Saucy

You don't need to go very far to find a curious story. Sometimes you don't even need to leave the dinning room.

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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):
Nothing tells the story of human life and culture quite
like food. What we eat is central to ritual, politics,
and society in general, no matter how ordinary it may
seem in the moment, which means that throughout the scope
of history, food itself has become the source of intense controversy.
The Christian season of Lent, for instance, is supposed to

(00:57):
be a time of fasting and self denial. Today you
might see someone give up drinking or eating sugar for
forty days, but the older tradition is to give up meat.
In medieval Christian communities, only fish could be served at
meals during Lent, that is, until March ninth of fifteen
twenty two. On that night, in the Swiss city of Zurich,
a printer named Christoph Froschauer gathered his employees and some

(01:20):
local officials into his parlor for a lent and feast. However,
instead of the customary fish, they served sausages. One of
the men in attendance was Pastor Haldrich Zwingli, who blessed
the meal. Now, at that time it was forbidden by
the church to eat meat during Lent, so word about
the anti Christian meal spread. Fast Froscher and most of

(01:41):
the others who had attended were jailed for breaking canon law. Swingley,
the priest wasn't arrested and might have gotten away free
and clear, but he didn't intend to keep his head
down for long. Even though he hadn't eaten any of
the sausage himself at the meal, he felt the principle
of a gathering needed to be discussed. Following Sunday, he
delivered a sermon called regarding the Choice and Freedom of Foods.

(02:05):
His message went on to outline his perspective on fasting
and its place in church doctrine, and how the specifics
of it should not be prescribed law. And then Christoph Froscher,
the printer whose meal sparked the controversy in the first place,
helped print and distribute this sermon upon his release from jail.
As a result, Zwingle's sermon reached the local bishop, who

(02:27):
was outraged, but there was only so little he could
do to stem the tide of support. Zwingley was a
popular local figure. Three years earlier, he had contracted the
plague during an outbreak in Zurich, and rather than flee
the city, he stayed to take care of the sick
and somehow miraculously recovered from his illness, which doesn't sound
like the sort of guy that you can intimidate into silence.

(02:49):
The Protestant Reformation, which had begun in fifteen seventeen, fully
kicked off in Zurich thanks to Zwingley and his heretical meal.
Zwingley petitioned the local bishop to fully do away with
the record vironment to fast during Lent, and Zurich's city
council debated the matter extensively. In the end, the Swiss
States were divided, some choosing to remain Catholic, others turning

(03:11):
away from the strict rules of Catholicism. The movement was historic,
but it didn't end well for everyone. In October of
fifteen thirty one, the Catholic States declared war on the
city of Zurich. Zwingli took to the field in defense
of his city and his faith as a soldier. On
the eleventh of October, thirty five hundred volunteers went to

(03:32):
battle against a force more than twice their size. After
an hour of fighting, five hundred had been killed, including
Poldrix Swingley. But if we know anything about religious movements,
it's that they certainly love a martyr, even when that
martyr's story needs a bit of editing to get started.
You see, historians now believe that something less organic took

(03:53):
place at that heretical dinner, now known as the Affair
of the Sausages. It seems that Zwingli may have actually
staged the whole thing as a demonstration to push his
radical ideas forward, which means it was a move that
was just as political as it was spiritual. In principle,
he just needed the proper controversy to make his opinions known,

(04:14):
and by blessing a sausage, he changed his country forever.
In eighteen thirty five, a nobleman visited a pharmacy in

(04:35):
an English cathedral city on the River Severn. The shop
was owned by two local chemists, John Lee and William Parns,
who were known for manufacturing their own medicines, but in
this case the nobleman hoped that they could help him
mix up something a little tastier. The nobleman had just
come home from India, which was a British colony at

(04:55):
the time. He'd been serving as a governor there for
many years, and he'd grown to love a certain sauce
that was served with Indian cuisine. But as hard as
he tried, he couldn't find a similar one anywhere in England.
So he described the sauce to the chemists as best
he could. He didn't know the exact recipe, but it
was strongly spiced, it had hints of onion and fish,

(05:15):
and the chemists copied down his instructions and told him
that they weren't really sure if they could get their
hands on all the ingredients, but if they could, they
would try their best to replicate the recipe. It took
some work, but Lee and Parens acquired all the ingredients
they needed and they mixed it all up in a barrel,
making the sauce in the back room of their shop.
They were hoping that if it turned out well, they

(05:37):
could bottle up the extra and sell it in the pharmacy,
But when they tried the taste of this finished product,
it was completely inedible. In fact, it smelt so awful
the chemists didn't even know if they could dump it
out without getting complaints from the whole neighborhood, so they
just put the barrel in the cellar and then tried
to forget the whole disaster had ever happened, which, amazingly

(05:59):
is what they did. That barrel collected dust for the
next two years, out of sight and out of mind.
But in eighteen thirty seven, Lee and parents needed to
free up some storage space, and so they decided it
was time for some long overdue cleaning, and while they
were going through their cellar, they found the abandoned barrel
of sauce. It had been so long that they'd forgotten

(06:20):
what it actually tasted like, so they decided to pry
open the barrel for one last sample before throwing it out,
and to their surprise, after being left to ferment for
two whole years, the sauce's flavors had mellowed out and
come together. The chemists agreed that it actually tasted pretty good,
so they packaged it up in spare medicine bottles and

(06:41):
began selling it to their customers. They sent out free
samples to drum up demand, and even paid some British
passenger ships to put the sauce in their dining rooms
so that curious travelers might try it, and sure enough,
everyone who tasted it was instantly hooked. It was such
a hit that Lee and parents soon outgrew their little
shop and had to open a new warehouse in London.

(07:03):
Before long, their new sauce became a staple of British
dining that inspired dozens of imitators. Although their own original
recipe remained a closely guarded secret that once forgotten, Beryl
is no longer out of mind. Today Lee and Paren's
creation is so popular that you can buy it in
practically any grocery store in the English speaking world, and

(07:24):
it still carries a name inspired by the city and
county where it was first created, a little condiment called
Worcestershire Sauce. 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

(07:46):
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 and you can learn all about it
over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

(08:09):
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