July 31, 2026 • 37 mins
Once upon a time, lobster was considered trash meat, monograms were seen as tacky, squash was played in rundown back alleys, and the only people doing Pilates were prisoners. So how did these things turn into expensive status symbols, beloved by the world's elites? Plus: How business casual made its way into boardrooms.
This episode originally aired on October 25, 2018.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Guess what, well, what's that mango? So I know you
know this, but my family loves the writer P. G. Woodhouse,
Like his books are light and sweet and funny, and
wherever you go in India, you'll find them on my
family's bookshelves. And when I was in middle school and
high school, there was this great TV adaptation of Worcester
and Jeeves, and it had a young Hughlori in it,
(00:25):
young Stephen Frye, and Hughlori played this rich simpleton. His
name was Bertie Wooster. He was always getting into silly
trouble and Stephen Frye played his genius butler who was
always saving him. And his name was Jeeves. And he
was actually a valet. Isn't it pronounced valet mango? Not
if you're British ap friendly there, it's valet, But oh okay,
(00:47):
it's a gentleman's gentleman. The reason I'm bringing it up
is that Jeeves in these stories is the proper one,
and he's always shuddering at these new fangled ideas that
Bertie Wooster has. And in this one episode, Bertie he
gets his pajamas monogrammed, and Jeeves just can't stand this
like he thinks it's super low class and toddrey to
put your initials on things, and he keeps wondering if
(01:09):
it's because like Bertie'll forget who he is or whether
he owns pajamas. So he kind of scoffs at it
disapprovingly through the show, which.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Is pretty funny because today, you know, if you've got
a monogram on a shirt or especially a towel, mango,
I mean that is seen as like real definitely.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So the thing is, there are all these like strange
customs and sports and traditions that we sort of revered
today as elite and we see them as high class,
but actually they started out with much more humble origins.
And today on the show, we're going to take all
that stuff down a peg. And that's what we're talking about.
So let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass, I just I can't stop looking over
at him because he is looking so dapper. He's in
a top hat and tails. That is our friended producer
(02:24):
Tristan McNeil. I don't think i've ever seen him looking
so fancy. Have you mean this dressed up? No, it's amazing,
oh man. And as you know, Tristan did say he'd
be dressing up as a a quote, wealthy elite. That's
what he's been saying all week for today's show, So
I imagine that's what's going on here. But I have
to say, I don't know about you. I feel like
he looks a little more like a stage magician maybe,
(02:45):
but whatever, I mean, he looks good.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I know, if he had a pack of cards, you
could go in one direction. If you had like a
monocle and Kane, he'd looked like mister Peanut, which feels
like a little less elite to me.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
But I do admire Tristan's style.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
To be fair, people have drastically different ideas about what
is elite. So you could ask a dozen people on
the street and get twelve completely different answers. And you know,
while things like wealth and privileged crop up, and most
people's definitions, the specifics on how that wealth and privilege
are displayed, you know, varied a lot over the years,
(03:19):
and things that were once considered elite or high class
are now seen as tacky, and things that started out
with this more mass appeal of since only been set
aside for the rich. And I think it's that second
kind of shift that will probably focus on today, you know,
that lower class things that have sort of graduated to
the upper crust. So I feel like this is maybe
(03:40):
our Beverly Hillbillies episode, you could say. So, you know,
we're gonna check out some of the food, the sports,
the cultural norms that started out humbly and later became
these symbols of wealth and status. So let's dive right in.
You know, mego, what do you think is your first
rags to riches story for the day?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So I thought I kicked things off with the farmhouse
origins of one of the world's fanciest sounding beers, and that,
of course is the Belgian Seyson.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh man, that does sound fancy, although maybe that was
just your impeccable French.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Accent there, Mega. I know, we pronounced valet valets. We've
got sexon it's pretty amazing. But you could say that
Seyson's kind of taste kind of fancy too, like they're
typically on the dry side in terms of beer. In fact,
I was at a wedding some years ago where we
drank seeson for the wedding toast instead of champagne. But
historically seison's were most popular among the working class, and
(04:33):
that was true right up until the nineteen fifties when
they sort of fell out of favor altogether. And if
you cut to today, you know, there's kind of a
seison revolution that's been going on. About a dozen or
so craft breweries started it and they started making it again.
And of course the flip side is that the beer
is now viewed as kind of niche and not as
approachable as it should be to the average drinker.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, and I feel like it doesn't help that seisons
aren't served usually in these regular pint classes. I mean
it feels like they come in these wide stem glasses, right,
like a brandy glass or something like that.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, that can definitely be true. The presentation changes and
sometimes people like to swirl them. But despite the fancy
modern reputation, seesons actually have these really humble roots. So
they first came on the scene during the eighteenth century
when they were brewed by farmers and Wallonia, which is
I guess this French speaking region of southern Belgium. But
rather than being brewed for its taste or its intoxicating effects,
(05:27):
seeson began as a product of necessity more than anything else.
And that's really because the water in more rural regions
wasn't potable at the time. It contained way too many
of these pathogens that made it unfit for drinking. So
in order to keep their workers hydrated through those busy
summer seasons, farmers started brewing seasons.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
All right, But hadn't people have been doing that a
long time? Like that's kind of the origin of beer
in general, isn't. I mean, you could go all the
way back to ancient Egypt. I think it was fuel
for you know, the labors there when water was either
scarce or contaminated. So I feel like that's something that's
been around for a long time.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
That's definitely true.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And Willonian farmers definitely weren't the first to have this
beer dependent workforce. The trouble for them was how to
keep enough beer on hand to last through the hot summers.
And you've got to remember this was all prior to refrigeration,
so getting beer for men and not spoil was pretty tricky.
During the months when heat and all this airborne bacteria
was at its peak. So sesans were kind of the
(06:25):
solution to this problem. Like they were brewed during the
cooler autumn and winter months and then stored until summer
rolled around. And it's actually from this strong association with
a certain time of year that the beer gets its name,
since seisan is actually French for season.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, I mean that makes sense, but I'm curious though,
was this beer any different from other kinds being made
at the time, or was it just the time of
year that made it stand out.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, Sasans were actually set apart in a few ways.
Like one thing is that they were much happier than
the other beers, and that's because the hops act as
a natural preservative, and they all also possessed these anti
septic properties, which again was super helpful in fighting off
those pathogens. The other standout trait is that Seeson's were
really adaptable. Like farmers typically used whatever they had on
(07:12):
hand at the end of a harvest to make the
next year season, so the base ingredients and the spices
varied from farm to farm and even barrel to barrel.
Like these differences made the beer hard to categorize, but
it also made it a bit more personal.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
And since the average farm worker drank as much.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
As I think, it's like five leaders of Seyson every
single workday. Yeah, I'm guessing they didn't mind a little
variety in that flavor.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Five leaders a day, I mean imagining, this couldn't have
been that alcoholic, right, unless I'm actually picturing all these
farmers just passed out in their fields by noon. But
that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. I read that most seisons were originally around three
percent or so, which would be enough to give them
a buzz, but you know, not so strong as to
incapacitate them. And of course the alcohol content went up
a little over time as other people began, you know,
thanking them too. It wasn't just the workers. In fact,
many small farms from the era were eventually turned into
family breweries, and the different seasons became kind of especially
(08:08):
drink for their respective towns.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
All right, So if they were this popular, why did
they disappear for a while? I think you said they
kind of vanished? What was it in the in the
fifties or so. Yeah, this was really due to industrialization.
So by the fifties, refrigeration and like access to drinkable water.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
That all eliminated this need.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
For these summer specific ales, so demand dried up pretty quickly,
and what was kind of the de facto beer of
the working class became this artisanal product instead. And you know,
even in today's saisons, you can still find traces of
the beer's farmhouse roots because you know, aside from the
notes of fruit and spice, you'll also taste this kind
of like earthy funkiness in the bruise, and that really
(08:50):
harkens back to those like grab bag ingredients that those
Willonian farmers were using. You know, it's kind of funny,
like the description that's used for that barnyard flavor is
actually horse blanket. Like horse blanket is s wasly what
makes season so appealing. You have to admit that horse
blanket isn't generally a flavor. I think I would see
(09:11):
horse blanket pringles horsel. All right, Well, since we're on
the subject of elite dining, you know, I do want
to talk about lobster for a minute, because this is
one of those that I just found super interesting and
didn't know a whole lot about before we were researching
for the episode.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But believe it or not. There was actually a time
when lobster meat was the lowest priced item on a
New England menu, and it was about half the costs
of chicken that was pound for pound at least, and
five times cheaper than Boston baked beans.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Of all things, cheaper than beans means something, yes it does.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So I actually read that lobsters used to be so
abundant on the East Coast, and this is back in
the sixteen hundreds that it wasn't uncommon to find like
two foot high piles of them just washed up on
the beach.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I mean, that is incredible to think about.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, And you know, and people who stumbled on those
lobster piles probably left them right where they were, because
back then most people wanted nothing to do with lobsters.
They were considered disgusting, and you know, partially because they
look like insects, and partially because of their reputation as
being these bottom feeders. And honestly, none of that is
too far off. I mean, lobsters really are distant relatives
(10:22):
of cockroaches and spiders, and in fact, their name actually
comes from the Old English word lop, which which actually
means spider.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
So I do like lobsters because they're so funny. I'm
sure you remember how my roommate in college, Adam, and
I wanted to get a pet lobster because of course
it would be fun to walk around on a leash.
And we even had a name, Hector the Lobster. But
of course that's where our efforts stopped because we didn't
really do things.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We just talked about things.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It didn't stop you guys from talking about it a lot, though.
I remember that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So I do feel like we give lobsters this giant
pass because they live in the ocean, right, Like if
you came across lobster in the forest and it's not
climbing out of a hole in the tree, you think
it was like some kind of giant monster bug and
dipping it in butter would be like the furthest thing
for your mind. But you know, that's even before you
get into how weird lobster anatomy is. Like their brains
(11:16):
are in their throats, their teeth are in their stomachs.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
There the whole thing is a mess.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I can't argue with you on that, but you know,
as unpopular as lobsters were in the seventeenth century, some
people did eat them anyway. I mean you look at
Native Americans, for instance, they ate lobsters by wrapping them
in seaweed and then baking them over hot rocks. But
to be fair, lobster wasn't their first choice. I mean,
they also used the meat to fertilize their crops and
(11:43):
bait their fishing hooks, and they were doing that in
hopes of catching something less disgusting than lobster.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Well, you know, some colonists must have eaten them too, right, Like,
I know, food was scarce in those early days, so
I can't imagine everyone had the luxury of being picky.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, lobster was plentiful, andalid source of protein, so people
did eat it, just not happily and always with a
certain degree of embarrassment I guess when they were eating it.
But you know, times were tough and only the wealthiest
residents could afford chicken or pork, and that's how lobster
became a poor person food. And so you know, lobsters
were a common meal for people like prisoners or apprentices
(12:21):
or enslaved people and even cats mango. I mean that's
what it was like. And this didn't go over well
of course, except with the cats who weren't as worried
about what other people thought. And you know, some indentured
servants actually had a clause in their contracts saying that
they could be fed lobster no more than three times
a week. I mean, that's how undesirable it was.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I mean it's insane because you think of like how
people crave lobster today.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Right, Yeah, and lobster is one of the top requested
last meals for prisoners on death row. Now, so clearly
these perceptions have changed significantly over the years.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So I am.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Curious what bark that change in thinking, because like, going
from a trash meet to this like posh delicacy is
a pretty big leap, even for something with ten legs,
which you know, I only just realized they have ten legs.
What they had ten legs? Yeah, so I've never been
counting the clause. I guess they have two pictures and
then those like eight legs beneath, and yeah, apparently this
(13:20):
is pretty common. Like I saw this piece in Slate
that almost every image of a lobster in a cartoon
or a drawing, and this is even on road signs
for like lobster places right, they all have eight legs
instead of ten, and it's anatomically incorrect everywhere you look.
So you know, I got us off track, but I
did want to make a point of that.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
But that was very important to talk about, you know,
just to understand.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Well, now you're going to see it everywhere. But how
did lobsters get so fancy?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Tell me about that?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
All right, Well, it actually all comes down to railroads,
believe it or not. So go back to the eighteen seventies,
and trains gave rise to the seasonal tourism in America
with wealthy residents of places like New York or DC.
They would head off to you know, to Boston or
to a Maine to get away from that summer heat.
And it was this travel boom that led to a
(14:12):
realization for railroad managers, namely, you know that many passengers
were clueless about how hated lobsters were by the people
on the coast, and so this allowed the trains to
serve up lobster as though it was this kind of
like an exotic delicacy, even though it actually cost the
railroad much less than other meats would have. And this
ruste seemed to work and passengers soon were heading home
(14:35):
from vacation raving to their neighbors about this delicious boiled
lobster that they'd had while they were out on their
fancy travels. And so word of mouth grew from there,
and lobster canning became a thing, and it actually launched
a whole industry around this.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You know what's interesting about that, though, is it makes
it seem like the popular opinion was really the only
thing holding lobsters back, right, Like it's almost like, now
that there were people who were actually liking eating lobster,
it suddenly made the food tastier.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, I mean, that's true. But there actually was more
to it than that, because once there was really a
market for lobster, it gave the chefs an opportunity to
start experimenting with different preparations. And so you fast forward
a bit, and by the eighteen eighties they'd stumbled across
a real game changer. So they discovered that lobster looked
(15:25):
more appetizing and tasted a whole lot better if it
was actually cooked alive rather than being killed and then cooked.
And that's kind of when it went gourmet. So by
the nineteen twenties, the demand outweighed supply for the first
time in history, and the going rate for lobster rose
to about what it is today now. That said, lobster
(15:47):
was still viewed as food for the poor, and Maine
and other parts of New England where you know, kids
were embarrassed to go to school with lobster meat sandwiches.
And that really only changed during World War Two because
lobster wasn't subject to rationing like other forms of protein,
and so that meant that people from all regions and
social classes began to find out just how tasty these
(16:08):
you know, these sea bugs could be.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
So did that egalitarian streak last for long?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
No, I mean, by the time the war was over
and the nineteen fifties rolls around, lobster had fully become
an American delicacy, and this was obviously seen as a
meal fit for movie stars and the one percent rather
than the prisoners and the poor people that it had
been seen as before.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So we've definitely been talking about this from a New
World perspective.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
But I am.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Curious what Europeans thought, like, did they hate lobster as
much as the North Americans?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Did?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You know, I was looking into that because I actually
had no idea, and it seems like there's always been
a market for European blue lobster. It's it's a lot
more rare and expensive than the kind that we eat here,
because you know, Europeans never had the same reservations about
eating them. In fact, it was kind of the opposite.
I mean, lobster was believed to have these medicinal qualities
during the Middle Ages, even the Renaissance, and it was
(17:04):
served pretty often at these upper class feasts. And in fact,
your story about wanting to walk a lobster on a
leash actually has a bit of a legacy. Maybe you
and Adam have been doing your reading on this, but
I was reading about this French poet named Gerard day Nerval,
and he supposedly had a pet lobster and he would
sometimes put a leash on it and take it for
(17:25):
walks at the Royal Palace in Paris, and you know,
when he got weird looks, he'd respond by saying, quote,
how is a lobster more ridiculous than a dog, a cat,
a gazelle, a lion, or any other animal. I have
an affinity for lobsters they're easygoing and serious, they know
the secrets of the sea, and they don't bark. So
other than the very last part of that, I don't
(17:48):
understand any of that. But I love the quote.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, I do feel like I'm in good company, and
I like how he's marketing them not just as an
elite food but also as an elite petely.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But now that we've covered fancy food and drink, what
do you say we shift a little bit and talk
about maybe a couple of athletic pastimes that had more
modest beginnings.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Absolutely, first, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
sports that made the switch from lowbrow to high class. So,
all right, Mago, you're up first. What comes to mind
when you think about posh sports?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, we mentioned this in our Winter Olympics episode, but
most of the cold weather sports are still pretty elite,
and that's largely because of the travel costs, the expensive
equipment that goes along with sports like skiing or ice skating.
But you know one sport that seems needlessly elite to
me is squash, and it's a little like racketball. It's
a racket sport, but it's played with this hardball that
(18:59):
you have to warm up.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Have you ever seen this?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I've seen it. I've actually never played, so the first.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Time I went onto the squash court, I watched this
guy just like squishing the ball under his foot and
just rolling it vigorously to warm the ball up, because
the ball actually doesn't bounce until it's warm.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
It's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's weird. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, and they played a lot in India, so I've
seen it there.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
But you know, there's nothing that sophisticated about the sport
except where the courts are located, Like mostly they're in
well to do neighborhoods or in these sort of elite
country clubs, which is just where you're hanging out all
the time.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So it makes sense that you would have played at
some point. But you know, in our Titanic episode, we
mentioned that the ship actually had its own regulation squash
court for those first class passengers, and I feel like
that's a pretty good testament to the game's reputation as
being this elite sport. But since you bring it up today,
I'm guessing squash didn't start out quite so fancy.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Definitely not, so I do want to clarify. In Brooklyn,
in worm Hill, there's a New York Sports club. You
can rent a squash court for five dollars, so you
can get.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
On the squash court from very cheap.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I like, how worried you are that people are going
to think you're just hanging out a country clubs.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I can't get into country cluss. So squash was actually
derived from this game called rackets, which you know, had
been invented by prisoners in the early nineteenth century, and
the inmates at this Dinner's prison in London started getting
their exercise by hitting a ball against the prison walls
with tennis rackets, and.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
From there the game sort of spread.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Beyond the prison, with many of England's lower class citizens
playing it in the alleyways behind pubs, and then the
game spread to schools where the first four wall courts
were specifically built just for the game. And it was
at one of these schools where students invented a spinoff
rackets game called squash, and I guess rackets was played
with this hard, hollow rubber ball that tends to be
(20:53):
pretty predictable, you know, when bounced off a wall while
the squash ball is so much softer and it really.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Makes for a greater variety of shots.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So what made the student switch to the softer ball,
Like where the schools seeing it as a safety thing
with the harder balls or what?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
You know? That's what I was wondering at first, But
it turns out the switch happened more organically. So this
was in around the eighteen thirties. Students at Harrow School
in London realized that rackets was much much more challenging
when you played with a punctured ball, because it just
became harder to predict where the ball would bounce, and
you had to pay closer attention, you had to run
(21:32):
around the court more and you weren't just waiting for
it to bounce back to you. And the squeezable ball
became sort of the defining feature of their game. And
that's supposedly where the sport got its name from the
way the ball kind of squashes on impact with the wall.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
That makes sense. That's pretty cool, and I'm guessing that
the new game kind of took off. I mean, you
don't hear too much about rackets these days, but squash
does still seem pretty popular.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, I mean it was so popular that it clipsed
its parents sport the early twentieth century. And while squash
now has this reputation of being sort of an uppercross sport,
it is worth noting that more than twenty five million
people play a squash in one hundred and eighty five
different countries, and that includes a good deal of underprivileged
kids too. Like there's this one program out in Harlem
(22:18):
called Street Squash, and they promote the sport as kind
of a youth enrichment program in low income communities. This
is in New York, New Jersey and around that area.
But the kids not only like developed hand eye coordination
and teamwork, but they get a pretty good workout.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Part of the reason I picked up squash is that,
you know, just forty five minutes of playing is really
really intense. Actually, have the stats here what one hour
of squash can burn between six hundred and one thousand calories,
and that puts it well above the calory count for
most other sports.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Oh that's really interesting. All right, Well, I want to
talk about another exercise, and it was an elite exercise
that developed in a British internment camp. Believe it or not. Now,
this was back during World War One, was when the
British government began to worry about German born residents and
that they might defect and become German soldiers if they
were deported from England. So instead, all these German Men
(23:11):
between the ages of seventeen and forty two were just
rounded up and sent to these camps throughout the country. Now,
one of these camps there was a German boxer and
just kind of all around great athlete, and his name
was Joseph Pilates, and he had been pulled away from
his life working for a British circus. Now you can
probably guess that during his time in the camp, the
(23:32):
fitness system that he created, it actually helped improve the
lives of countless fellow inmates.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So I'm curious, like Pilates was created at an internment camp,
because like, you know that that's way more intense than
I ever would have expected. You know, obviously today we
see Pilates as kind of like this yuppie activity in
a way for movie stars to flatten their stomachs. But
how did Pilates convince these people at the camp to
start doing stretches and controlled breathing exercises.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
You know, believe it or not, it didn't take that
much convincing. I mean, the camp they were at was
severely overcrowded, and so much so that it eventually required
its own railroad just to handle the influx of detainees.
And as you can imagine, these conditions and the general
indignity of their situation, it drove a lot of inmates
to depression. So many of them honestly kind of lost
(24:22):
the will to live and quickly found themselves bedridden or
even hospitalized in many cases. But the sight of this
suffering really struck a chord in Pilates. And as a child,
he'd been incredibly sickly. He'd racked with everything from asthma
and rickets to rheumatic fever, and this made him a
natural target for bullies who made his life really unpleasant
(24:44):
as an adolescent. And the way Pilates recovered was devoting
his life to fitness. So he took up gymnastics and bodybuilding,
martial arts, you name it. The guy did it all,
and his rehabilitation went so well that by the age
of fourteen, he was so b and so fit that
he was asked to pose for anatomical charts and anyway,
(25:05):
it's you know, pretty amazing. But when Pilate saw the
other men in the camp and such dire straits, he
decided to try and help them through the same means
that he had helped himself.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
So had he already developed all these exercises or were
they something he came up with specifically in the camp.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, I think that emphasis on breathing and core strengthening
was already in place, but he also came up with
new techniques, Like he'd noticed the way certain animals performed
these fluid stretching movements while they're lying down, and it
made him wonder like if the same moves could be
applied to those who were stuck in bed. So to
that in, Pilates gathered some straps, bunk bed springs, and
(25:43):
you know a few other odds and ends and started
to build this really kind of a crude home fitness
machine that could provide prisoners a workout while they were
lying down.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean, that is incredible, and obviously it feels like
it must have worked because we're still talking about today.
But how did this actually impact the inmates there?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, the morale and the camp improved, and supposedly the
prisoner's overall helped improved. And in nineteen eighteen, a nasty
case of influenza swept through England, as many of us
know from our history classes. And while of course tons
of people died from the pandemic, not a single one
of Pilate's trainees succumb to the disease. I mean, that's
a fact that Pilates took his clear evidence of the
(26:26):
effectiveness of his system. So he was then booed by
this success, and so he continued developing his techniques after
he was released, and a little bit later he made
his way to the United States, and that's where his
unique methods helped spark a fitness craze that was really
focused on this connection between the muscle and the mind.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And the yoga pants crowd was forever grateful, that's right,
you know. But you know now that we've seen how
the other half exercised. But what do you say we
check out a couple cultural norms that have shifted social
class over the years.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
All right, well, before we do that, let's take one
more quick break.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Okay, Well, so one of the biggest status symbol shifts
I've noticed in recent years is fashion, and there are
a whole lot of movers and shakers supporting this, like
ceo casual look these days, like instead of the Armani
suits and Gucci dresses or whatever, Silicon Valley moguls have
been supporting sneakers, jeans, t shirts, and not just at
the gym, but in these professional settings and at high
(27:38):
profile events.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
All right, So, but what are you suggesting? I mean
that dressing down is being co opted by the elite.
I mean it feels like plenty of people still dress casually.
But you know, just because the wealthier loosening up a
little doesn't mean the rest of us have to start
dressing fancy, does it? Because that makes me a little
bit nervous, So I'm supposed to start dressing up.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
No, that's definitely true.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
But what interested me is how different the results of
dressing down are for high status people compared to the
rest of us.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Oh what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Well, think about what would happen if you wore sweatpants
and a hoodie to like a fancy investment meeting or
trying to get a mortgage or something, right like, you'd
probably get some disapproving glances. But you know, there are
these unridden rules and social norms that we feel compelled
to go along with, and if we don't, we know
it would reflect poorly on us. So we tend to
pay attention to things like etiquette dress codes because we
(28:29):
don't want to be excluded and we want to maintain
our social standing. You know, people like you and I
like we play by the rules as much as possible.
But people with wealth and power have a lot more
wiggle room when it comes to social norms, Like they
can afford to risk this disapproval that comes with wearing
red sneakers to a meeting or you know, gym clothes
to a nice restaurant, and studies have shown that rather
(28:50):
than hurting their reputation, it actually improves these people's standings,
like in the eyes of others.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That's interesting to think about. So why do you think
that is? Like when Mark Zuckerberg wears jeans and a
T shirt to a meeting where everybody else is in
a really fancy suit, like, why would his social standing
go up?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Well, it's really because of how aware we all are
of the social expectations that typically, you know, someone of
his wealth and influence would follow, Like we know that
he knows we expect him to dress well and behave
a certain way, so when he doesn't conform, it comes
off as this display of power, like he can afford
to risk losing status by dressing down because he just
(29:28):
has that much status to spare.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, I mean that is interesting, But I mean, and
I kind of can't believe I'm saying this, But isn't
it possible we're being a little too hard on the
Mark Zuckerberg's of the world, Like who's to say he's
dressing down is some kind of a power play, and
not just because he likes comfortable clothes.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
That's fair, But you know, whether he's bucking expectations on
purpose or not, he's still reaping the benefits of this
high status non conformity. Right. There was this study I
read about in Courts where researchers set up all these
experiments to see how not conforming behaviors enhance the perception
of status and listen to the breakdown of what they found.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
So quote.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
In one study, participants perceived that a guest wearing a
red bow tie at a black tie country club party
was a higher status member of the club and a
better golf player than a conforming individual wearing a black
bow tie. This assumption is based on the belief that
the red bow tie wearer has enough status in autonomy
to follow his preference even when they deviate from the norm. So,
(30:29):
in other words, all that matters is that the public
perceives someone as choosing not to conform, and since social
expectations are so ingrained, most of us assume that someone
like Zuckerberg actually knows what he's doing and is subverting
expectations on purpose.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, once you lay it all out, it reminds
me this other trend I read about, where having lots
of kids is now viewed as something of a status symbol,
because you know, looking back in history, it's been just
the opposite. Really, Like the long running stereotype is that,
you know, the poor, the on edge cad they tend
to have the most children, while affluent couples stop at
(31:05):
maybe one or two kids. But I was looking at
this sociology professor at the University of Maryland. His name
is Stephen Martin, no relations to d Steve Martin. I
know he's a very talented guy, but he's not a
professor there but those trends have been gradually shifting since
the late nineteen seventies, and now the families having the
most kids are those with incomes in the top one
(31:26):
to one and a half percent.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And so is the idea that these people are having
more kids as a way to show off how rich
they are.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I mean, I'm hoping that's not the main appeal of
having kids for them. But just like what you were
saying about public perception and casual dressing, the average person
might look at a big, well to do family and
see it as a sign of good fortune, and the
inference being that parents must have plenty of time and
money to go around if they choose to have so
many kids. But I think the real takeaway is that
(31:55):
it's finally time for that posh Brady Bunch remake everybody's
wanted for so long. And that's the main thing I've
been thinking about recently that.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Has to come out. Well.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It is a strange thing to see, like kids almost
be seen as a status symbol, right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
And you know, I never would have guessed that just
wearing sneakers and a hoodie into a boardroom might help
you qualify as an elite, But let's go back to
that term elite for just a second if you don't mind,
because I think the word itself is an interesting example
of these shifting perceptions. So at the top of the
show we mentioned how it's been stretched to mean so
(32:30):
many different things over the years, and I'd actually argue
that the word has almost lost its meaning as a
result of that. Like, you know, at one point, elite
was just a word that meant the best or the
best in a group, So it started out as kind
of a generic compliment, and then over time it came
to refer specifically to people who were wealthy or influential,
(32:51):
though not necessarily in a derogatory way. But cut to today,
and that word can be used really more as a slur,
like most people don't want to be perceived as elitist.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, I mean, elite now seems to come with that
feeling of like not one of us, Like squash isn't
actually superior to handball or batman or other sports.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You know, it's weird and.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Fun, but it should actually be played by everyone, And
the same for lobster roles and sayson, Like don't let
people tell you that these elite things aren't for you.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That's certainly a way to look at things. But for now, though,
what do you say we head off to the fact
off and share a few other shifting norms we came
across this week.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So I Andine did this great list of things that
used to be status symbols, and at the top of
their list was rotting pineapples. So apparently, in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, pineapples and particularly like homegrown pineapples, were
a massive investment.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
It costs about five pounds at the time, so if.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You had any of these fruit you definitely put on
show instead of devouring it, And in fact, pineapples used
to be displayed on mantles for months.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Just rotting there.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
But the best part is that if you weren't rich
enough to have your own pineapple, there was a rental
market for them, so you could actually pick them up
for parties or just rent one for the evening.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
So strange, but maybe not as strange as this fact
I'm about to share. So, according to the site British
path and the Victorian era, it was actually fashionable to
have rotting teeth because it showed you were rich enough
to afford sugar products and confectionaries, and so this actually
led to plenty of imitation too. You would find upper
(34:37):
class citizens that would often paint their teeth black just
to fit in or show that they were spending their
money on candy too.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So here's a quick one. A friendly X rays just
took over the world in the early twentieth century, and
Americans were so enamored with them that the wealthy would
just like line up to get their X ray taken,
and basically seeing your own bones and owning your own
X ray picture became a crazy status symbol.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
That's so good, all right. Well, this is from the Telegraph.
Apparently when lobster became too expensive in England, it was
replaced with a different ugly creature, which is the monkfish.
In fact, the article states it was branded as lobster
but for the poor. And while it was considered an
easy and cheap and you know, even tasty meal for
fishermen and families, the fish was actually banned in French
(35:25):
markets because it was considered too ugly and unappetizing for display.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
So our pal Nick Green found these great original rules
for golf and golf's obviously one of these elitist sports,
but when you look back at their old rules, it
actually makes the sport sound so much less civilized. And
this rule is that if the player's ball strikes his
adversary or is caddy, the adversary loses the hole. If
(35:51):
it strikes his own caddy, the player loses the hole.
And this is from an eighteen twelve rule book at
Saint Andrew's course, so it's like a prestigious golf course.
It basically meant that if you were a ruthless player
and you were good enough at aiming, you could turn
golf into dodgeball with a much harder ball.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Of course, I mean that just takes the sport to
another level. I think more people would watch it if
they were still trying this kind of thing. For that fact, Mango,
I know we've shared a lot of really fun stuff today,
but I feel like that bit of rare violence from you,
even Mango talking about that, means you deserve the trophy.
So congratulations, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I truly appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
All right, Well, that's it for today, so from Gabe, Tristan,
Mango and me, thanks so much for listening. Thanks again
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how
(36:54):
stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
And Eves Jeffcok gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Jason who
Guess what, well, what's that mango? So I know you
know this, but my family loves the writer P. G. Woodhouse,
Like his books are light and sweet and funny, and
wherever you go in India, you'll find them on my
family's bookshelves. And when I was in middle school and
high school, there was this great TV adaptation of Worcester
and Jeeves, and it had a young Hughlori in it,
(00:25):
young Stephen Frye, and Hughlori played this rich simpleton. His
name was Bertie Wooster. He was always getting into silly
trouble and Stephen Frye played his genius butler who was
always saving him. And his name was Jeeves. And he
was actually a valet. Isn't it pronounced valet mango? Not
if you're British ap friendly there, it's valet, But oh okay,
(00:47):
it's a gentleman's gentleman. The reason I'm bringing it up
is that Jeeves in these stories is the proper one,
and he's always shuddering at these new fangled ideas that
Bertie Wooster has. And in this one episode, Bertie he
gets his pajamas monogrammed, and Jeeves just can't stand this
like he thinks it's super low class and toddrey to
put your initials on things, and he keeps wondering if
(01:09):
it's because like Bertie'll forget who he is or whether
he owns pajamas. So he kind of scoffs at it
disapprovingly through the show, which.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Is pretty funny because today, you know, if you've got
a monogram on a shirt or especially a towel, mango,
I mean that is seen as like real definitely.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So the thing is, there are all these like strange
customs and sports and traditions that we sort of revered
today as elite and we see them as high class,
but actually they started out with much more humble origins.
And today on the show, we're going to take all
that stuff down a peg. And that's what we're talking about.
So let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other side of
the soundproof glass, I just I can't stop looking over
at him because he is looking so dapper. He's in
a top hat and tails. That is our friended producer
(02:24):
Tristan McNeil. I don't think i've ever seen him looking
so fancy. Have you mean this dressed up? No, it's amazing,
oh man. And as you know, Tristan did say he'd
be dressing up as a a quote, wealthy elite. That's
what he's been saying all week for today's show, So
I imagine that's what's going on here. But I have
to say, I don't know about you. I feel like
he looks a little more like a stage magician maybe,
(02:45):
but whatever, I mean, he looks good.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I know, if he had a pack of cards, you
could go in one direction. If you had like a
monocle and Kane, he'd looked like mister Peanut, which feels
like a little less elite to me.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
But I do admire Tristan's style.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
To be fair, people have drastically different ideas about what
is elite. So you could ask a dozen people on
the street and get twelve completely different answers. And you know,
while things like wealth and privileged crop up, and most
people's definitions, the specifics on how that wealth and privilege
are displayed, you know, varied a lot over the years,
(03:19):
and things that were once considered elite or high class
are now seen as tacky, and things that started out
with this more mass appeal of since only been set
aside for the rich. And I think it's that second
kind of shift that will probably focus on today, you know,
that lower class things that have sort of graduated to
the upper crust. So I feel like this is maybe
(03:40):
our Beverly Hillbillies episode, you could say. So, you know,
we're gonna check out some of the food, the sports,
the cultural norms that started out humbly and later became
these symbols of wealth and status. So let's dive right in.
You know, mego, what do you think is your first
rags to riches story for the day?
Speaker 1 (03:58):
So I thought I kicked things off with the farmhouse
origins of one of the world's fanciest sounding beers, and that,
of course is the Belgian Seyson.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh man, that does sound fancy, although maybe that was
just your impeccable French.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Accent there, Mega. I know, we pronounced valet valets. We've
got sexon it's pretty amazing. But you could say that
Seyson's kind of taste kind of fancy too, like they're
typically on the dry side in terms of beer. In fact,
I was at a wedding some years ago where we
drank seeson for the wedding toast instead of champagne. But
historically seison's were most popular among the working class, and
(04:33):
that was true right up until the nineteen fifties when
they sort of fell out of favor altogether. And if
you cut to today, you know, there's kind of a
seison revolution that's been going on. About a dozen or
so craft breweries started it and they started making it again.
And of course the flip side is that the beer
is now viewed as kind of niche and not as
approachable as it should be to the average drinker.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Well, and I feel like it doesn't help that seisons
aren't served usually in these regular pint classes. I mean
it feels like they come in these wide stem glasses, right,
like a brandy glass or something like that.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, that can definitely be true. The presentation changes and
sometimes people like to swirl them. But despite the fancy
modern reputation, seesons actually have these really humble roots. So
they first came on the scene during the eighteenth century
when they were brewed by farmers and Wallonia, which is
I guess this French speaking region of southern Belgium. But
rather than being brewed for its taste or its intoxicating effects,
(05:27):
seeson began as a product of necessity more than anything else.
And that's really because the water in more rural regions
wasn't potable at the time. It contained way too many
of these pathogens that made it unfit for drinking. So
in order to keep their workers hydrated through those busy
summer seasons, farmers started brewing seasons.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
All right, But hadn't people have been doing that a
long time? Like that's kind of the origin of beer
in general, isn't. I mean, you could go all the
way back to ancient Egypt. I think it was fuel
for you know, the labors there when water was either
scarce or contaminated. So I feel like that's something that's
been around for a long time.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
That's definitely true.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
And Willonian farmers definitely weren't the first to have this
beer dependent workforce. The trouble for them was how to
keep enough beer on hand to last through the hot summers.
And you've got to remember this was all prior to refrigeration,
so getting beer for men and not spoil was pretty tricky.
During the months when heat and all this airborne bacteria
was at its peak. So sesans were kind of the
(06:25):
solution to this problem. Like they were brewed during the
cooler autumn and winter months and then stored until summer
rolled around. And it's actually from this strong association with
a certain time of year that the beer gets its name,
since seisan is actually French for season.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Well, I mean that makes sense, but I'm curious though,
was this beer any different from other kinds being made
at the time, or was it just the time of
year that made it stand out.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, Sasans were actually set apart in a few ways.
Like one thing is that they were much happier than
the other beers, and that's because the hops act as
a natural preservative, and they all also possessed these anti
septic properties, which again was super helpful in fighting off
those pathogens. The other standout trait is that Seeson's were
really adaptable. Like farmers typically used whatever they had on
(07:12):
hand at the end of a harvest to make the
next year season, so the base ingredients and the spices
varied from farm to farm and even barrel to barrel.
Like these differences made the beer hard to categorize, but
it also made it a bit more personal.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
And since the average farm worker drank as much.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
As I think, it's like five leaders of Seyson every
single workday. Yeah, I'm guessing they didn't mind a little
variety in that flavor.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Five leaders a day, I mean imagining, this couldn't have
been that alcoholic, right, unless I'm actually picturing all these
farmers just passed out in their fields by noon. But
that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. I read that most seisons were originally around three
percent or so, which would be enough to give them
a buzz, but you know, not so strong as to
incapacitate them. And of course the alcohol content went up
a little over time as other people began, you know,
thanking them too. It wasn't just the workers. In fact,
many small farms from the era were eventually turned into
family breweries, and the different seasons became kind of especially
(08:08):
drink for their respective towns.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
All right, So if they were this popular, why did
they disappear for a while? I think you said they
kind of vanished? What was it in the in the
fifties or so. Yeah, this was really due to industrialization.
So by the fifties, refrigeration and like access to drinkable water.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
That all eliminated this need.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
For these summer specific ales, so demand dried up pretty quickly,
and what was kind of the de facto beer of
the working class became this artisanal product instead. And you know,
even in today's saisons, you can still find traces of
the beer's farmhouse roots because you know, aside from the
notes of fruit and spice, you'll also taste this kind
of like earthy funkiness in the bruise, and that really
(08:50):
harkens back to those like grab bag ingredients that those
Willonian farmers were using. You know, it's kind of funny,
like the description that's used for that barnyard flavor is
actually horse blanket. Like horse blanket is s wasly what
makes season so appealing. You have to admit that horse
blanket isn't generally a flavor. I think I would see
(09:11):
horse blanket pringles horsel. All right, Well, since we're on
the subject of elite dining, you know, I do want
to talk about lobster for a minute, because this is
one of those that I just found super interesting and
didn't know a whole lot about before we were researching
for the episode.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But believe it or not. There was actually a time
when lobster meat was the lowest priced item on a
New England menu, and it was about half the costs
of chicken that was pound for pound at least, and
five times cheaper than Boston baked beans.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Of all things, cheaper than beans means something, yes it does.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So I actually read that lobsters used to be so
abundant on the East Coast, and this is back in
the sixteen hundreds that it wasn't uncommon to find like
two foot high piles of them just washed up on
the beach.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I mean, that is incredible to think about.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah, And you know, and people who stumbled on those
lobster piles probably left them right where they were, because
back then most people wanted nothing to do with lobsters.
They were considered disgusting, and you know, partially because they
look like insects, and partially because of their reputation as
being these bottom feeders. And honestly, none of that is
too far off. I mean, lobsters really are distant relatives
(10:22):
of cockroaches and spiders, and in fact, their name actually
comes from the Old English word lop, which which actually
means spider.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
So I do like lobsters because they're so funny. I'm
sure you remember how my roommate in college, Adam, and
I wanted to get a pet lobster because of course
it would be fun to walk around on a leash.
And we even had a name, Hector the Lobster. But
of course that's where our efforts stopped because we didn't
really do things.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
We just talked about things.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
It didn't stop you guys from talking about it a lot, though.
I remember that.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
So I do feel like we give lobsters this giant
pass because they live in the ocean, right, Like if
you came across lobster in the forest and it's not
climbing out of a hole in the tree, you think
it was like some kind of giant monster bug and
dipping it in butter would be like the furthest thing
for your mind. But you know, that's even before you
get into how weird lobster anatomy is. Like their brains
(11:16):
are in their throats, their teeth are in their stomachs.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
There the whole thing is a mess.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I can't argue with you on that, but you know,
as unpopular as lobsters were in the seventeenth century, some
people did eat them anyway. I mean you look at
Native Americans, for instance, they ate lobsters by wrapping them
in seaweed and then baking them over hot rocks. But
to be fair, lobster wasn't their first choice. I mean,
they also used the meat to fertilize their crops and
(11:43):
bait their fishing hooks, and they were doing that in
hopes of catching something less disgusting than lobster.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Well, you know, some colonists must have eaten them too, right, Like,
I know, food was scarce in those early days, so
I can't imagine everyone had the luxury of being picky.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Well, lobster was plentiful, andalid source of protein, so people
did eat it, just not happily and always with a
certain degree of embarrassment I guess when they were eating it.
But you know, times were tough and only the wealthiest
residents could afford chicken or pork, and that's how lobster
became a poor person food. And so you know, lobsters
were a common meal for people like prisoners or apprentices
(12:21):
or enslaved people and even cats mango. I mean that's
what it was like. And this didn't go over well
of course, except with the cats who weren't as worried
about what other people thought. And you know, some indentured
servants actually had a clause in their contracts saying that
they could be fed lobster no more than three times
a week. I mean, that's how undesirable it was.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I mean it's insane because you think of like how
people crave lobster today.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Right, Yeah, and lobster is one of the top requested
last meals for prisoners on death row. Now, so clearly
these perceptions have changed significantly over the years.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
So I am.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Curious what bark that change in thinking, because like, going
from a trash meet to this like posh delicacy is
a pretty big leap, even for something with ten legs,
which you know, I only just realized they have ten legs.
What they had ten legs? Yeah, so I've never been
counting the clause. I guess they have two pictures and
then those like eight legs beneath, and yeah, apparently this
(13:20):
is pretty common. Like I saw this piece in Slate
that almost every image of a lobster in a cartoon
or a drawing, and this is even on road signs
for like lobster places right, they all have eight legs
instead of ten, and it's anatomically incorrect everywhere you look.
So you know, I got us off track, but I
did want to make a point of that.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
But that was very important to talk about, you know,
just to understand.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Well, now you're going to see it everywhere. But how
did lobsters get so fancy?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Tell me about that?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
All right, Well, it actually all comes down to railroads,
believe it or not. So go back to the eighteen seventies,
and trains gave rise to the seasonal tourism in America
with wealthy residents of places like New York or DC.
They would head off to you know, to Boston or
to a Maine to get away from that summer heat.
And it was this travel boom that led to a
(14:12):
realization for railroad managers, namely, you know that many passengers
were clueless about how hated lobsters were by the people
on the coast, and so this allowed the trains to
serve up lobster as though it was this kind of
like an exotic delicacy, even though it actually cost the
railroad much less than other meats would have. And this
ruste seemed to work and passengers soon were heading home
(14:35):
from vacation raving to their neighbors about this delicious boiled
lobster that they'd had while they were out on their
fancy travels. And so word of mouth grew from there,
and lobster canning became a thing, and it actually launched
a whole industry around this.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
That's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
You know what's interesting about that, though, is it makes
it seem like the popular opinion was really the only
thing holding lobsters back, right, Like it's almost like, now
that there were people who were actually liking eating lobster,
it suddenly made the food tastier.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Yeah, I mean, that's true. But there actually was more
to it than that, because once there was really a
market for lobster, it gave the chefs an opportunity to
start experimenting with different preparations. And so you fast forward
a bit, and by the eighteen eighties they'd stumbled across
a real game changer. So they discovered that lobster looked
(15:25):
more appetizing and tasted a whole lot better if it
was actually cooked alive rather than being killed and then cooked.
And that's kind of when it went gourmet. So by
the nineteen twenties, the demand outweighed supply for the first
time in history, and the going rate for lobster rose
to about what it is today now. That said, lobster
(15:47):
was still viewed as food for the poor, and Maine
and other parts of New England where you know, kids
were embarrassed to go to school with lobster meat sandwiches.
And that really only changed during World War Two because
lobster wasn't subject to rationing like other forms of protein,
and so that meant that people from all regions and
social classes began to find out just how tasty these
(16:08):
you know, these sea bugs could be.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
So did that egalitarian streak last for long?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
No, I mean, by the time the war was over
and the nineteen fifties rolls around, lobster had fully become
an American delicacy, and this was obviously seen as a
meal fit for movie stars and the one percent rather
than the prisoners and the poor people that it had
been seen as before.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So we've definitely been talking about this from a New
World perspective.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
But I am.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Curious what Europeans thought, like, did they hate lobster as
much as the North Americans?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Did?
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You know, I was looking into that because I actually
had no idea, and it seems like there's always been
a market for European blue lobster. It's it's a lot
more rare and expensive than the kind that we eat here,
because you know, Europeans never had the same reservations about
eating them. In fact, it was kind of the opposite.
I mean, lobster was believed to have these medicinal qualities
during the Middle Ages, even the Renaissance, and it was
(17:04):
served pretty often at these upper class feasts. And in fact,
your story about wanting to walk a lobster on a
leash actually has a bit of a legacy. Maybe you
and Adam have been doing your reading on this, but
I was reading about this French poet named Gerard day Nerval,
and he supposedly had a pet lobster and he would
sometimes put a leash on it and take it for
(17:25):
walks at the Royal Palace in Paris, and you know,
when he got weird looks, he'd respond by saying, quote,
how is a lobster more ridiculous than a dog, a cat,
a gazelle, a lion, or any other animal. I have
an affinity for lobsters they're easygoing and serious, they know
the secrets of the sea, and they don't bark. So
other than the very last part of that, I don't
(17:48):
understand any of that. But I love the quote.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, I do feel like I'm in good company, and
I like how he's marketing them not just as an
elite food but also as an elite petely.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But now that we've covered fancy food and drink, what
do you say we shift a little bit and talk
about maybe a couple of athletic pastimes that had more
modest beginnings.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Absolutely, first, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
sports that made the switch from lowbrow to high class. So,
all right, Mago, you're up first. What comes to mind
when you think about posh sports?
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, we mentioned this in our Winter Olympics episode, but
most of the cold weather sports are still pretty elite,
and that's largely because of the travel costs, the expensive
equipment that goes along with sports like skiing or ice skating.
But you know one sport that seems needlessly elite to
me is squash, and it's a little like racketball. It's
a racket sport, but it's played with this hardball that
(18:59):
you have to warm up.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
Have you ever seen this?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I've seen it. I've actually never played, so the first.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Time I went onto the squash court, I watched this
guy just like squishing the ball under his foot and
just rolling it vigorously to warm the ball up, because
the ball actually doesn't bounce until it's warm.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
It's pretty ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
That's weird. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Yeah, and they played a lot in India, so I've
seen it there.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
But you know, there's nothing that sophisticated about the sport
except where the courts are located, Like mostly they're in
well to do neighborhoods or in these sort of elite
country clubs, which is just where you're hanging out all
the time.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So it makes sense that you would have played at
some point. But you know, in our Titanic episode, we
mentioned that the ship actually had its own regulation squash
court for those first class passengers, and I feel like
that's a pretty good testament to the game's reputation as
being this elite sport. But since you bring it up today,
I'm guessing squash didn't start out quite so fancy.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Definitely not, so I do want to clarify. In Brooklyn,
in worm Hill, there's a New York Sports club. You
can rent a squash court for five dollars, so you
can get.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
On the squash court from very cheap.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I like, how worried you are that people are going
to think you're just hanging out a country clubs.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I can't get into country cluss. So squash was actually
derived from this game called rackets, which you know, had
been invented by prisoners in the early nineteenth century, and
the inmates at this Dinner's prison in London started getting
their exercise by hitting a ball against the prison walls
with tennis rackets, and.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
From there the game sort of spread.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Beyond the prison, with many of England's lower class citizens
playing it in the alleyways behind pubs, and then the
game spread to schools where the first four wall courts
were specifically built just for the game. And it was
at one of these schools where students invented a spinoff
rackets game called squash, and I guess rackets was played
with this hard, hollow rubber ball that tends to be
(20:53):
pretty predictable, you know, when bounced off a wall while
the squash ball is so much softer and it really.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Makes for a greater variety of shots.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
So what made the student switch to the softer ball,
Like where the schools seeing it as a safety thing
with the harder balls or what?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
You know? That's what I was wondering at first, But
it turns out the switch happened more organically. So this
was in around the eighteen thirties. Students at Harrow School
in London realized that rackets was much much more challenging
when you played with a punctured ball, because it just
became harder to predict where the ball would bounce, and
you had to pay closer attention, you had to run
(21:32):
around the court more and you weren't just waiting for
it to bounce back to you. And the squeezable ball
became sort of the defining feature of their game. And
that's supposedly where the sport got its name from the
way the ball kind of squashes on impact with the wall.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
That makes sense. That's pretty cool, and I'm guessing that
the new game kind of took off. I mean, you
don't hear too much about rackets these days, but squash
does still seem pretty popular.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah, I mean it was so popular that it clipsed
its parents sport the early twentieth century. And while squash
now has this reputation of being sort of an uppercross sport,
it is worth noting that more than twenty five million
people play a squash in one hundred and eighty five
different countries, and that includes a good deal of underprivileged
kids too. Like there's this one program out in Harlem
(22:18):
called Street Squash, and they promote the sport as kind
of a youth enrichment program in low income communities. This
is in New York, New Jersey and around that area.
But the kids not only like developed hand eye coordination
and teamwork, but they get a pretty good workout.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Part of the reason I picked up squash is that,
you know, just forty five minutes of playing is really
really intense. Actually, have the stats here what one hour
of squash can burn between six hundred and one thousand calories,
and that puts it well above the calory count for
most other sports.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Oh that's really interesting. All right, Well, I want to
talk about another exercise, and it was an elite exercise
that developed in a British internment camp. Believe it or not. Now,
this was back during World War One, was when the
British government began to worry about German born residents and
that they might defect and become German soldiers if they
were deported from England. So instead, all these German Men
(23:11):
between the ages of seventeen and forty two were just
rounded up and sent to these camps throughout the country. Now,
one of these camps there was a German boxer and
just kind of all around great athlete, and his name
was Joseph Pilates, and he had been pulled away from
his life working for a British circus. Now you can
probably guess that during his time in the camp, the
(23:32):
fitness system that he created, it actually helped improve the
lives of countless fellow inmates.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
So I'm curious, like Pilates was created at an internment camp,
because like, you know that that's way more intense than
I ever would have expected. You know, obviously today we
see Pilates as kind of like this yuppie activity in
a way for movie stars to flatten their stomachs. But
how did Pilates convince these people at the camp to
start doing stretches and controlled breathing exercises.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
You know, believe it or not, it didn't take that
much convincing. I mean, the camp they were at was
severely overcrowded, and so much so that it eventually required
its own railroad just to handle the influx of detainees.
And as you can imagine, these conditions and the general
indignity of their situation, it drove a lot of inmates
to depression. So many of them honestly kind of lost
(24:22):
the will to live and quickly found themselves bedridden or
even hospitalized in many cases. But the sight of this
suffering really struck a chord in Pilates. And as a child,
he'd been incredibly sickly. He'd racked with everything from asthma
and rickets to rheumatic fever, and this made him a
natural target for bullies who made his life really unpleasant
(24:44):
as an adolescent. And the way Pilates recovered was devoting
his life to fitness. So he took up gymnastics and bodybuilding,
martial arts, you name it. The guy did it all,
and his rehabilitation went so well that by the age
of fourteen, he was so b and so fit that
he was asked to pose for anatomical charts and anyway,
(25:05):
it's you know, pretty amazing. But when Pilate saw the
other men in the camp and such dire straits, he
decided to try and help them through the same means
that he had helped himself.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
So had he already developed all these exercises or were
they something he came up with specifically in the camp.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, I think that emphasis on breathing and core strengthening
was already in place, but he also came up with
new techniques, Like he'd noticed the way certain animals performed
these fluid stretching movements while they're lying down, and it
made him wonder like if the same moves could be
applied to those who were stuck in bed. So to
that in, Pilates gathered some straps, bunk bed springs, and
(25:43):
you know a few other odds and ends and started
to build this really kind of a crude home fitness
machine that could provide prisoners a workout while they were
lying down.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I mean, that is incredible, and obviously it feels like
it must have worked because we're still talking about today.
But how did this actually impact the inmates there?
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Well, the morale and the camp improved, and supposedly the
prisoner's overall helped improved. And in nineteen eighteen, a nasty
case of influenza swept through England, as many of us
know from our history classes. And while of course tons
of people died from the pandemic, not a single one
of Pilate's trainees succumb to the disease. I mean, that's
a fact that Pilates took his clear evidence of the
(26:26):
effectiveness of his system. So he was then booed by
this success, and so he continued developing his techniques after
he was released, and a little bit later he made
his way to the United States, and that's where his
unique methods helped spark a fitness craze that was really
focused on this connection between the muscle and the mind.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And the yoga pants crowd was forever grateful, that's right,
you know. But you know now that we've seen how
the other half exercised. But what do you say we
check out a couple cultural norms that have shifted social
class over the years.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
All right, well, before we do that, let's take one
more quick break.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Okay, Well, so one of the biggest status symbol shifts
I've noticed in recent years is fashion, and there are
a whole lot of movers and shakers supporting this, like
ceo casual look these days, like instead of the Armani
suits and Gucci dresses or whatever, Silicon Valley moguls have
been supporting sneakers, jeans, t shirts, and not just at
the gym, but in these professional settings and at high
(27:38):
profile events.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
All right, So, but what are you suggesting? I mean
that dressing down is being co opted by the elite.
I mean it feels like plenty of people still dress casually.
But you know, just because the wealthier loosening up a
little doesn't mean the rest of us have to start
dressing fancy, does it? Because that makes me a little
bit nervous, So I'm supposed to start dressing up.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
No, that's definitely true.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
But what interested me is how different the results of
dressing down are for high status people compared to the
rest of us.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Oh what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Well, think about what would happen if you wore sweatpants
and a hoodie to like a fancy investment meeting or
trying to get a mortgage or something, right like, you'd
probably get some disapproving glances. But you know, there are
these unridden rules and social norms that we feel compelled
to go along with, and if we don't, we know
it would reflect poorly on us. So we tend to
pay attention to things like etiquette dress codes because we
(28:29):
don't want to be excluded and we want to maintain
our social standing. You know, people like you and I
like we play by the rules as much as possible.
But people with wealth and power have a lot more
wiggle room when it comes to social norms, Like they
can afford to risk this disapproval that comes with wearing
red sneakers to a meeting or you know, gym clothes
to a nice restaurant, and studies have shown that rather
(28:50):
than hurting their reputation, it actually improves these people's standings,
like in the eyes of others.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
That's interesting to think about. So why do you think
that is? Like when Mark Zuckerberg wears jeans and a
T shirt to a meeting where everybody else is in
a really fancy suit, like, why would his social standing
go up?
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Well, it's really because of how aware we all are
of the social expectations that typically, you know, someone of
his wealth and influence would follow, Like we know that
he knows we expect him to dress well and behave
a certain way, so when he doesn't conform, it comes
off as this display of power, like he can afford
to risk losing status by dressing down because he just
(29:28):
has that much status to spare.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah, I mean that is interesting, But I mean, and
I kind of can't believe I'm saying this, But isn't
it possible we're being a little too hard on the
Mark Zuckerberg's of the world, Like who's to say he's
dressing down is some kind of a power play, and
not just because he likes comfortable clothes.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
That's fair, But you know, whether he's bucking expectations on
purpose or not, he's still reaping the benefits of this
high status non conformity. Right. There was this study I
read about in Courts where researchers set up all these
experiments to see how not conforming behaviors enhance the perception
of status and listen to the breakdown of what they found.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
So quote.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
In one study, participants perceived that a guest wearing a
red bow tie at a black tie country club party
was a higher status member of the club and a
better golf player than a conforming individual wearing a black
bow tie. This assumption is based on the belief that
the red bow tie wearer has enough status in autonomy
to follow his preference even when they deviate from the norm. So,
(30:29):
in other words, all that matters is that the public
perceives someone as choosing not to conform, and since social
expectations are so ingrained, most of us assume that someone
like Zuckerberg actually knows what he's doing and is subverting
expectations on purpose.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
You know, once you lay it all out, it reminds
me this other trend I read about, where having lots
of kids is now viewed as something of a status symbol,
because you know, looking back in history, it's been just
the opposite. Really, Like the long running stereotype is that,
you know, the poor, the on edge cad they tend
to have the most children, while affluent couples stop at
(31:05):
maybe one or two kids. But I was looking at
this sociology professor at the University of Maryland. His name
is Stephen Martin, no relations to d Steve Martin. I
know he's a very talented guy, but he's not a
professor there but those trends have been gradually shifting since
the late nineteen seventies, and now the families having the
most kids are those with incomes in the top one
(31:26):
to one and a half percent.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And so is the idea that these people are having
more kids as a way to show off how rich
they are.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I mean, I'm hoping that's not the main appeal of
having kids for them. But just like what you were
saying about public perception and casual dressing, the average person
might look at a big, well to do family and
see it as a sign of good fortune, and the
inference being that parents must have plenty of time and
money to go around if they choose to have so
many kids. But I think the real takeaway is that
(31:55):
it's finally time for that posh Brady Bunch remake everybody's
wanted for so long. And that's the main thing I've
been thinking about recently that.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Has to come out. Well.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It is a strange thing to see, like kids almost
be seen as a status symbol, right Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
And you know, I never would have guessed that just
wearing sneakers and a hoodie into a boardroom might help
you qualify as an elite, But let's go back to
that term elite for just a second if you don't mind,
because I think the word itself is an interesting example
of these shifting perceptions. So at the top of the
show we mentioned how it's been stretched to mean so
(32:30):
many different things over the years, and I'd actually argue
that the word has almost lost its meaning as a
result of that. Like, you know, at one point, elite
was just a word that meant the best or the
best in a group, So it started out as kind
of a generic compliment, and then over time it came
to refer specifically to people who were wealthy or influential,
(32:51):
though not necessarily in a derogatory way. But cut to today,
and that word can be used really more as a slur,
like most people don't want to be perceived as elitist.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah, I mean, elite now seems to come with that
feeling of like not one of us, Like squash isn't
actually superior to handball or batman or other sports.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
You know, it's weird and.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Fun, but it should actually be played by everyone, And
the same for lobster roles and sayson, Like don't let
people tell you that these elite things aren't for you.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That's certainly a way to look at things. But for now, though,
what do you say we head off to the fact
off and share a few other shifting norms we came
across this week.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So I Andine did this great list of things that
used to be status symbols, and at the top of
their list was rotting pineapples. So apparently, in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, pineapples and particularly like homegrown pineapples, were
a massive investment.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
It costs about five pounds at the time, so if.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
You had any of these fruit you definitely put on
show instead of devouring it, And in fact, pineapples used
to be displayed on mantles for months.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Just rotting there.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
But the best part is that if you weren't rich
enough to have your own pineapple, there was a rental
market for them, so you could actually pick them up
for parties or just rent one for the evening.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
So strange, but maybe not as strange as this fact
I'm about to share. So, according to the site British
path and the Victorian era, it was actually fashionable to
have rotting teeth because it showed you were rich enough
to afford sugar products and confectionaries, and so this actually
led to plenty of imitation too. You would find upper
(34:37):
class citizens that would often paint their teeth black just
to fit in or show that they were spending their
money on candy too.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So here's a quick one. A friendly X rays just
took over the world in the early twentieth century, and
Americans were so enamored with them that the wealthy would
just like line up to get their X ray taken,
and basically seeing your own bones and owning your own
X ray picture became a crazy status symbol.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
That's so good, all right. Well, this is from the Telegraph.
Apparently when lobster became too expensive in England, it was
replaced with a different ugly creature, which is the monkfish.
In fact, the article states it was branded as lobster
but for the poor. And while it was considered an
easy and cheap and you know, even tasty meal for
fishermen and families, the fish was actually banned in French
(35:25):
markets because it was considered too ugly and unappetizing for display.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
So our pal Nick Green found these great original rules
for golf and golf's obviously one of these elitist sports,
but when you look back at their old rules, it
actually makes the sport sound so much less civilized. And
this rule is that if the player's ball strikes his
adversary or is caddy, the adversary loses the hole. If
(35:51):
it strikes his own caddy, the player loses the hole.
And this is from an eighteen twelve rule book at
Saint Andrew's course, so it's like a prestigious golf course.
It basically meant that if you were a ruthless player
and you were good enough at aiming, you could turn
golf into dodgeball with a much harder ball.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Of course, I mean that just takes the sport to
another level. I think more people would watch it if
they were still trying this kind of thing. For that fact, Mango,
I know we've shared a lot of really fun stuff today,
but I feel like that bit of rare violence from you,
even Mango talking about that, means you deserve the trophy.
So congratulations, Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
I truly appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
All right, Well, that's it for today, so from Gabe, Tristan,
Mango and me, thanks so much for listening. Thanks again
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how
(36:54):
stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
And Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the
Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
And Eves Jeffcok gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Do we forget Jason?
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Jason who
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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