Out of
(02:27):
fifteen thousand indigenous people living there, only a thousand survived.
The rest were murdered, starved, or captured and sold as slaves.
Few managed to get away, and all of this was
done so that the Dutch could build a monopoly on
the nutmeg trade. Unsurprisingly, the British also made their way
to Banda and for a short time took control. Nutmeg
trees were uprooted and moved so the spice could be
(02:50):
grown in colonial health countries. Since then, nutmeg has gone
from a spice mostly found in Asia to a commodity
sold in grocery stores all over the world. But was
a time when nutmeg wasn't just for putting on your
egg nog at Christmas. For example, it was used as
medicine by those living on the Arabian Peninsula. They would
mix it with things like juice from the quince fruits
(03:11):
to alleviate stomach problems or other minor ailments. Doctor has
also found that consumption of fresh ground nutmeg in high
enough doses could trigger psychoactive effects such as hallucinations. Around
nineteen sixty, nutmeg was being used in animal testing to
calculate how it behaved as a drug. Scientists noted a
variety of results, including trouble walking, slower reflexes, and pupil dilation.
(03:36):
Two adult humans died after experiencing severe drowsiness brought on
by nutmeg ingestion, and the cause of these effects is
a compound called myristas in and how the body breaks
it down. That process affects the central nervous system in
a similar way to LSD, causing dizziness, hallucinations and a
spike in the brains nor epinephri in response. Take enough
(03:58):
nutmeg and you could find yourself on one heck of
a trip lasting as much as two days. But ing
too much of the earthly spice and that trip can
turn bad quickly. In fifteen seventy six, a pregnant english
woman eight about twelve nutmegs to get herself drunk. Hers
became the first recorded case of nutmeg poisoning. Since then,
(04:18):
more cases have been reported, especially during the drug fueld
sixties and seventies. Sadly, those affected most by nutmeg poisoning
have been teens and younger adults. Looking for a cheap
and easy alternative to harder substances like marijuana. No substance, though,
is inherently good or evil. Cocaine used to be taken
in small doses and was considered medicinal. It was even
(04:40):
part of the original coca cola recipe, but eventually it's
devastating effects were too great to ignore, and it was
officially declared illegal in the United States in nineteen fourteen.
Will nutmeg follow the same path. It's doubtful, but anything's possible.
For now, It's probably best to use measuring spoons when
dealing with such a potent and flavorful spice, and maybe
(05:02):
don't drink so many eggnogs. It doesn't matter if a
volcano hasn't erupted in a hundred years or ever. For
(05:22):
that matter, its existence within spitting distance of a major
metropolitan area is caused for concern for the people who
live there. After all, it may never go off, but
there's always the chance right Take Sitka, Alaska, for example.
Sitka was originally colonized by Russian explorers in sevent They
had named the city fort of Archangel Michael, but that
(05:43):
settlement was destroyed a few years later. By the Tinglet
the indigenous people living there. After days of fighting, in
August of eighteen o four, the Russians forced the Tinglet
to surrender and new Archangel was formed on the same spot.
It became known as the capital of Russian America. In
the background of all that violent turmoil was Mount Edgecombe.
But Mount Edgecombe wasn't just a mountain. It was actually
(06:05):
a dormant, previously active volcano, rising three thousand, two hundred
feet out of the ground west of the city. It's
hard to miss on a bright sunny day, it's perfectly visible,
with its snow covered peak blending into a grayish brown
hue halfway down. And of course, because it was active
in the past, the residents of Sitka have always lived
with a kind of weariness about it going off again.
(06:27):
The last thing they'd ever want is to see plumes
of smoke shooting out of its center. So they must
have been terrified when they noticed exactly that happening in
the spring of nineteen seventy four. Looking out their windows,
they watched as waves of black smoke billowed out of
the old volcanoes central event. This was it. The day
had finally come. The massive volcano in the distance, looming
(06:48):
over Sitka ominously for thousands of years, was finally going
to pop and destroy everything in its path. The Coastguard
called in a helicopter to swoop over the site and
see what was going on. They also sent a whale
boat to investigate closer to shore. Minutes later, a transmission
from the chopper pilot came in over the radio. He
hadn't seen lava crawling down its sides, nor burbling magma
(07:11):
in the center of the pit. All he had seen
was a flaming pile of tires and a spray painted
sign that read April Fool. The whole ordeal had been
nothing but a joke. It's mastermind, Sitka shop owner Porky
Oliver Bicar, who had woken up early that April first
with a song in his heart and a plan in
his head. Porky had actually chartered three separate helicopters to
(07:34):
help him pull off his dastardly scheme, but when they
heard what had entailed, they all declined to participate. He
wound up recruiting the help of his friend and local
bar owner Harry Sulzer, who knew a guy with a
helicopter who loved Porky's idea and wanted to pitch in.
While he waited for his flying chariot to arrive, Porky
got to work making two rope slings capable of holding
(07:55):
about fifty car tires each. He also collected fuel for
the fire, like stern and diesel oil, as well as
oily rags and a bunch of smoke bombs. Once the
helicopter finally arrived, Porky and several of his buddies all
put their supplies on board and flew over the center
of the volcano. They dropped the tires in first, then
the chopper landed to let them out. They poured oil
(08:17):
and stern o all over those tires before spray painting
April Fool in fifty foot letters directly onto the snow.
Porky then lit the spark and watched as his creation
went up in a blaze of glory. The f a,
a controller guiding the chopper home, was reported to have said,
the son of a gun looks fantastic, but the coast
Guard commander hadn't been in on the joke, hence his
(08:38):
request to have his own helicopter and a whale boat
investigate the smoke. He had even called his admiral in
Juno about it. Sitka radio phone lines and police lines
were inundated with calls from citizens wondering if this was
really happening. The vice president of Alaska Airlines called the
city and asked that the plane currently departing the airport
fly over the volcano so passengers could get a good
(09:01):
look at Porky's prank. Not everyone, though, was happy about
the joke, but Porky sure was. He had fooled them all.
In fact, he had done such a good job of
it that, according to some stories, after Mount St. Helen's
erupted in, one of Porky's neighbors wrote to him and
told him, this time you've gone too far. I hope
(09:24):
you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with How
Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
(09:46):
you can learn all about it over at the World
of lore dot com and until next time, stay curious
ye
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.