Spoonful of Sugar

Two curious geniuses, with stories that have to be heard to be believed.

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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.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Fairies occupy a strange

(00:38):
place in our culture. Few people can really say where
they come from or why we like them. We just
all accept the idea of cute little people with wings.
They're very popular in paintings and garden sculptures. One painter
in particular, made a career out of depicting fairies, although
his work gives us little insights into the human fascination
with them. In fact, his career only deepens the mystery

(01:00):
surrounding fairies, as he was inspired to paint them while
he was locked up in an asylum. Born in Chatham,
England in eighteen seventeen, Richard Dad was always seen as
a little bit frail and sensitive, but his parents thought
that was just the price he paid for being an
artistic prodigy. He started painting at the age of thirteen
and enroyaled in the Royal Academy of Arts at the

(01:22):
age of twenty. Many of his contemporaries were content to
paint the mundane, rolling green hills of England, but Richard
yearned to experience more of the world. He wanted greater
inspiration for his work. He eventually became acquainted with Sir
Thomas Phillips, a local politician famous for being wounded while
putting down an uprising of the working class. Now that

(01:42):
might not sound like such a good thing to us today,
but to a member of the upper class like Richard,
that was quite impressive. And Richard learned that Sir Thomas
was about to embark on a year's long tour of
the Mediterranean and beyond. Thomas wanted a painter to accompany
him and depict his travels, so Richard quickly volunteered himself
and it was an epic adventure, taking them all over

(02:05):
the Middle East and northern Africa. Richard became obsessed with
painting scenes from their travels, whether that was a caravan
of camels, Sir Thomas smoking a hookah, or a busy bazaar.
By the time they reached Egypt, Richard would sit out
for hours in the boiling sun, chronicling every detail with
his brushstrokes. But this obsession soon became concerning for Sir Thomas.

(02:28):
He noticed that Richard was getting severely sun burnt from
his long painting sessions, and he was risking heatstroke. When
Sir Thomas tried to pull him away for his own
good Richard would lash out, violently, threatening to kill his patron.
This was so alarming that Sir Thomas had to send
a letter all the way back to England letting Richard's
father know that he had lost his mind. His father

(02:50):
requested that Richard be sent home, and somehow Sir Thomas
managed to get Richard onto a boat back to England,
and Richard, of course was furious. He believed that he
had a special connection with Egypt and that his father
was an evil man for taking him away from it.
It was, to say the least, not a rational belief.
As Richard fumed over what was happening to him, the

(03:11):
idea entered his head that he was actually a servant
of the Egyptian god Osiris, and he belonged in Egypt
where he could paint for his supernatural master. By the
time he was home in England, Richard was plotting his return.
His father brought him to the countryside, hoping that it
would be good for his mental health. But Richard couldn't
overcome this strange mental illness that had so changed him.

(03:34):
One day, while painting in the park with his father,
he lashed out, stabbing his father to death. He quickly
boarded a boat to France, trying to make his way
back to Egypt at all costs, but he was so
out of his mind that he was easily found and
arrested by the English authorities.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
The courts took some pity on him, seeing that he
was obviously unwell, so they sentenced him to be confined
to a mental institution for the rest of his life.
And while the could obviously be terrible places in Victorian England,
Richard's status as a member of the upper class seemed
to win him superior treatment. He was given his own
artist's studio inside the asylum and began to produce incredibly

(04:13):
detailed paintings, many of them featuring fairies. Now, truth be told,
it was hard to get Richard to explain exactly why
he liked fairies so much, but his word different than
the usual depictions people had seen. They were pretty naked
creatures dancing in nature, but he used odd, dark colors
and often framed them with disturbing touches, like the wings

(04:34):
of a bat or the web of a spider. Today,
some of Richard's fairy paintings are seen as masterpieces. When
visitors to museums in England see his work on the wall,
they can scarcely imagine how a curious life led him
to produce such beautiful work. Learning to cook something new

(05:05):
is a daunting task when the difference between a tea
spoon and a tablespoon can mean a delicious meal or
an inedible mess. Juvenile cooks owe everything to recipes, but
for a long time, standard English recipes didn't include exact measurements.
Many cookbooks assumed that you already knew what you were
doing in the kitchen, and had instructions like add some

(05:26):
flour or cook until done. Now. If you were an
old hand, perhaps this was fine, but if this was
your first time in the kitchen, it was a recipe
for disaster. All of that changed, though, in eighteen forty five,
when a former poet and schoolmistress tried her hand at
writing cookbooks. Born in Sussex in seventeen ninety nine. Eliza
Acton didn't get her start in the culinary world, but

(05:48):
she grew up adjacent to it. Her father ran a brewery,
and it's likely that young Eliza saw the beer making
first hand, combining exact amounts of water, hops and malt
to get the right flavor. She didn't know it then,
but it seems this early experience with precision and preparation
set her on her path. As Eliza grew older, she

(06:08):
tried her hand at a few different industries. She opened boarding
schools for girls in eighteen seventeen and eighteen nineteen, lived
in France for a while, and published a poorly received
book of poetry. When she attempted to publish a second volume,
her publisher gave her another suggestion, why not try writing
a cookbook instead. It was, needless to say, an unusual

(06:30):
career pivot, but Eliza embraced the challenge. She spent the
next few years carefully testing recipes, refining techniques, and most importantly,
writing a book that would make cooking accessible. The result
was called Modern Cookery for Private Families, published in eighteen
forty five, and the book was an instant success. Geared

(06:51):
toward the middle class. It highlighted classic English recipes and
popular adaptations of Indian dishes that also introduced some new
exotic meals. They marked the first recipe for cooking Brussels sprouts,
the first time a plum pudding had been called a
Christmas pudding in print, and the first English recipe for spaghetti.
As the pasta was unfamiliar to her, Eliza wrote it

(07:12):
as sparghetti. Her most popular contribution, though, wasn't one dish,
but the way she wrote the recipes. Each page featured
a play by play of how to cook the dish,
followed by the total cooking time and a list of
exact ingredients. Instead of being instructed to simply add salt,
readers knew that they should include one teaspoon, Rather than

(07:33):
being told to cook until golden. Readers knew that they
should cook their dish for twenty five minutes. And I
get it. That might not sound dramatic to you, but
at the time it was groundbreaking, and it set the
format for nearly every recipe and cookbook ever since. Eliza
continued to publish cookbooks, thirteen revised editions of modern cookery

(07:54):
between eighteen forty five and eighteen fifty three. She also
wrote a scholarly study on the history of English breadmaking
in eighteen fifty seven, but despite the book's success, Eliza
never received long lasting fame. Other cookbook writers took her clear,
direct style of recipes without giving her credit. Many even
published entire recipes stolen write from her books and published

(08:17):
them under their own names. And around the same time
that Eliza was teaching the middle class how to bake,
broil and brine, another name was rising in the cooking world.
Isabella Beaton first published Missus Beaton's Book of Household Management
in eighteen sixty one, and it was an instant success.
She became the Martha Stewart of her age. Her recipes

(08:38):
and hosting tips became synonymous with Victorian English culture. Her
book went through several editions even after Isabella died in
eighteen sixty five, and in fact is still in print today.
But Missus Beeton was one of the many who took
her recipes word for word from Eliza Acton's book. Eliza
was ill for much of her adult life and passed

(08:58):
away in eighteen fifty nine at the age of sixty.
After her death, her work sank into relative obscurity, but
some chefs and cookbook scholars still consider her one of
the most influential cookery writers in the English language. Today,
every professionally published cookbook follows the standard that Eliza set
nearly two centuries ago, with precise measurements, ingredient lists, and

(09:21):
detailed instructions. Eliza Acton's legacy lives on in every carefully
measured teaspoon and every meticulously written recipe. So the next
time you follow a recipe with confidence knowing exactly how
much flour or sugar to use, take a moment to
appreciate the woman who made it all possible. Without Eliza Acton,

(09:41):
cooking at home might still be a recipe for disaster.
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 Manke in partnership

(10:04):
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,