August 20, 2019 • 34 mins
In this episode, Ben and Noel dive into the story of François Vatel, a majordomo who was tasked with organizing an extravagant royal banquet in 1671. With 2,000 attendees expected, among them many high-ranking French dignitaries, the pressure was high. Tune in to find out the ridiculous and tragic story of what happened next.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye.
(00:27):
Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. We are coming to you
from a pretty weird place right now. We are in
our good friend, uh a good friend, Matt Frederick's hotel
room in Orlando during podcast movement, and we are wondering.
(00:48):
It's a question for you, folks, what is one of
the most embarrassing moments of your life or what's the
most embarrassed you've ever been? Hi, I'm Ben, Hey, I'm
no Matt. I gotta ask you. Did you take off
the top sheet when you got here? Is that a
thing you do? What are you talking about? You know?
You gotta like for the for the germs. You're seen
those videos where they hit it with a black light.
(01:09):
You know, the hotel bed, the top sheets apparently where
all the nasties live on the comforter, on the comforter.
Yeah no, dude, I like I slept right on top
of the comforter. I feel like I missed up. Is disgusting. Now,
you're our super producer today, so we need a sound
cue for you, uh, folks, Welcome super producer Matt Frederick. So,
uh so, no, were you going with this top sheet?
(01:32):
Is that? Does that lead to an embarrassing story? No,
just wondering, just making conversation. Okay, I want to know
his hotel room etiquette. You know. Yeah, we've had we've
had a crazy week here of folks. Uh we We're
going somewhere with this embarrassing moment question, because no matter
who you are, you could be the smoothest cucumber on
(01:53):
the farm, and you will still occasionally, at least in
your adolescence or the puberty year, you will probably have
moments that seemed very, very embarrassing, so bad in fact,
that you think, oh my god, I wish I died
right now, she's never gonna date me, or he thinks
I'm a nerd or something like that, and ask part
(02:15):
of growing up. But today's story is about embarrassment, about
shame that was so profound it led to uh, it
led to to suicide. That doesn't sound like very much
fun at all, Ben, it was. It was not fun
for him. It's a fascinating story. This is this is
(02:36):
the story of a cook a ship named Francois Vattel. God. Yeah,
just so so we all know that the like. You
know you worked briefly in the service industry, right, I
think we both did. I did. Yeah, I worked in
a tapas restaurant. It's actually where I got some of
my earliest kind of cooking techniques downpat like had a saute.
(02:59):
You know, you gotta keep things moving in the pan,
otherwise things I'll get clumped up and burn. Right, Okay, okay?
T a p A S I thought topless? No, No,
definitely not um but that's a joke. Many people in
the topas industry here a lot, is it true? Yeah?
You know I almost worked in the topless bar one time.
Oh yeah, to tell as a musician, I was gonna
(03:20):
play a gig with my buddy Chris. Huh. It didn't
work out. You would have been a freelancer for the night.
You wouldn't have been a full time employee of the Topless,
which probably means you could wear whatever you want. Yeah, okay,
Uh so, Matt, did you ever work in the in
the service industry? I did. I was a pool service
boy at a private club a PSB. Yeah, PSB. So
(03:44):
you served rich people pool food, bougie pool food, yeah,
almost all Pino Griggio. That was pretty much and some scotch. Oh,
and she crabs soup, and she crabs soup with some sherry.
Oh you know what else comes on? She crabs soup
sometimes some kind of a form of a shintilly dream
that sounds delicious, and the chantilly cream that turns out
(04:05):
was invented by the chef in question, Francois Vattel. He
was a very, very forward thinking and fastidious cook. He
worked his way up in the bougie high society of
a France um. He was an employee of the household
of Nicholas Fouquet, who was the superintendent of finance in
France for like the whole country. Yeah, yeah, he was
(04:27):
charge of the entirety of finance for the then fifteen
year old monarch of France. Uh. Francois himself was not
originally French. He was born Fritz Carl Vattel with a
W in Switzerland, the son of Charles Vattel, who was
a farm worker. Its name is still pretty common in Zurich.
(04:49):
Uh and we think he was born like the mid
to early sixteen hundreds, six sixteen thirty five, somewhere between there.
And like Noel said, he worked his way up as
a pastry cook. When he was finally done with his apprenticeship,
that he shot straight to the top of the culinary world.
(05:09):
He was working for that finance minister, and the weird
thing about it was that he was playing the role
of a chef. But historians think he may not have
actually known how to cook. Wait. Yeah, he was in
charge of this office known as the Bush or La Bush,
(05:30):
and uh he was responsible for everything from what the
Minister of Finance eight during bedtime and what he during
bedtime right, his night's next and uh you know these
huge opulent banquets. Right, So he was almost more of
a glorified event planner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like an administrative role.
(05:50):
Yeah he's he's more producing I guess right, and organizing
than actually cooking a lot of stuff. I guess that's
the thing. A lot of the details of his early
life are a little bit disputed, even his actual birthday. Um,
and he is credited with with inventing cram Shantilly for
one of these opulent soarees. But yeah, it's true. He
(06:11):
is a little bit more known, especially in the story,
as being kind of the guy who makes things happen,
like the Winston Wolf of massive opulent banquets and events,
so very much like sort of a prototype to the
modern day event planner. He had some kind of signature
moves when it came to these big events. He loved
things like stage illusions, uh, masks with a queue like
(06:35):
eyes wide shut style, you know, um, a masquerade ball
like in the Phantom of the Opera or something like that.
Loved fireworks that's gonna come into play in a little bit,
and water works. I'm guessing he maybe even got out
of things like ice sculptures, but I don't know that
for sure. Yeah, we do know that he definitely made
some made some waves. He actually angered the King, King
(06:55):
Louis the fourteenth himself and again Louise like so at
this time, uh, and Louis felt jealous of the Minister
of Finances displays. The guy was swagging too hard and
was flexing on him, and he's like, I'm the king.
And he actually threw the Superintendent of Finances, who I
(07:16):
earlier called the Minister the Superintendent of Finances into jail
in sixteen sixty one, just for the crime of being cooler.
It's crazy to be king, right, Matt, And so, while
He is credited with the invention of Chantilly cream. He
is perhaps better known for a very, very tough series
(07:38):
of events. At the start of April. Beginning of April
in sixteen seventy one, the king announced that he would
honor the Prince de Conde by visiting him from the
twenty three to April that year. The problem was he
would think that was really cool, right, It's like the
president of your country says, I'm gonna go kick it, right.
(08:00):
The thing is, because this guy is an absolute monarch
and he has so much power, it's sort of a
dangerous honor to have the king visit as a guest.
Because Louis insisted that all of the nobles of France
and all of their entourage members travel with him so
that he can keep an eye on him, you know
what I mean, because a mega entourage, so you know,
(08:22):
absolutely optics. But also you're right to keep your friends
close and your enemies closer. These were folks that could
potentially supplant him or you know, god only knows, plot
whatever kind of dirty dealings against him, because it was
that kind of time. So he wanted to keep them
around so he could make sure that they weren't up
to no good exactly. This is also a huge strain
(08:43):
on any household. When Louie did finally he did really
visit the Prince, he brought along five thousand people. It's crazy.
It's actually why he built the Palace of Versailles in
the first place, so he could have all these nobles
live under essentially on massive, opulent, shiny roof. I really
had no idea that that was why that was there.
(09:06):
And this is amazing. Guys keep killing versa I is
crazy to visit if you, if you have the chance.
Here's the thing, like, let's think about the timeline. So
we said, we said, the king makes this decision with
at the beginning of April, and he's gonna go towards
the end of April. This gives Vattel maybe fifteen days
(09:27):
to prepare. He had barely slept for twelve nights. He
knew that he had to feed the six nobles. The
thousands of extra people are coming not for one day,
not for one feast, but for three days and everything involved.
And so in a very real sense, this was like
coordinating an army in terms of number of people. And
(09:47):
they didn't have things like Cisco, not that they would
use it right. The food supply company. They didn't have
airplanes or rail cars, so you had to find enough
food locally to feed five thousand people. And people with
hotel's job officers of the bush, we're supposed to be
(10:08):
on top of this. Three hundred years earlier, there's a
guy who had written a book estimating about how much
stuff you would need for an event of this magnitude.
You know, he's funny. He actually had a title that
i'm that I'm I found in research, which is very
akin to a position that we know so well, the
(10:28):
matre de hotel de hotel. Gosh. I wish Casey was here,
he'd be super on the case of that pronunciation. I
asked him a little bit about about this stuff earlier,
but I didn't ask him about that one. But we have,
you know, the position in a restaurant as the maitre d,
who is like essentially sort of the waiter captain are
kind of in charge of the waite staff or just
the production of the event. So I can only guess
(10:51):
that matre d is a shortened version of matre d'hotel.
Perhaps you're right, Perhaps you're right. You know what I'm
gonna double. I bet you are right. The person restaurant
who oversees the wait staff. Right. In this book, this
guy gives folks like Hotel a really granular estimate of
the brass tacks. The nuts and bolts are more directly
(11:15):
the number of hams you need for such an event.
How much fire would you need, how many hunters you
have to send out to uh to capture animals? Because
the day was going to begin with a massive hunt.
As we know Nobles especially to the episode about Napoleon
and his domesticated rabbit hunt that ended in a different
kind of disaster, um more cuddly yet terrifying disaster, where
(11:38):
he and his men were sworn by these domesticated rabbits.
So often that would be the thing. You'd have to
spend a day out with the boys, you know, going
for a fox hunt or what have you, and then
it would all end with a huge feast and then
some sort of showy display like a fireworks or something
like that. Right, and that's what it's supposed to happen
day one. You have this big, big hunt. We're gonna
have a grand old time. Will be best friends. The
(12:01):
king will think that we're dope and then we'll have
a great fireworks display. But right before the big dinner meal,
someone comes to Vtel and they say, all right, look
there's an extra seventy five guests. And so he falls
into the one the worst situations an event planner can have,
whether we're talking a wedding or a huge birthday or whatever.
(12:24):
They don't have enough food for everybody, right, Uh, there
wasn't enough roast meat for two of the six seed tables.
And this haunted Vattel. He was sure that this would
be a huge, a huge dark mark on his record.
And it was like, you know, I'm a office bush.
I don't make mistakes like that. And then the Prince
(12:46):
himself felt bad for the guy and he was like,
you know what, it's it's not really your fault, which
I thought was very cool of the Prince he said,
and and and the Prince seems like he's got a
nice vibe at least at this moment. He's like, you know,
by the way, buddy, the roast beef we do have
is great, Like good job, you know. So you know,
(13:07):
we've all been in those situations right where we think,
did I really mess up at work. You know, we
get worried about the consequences or something. Uh, and it's
always very validating to have your boss say, you know,
chill out, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. However,
the next day was even worse. So if a tell
(13:29):
starts today, probably already a little low from the previous
days light embarrassment. Again, didn't seem like it was that
big a deal. But this, this guy took this whole
business very seriously. Le grond cuisine. It was the kind
of pinnacle of French opulence to be able to show
off in a culinary display of this kind of This
(13:50):
day was gonna be no exception. Here's the thing that
was on a Friday that when the banquet was going
to be held, the actual banquet, um, so they couldn't
serve any like beef, like amal meat, I guess, I
don't know. Fish apparently doesn't count, so they would have
had to order fish because they were not anywhere near
the coast. The Atlantic coast was something in the neighborhood
(14:11):
of two forty kilometers to the east, um and it
would have taken about going on twelve days to get there. Um.
In a in a horse drawn carriage or an ox
card is some kind Um you could have gone to
Paris because they had fresh fish coming in on the daily, um,
(14:31):
you know, on ice and that one only taken a
couple of days by boat on the Seine. But they've
literally got one day, right, it's that days. No, it's
that day. And this is this is a massively clutch operation.
And this makes me think of like the most nightmarish,
like Gordon Ramsey cooking competition scenario where like, you know
(14:52):
the clock is ticking, you know your pork chop is
potentially underdone, you haven't even started plating yet. Gives me
palpitations just thinking about it. I know they ran out
of snapper at the Whole Foods. He is so much
nicer in the British shows. By the way, Gordon Ramsey,
you gotta watch out for uh, you gotta watch out
for TV producers. Let's be honest. There's another point here.
(15:12):
So it is possible they could have bought in oysters
and muscles, kept them alive and damp straw, right, but
moving a lot of fishes, as you guys pointed out,
impossible in the same day. Historians today are not completely
sure what type of fish they ordered for hotel's last banquet,
but they're thinking it would have been freshwater fish, pike, trout, uh,
(15:37):
maybe crayfish, and they were brought in physical pools, kept
fresh and alive if possible. Of course, the market is
also volatile, you know what I mean, This is not
These are the days before a bunch of health codes
right the way we understand them now, So you kind
of get what you get. Caviatemp thor. Let the buyer
(15:59):
be air and the Friday, they're trying to get all
these fish, trying to move all this fish. They have
a hard time finding stuff that is good, and they
have a hard time finding enough of anything. So let's
not forget. He had already been sleep deprived for like
twelve days, just freaking out, you know, stressing out over
this event. Um. But he was going to give it
(16:22):
his all. But the fish are very late, they're not coming.
He's waiting for this delivery. And then there is a delivery,
but it is far too few fish to feed even
a very small percentage of the guests, Like I think
a third or a fourth of the guests could be
fed by these He continuously is like pacing around. He's
(16:42):
asking for updates. Uh nothing, hours go by, nothing, nothing.
There is also no backup plan, right yeah, they're working
live and I think it's by four am. They have
what only two baskets of fish. That's I believe that's correct.
So this is what happens. He's got a coworker who's
(17:03):
mocking him. He's like, you you Dingleberry or whatever the
popular insults of the day, where du fis or whatever
they said at the time. You know, I'm historical re enactments.
Dingleberry is not my original work. But this, this may
have been one of the final straws. He's ashamed. His
(17:27):
peers are mocking him, and at this point we don't
know for sure. It might have been one of his employees,
and he feels terrible. It's almost dinner time again, we're
talking sixty tables of people, the V I P. S
of the country. And so he says, you know, I'm
gonna take a second, and he goes to his room
(17:47):
and he takes his sword. And it wasn't just any sword.
It was actually I kind of a ceremonial sword that
was given to him by the French court, right yeah,
And he had the permission, like having the right to care.
He a sword was a mark of great esteem. So
he wedges this sword, which is almost a badge of
(18:08):
honor at this point in the door of his quarters.
It's also a big deal that he had his own quarters,
and he literally fell on his sword on purpose, jumped
onto the point of the sword. That's the idea. Here's
the crazy part. According to this story, the rest of
the fish that he ordered did show up that night
(18:32):
two hours after, and the prince and the king both
were mourning the loss of this guy that they saw
a peculinary paragon. And for one reason or another, that
fish that shamed him so bad was never eaten. Maybe
people felt it was inappropriate, right, Maybe they felt uh,
(18:54):
maybe they just felt their appetites were gone. But Matt,
you noticed how we said, according to the story, a
couple of times here, Yes, I've clocked this. So now
we're gonna do maybe what do you think you want
to do? Like a reverse quister here? Why not? I
would love that alright, Any quister segment that doesn't involve
(19:14):
the actual quister I fully support. So, so, Matt, what
is the quister sound like? That's the one okay, makes
it checks out? King same, Yeah, I'm not. I'm not.
I'm not doing that. Can you do your southern gentleman voice?
(19:37):
Yeah voice? Speaking of voices, I have lost mine or
Harry carry, It's up to you. I'm most short and okay,
and let's let's do this. I like it, alright, Uh,
Colonel Frederick, just call me Jeff throw. Alright, Jeff Throw.
So if you're familiar with the long running, uh, the
(20:00):
long running antagonist of our show, Jonathan Strickland a k.
The Quister, you will know that he does what has
been described by him as the most cringe worthy segment
and podcasting. In this segment, he will typically harass, emotionally
and verbally abused Nolan, I and Casey to occasionally by
(20:21):
telling us an anecdote a snari there we go perfect
and uh, this guy shows up at the weirdest times,
like we know his thing now, uh, And our job
will be to ask him questions to figure out whether
it's true being a crew of guys who are not
(20:42):
into verbally emotionally abusing people. Instead of making you jump
through all the quister hoops, we are going to ask you,
do you think this story is true. Well, currently story,
the whole story yeah wait wait, that's we. We wouldn't
have present at all is an episode. Here's my thing,
(21:02):
I trust you, gentlemen. And if if this was just
an out and out lie, I would not only be hurt,
I'd also be a little bit pissed. Colonel that's Colonel Jethro.
That's that's quite uh you tell me, you telling me?
I sat here in this entire episode. And there's a
possibility that this is some bulls. So here's the thing.
(21:27):
We don't know a whole bunch about hotel for sure,
And the suicide story primarily comes from some really gossipy
letters from the Marquise de Seville to her daughter. She
this was a prolific letter writer, and most of the
information in this story that we've all just heard was
(21:50):
from her account. The thing was, she was not there
to see the events. She heard about its second hands
as a game of telephone. He said, she said, he said,
she said, kind of stuff, and tell me there's a
messenger pigeon or some sort. Well, it was also mentioned
in other places. To right, it's it's we primarily get
it from this story, but other people, at least including
(22:12):
the prince said that it happened, so we think it
could be true. But how much of it was embellished?
Do you know what I mean? I need I need
an account of someone who was in the room where
it happened. Well, you're not going to get that, Colonel.
We don't have that. We do have. Um is a twist,
a sad, devastating twist, according to these gossipy letters, was
(22:36):
that the remainder of the shipment of fish arrived mere
hours after our hero has run himself through on said
ceremonial sword. Um. And there is actually a film about
the life of Francois Votel. Um played in the film
which is directed by Roland Joffe by one of my
(22:56):
favorite French actors, Gerard Depastually. And in the film, it's
much more uh study on the awful behavior of aristocrats,
and it kind of paints votel as being like this potential,
like nobody unless he had had these patrons and was
sort of lifted up, you know, out of obscurity by
(23:19):
these members of the royal court. And as opposed to
responding to a late fish delivery, he kind of caves
under the pressures Um and the treatment that he receives,
you know, as being a part of this system. Um.
I have not seen the film myself, but I very
much look forward to checking it out. Heavy is the
head that wears the crowd right of culinary responsibility at least,
(23:44):
so we we definitely know something happened. We just don't
know all of the details. This is strange because even
centuries later, it's a very understandable shame, the ignomy right
of it all, Like a mad jen If you are
the head of the dining industry at the White House,
(24:06):
right and you mess something up. I don't know what
that would be now exactly. I don't know if that
would be like you get the wrong Hamburgers, but whatever
it is, oh these days, yeah, whatever it is. This
these could easily be situations where it feels like the
one bad thing that goes wrong matters more than the
one hundred things you did well, you know what I mean. Yeah,
(24:28):
but not to mention like nowadays you might be dealing
with entourages of a hundred maybe yeah, back then, I mean,
like, like like, you know, so this is Los Angeles Times article.
The subject is a very beautifully dismissive votel. The fish
Suicide Guy by Charles Perry from February of two thousand one,
and it's talking about the films the year that came
(24:49):
out Um that he likens Vtel and his um depiction
in the film by day Pardieu to a general because
his organizational skills had to be so finely tuned UM
to get all of these all of this food. I mean,
because again it had to be local most of the time.
So when you have five thousand people, it's the equivalent
(25:10):
of an army marching into town, and you have to prepare,
I get to strategize. And he was given not enough
time to do it correctly, and he paid for it
with his life, according to the accounts that we do have.
But we don't want this to end on an entirely
(25:30):
low note, you know what I mean. Let's we We've
teased a little bit about Shantilly creams, so maybe we
can end on a sweet note. Oh, I said a
dumb thing on the top of the show by They
don't put Shantilly cream on chee crab soup. It is
a dessert cram. But you can still go for it
if you want it. It's it's interesting. So let's talk
a little bit about what it is. For some reason, Uh,
Matt in your other incarnation, Colonel Jethro, Uh, Shantilly cream
(25:55):
sounds like something you would say on a day to
day basis. M I Hintilly sweet cream right next to
my men, Julip sitting on the blotch. You know, it's
a day like today, we walk outside and that heat
just hits you like a blanket right on your crotch.
Then you proceed to pull down some Wait, what are
(26:16):
we talking about. We're talking about Shantilly cream, which is
a freshly whipped cream sweetened with sugar. It's got a
vanilla flavor, and whipped cream was already around at the time,
but sugar was expensive, so sweetening whipped cream with sugar
and then vanilla, which was even more costly. That could
be an episode all its own. Uh. That was another
(26:38):
enormously profound flex right. Also, you know what, now I
think about it, it's weird how out of all the
ice cream flavors, vanilla became the most common in the
AK Boring. It's kind of a success story. Really interesting, Ben,
I'm I'm going nowhere with that, but it would be
(26:59):
cool to see how vanilla became like the ubiquitous story.
And when people are described where situations are described as
vanilla like back then that would mean expensive and from
far away only for the absolute creme de la creme
of of of high society exactly. So you know, all
(27:20):
the vanilla that reached Europe at this time came from
South America, so there was it was. It was pretty
rare until the eighteen hundreds. So Vtel does have a legacy.
And it's also a legacy that he might not have
been entirely on board with because the words chantilly is
often used for any like creation of fruit or vegetables
(27:44):
that has some froth to it, no connection to cream
or vanilla, and there are all kinds of arguments over
who actually was the first person to say, hey, drop
some vanilla. In this chantilly cannot be taken away from
the chateau's name or their mutual history. So he did
leave a legacy. He just had to pay, Uh, he
(28:06):
had to pay the highest price. Yeah, And a big
part of that legacy is almost serving like he literally
died for his art, if if the stories are to
be believed, he was almost a martyr for the French
tradition of hot cuisine um and is also credited as
being one of the earliest adopters and inventors, you know,
(28:26):
kind of a tastemaker of these massive, opulent banquets. We
talked about some of his flourishes as creative touches that
he was known for, like the fireworks, the water works,
all of that. But then I think you found a
couple of really cool examples. Yes. Uh. The thing about
these events was that the the art of the banquet
goes far beyond what is actually on the plate. That's
(28:50):
incredibly important, But there are also gonna be uh festivities,
They're gonna be plays, poetry, recitations. There was gonna be
lot I have music, you know what I mean, which
is also a sensitive topic because everything is political at
this point, so choosing the songs that get played as
also an art. Are you saying he invented dinner theater? No,
(29:14):
I don't you know what. I'm not saying that yet.
I am saying I hope that's true. Uh. It's strange
because the way they found him, the way they found
his body, was when they came to tell him that
everything would be okay, and the fish arrived. So there's
there's almost this oh, Henry kind of moment. And in
a way he's also a like your point and all
(29:35):
about him being a general, in a way, he's also
a diplomat. He has to make all of these things,
and all of these departments, which sometimes are going to
come into conflict with each other. Function is one smooth,
coherent whole. And chefs at the time also practice things
like disguising food for consumption so that it didn't seem
(29:56):
like leftovers. So he had already thought through that. And
he's somewhat noble, you know, he tried everything, and you
can look to him as an inspirational figure if the
story is completely true, because he is a man who
is so passionate about what he does that he would
rather die than disappoint the king and dishonor the art.
(30:17):
And there is where our story ends today, just talking
about this, I was looking up pictures of all these amazing,
really complicated dishes. Uh, it's I'm starving. We should you
guys want to go get something to eat? Yes? Please,
I'm quite hungry. And if you're fascinated by this stuff
like we are, um, I recommend a show for you
guys to check out. There's a really cool celebrity chef
(30:38):
named Heston blumenthality as a restaurant I believe its formational
in stars called the Fat Duck. He has several restaurants
now for sure, but that was the one that I
was familiar with. UM known for kind of doing weird
spins on things where he he makes like fruit out
of meat and disguises it so it looks. It's like
this whole idea of this disconnect between flavor and texture
(30:59):
and what you're expecting to get. And that's an old tradition.
That's a very very old tradition, absolutely is. And he
has a series called Heston's Feasts where in each episode
he uh does a different era. So there's Heston's Victorian Feast,
Medieval Tutor Roman, Heston's Christmas Feast where he makes like
(31:20):
this insane uh. There's one episode remakes this insane like
pigeon pie or birds actually fly out, And there's actually
one in the Roman Feast where the main course are
the the dessert is called the ejaculating Cake. I'm in
I I would love to see you in a room
where that pigeon pie is released. I would be terrified,
(31:41):
But I really do recommend the show. It's a lot
of fun. You can probably stream it on YouTube, I think,
but it'll give you a sense. He really tries to
recreate the feel um and of these really opulent feasts
that that Vtel would have been kind of one of
the early adopters of. And if you're a fan of
food history, food science, traveling more, we highly recommend you
(32:04):
check out our peer podcast SABOR, hosted by Annie Reese
and Lauren Voguel Bomb. Everyone, thank you so much for
tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this strange dive into
the rarefied air of Hote cuisine. And I want to
do uh, I want to do an episode just on
(32:24):
all the crazy top notch restaurants like l W which
is closed, or noma Um Matt Frederick a k. Colonel Chethrow,
thank you so much for hanging out with us on
the podcast today. Thanks for having me. I did not
contribute anything, and I disregard any compliment you would give me,
so thanks for letting me be here. That's oh, check
(32:48):
out my show. It's called Stuff They Don't Want You
to Know. Yeah, where do people learn more about you?
It's find us at Conspiracy Stuff or at Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Thank you also to our super producer, Casey Agram here
in spirit. Thank you to our friend of the show
who may be returning for a second soon while I'm
off on some completely non sketchy uh adventures and pursuits,
(33:12):
Christopher Haciotis. Thanks Jolex Williams who composed our theme, and
and begrudging thanks to Jonathan strickland Um for you know,
being a nemesis. You gotta have an nemesis. It's important
give you something to strive for. And thanks to Cheryl
Crowe as well in that regard. This ends today's episode,
but not our show. We kindly invite you to check
(33:34):
us out on the social meads. You can find us
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the hits, all the good ones.
Just go over to Facebook check out our group page,
Ridiculous Historians, where you can meet our favorite part of
the show, your fellow listeners. You can also follow us
individually on Instagram if you want to see what we
(33:55):
get up to when we are not hanging out here together.
I am at Ben Bowling, I am at how Now
Noel Brown, We'll see you next time. Cooks. For more
podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye.
(00:27):
Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
so much for tuning in. We are coming to you
from a pretty weird place right now. We are in
our good friend, uh a good friend, Matt Frederick's hotel
room in Orlando during podcast movement, and we are wondering.
(00:48):
It's a question for you, folks, what is one of
the most embarrassing moments of your life or what's the
most embarrassed you've ever been? Hi, I'm Ben, Hey, I'm
no Matt. I gotta ask you. Did you take off
the top sheet when you got here? Is that a
thing you do? What are you talking about? You know?
You gotta like for the for the germs. You're seen
those videos where they hit it with a black light.
(01:09):
You know, the hotel bed, the top sheets apparently where
all the nasties live on the comforter, on the comforter.
Yeah no, dude, I like I slept right on top
of the comforter. I feel like I missed up. Is disgusting. Now,
you're our super producer today, so we need a sound
cue for you, uh, folks, Welcome super producer Matt Frederick. So,
uh so, no, were you going with this top sheet?
(01:32):
Is that? Does that lead to an embarrassing story? No,
just wondering, just making conversation. Okay, I want to know
his hotel room etiquette. You know. Yeah, we've had we've
had a crazy week here of folks. Uh we We're
going somewhere with this embarrassing moment question, because no matter
who you are, you could be the smoothest cucumber on
(01:53):
the farm, and you will still occasionally, at least in
your adolescence or the puberty year, you will probably have
moments that seemed very, very embarrassing, so bad in fact,
that you think, oh my god, I wish I died
right now, she's never gonna date me, or he thinks
I'm a nerd or something like that, and ask part
(02:15):
of growing up. But today's story is about embarrassment, about
shame that was so profound it led to uh, it
led to to suicide. That doesn't sound like very much
fun at all, Ben, it was. It was not fun
for him. It's a fascinating story. This is this is
(02:36):
the story of a cook a ship named Francois Vattel. God. Yeah,
just so so we all know that the like. You
know you worked briefly in the service industry, right, I
think we both did. I did. Yeah, I worked in
a tapas restaurant. It's actually where I got some of
my earliest kind of cooking techniques downpat like had a saute.
(02:59):
You know, you gotta keep things moving in the pan,
otherwise things I'll get clumped up and burn. Right, Okay, okay?
T a p A S I thought topless? No, No,
definitely not um but that's a joke. Many people in
the topas industry here a lot, is it true? Yeah?
You know I almost worked in the topless bar one time.
Oh yeah, to tell as a musician, I was gonna
(03:20):
play a gig with my buddy Chris. Huh. It didn't
work out. You would have been a freelancer for the night.
You wouldn't have been a full time employee of the Topless,
which probably means you could wear whatever you want. Yeah, okay,
Uh so, Matt, did you ever work in the in
the service industry? I did. I was a pool service
boy at a private club a PSB. Yeah, PSB. So
(03:44):
you served rich people pool food, bougie pool food, yeah,
almost all Pino Griggio. That was pretty much and some scotch. Oh,
and she crabs soup, and she crabs soup with some sherry.
Oh you know what else comes on? She crabs soup
sometimes some kind of a form of a shintilly dream
that sounds delicious, and the chantilly cream that turns out
(04:05):
was invented by the chef in question, Francois Vattel. He
was a very, very forward thinking and fastidious cook. He
worked his way up in the bougie high society of
a France um. He was an employee of the household
of Nicholas Fouquet, who was the superintendent of finance in
France for like the whole country. Yeah, yeah, he was
(04:27):
charge of the entirety of finance for the then fifteen
year old monarch of France. Uh. Francois himself was not
originally French. He was born Fritz Carl Vattel with a
W in Switzerland, the son of Charles Vattel, who was
a farm worker. Its name is still pretty common in Zurich.
(04:49):
Uh and we think he was born like the mid
to early sixteen hundreds, six sixteen thirty five, somewhere between there.
And like Noel said, he worked his way up as
a pastry cook. When he was finally done with his apprenticeship,
that he shot straight to the top of the culinary world.
(05:09):
He was working for that finance minister, and the weird
thing about it was that he was playing the role
of a chef. But historians think he may not have
actually known how to cook. Wait. Yeah, he was in
charge of this office known as the Bush or La Bush,
(05:30):
and uh he was responsible for everything from what the
Minister of Finance eight during bedtime and what he during
bedtime right, his night's next and uh you know these
huge opulent banquets. Right, So he was almost more of
a glorified event planner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like an administrative role.
(05:50):
Yeah he's he's more producing I guess right, and organizing
than actually cooking a lot of stuff. I guess that's
the thing. A lot of the details of his early
life are a little bit disputed, even his actual birthday. Um,
and he is credited with with inventing cram Shantilly for
one of these opulent soarees. But yeah, it's true. He
(06:11):
is a little bit more known, especially in the story,
as being kind of the guy who makes things happen,
like the Winston Wolf of massive opulent banquets and events,
so very much like sort of a prototype to the
modern day event planner. He had some kind of signature
moves when it came to these big events. He loved
things like stage illusions, uh, masks with a queue like
(06:35):
eyes wide shut style, you know, um, a masquerade ball
like in the Phantom of the Opera or something like that.
Loved fireworks that's gonna come into play in a little bit,
and water works. I'm guessing he maybe even got out
of things like ice sculptures, but I don't know that
for sure. Yeah, we do know that he definitely made
some made some waves. He actually angered the King, King
(06:55):
Louis the fourteenth himself and again Louise like so at
this time, uh, and Louis felt jealous of the Minister
of Finances displays. The guy was swagging too hard and
was flexing on him, and he's like, I'm the king.
And he actually threw the Superintendent of Finances, who I
(07:16):
earlier called the Minister the Superintendent of Finances into jail
in sixteen sixty one, just for the crime of being cooler.
It's crazy to be king, right, Matt, And so, while
He is credited with the invention of Chantilly cream. He
is perhaps better known for a very, very tough series
(07:38):
of events. At the start of April. Beginning of April
in sixteen seventy one, the king announced that he would
honor the Prince de Conde by visiting him from the
twenty three to April that year. The problem was he
would think that was really cool, right, It's like the
president of your country says, I'm gonna go kick it, right.
(08:00):
The thing is, because this guy is an absolute monarch
and he has so much power, it's sort of a
dangerous honor to have the king visit as a guest.
Because Louis insisted that all of the nobles of France
and all of their entourage members travel with him so
that he can keep an eye on him, you know
what I mean, because a mega entourage, so you know,
(08:22):
absolutely optics. But also you're right to keep your friends
close and your enemies closer. These were folks that could
potentially supplant him or you know, god only knows, plot
whatever kind of dirty dealings against him, because it was
that kind of time. So he wanted to keep them
around so he could make sure that they weren't up
to no good exactly. This is also a huge strain
(08:43):
on any household. When Louie did finally he did really
visit the Prince, he brought along five thousand people. It's crazy.
It's actually why he built the Palace of Versailles in
the first place, so he could have all these nobles
live under essentially on massive, opulent, shiny roof. I really
had no idea that that was why that was there.
(09:06):
And this is amazing. Guys keep killing versa I is
crazy to visit if you, if you have the chance.
Here's the thing, like, let's think about the timeline. So
we said, we said, the king makes this decision with
at the beginning of April, and he's gonna go towards
the end of April. This gives Vattel maybe fifteen days
(09:27):
to prepare. He had barely slept for twelve nights. He
knew that he had to feed the six nobles. The
thousands of extra people are coming not for one day,
not for one feast, but for three days and everything involved.
And so in a very real sense, this was like
coordinating an army in terms of number of people. And
(09:47):
they didn't have things like Cisco, not that they would
use it right. The food supply company. They didn't have
airplanes or rail cars, so you had to find enough
food locally to feed five thousand people. And people with
hotel's job officers of the bush, we're supposed to be
(10:08):
on top of this. Three hundred years earlier, there's a
guy who had written a book estimating about how much
stuff you would need for an event of this magnitude.
You know, he's funny. He actually had a title that
i'm that I'm I found in research, which is very
akin to a position that we know so well, the
(10:28):
matre de hotel de hotel. Gosh. I wish Casey was here,
he'd be super on the case of that pronunciation. I
asked him a little bit about about this stuff earlier,
but I didn't ask him about that one. But we have,
you know, the position in a restaurant as the maitre d,
who is like essentially sort of the waiter captain are
kind of in charge of the waite staff or just
the production of the event. So I can only guess
(10:51):
that matre d is a shortened version of matre d'hotel.
Perhaps you're right, Perhaps you're right. You know what I'm
gonna double. I bet you are right. The person restaurant
who oversees the wait staff. Right. In this book, this
guy gives folks like Hotel a really granular estimate of
the brass tacks. The nuts and bolts are more directly
(11:15):
the number of hams you need for such an event.
How much fire would you need, how many hunters you
have to send out to uh to capture animals? Because
the day was going to begin with a massive hunt.
As we know Nobles especially to the episode about Napoleon
and his domesticated rabbit hunt that ended in a different
kind of disaster, um more cuddly yet terrifying disaster, where
(11:38):
he and his men were sworn by these domesticated rabbits.
So often that would be the thing. You'd have to
spend a day out with the boys, you know, going
for a fox hunt or what have you, and then
it would all end with a huge feast and then
some sort of showy display like a fireworks or something
like that. Right, and that's what it's supposed to happen
day one. You have this big, big hunt. We're gonna
have a grand old time. Will be best friends. The
(12:01):
king will think that we're dope and then we'll have
a great fireworks display. But right before the big dinner meal,
someone comes to Vtel and they say, all right, look
there's an extra seventy five guests. And so he falls
into the one the worst situations an event planner can have,
whether we're talking a wedding or a huge birthday or whatever.
(12:24):
They don't have enough food for everybody, right, Uh, there
wasn't enough roast meat for two of the six seed tables.
And this haunted Vattel. He was sure that this would
be a huge, a huge dark mark on his record.
And it was like, you know, I'm a office bush.
I don't make mistakes like that. And then the Prince
(12:46):
himself felt bad for the guy and he was like,
you know what, it's it's not really your fault, which
I thought was very cool of the Prince he said,
and and and the Prince seems like he's got a
nice vibe at least at this moment. He's like, you know,
by the way, buddy, the roast beef we do have
is great, Like good job, you know. So you know,
(13:07):
we've all been in those situations right where we think,
did I really mess up at work. You know, we
get worried about the consequences or something. Uh, and it's
always very validating to have your boss say, you know,
chill out, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. However,
the next day was even worse. So if a tell
(13:29):
starts today, probably already a little low from the previous
days light embarrassment. Again, didn't seem like it was that
big a deal. But this, this guy took this whole
business very seriously. Le grond cuisine. It was the kind
of pinnacle of French opulence to be able to show
off in a culinary display of this kind of This
(13:50):
day was gonna be no exception. Here's the thing that
was on a Friday that when the banquet was going
to be held, the actual banquet, um, so they couldn't
serve any like beef, like amal meat, I guess, I
don't know. Fish apparently doesn't count, so they would have
had to order fish because they were not anywhere near
the coast. The Atlantic coast was something in the neighborhood
(14:11):
of two forty kilometers to the east, um and it
would have taken about going on twelve days to get there. Um.
In a in a horse drawn carriage or an ox
card is some kind Um you could have gone to
Paris because they had fresh fish coming in on the daily, um,
(14:31):
you know, on ice and that one only taken a
couple of days by boat on the Seine. But they've
literally got one day, right, it's that days. No, it's
that day. And this is this is a massively clutch operation.
And this makes me think of like the most nightmarish,
like Gordon Ramsey cooking competition scenario where like, you know
(14:52):
the clock is ticking, you know your pork chop is
potentially underdone, you haven't even started plating yet. Gives me
palpitations just thinking about it. I know they ran out
of snapper at the Whole Foods. He is so much
nicer in the British shows. By the way, Gordon Ramsey,
you gotta watch out for uh, you gotta watch out
for TV producers. Let's be honest. There's another point here.
(15:12):
So it is possible they could have bought in oysters
and muscles, kept them alive and damp straw, right, but
moving a lot of fishes, as you guys pointed out,
impossible in the same day. Historians today are not completely
sure what type of fish they ordered for hotel's last banquet,
but they're thinking it would have been freshwater fish, pike, trout, uh,
(15:37):
maybe crayfish, and they were brought in physical pools, kept
fresh and alive if possible. Of course, the market is
also volatile, you know what I mean, This is not
These are the days before a bunch of health codes
right the way we understand them now, So you kind
of get what you get. Caviatemp thor. Let the buyer
(15:59):
be air and the Friday, they're trying to get all
these fish, trying to move all this fish. They have
a hard time finding stuff that is good, and they
have a hard time finding enough of anything. So let's
not forget. He had already been sleep deprived for like
twelve days, just freaking out, you know, stressing out over
this event. Um. But he was going to give it
(16:22):
his all. But the fish are very late, they're not coming.
He's waiting for this delivery. And then there is a delivery,
but it is far too few fish to feed even
a very small percentage of the guests, Like I think
a third or a fourth of the guests could be
fed by these He continuously is like pacing around. He's
(16:42):
asking for updates. Uh nothing, hours go by, nothing, nothing.
There is also no backup plan, right yeah, they're working
live and I think it's by four am. They have
what only two baskets of fish. That's I believe that's correct.
So this is what happens. He's got a coworker who's
(17:03):
mocking him. He's like, you you Dingleberry or whatever the
popular insults of the day, where du fis or whatever
they said at the time. You know, I'm historical re enactments.
Dingleberry is not my original work. But this, this may
have been one of the final straws. He's ashamed. His
(17:27):
peers are mocking him, and at this point we don't
know for sure. It might have been one of his employees,
and he feels terrible. It's almost dinner time again, we're
talking sixty tables of people, the V I P. S
of the country. And so he says, you know, I'm
gonna take a second, and he goes to his room
(17:47):
and he takes his sword. And it wasn't just any sword.
It was actually I kind of a ceremonial sword that
was given to him by the French court, right yeah,
And he had the permission, like having the right to care.
He a sword was a mark of great esteem. So
he wedges this sword, which is almost a badge of
(18:08):
honor at this point in the door of his quarters.
It's also a big deal that he had his own quarters,
and he literally fell on his sword on purpose, jumped
onto the point of the sword. That's the idea. Here's
the crazy part. According to this story, the rest of
the fish that he ordered did show up that night
(18:32):
two hours after, and the prince and the king both
were mourning the loss of this guy that they saw
a peculinary paragon. And for one reason or another, that
fish that shamed him so bad was never eaten. Maybe
people felt it was inappropriate, right, Maybe they felt uh,
(18:54):
maybe they just felt their appetites were gone. But Matt,
you noticed how we said, according to the story, a
couple of times here, Yes, I've clocked this. So now
we're gonna do maybe what do you think you want
to do? Like a reverse quister here? Why not? I
would love that alright, Any quister segment that doesn't involve
(19:14):
the actual quister I fully support. So, so, Matt, what
is the quister sound like? That's the one okay, makes
it checks out? King same, Yeah, I'm not. I'm not.
I'm not doing that. Can you do your southern gentleman voice?
(19:37):
Yeah voice? Speaking of voices, I have lost mine or
Harry carry, It's up to you. I'm most short and okay,
and let's let's do this. I like it, alright, Uh,
Colonel Frederick, just call me Jeff throw. Alright, Jeff Throw.
So if you're familiar with the long running, uh, the
(20:00):
long running antagonist of our show, Jonathan Strickland a k.
The Quister, you will know that he does what has
been described by him as the most cringe worthy segment
and podcasting. In this segment, he will typically harass, emotionally
and verbally abused Nolan, I and Casey to occasionally by
(20:21):
telling us an anecdote a snari there we go perfect
and uh, this guy shows up at the weirdest times,
like we know his thing now, uh, And our job
will be to ask him questions to figure out whether
it's true being a crew of guys who are not
(20:42):
into verbally emotionally abusing people. Instead of making you jump
through all the quister hoops, we are going to ask you,
do you think this story is true. Well, currently story,
the whole story yeah wait wait, that's we. We wouldn't
have present at all is an episode. Here's my thing,
(21:02):
I trust you, gentlemen. And if if this was just
an out and out lie, I would not only be hurt,
I'd also be a little bit pissed. Colonel that's Colonel Jethro.
That's that's quite uh you tell me, you telling me?
I sat here in this entire episode. And there's a
possibility that this is some bulls. So here's the thing.
(21:27):
We don't know a whole bunch about hotel for sure,
And the suicide story primarily comes from some really gossipy
letters from the Marquise de Seville to her daughter. She
this was a prolific letter writer, and most of the
information in this story that we've all just heard was
(21:50):
from her account. The thing was, she was not there
to see the events. She heard about its second hands
as a game of telephone. He said, she said, he said,
she said, kind of stuff, and tell me there's a
messenger pigeon or some sort. Well, it was also mentioned
in other places. To right, it's it's we primarily get
it from this story, but other people, at least including
(22:12):
the prince said that it happened, so we think it
could be true. But how much of it was embellished?
Do you know what I mean? I need I need
an account of someone who was in the room where
it happened. Well, you're not going to get that, Colonel.
We don't have that. We do have. Um is a twist,
a sad, devastating twist, according to these gossipy letters, was
(22:36):
that the remainder of the shipment of fish arrived mere
hours after our hero has run himself through on said
ceremonial sword. Um. And there is actually a film about
the life of Francois Votel. Um played in the film
which is directed by Roland Joffe by one of my
(22:56):
favorite French actors, Gerard Depastually. And in the film, it's
much more uh study on the awful behavior of aristocrats,
and it kind of paints votel as being like this potential,
like nobody unless he had had these patrons and was
sort of lifted up, you know, out of obscurity by
(23:19):
these members of the royal court. And as opposed to
responding to a late fish delivery, he kind of caves
under the pressures Um and the treatment that he receives,
you know, as being a part of this system. Um.
I have not seen the film myself, but I very
much look forward to checking it out. Heavy is the
head that wears the crowd right of culinary responsibility at least,
(23:44):
so we we definitely know something happened. We just don't
know all of the details. This is strange because even
centuries later, it's a very understandable shame, the ignomy right
of it all, Like a mad jen If you are
the head of the dining industry at the White House,
(24:06):
right and you mess something up. I don't know what
that would be now exactly. I don't know if that
would be like you get the wrong Hamburgers, but whatever
it is, oh these days, yeah, whatever it is. This
these could easily be situations where it feels like the
one bad thing that goes wrong matters more than the
one hundred things you did well, you know what I mean. Yeah,
(24:28):
but not to mention like nowadays you might be dealing
with entourages of a hundred maybe yeah, back then, I mean,
like, like like, you know, so this is Los Angeles Times article.
The subject is a very beautifully dismissive votel. The fish
Suicide Guy by Charles Perry from February of two thousand one,
and it's talking about the films the year that came
(24:49):
out Um that he likens Vtel and his um depiction
in the film by day Pardieu to a general because
his organizational skills had to be so finely tuned UM
to get all of these all of this food. I mean,
because again it had to be local most of the time.
So when you have five thousand people, it's the equivalent
(25:10):
of an army marching into town, and you have to prepare,
I get to strategize. And he was given not enough
time to do it correctly, and he paid for it
with his life, according to the accounts that we do have.
But we don't want this to end on an entirely
(25:30):
low note, you know what I mean. Let's we We've
teased a little bit about Shantilly creams, so maybe we
can end on a sweet note. Oh, I said a
dumb thing on the top of the show by They
don't put Shantilly cream on chee crab soup. It is
a dessert cram. But you can still go for it
if you want it. It's it's interesting. So let's talk
a little bit about what it is. For some reason, Uh,
Matt in your other incarnation, Colonel Jethro, Uh, Shantilly cream
(25:55):
sounds like something you would say on a day to
day basis. M I Hintilly sweet cream right next to
my men, Julip sitting on the blotch. You know, it's
a day like today, we walk outside and that heat
just hits you like a blanket right on your crotch.
Then you proceed to pull down some Wait, what are
(26:16):
we talking about. We're talking about Shantilly cream, which is
a freshly whipped cream sweetened with sugar. It's got a
vanilla flavor, and whipped cream was already around at the time,
but sugar was expensive, so sweetening whipped cream with sugar
and then vanilla, which was even more costly. That could
be an episode all its own. Uh. That was another
(26:38):
enormously profound flex right. Also, you know what, now I
think about it, it's weird how out of all the
ice cream flavors, vanilla became the most common in the
AK Boring. It's kind of a success story. Really interesting, Ben,
I'm I'm going nowhere with that, but it would be
(26:59):
cool to see how vanilla became like the ubiquitous story.
And when people are described where situations are described as
vanilla like back then that would mean expensive and from
far away only for the absolute creme de la creme
of of of high society exactly. So you know, all
(27:20):
the vanilla that reached Europe at this time came from
South America, so there was it was. It was pretty
rare until the eighteen hundreds. So Vtel does have a legacy.
And it's also a legacy that he might not have
been entirely on board with because the words chantilly is
often used for any like creation of fruit or vegetables
(27:44):
that has some froth to it, no connection to cream
or vanilla, and there are all kinds of arguments over
who actually was the first person to say, hey, drop
some vanilla. In this chantilly cannot be taken away from
the chateau's name or their mutual history. So he did
leave a legacy. He just had to pay, Uh, he
(28:06):
had to pay the highest price. Yeah, And a big
part of that legacy is almost serving like he literally
died for his art, if if the stories are to
be believed, he was almost a martyr for the French
tradition of hot cuisine um and is also credited as
being one of the earliest adopters and inventors, you know,
(28:26):
kind of a tastemaker of these massive, opulent banquets. We
talked about some of his flourishes as creative touches that
he was known for, like the fireworks, the water works,
all of that. But then I think you found a
couple of really cool examples. Yes. Uh. The thing about
these events was that the the art of the banquet
goes far beyond what is actually on the plate. That's
(28:50):
incredibly important, But there are also gonna be uh festivities,
They're gonna be plays, poetry, recitations. There was gonna be
lot I have music, you know what I mean, which
is also a sensitive topic because everything is political at
this point, so choosing the songs that get played as
also an art. Are you saying he invented dinner theater? No,
(29:14):
I don't you know what. I'm not saying that yet.
I am saying I hope that's true. Uh. It's strange
because the way they found him, the way they found
his body, was when they came to tell him that
everything would be okay, and the fish arrived. So there's
there's almost this oh, Henry kind of moment. And in
a way he's also a like your point and all
(29:35):
about him being a general, in a way, he's also
a diplomat. He has to make all of these things,
and all of these departments, which sometimes are going to
come into conflict with each other. Function is one smooth,
coherent whole. And chefs at the time also practice things
like disguising food for consumption so that it didn't seem
(29:56):
like leftovers. So he had already thought through that. And
he's somewhat noble, you know, he tried everything, and you
can look to him as an inspirational figure if the
story is completely true, because he is a man who
is so passionate about what he does that he would
rather die than disappoint the king and dishonor the art.
(30:17):
And there is where our story ends today, just talking
about this, I was looking up pictures of all these amazing,
really complicated dishes. Uh, it's I'm starving. We should you
guys want to go get something to eat? Yes? Please,
I'm quite hungry. And if you're fascinated by this stuff
like we are, um, I recommend a show for you
guys to check out. There's a really cool celebrity chef
(30:38):
named Heston blumenthality as a restaurant I believe its formational
in stars called the Fat Duck. He has several restaurants
now for sure, but that was the one that I
was familiar with. UM known for kind of doing weird
spins on things where he he makes like fruit out
of meat and disguises it so it looks. It's like
this whole idea of this disconnect between flavor and texture
(30:59):
and what you're expecting to get. And that's an old tradition.
That's a very very old tradition, absolutely is. And he
has a series called Heston's Feasts where in each episode
he uh does a different era. So there's Heston's Victorian Feast,
Medieval Tutor Roman, Heston's Christmas Feast where he makes like
(31:20):
this insane uh. There's one episode remakes this insane like
pigeon pie or birds actually fly out, And there's actually
one in the Roman Feast where the main course are
the the dessert is called the ejaculating Cake. I'm in
I I would love to see you in a room
where that pigeon pie is released. I would be terrified,
(31:41):
But I really do recommend the show. It's a lot
of fun. You can probably stream it on YouTube, I think,
but it'll give you a sense. He really tries to
recreate the feel um and of these really opulent feasts
that that Vtel would have been kind of one of
the early adopters of. And if you're a fan of
food history, food science, traveling more, we highly recommend you
(32:04):
check out our peer podcast SABOR, hosted by Annie Reese
and Lauren Voguel Bomb. Everyone, thank you so much for
tuning in. We hope you enjoyed this strange dive into
the rarefied air of Hote cuisine. And I want to
do uh, I want to do an episode just on
(32:24):
all the crazy top notch restaurants like l W which
is closed, or noma Um Matt Frederick a k. Colonel Chethrow,
thank you so much for hanging out with us on
the podcast today. Thanks for having me. I did not
contribute anything, and I disregard any compliment you would give me,
so thanks for letting me be here. That's oh, check
(32:48):
out my show. It's called Stuff They Don't Want You
to Know. Yeah, where do people learn more about you?
It's find us at Conspiracy Stuff or at Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Thank you also to our super producer, Casey Agram here
in spirit. Thank you to our friend of the show
who may be returning for a second soon while I'm
off on some completely non sketchy uh adventures and pursuits,
(33:12):
Christopher Haciotis. Thanks Jolex Williams who composed our theme, and
and begrudging thanks to Jonathan strickland Um for you know,
being a nemesis. You gotta have an nemesis. It's important
give you something to strive for. And thanks to Cheryl
Crowe as well in that regard. This ends today's episode,
but not our show. We kindly invite you to check
(33:34):
us out on the social meads. You can find us
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the hits, all the good ones.
Just go over to Facebook check out our group page,
Ridiculous Historians, where you can meet our favorite part of
the show, your fellow listeners. You can also follow us
individually on Instagram if you want to see what we
(33:55):
get up to when we are not hanging out here together.
I am at Ben Bowling, I am at how Now
Noel Brown, We'll see you next time. Cooks. For more
podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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