Citrus at Sea

Two things we've taken for granted all our lives each come with curious stories at their core.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm 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):
A fruit is a delicate thing. Once it becomes ripe,
a ticking clock begins. How long will it last before
an animal devours it? Will it start to rot? Or
will it drop off and vanish into the dirt. This
is a calculation built into the genes of millions of plants.
The sweet exteriors of fruits protect their seeds and incentivize

(00:58):
animals to eat and spread the plant far and wide.
We sometimes forget that the foods we consider ubiquitous have
a very specific natural role, and it required a lot
of careful engineering to get them to where they are today.
Some even had to be invented from whole cloth. Take
the sweet orange.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Its first mention in writing comes from Chinese literature of
the third century BC. It's a hybrid fruit that seems
to have originated in East Asia before spreading to the
Middle East, Europe, and the rest of the globe. Along
the way, it spawned varieties like the blood orange and
the navel orange, and its popularity speaks for itself. However,

(01:37):
as with all fruits, preservation was a significant problem throughout
recorded history. Limes, a sister fruit of the citrus family,
became well known as a treat for sailors at sea,
but oranges proved to be somewhat more difficult to transport
between continents. Even after Christopher Columbus brought lime seeds to
the Caribbean and introduced citrus fruits production in North America,

(01:59):
lag behind California hadn't yet been turned into a powerhouse
of orange production, so the fruit was seen as an
exotic delicacy of sorts, and those who wanted to serve
oranges to their dinner guests had to endure some truly
unhinged efforts to transport the fruit. In January of eighteen
fifty nine, tabloids latched on eagerly to a story out

(02:21):
of Puerto Rico. A ship set sail from the islands
under full sail, bound for New England. The goal was
to deliver a load of three hundred thousand oranges to
the East coast in still edible condition, a race against
time and nature. It was in optimistic attempt. However, by
the time the ship arrived in Boston Harbor, its cargo

(02:42):
was in less than ideal condition. More than two hundred
thousand oranges, two thirds of the cargo had erotted during
the voyage. It might have smelled nice, but that fruit
was no longer edible. Fortunately for the residents of Massachusetts,
almost eight hundred thousand oranges is still quite the supply.
On Janus January twenty fifth of eighteen fifty nine, a

(03:02):
lavish dinner was held in Boston to celebrate the birthday
of poet Robert Burns. On the menu for the shindig,
we can still read about the lavish dishes they ate,
but among the dessert menu is a deceptively simple line
item oranges. It seems that this was the final destination
of those nearly rotten fruits from Puerto Rico, and perhaps

(03:22):
some of the most inedible ones were still used to
help flavor the orange Sherbert listed beside it on the menu.
It wouldn't be until much later that someone would propose
that ice could be used to preserve food products for
transport across the world, and enterprising individuals would bring orange
seeds to different parts of North America, attempting to introduce
the plant to the New World. And today we're not

(03:44):
lacking for options wherever we look. Humans have been eating
oranges for at least twenty three hundred years, but it
wasn't until the past few hundred that we finally made
it a global possibility. It's almost a little microcosm of
what technological advance really means for a species. Not conquest
or efficiency, but triumph over entropy, the natural cycle of

(04:07):
a plant, a fruit, an animal. These were once fixed
things that started the moment it entered the world, and
now we no longer have to race ships in order
to bulk order citrus fruits. An orange has gone from
being a treasure obtained at great risk to being simply
a product. But maybe if we change our mindset just
a little, it can be a treasure again. Louis was

(04:44):
late the young teens. Sped through the cobblestone streets, scattering
pigeons as he wove between the horse drawn carriages. Pedestrians
jumped out of the way, shouting for him to watch
where he was going. Louis ignored them, cutting through parks
and over bridges. On how the hotel loomed into view.
He slammed on his brakes and dismounted the bike at

(05:05):
a run. Jogging to the dorman, he shouted that he
was there to see the American. The dorman blinked in surprise,
then pointed him around the corner of the building. Minutes later,
Louie was flat on his back in the alley, bearing
down hard on a wrench. While he worked, he chatted
eagerly with the mustache businessman, who seemed surprised that his

(05:25):
repairman was little more than a child. Despite his young age,
Louis was one of the best workers at the town's
bicycle and carriage workshop. He inherited his mechanical mindset from
his father, a Swiss watchmaker whose floundering business had forced
his children to enter the workforce early. Louis didn't mind, though,

(05:46):
he liked fixing bikes almost as much as he liked
riding them. But the machine he was repairing now wasn't
like anything he had worked on before. It was a
steam powered tricycle, one of the world's earliest self powered vehicles,
and as Louis familiarized himself with the gears and the
inner workings. He was already falling in love. The problem

(06:07):
wasn't difficult to diagnose, and Louis had the strike working
again in no time. The American was impressed. After paying
and thanking Louis, he gave him some free advice before
speeding away. Come to America, He said, we have work
for you there. Days later Louie would learn that the
American was the millionaire and racing enthusiast William K. Vanderbilt.

(06:29):
He never forgot the interaction or the man's parting words,
although it would take years to see them come to fruition.
As soon as he was old enough, he moved to
Paris and got a job at an early automotive factory.
He spent his wages on passage to Canada, where he
found work as a chauffeur and a mechanic, and finally,
in nineteen oh one, Louis arrived in New York City

(06:51):
at the age of twenty three. It was a far
cry from the world of ready jobs and easy money
that he had imagined. Auto companies were shuddering almost as
fast as they were opening, and Louis struggled to make
ends meet, he hops from one car company to another,
slowly working his way up the runs while gaining experience
tinkering on early race cars. But Louie's love for engines

(07:13):
wasn't confined to the garage. When he wasn't building cars,
he was racing them. In nineteen oh five, he won
New York's three Miles race, setting a track record of
sixty eight miles per hour. The following year, he broke
the world record by reaching speeds of one hundred and
nineteen miles an hour in a race car that he
built himself. His skill, both in the garage and on

(07:34):
the track, caught the eye of another American millionaire, William C. Durant,
the founder of GM. In nineteen eleven, the pair partner
to create a new auto company named after Louis, since
Durant thought that his French sounding surname would appeal to customers.
At first, the team was wildly productive, quickly releasing four
cars designed by Louis, but disagreements about the direction of

(07:58):
the company soon got in the way. Durant wanted to
follow the Ford model of mass producing affordable cars. Louis
was determined to make the kind of automobiles that he
liked to drive, fast, powerful, and expensive. Eventually, the argument
escalated over a personal disagreement. Durant had long been irritated
by Louise's habit of smoking cheap cigarettes, but he always

(08:22):
chewed out of the corner of his mouth. One day,
after a heated business meeting, Durant suggested that Louis should
consider swapping the cigarettes for cigars so that he wouldn't
look so out of place next to the other automobile executives.
And for Louis, that was the last straw. He stormed
out in a fury, shouting I sold you my automobile,
I sold you my name, but I shall not sell

(08:43):
my personality to you. Their partnership ended there. Louis sold
his shares to Durant and walked away. Durant, however, decided
to keep the branding, a decision that ensured that Louis's
name would endure for over a century, stamped onto cars
sold across the world, even if you remembered the mechanic
and speed demon behind it, A man named Louis Chevrolet.

(09:11):
I hope 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 Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,

(09:33):
and you can learn all about it over at the
Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.