February 15, 2018 • 39 mins
Today, most grocery stores carry a variety of margarine and butter brands -- but this wasn't always the case. In fact, both Canada and the United States once had bizarre laws banning the production or importation of margarine. So what launched the margarine bootlegging industry? Join the guys as they explore the startling, strange story of the Big Butter versus margarine and its ''kindred abominations''.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:23):
Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, lactose, tolerant and intolerant alike. Boy,
do we have a story for you today. Hi, my
name is Ben, my name is Nolan Ben. We try
to stay tolerant on ridiculous history. True. Yeah, And I
have a new nickname for you. It's I can't believe
it's not Ben Bowling, but it is. Its Ben Bowling. Thanks.
(00:43):
And and you're Noel Brown. And of course we are
accompanied as always by our superproducer, Casey Pegrum. And today, no,
we are exploring something that I have to be honest
with you, I had no understand ending of before our
research for this episode began. Yeah, we're talking about marjarine,
(01:05):
and not just marjarine, the perennially tolerable uh spread butter substitute.
I don't know, maybe I have an Instagram. Um. I.
My whole thing is, I've always been a little confused
about what marjarine really is. But before we get to that,
people cared a lot about marjarine back in the day.
Oh they did, they did. Marjarine, it turns out, is
(01:27):
the first domestic food to be regulated by the federal
government in the United States. It has a very strange
history on this continent that has been explored in very
strange pseudo buttery depth. Uh. There's a great article by
an author named Ruth Duprie called if It's Yellow, it
Must be Butter. Marjarine regulation in North America since eighteen
(01:50):
eighty six. And the reason that date is important is
because it's not just a story of this substitute. It's
a story of what eventually escalated into a continent wide
war of sorts, a bit of a war. And you know,
last episode we talked about a war involving eggs um.
(02:11):
This episode, we're talking about a war involving various incarnations
of animal parts and stuff that you can put on
things to eat and cook with. That year you mentioned,
the six is very important because that is the year that, uh,
the United States passed the Marjarine Act, which severely limited
(02:32):
It was kind of this cap off of what had
already been a war on butter in the United States.
We're talking about Canada today, but just to give a
little bit of background, in the United States, big butter, right,
kind of like big Brother, but more buttery. They fought
tooth and nail against this substitute they were so protective
of their industry that anything they saw is potentially stepping
(02:54):
on their terrain. They had friends in high places and
they made sure to quash that. And Margarine was persona
non grad I was m enemy number one. Yes, and
we are, ASNAL said, we are focusing on Canada for
today's purposes. But we found so much fascinating, hilarious and
(03:14):
wait for ridiculous history about butter and Margarine in the
United States that we're going to have to throw some
of these awesome quotes. And there's one I've been waiting
to do, like all all week. Yes, and and lest
we get ahead of ourselves, just know all of this
is to set the stage for the demonization that did
spread to spread to Canada. That's good because that year
(03:38):
of when this act was passed in the United States
was the same year that Canada banned marjarine completely, no
its ands or but substitutes. I know we're skirting the
family show a line here is fine. So we'd like
to give you this quote from Governor Lucius Hubbard of Minnesota, who,
(03:59):
in this time time bemoan the fact that the quote
ingenuity of depraved human genius has culminated in the production
of oleomargarine and it's kindred abominations. I have never heard
a food stuff or group of food items referred to
as abominations, kindred, or otherwise. This was such a big
(04:20):
deal that other senators spoke out on the issue as well.
Senator Joseph Quarrels of Wisconsin, also known as the dairy
State UH, said that butter should come from the dairy,
not the slaughterhouse. I want butter that has the natural
aroma of life and health, said Senator Quarrels. I declined
(04:41):
to accept as a substitute. Call fat matured under the
chill of death, blended with vegetable oils and flavored by
chemical tricks and the last one. The butter lobby in
the United States had such an asta grind with margarine
that they throughout all kinds of spurious, awful misinformation to
completely malign this product, which we need to need to
(05:01):
talk more about what the product actually is. But let
me do this quote and then we'll see what you
can do about that quote. They called it the slag
of the butcher shop, a compound of diseased hogs and
dead dogs, also implying that it contained quote the germs
of cancer, that is from the War on Margarine from
the Foundation for Economic Education, written by Adam Young. So, Ben,
(05:26):
we need to take it. We need to pump the
brakes a little bit before we we go to Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Canada.
I have I think a solution. Yeah. Do you remember
earlier when we were at that that shady thrift store
and we found that butter dish. I think the cashier
was right when they said that it had extraordinary ability.
(05:47):
It was imbued with mystical properties. Yeah, which they kind
of buried the lead on that, but we we still
got it and we have it in the studio. Maybe
maybe this can help us explain the difference between butter
and margarine. You want to give it a give it
a I don't know, knock it on the table, or
give it a rub. There we go. Oh wait, wait,
(06:08):
do you hear that? I don't. I don't know yet.
It has him an added in post right right right,
So are amazing acting skills aside, it turns out that
this did work. I think we've summoned a factor, Genie,
A fact Genie. You say, whoa, whoa, it's Lauren Vogel
Bomb from food Stuff fame. I don't know why you
guys get to be this surprised. I almost had the
(06:30):
reason why magic mushrooms form in circles. I almost had
fairy circles figured out why am I here? That may
have been part of it, Lauren, You fairy magic carried
you here, and it connected with our particular brand of
fairy magic for a segment we would now like to
forever refer to as the Fact Genie. The fact Genie
(06:50):
agreed Lauren in your outside of Fact Genie life, you
are one of the driving forces behind our favorite food show,
food Stuff, also available for free via House of Works
wherever you find your podcast. I I am that's very true.
Thank you so much for that compliment. So you know,
the mystical powers of the thrift Store universe must have
(07:13):
known this and summoned to you on our behalf to
answer the question, what's the difference between butter and Marjorie?
Let's talk about this a little bit. You have a minute,
is it okay? We'll leave to you. Sure, But according
to this paper that just fell out of the Magical
Butter Dish, you only get three questions and after that
I can go seem fair. It did say that on
the receipt. I should have mentioned that earlier. It's okay, ben,
(07:36):
So okay, So I think that's our number one question.
If we only get three, our first question is justice,
and said, what is the difference between butter and margarine?
Because they're different? Right? Sure? Okay, Well, butter is a
concentration of the fatty and fat soluble parts of milk
that have been churned and worked to press out water
and link the molecules and its solid form. It's actually
(07:58):
a crystallization of those fats. Butter. Fats start crystallizing around
fifty degrees fahrenheit or ten degrees celsius. Traditionally, butter flavor
is a waste product of non pathogenic or friendly lactic
acid bacteria, which eat the sugars found in milk and
excrete flavor. But these days most butter in America is
flavored with lab produced compounds chemically identical to a couple
(08:20):
of those bacterial byproducts. More bacteria poop kind of is
that what? You're definitely bacteria poop? Yeah? Yeah, And that's
pretty that's pretty weird when you think about it. I
I personally find butter delicious and I'm starting to wonder
if I want to learn the rest of this. But
we're here. We have the butter dish. You're here, Uh,
what's margarine? Margarine is oil that's been transmogrified so that
(08:43):
it is solid at room temperature and then flavored and
colored to resemble butter. Though originally made with animal fats,
these days it's generally made with plant based oils that
have been hydrogenated, fractionated, or interest rified. I understand several
of those words. I do. It's almost like the way
you are transmogrified to this place. Almost. Uh. They're all
(09:04):
complicated ways of changing the chemical structure of a thing
to change its freezing points. At that point, you can
work the fats to create crystallization, the same as with
butter fats. But you know, butter is as old as
the hills, right, Lauren. I mean it's like, we can't
really credit somebody with inventing butter, right, well, not one person,
That's what I'm saying. But we can do that with Marjarine.
(09:26):
Can't wait? Oh yeah, that was a French guy back. Yeah,
Napoleon put out an all call in Napoleon put out
an all call for a substitute. Correct, Yeah, because butter
is so expensive that he was like, we need people
to eat food, and this food is expensive to who
has a cheaper alternative? And Nolan, I know a little
bit about this, but to consult our expert for the
(09:49):
pronunciation of Marjarine's inventor, I believe it's time for Casey
on the case or what are we calling on? Is
this a sub segment we're doing? Yeah, we're doing like
segments and segments over here. Yeah, well on the case
with Casey. Okay, we're still on the case, but we'll
get there here he is, Wow, I guess people just
(10:13):
appear here. Lauri's boy, serious history witchcraft here today? So
what's what's what's the name of the lovely French scientists
who invented Marjarine? Al Right, the inventor of margarine pronounced
in my best French accent is epolite mes moy is
and Latin gentleman. That's been Casey on the Thank you
(10:36):
so much for dropping by and letting us know, Casey
how to pronounce the name of this French chemist who
invented margarine? In did he did? He invented in eighteen
sixty nine? Then as it turns out, without being a
fact gene myself, I happen to know. That is the
case he invented in eighteen sixty nine. And his recipe.
If you guys don't know this, it will be interested
to know was was as such he did finally meant
(10:57):
to be fat, potassium, salt, fresh sheep stomach, raise the
temperature to a d thirteen degrees, the PEPs in from
the sheep's guts mixed with the beef to separate the
fat from the cellulo tissue. They are put under pressure
to separate those oils. Then milk and water was added,
and a food coloring called a nato that was made
from the seeds of the aquillote tree um. And it's
(11:18):
interesting actually because today that is used in butter a
lot of the times too, because people want that stuff
to be super yellow so they know it's the real deal,
even though it's it's not similar to salmon being pink
right cartoonishly so, and cheddar cheese being orange. That was
a free fact. We didn't ask for that. One counts.
That counts. That counts is one of our three. I
(11:38):
think we're we're we're going for the third one now,
since we have but one more fact to ask for.
I think the question that's on everybody's mind is, Lauren
Vogel bomb, where can people hear more of you? Oh goodness.
You can find me on food stuff and also on
brain stuff that's brain stuff show dot com and shows
dot how stuff works dot com slash food stuff. We're
working on it. Also on social media. Look up food
(12:00):
stuff or just google Lauren vocal Bam. I'm literally the
only one on the planet. And I want to commend
you for being such an effective fact Genie that we
only really needed to Yeah, and one of them was
like a free one kind of so well done, thank you,
and we release you from your bonds, right we have
to say that, I think, so go go be free, Genie. Well, hey,
(12:26):
congratulations though, us man. That was not only our first
fact Genie segment, but we had a segment in a segment.
You know, it's not every day you get to do
a segment within a segment. I'm really glad though, that
we didn't like open up some sort of portal to
Hell with that disruption of the universe. Yeah, that's true.
We we were pushing the envelope just a bit. But
I believe the gambit was worth it because we learned
(12:49):
a lot in a very short span of time, and
we have set the broad brush context of the great
painting that is the Margarine butter War. So we established
that this margarine is French in origin and it is
designed at the time to fulfill a need because not everyone,
(13:09):
for one reason or another, would have access to butter,
despite the fact that it was often considered a staple. Yeah,
even in our story about Martin Luther and his relationship
with butter and indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church, butter
was kind of considered to be uh, not only a staple,
but a sign of opulence in some way. But notice
that we said for various reasons people might not be
(13:33):
able to access butter. It could be uh, it could
be related to a a social thing such as income
or the influence right of an institution like the Catholic Church.
It also could just be a matter of climate. And
that's where we journey to Newfoundland's right. In a paper
called Margarine in Newfoundland History by Wealth H. Hike from
(13:56):
Newfoundland and Studies to UM, he talks about the reason
that marjarine trade popped up in Newfoundland specifically was because
the climate is just not conducive to supporting a dairy
industry um cows they need a stable temperature nine months
of the year um. The costs were prohibitive for that region,
(14:19):
and because of that, there were no significant industrialized dairy
interests in Newfoundland at all. Right, so butter had to
be imported, and this created a market demand for something
to fill the gap, because importing something will automatically make
it more expensive in most cases. And this is where
(14:40):
people began to manufacture marjarine. Well, they heard tell, they
heard tell Ben of our French inventor, whose name I've
already forgotten how to pronounce correctly. But you can backtrack
to the casey on the case segment and you'll hear
all about it there. And it was blowing up in
the United States, and it went by the name of buttering.
At the time. It wasn't even called Oleo margarine there was,
(15:02):
Buttering was kind of the name that was being thrown around,
and they realized, Wow, we might have something on our
hands here that we can use as a butter substitute. Yes,
this is interesting historically because we already began to see
in sources of the time and contemporary sources the growing controversy.
The Daily Telegraph of London ran an article on misleading
(15:25):
packaging of buttering that the Newfoundlander paper in Newfoundland, oddly enough,
also carried in August of eighteen eighty three, and the
people of Newfoundland in general began concluding that this much
cheaper substitute, this buttering, could be beneficial, especially for the
poorer segments of society. So a merchant firm named Harvey
(15:50):
and Company begins to manufacture margarine or buttering in the
colony in eighteen eighty three. And not to get too
into the weeds with the history of the production of
margarine in the region, but at the end of a
handful of years there were three primary margarine interests um
and one of them, I think, hilariously enough, was called
(16:11):
the Newfoundland Butter Company. But they just made marjarine. It's
it's sort of like the Egg Company from our earlier episode.
What was that the Pacific Egg Company of the Pacific
Egg Company, But at least they had eggs the mark
the Newfoundland Butter Company and made no butter, right, that
is that is true. They were making margarine and the
thing that was amazing about this for someone of lower
income in Newfoundland was that since marjarine could be made
(16:36):
with a combination of vegetable, mineral, and animal oils, most
notably seal oil at this time, I know, that's that's
a rough one. The end result was that margarine was
incredibly cheaper to produce, and these costs trickled down to
the consumer and it looked like it might be a
(16:56):
win win for almost everybody in society. Almost almost, because
there was one group that very very very much opposed
the idea of cheap butter for the people. Butter substitute
big butter, big Canadian butter. Because at the time we
haven't mentioned this, Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada. No, it's colony, colony.
(17:19):
It was an English colony. And the English, you know,
they were a little more las fair about this production
of margin. They didn't see it as a threat. There
wasn't a whole lot of exporting they were. They were
doing it mainly to satisfy their own needs. But here's
the thing. Then, the people in Canada, even before Newfoundland
was incorporated into Canada, they wanted that margarine. Yeah, yeah,
(17:40):
they wandered to margarine, and you can easily see why.
Although you know, there there are gonna be many many people,
uh some of us in the studio today, folks who
will argue that butter is superior in terms of taste
to margarine. There's still many people who say, hey, you
know what, it's good enough and it's not breaking the bank.
(18:01):
The thing about it, too, is there were like health
considerations too, right, because these people that in Newfoundland have
become such loyal customers of this food stuff. There were
studies that went around in the Newfoundland region that showed
that folks there were quite deficient in some vitamins, vitamins
A and D, and they also found that margarine was
(18:22):
deficient in vitamins A and D. And you know, the
health benefits of marjarine versus butter have largely been called
into question because of things like saturated fat transfers transpat
which both have so you're supposed to use both of
them sparingly, right, But at this time, you know what
big Marjarine did in Newfoundland, they did a lot like
our pals that made the vitamin donuts. Yeah, they just
(18:44):
fortified that biz. Yeah, and they wanted to keep the
consumers incentivized to eat this. So now they could say,
not only is this more affordable than butter, but this
is also healthy or it's you know, fortified with for
any jamin doughnut listeners out there, so everyone could afford it.
Everyone got a little bit more vitamin A and d
(19:07):
intake for PEP for pep for for vigor. Right at
the time, as we said, Newfoundland was still a British colony,
but in nineteen forty nine it became part of Canada,
so that eighteen eighties six law banning marjarine in Canada
didn't apply to Newfoundland at the time because it was
a colony. And we're talking about the idea of bootlegging margarine.
(19:31):
Maybe that's a little loaded, but it's interesting because when
we say bootlegging, we're talking about bootlegging in the same
way that during Prohibition people would uh smuggle illegal booze.
They were making it themselves in stills or whatever. Right,
the marjarine thing was happening at the very same time
people were smuggling it from Newfoundland into the rest of Canada.
(19:55):
Because in Newfoundland, even when it got incorporated into the
Dominion of Canada, uh, they were still allowed to make
the stuff, they couldn't ship it anywhere else throughout the
entire country. It was totally isolated to Newfoundland, which is
a little bit isolated in and of itself. It's kind
of an island, right, yeah, it's it's it is a
little bit isolated. I would I I would argue from
(20:16):
our perspective down here, Canada's Parliament past federal legislation in nine,
the same year that Newfoundland became part of Canada, to
prohibit the manufacturing sale of margarine anywhere in Canada except
for two places, Newfoundland and Labrador, because they both had
this pre existing industrial base for the production of margarine, right.
(20:38):
The other one of Labrador being all the retrievers right yes, yes,
the famous home of all retrievers. That's where they come from. Um.
But this is the thing, the whole um joining up
Newfoundland with Canada. There are some caveats, ben because big
Butter put its big giant buttery foot down and influenced
(20:58):
lawmakers to the point we got this delightful little section
from the nineties nine British North American Act, Section forty six.
As it happens, OLEO margarine or margarine may be manufactured
or sold in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador after
the date of the Union, and the Parliament of Canada
shall not prohibit or restrict such manufacture or sale accepted
(21:20):
the request of the legislature of the Province of Newfoundland.
But nothing in this term shall affect the power of
the Parliament of Canada to require compliance with standards of
quality acceptable throughout Canada. That's the set up, and now
we'd like to Now we'd like to share where the
rubber hits the road legislatively big time number two, unless
the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, or unless the sale
(21:43):
and manufacture in and the interprovincial movement between all provinces
of Canada other than Newfoundland and Labrador of oleo, margarine
and margarine. It's interesting they call them two different things.
We did not realize that was the case. Uh is lawful.
Under the laws of Canada. Oleomargin or margarine shall not
be sent, shipped, brought, or carried from the Province of
Newfoundland and Labrador into any other province of Canada. So
(22:07):
there you got the black market marjarine trade popping up overnight.
It wasn't overnight though, because it was already happening, right. Yeah,
It wasn't like all of a sudden Canada was like,
what is this magical marjarine? They knew what it was.
You could get to Newfoundland. People knew each other. They
you know, they talked. But the dairy industry does have
profound influence at this point, and they didn't just wage
(22:29):
the war in the halls of parliament. They also waged
the war in the public domain. It's interesting. In the
Dupre paper, Uh, the author says that in both the
United States and Canada, the people who were prosecuting against
margarine argued that they were acting in the public interest.
(22:49):
In one case, and this goes back to that quotation
you had earlier, they would say that they were protecting
consumers from a product that was injurious to health, or
they were protecting people from the fraudulent sale of margarine
as butter. And that is the thing that we see
in the United States side of this story as well.
In a story from the New York Times from eighteen
(23:12):
seventy seven, we have this quote. Christopher Strauss, a grocer
of number sixteen Second Avenue, was arraigned before Justice Murray
in the fifty seven Street Police court yesterday charged with
selling OLEO margarine representing it to be pure butter. S A. Churchill,
a former manufacturer of the artificial article and who was
now employed as a detective by the Butter and Cheese Exchange,
(23:33):
appeared as complaint. Yeah, and this this is strange because
it turns out those accusations of fraud are pretty well founded.
Margarine was often sold as buttered because both could be
sold in bulk, and it was virtually impossible to distinguish
between the two by sensory examination, you know, So like
if you if you and I just saw blocks of
(23:56):
marginal one side, butter on one side, and they were
made to look relatively I enticle, we wouldn't be able
to tell without a little bit more in depth investigation.
And there's a there's a weird thing here because from
its inception or a multiple times throughout history, butter was
regulated the same way you would regulate the so called
(24:18):
vice products like tobacco or alcohol of some sort, which
is strange because it's not going to affect you mentally, Right,
You're not going to get a butter buzz, or maybe
you and I just haven't eaten enough butter and I
love the phrase butter buzz dude. I mean sometimes I
just take a bite out of a stick of butter,
(24:39):
just just to feel that euphoric rush, some a dopamine sensors.
I saw the guy at a baseball game casually eating
a stick of butter. That's a fair food. They deep
fry a stick of butter. They'll deep fry anything at
a fair now, and a stick of butter. It's apparently
the wave of the future. It's crazy. It looked like
he bought it from home, Like he had the foil
and it was unwrapping it and he just are to
(25:00):
eating it. It's a brave new world, my friend. It's
a brave new world, Knoll. And this was a brave
new trade front right because there's market demand. Big Dairy
is fighting tooth and nail against this. And as as
we had said, I I think we'd be remiss if
we didn't spend just a little bit of time on
(25:21):
the United States version of this conflict totally, man, I
think we've drawn the parallels between the two situations. How
you know, the American story definitely influenced the Canadian um
because all this was kind of happening around the same time.
But there are some very interesting little fact nuggets from
the American side that we have not mentioned yet. Yes,
we owe it to everyone, ourselves included, to dive a
(25:45):
little deeper into the butter churn of big dairy in
the United States, so in the Midwest, in Wisconsin specifically,
in other states like Minnesota and such. This was a
tremendous deal because dairy was a huge, hugely influential industry, right,
and it provided a lot of jobs. It was super
(26:05):
crucial to the economy. And the governors and the senators
and the representatives understood this, and they were all kind
of many of them were running to be on the
side of of butter and dairy right and to fight
the perfidious threat of margarine, especially if they were representing
constituents who had those jobs and depended on those jobs.
(26:26):
I'm sure there was also some some palm greasing but
buttering of palms going on, but you know, at the
end of the day, they were looking out for their constituents,
possibly a little too vehemently. But what happened. Yeah, there
was a fantastic example we found in a national geographic
account written by Rebecca Rupp called the Butter Wars when
margarine was pink. That's a little spoiler for you later too,
(26:50):
And it concerns a Wisconsin taste test in nineteen fifty
five in which senators were blindfolded and they were It's
sort of like the Pepsi challenge. If anybody remembers that
from what was that the nineties or so? Yeah, yeah,
I think that, you know, an when Michael Jackson set
his hair on fire. Taste of a new Generation. And
(27:10):
the reason we bring this up is because the arrangement
was essentially the same. These senators were blindfolded and they
had to taste butter and they had to taste margarine
and tell the difference between the two, which, of course,
they all claimed that they could do, no question, And
most of these folks were not fooled, except famously, a
(27:31):
guy named Gordon rose Lip. Yeah. He was extremely pro butter,
a huge advocate of butter, and he tasted it and
he got it wrong. He preferred the margarine consistently. He
told the people who were testing him, who, of course
we're not wearing blindfolds, that they were wrong and they
must have mixed it up because he knew his butter
(27:52):
by gum. Yeah, there is, there is yes, because it
turned out that his why have been worried about her
husband's health, specifically his heart, and for years she had
been sneaking this guy yellow margarine, which was illegal at
the time, at dinner, at lunch, whenever they ate at
(28:14):
the house. So he literally had no idea what butter
was supposed to taste like. You must have forgotten. Yeah,
I bet he didn't want to get that out though,
because that would have been a pretty soaring co sign
on how convincing that butter substitute is. Oh, and we
(28:37):
do want to add one thing here, one point of order, uh,
just while it's on our minds. We earlier said that
the Canadian prohibition was from eighteen eighty six until nine,
when they allowed at Newfoundland and Labrador. There was a
brief shining moment from margarine during that time, and that
was between nineteen seventeen and nineteen twenty two when the
(29:01):
band was lifted due to the War Measure Act. Just
scarcity of of food stuts in general and stuff. Yeah, well,
well we'll give you a pass. But then it was
back in full effect. But what's what's the deal with
margarine in Canada? Now? Then? It's interesting that we get
to this point because as of recent history, butter has
(29:21):
surpassed margarine as America's favorite spread. Now people are eating
on average five point six pounds of butter a year
as opposed to three point five pounds of margarine. The
marjarine is still doing gangbusters in both Canada and the
United States. Right, yeah, yeah, we're just now we're just
talking about like their um their comparison, but by no
(29:43):
means is either industry small. When did dwin Did Canada
finally bite the bullet and say, okay, all are welcome,
you know, make make your make your food substitutes. Oh yeah,
it went provincial similar to the way that uh in
some regards no one on one comparison. But it's similar
(30:04):
to the way that marijuana began to be treated differently.
Yeah yeah, yeah, So provinces could have their own sort
of serenity over that law, and they didn't all legalized margarine.
At the same time, there were some holdouts. Quebec had
a band specifically on colorized margarine because it could look
(30:26):
like butter, and that band wasn't repealed until two thousand
and eight because like margarine in its natural state, I
guess is white. I think it's pure white um, and
it's it was different too. And this this came into
play in the American story where you had stuff like
crisco that was a food substitute, but it was not
(30:47):
something you would like eat on its own. It would
be part of cooking and be part of baked goods,
whereas margarine was a spread, so you had to interact
with it in its current form and you would see it.
So there was a time where when in the United
States that colorization of margarine was banned. There was a
company that even had like little packets that came with
(31:11):
it so you could diet yourself. That reminds me of
the old Great concentrate blocks that were sold during Prohibition,
where they said the instructions on the box would say
things like don't do the following steps because you will
create wine. Okay. Whenever I hear the words steps and wine,
(31:31):
I always think of that, uh, that woman at the
winery that's stumping on the grapes and then falls out,
and just like, oh, no, I think she's actually hurt. No,
I think she is. It's just the saddest sound. Beautifully
(31:55):
portrayed in Family Guy um. But back to America just
brief and we we set this up earlier with some
of the quote, some of the anti margarine propaganda that
Big Butter put out. Um. You know, Canadians are are
they have a reputation as being a little more civil
and friendly perhaps than we are. And it does seem
like the stories are a little out of whack with
(32:16):
one another, whereas the American side, boy, were they ruthless
and awful? And you know, there was actually some kind
of faux scientists that were employed, um and presented some
findings quote unquote in a Chicago newspaper. UM. And this
this guy's name was Professor Piper, just Professor Piper. And
he said that he did analyzes of margarine samples, UM
(32:42):
and and this was in five and in his analyzes, UM,
he claimed to have found these the best samples had
many kinds of living organisms in them, with masses of
dead mold, bits of cellulose, various colored particles, shreds of hair, bristles, etcetera.
Well other samples teamed with life. Doubtful portions of worms
(33:04):
were also noticed. Core pustles from a cockroach, small bits
of claws, corpuscles of sheep the egg of a tape warm.
It sounds like a witch's brew. And what as I
have Newton here, what's the threshold for a doubtful amount
of worms? Yeah? Unclear. All I'm saying is Man America,
you mean, be more like Canada. At least they were
(33:26):
civil about their muddern war and it was also propaganda.
They let Newfoundland keep doing it because they just really
liked it. Yeah, and also where they the economic argument
is pretty tough to sell, like, no, you have to
keep importing butter and pain much more. That's not gonna fly, right.
Pro butter cartoonists in the United States also drew these
(33:47):
hit pieces on margarine where they have a visual depiction
of the stuff that you just mentioned they had. They
put straight cats in margarine and soap paint, arsenic rubber boots.
There is also an implication by somebody who's probably as
legit as Professor Piper that marjarine might cause insanity marjarine madness. Huh. Well,
(34:09):
there's a lot to both sides of this story. I'm
just again praising Canada for their prevailing level headedness and
and u s history. You can chill out a little bit,
but I think we can wrap this story up, yes,
And the best way for us to wrap it up
is to note that this is not in any way
unique phenomenon. And in the course of digging into this,
(34:31):
we found some what would you call them analogs I guess, so, yeah,
that's totally accurate. So you and I both found a couple.
One conflict that surprised me from our current day is
the conflict between municipal broadband and telecoms. It's a similar
situation where and you know, there's one part of country
or a state or region where they say we want
(34:54):
to build a telecoms substitute for lack of a better word, right,
and then the telecoms will use their influence to sty
me this in hopes of preserving their own established industry.
So we want to be clear this isn't just food.
But boy, we did find food comparisons to yeah, lots,
and my favorite is because mainly I like to say
it is nut milk. Big dairy is out to get
(35:17):
nut milk. And when I say that, I mean things
like almond milk, um cash. You milk is even a thing,
and of course, so a milk and a representative of
the national Milk Producers Federation said this in a case
that was levied against one of the big manufacturers of
some of those nut milks. He says, mammals produced milk
(35:38):
plants dun't. This guy's name was Jim mulherne, same last
name as my my buddy Frank. I wonder if he's
um secretly part of Big Dairy. Yeah, Frank listens to
our show. So hey, Frank, let us know, man, spill
the beans. We want to know your secret life as
a as a dairy soldier. But now here's the thing.
It's in the same way that big butter. You know,
we'll call it big dairy. We can lump it all
(35:59):
under Big Dairy, trying to protect their interests, protect their turf.
They're doing the same thing today with products like these,
the soy based products, And they're basically saying that the
use of the words like soy milk, almond milk that
are put together, they're joined together as one words um.
The dairy industry says that that's just sort of a
cheap way of getting away with using the word milk,
which again they say exclusively comes from mammals. Um. This
(36:23):
came from an article called dairy producers targeting quote fake
milk in latest food fight from CTV News, and this
is how the Plant Based Foods Association responded. They say
that it's it's it's a different animal entirely from what
they're talking about. They say, these companies are charging more
money because consumers are gravitating towards them. I think that
(36:45):
says it all right there. You know the margarine thing,
it was cheaper, you could I'm not saying that Big
Butter was doing the right thing at all, and they
were clearly jerks about it, but you know, I could
see that as being a legitimate threat. Nobody is buying
soy milk because they think it's milk, and they certainly
aren't getting a sweet deal on it. That stuff is
pretty pricey. And with this, we would like to hear
(37:09):
from you, folks, what's your take on margarine versus butter?
Do you have a preference? Do you feel that one
legitimately taste better? Would you ever? I think most people
are gonna say no, but would you ever smuggle margarine?
Because Casey Nolan I might have a job for you.
Then I know you've been waiting for it. Butter smuggler
(37:29):
whenever I just let's be clear, I just want to say,
butter smuggler. It's been bugging me all week and I
know we're talking about Margarine smuggling. So there is our
only chance to say I'm glad you finally got that chance,
and we hope you'll take a chance and write us
a ridiculous at how stuff Works dot com. You can
also hit us up on social media on Facebook or
Ridiculous History, or on Twitter where we're at Ridiculous History
(37:52):
and Instagram. And we're still toying with the idea of
bringing back the joke about not doing a pinterest so
right and is it a joke? We want to thank
everybody who wrote in it told us that they missed
us continually debating whether or not we will ever have
a pinterest. So we're thinking about maybe bringing that debate back,
but we're definitely still never gonna have a pinterest, right,
(38:14):
Maybe we'll put it. We'll put a pint artist in it.
Uh So thanks to everyone who already wrote into us,
and we look forward to hearing from everyone in the future.
As always, we want to thank our long suffering super producer,
Casey Pegro and Candice Gibson, who wrote the awesome article
on the butter Wars for our parent website, House up
works dot com. Not to mention Alex Williams, who composed
(38:36):
our theme and today's resident fact genie Lauren Vogelbaum, who
dropped in um under complete darress. Yes, yes, and most
especially thank you for listening and we hope you'll continue
doing that and hang out with us next time for
another episode of ridiculous History. Take care everyone,
Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, lactose, tolerant and intolerant alike. Boy,
do we have a story for you today. Hi, my
name is Ben, my name is Nolan Ben. We try
to stay tolerant on ridiculous history. True. Yeah, And I
have a new nickname for you. It's I can't believe
it's not Ben Bowling, but it is. Its Ben Bowling. Thanks.
(00:43):
And and you're Noel Brown. And of course we are
accompanied as always by our superproducer, Casey Pegrum. And today, no,
we are exploring something that I have to be honest
with you, I had no understand ending of before our
research for this episode began. Yeah, we're talking about marjarine,
(01:05):
and not just marjarine, the perennially tolerable uh spread butter substitute.
I don't know, maybe I have an Instagram. Um. I.
My whole thing is, I've always been a little confused
about what marjarine really is. But before we get to that,
people cared a lot about marjarine back in the day.
Oh they did, they did. Marjarine, it turns out, is
(01:27):
the first domestic food to be regulated by the federal
government in the United States. It has a very strange
history on this continent that has been explored in very
strange pseudo buttery depth. Uh. There's a great article by
an author named Ruth Duprie called if It's Yellow, it
Must be Butter. Marjarine regulation in North America since eighteen
(01:50):
eighty six. And the reason that date is important is
because it's not just a story of this substitute. It's
a story of what eventually escalated into a continent wide
war of sorts, a bit of a war. And you know,
last episode we talked about a war involving eggs um.
(02:11):
This episode, we're talking about a war involving various incarnations
of animal parts and stuff that you can put on
things to eat and cook with. That year you mentioned,
the six is very important because that is the year that, uh,
the United States passed the Marjarine Act, which severely limited
(02:32):
It was kind of this cap off of what had
already been a war on butter in the United States.
We're talking about Canada today, but just to give a
little bit of background, in the United States, big butter, right,
kind of like big Brother, but more buttery. They fought
tooth and nail against this substitute they were so protective
of their industry that anything they saw is potentially stepping
(02:54):
on their terrain. They had friends in high places and
they made sure to quash that. And Margarine was persona
non grad I was m enemy number one. Yes, and
we are, ASNAL said, we are focusing on Canada for
today's purposes. But we found so much fascinating, hilarious and
(03:14):
wait for ridiculous history about butter and Margarine in the
United States that we're going to have to throw some
of these awesome quotes. And there's one I've been waiting
to do, like all all week. Yes, and and lest
we get ahead of ourselves, just know all of this
is to set the stage for the demonization that did
spread to spread to Canada. That's good because that year
(03:38):
of when this act was passed in the United States
was the same year that Canada banned marjarine completely, no
its ands or but substitutes. I know we're skirting the
family show a line here is fine. So we'd like
to give you this quote from Governor Lucius Hubbard of Minnesota, who,
(03:59):
in this time time bemoan the fact that the quote
ingenuity of depraved human genius has culminated in the production
of oleomargarine and it's kindred abominations. I have never heard
a food stuff or group of food items referred to
as abominations, kindred, or otherwise. This was such a big
(04:20):
deal that other senators spoke out on the issue as well.
Senator Joseph Quarrels of Wisconsin, also known as the dairy
State UH, said that butter should come from the dairy,
not the slaughterhouse. I want butter that has the natural
aroma of life and health, said Senator Quarrels. I declined
(04:41):
to accept as a substitute. Call fat matured under the
chill of death, blended with vegetable oils and flavored by
chemical tricks and the last one. The butter lobby in
the United States had such an asta grind with margarine
that they throughout all kinds of spurious, awful misinformation to
completely malign this product, which we need to need to
(05:01):
talk more about what the product actually is. But let
me do this quote and then we'll see what you
can do about that quote. They called it the slag
of the butcher shop, a compound of diseased hogs and
dead dogs, also implying that it contained quote the germs
of cancer, that is from the War on Margarine from
the Foundation for Economic Education, written by Adam Young. So, Ben,
(05:26):
we need to take it. We need to pump the
brakes a little bit before we we go to Newfoundland, Newfoundland, Canada.
I have I think a solution. Yeah. Do you remember
earlier when we were at that that shady thrift store
and we found that butter dish. I think the cashier
was right when they said that it had extraordinary ability.
(05:47):
It was imbued with mystical properties. Yeah, which they kind
of buried the lead on that, but we we still
got it and we have it in the studio. Maybe
maybe this can help us explain the difference between butter
and margarine. You want to give it a give it
a I don't know, knock it on the table, or
give it a rub. There we go. Oh wait, wait,
(06:08):
do you hear that? I don't. I don't know yet.
It has him an added in post right right right,
So are amazing acting skills aside, it turns out that
this did work. I think we've summoned a factor, Genie,
A fact Genie. You say, whoa, whoa, it's Lauren Vogel
Bomb from food Stuff fame. I don't know why you
guys get to be this surprised. I almost had the
(06:30):
reason why magic mushrooms form in circles. I almost had
fairy circles figured out why am I here? That may
have been part of it, Lauren, You fairy magic carried
you here, and it connected with our particular brand of
fairy magic for a segment we would now like to
forever refer to as the Fact Genie. The fact Genie
(06:50):
agreed Lauren in your outside of Fact Genie life, you
are one of the driving forces behind our favorite food show,
food Stuff, also available for free via House of Works
wherever you find your podcast. I I am that's very true.
Thank you so much for that compliment. So you know,
the mystical powers of the thrift Store universe must have
(07:13):
known this and summoned to you on our behalf to
answer the question, what's the difference between butter and Marjorie?
Let's talk about this a little bit. You have a minute,
is it okay? We'll leave to you. Sure, But according
to this paper that just fell out of the Magical
Butter Dish, you only get three questions and after that
I can go seem fair. It did say that on
the receipt. I should have mentioned that earlier. It's okay, ben,
(07:36):
So okay, So I think that's our number one question.
If we only get three, our first question is justice,
and said, what is the difference between butter and margarine?
Because they're different? Right? Sure? Okay, Well, butter is a
concentration of the fatty and fat soluble parts of milk
that have been churned and worked to press out water
and link the molecules and its solid form. It's actually
(07:58):
a crystallization of those fats. Butter. Fats start crystallizing around
fifty degrees fahrenheit or ten degrees celsius. Traditionally, butter flavor
is a waste product of non pathogenic or friendly lactic
acid bacteria, which eat the sugars found in milk and
excrete flavor. But these days most butter in America is
flavored with lab produced compounds chemically identical to a couple
(08:20):
of those bacterial byproducts. More bacteria poop kind of is
that what? You're definitely bacteria poop? Yeah? Yeah, And that's
pretty that's pretty weird when you think about it. I
I personally find butter delicious and I'm starting to wonder
if I want to learn the rest of this. But
we're here. We have the butter dish. You're here, Uh,
what's margarine? Margarine is oil that's been transmogrified so that
(08:43):
it is solid at room temperature and then flavored and
colored to resemble butter. Though originally made with animal fats,
these days it's generally made with plant based oils that
have been hydrogenated, fractionated, or interest rified. I understand several
of those words. I do. It's almost like the way
you are transmogrified to this place. Almost. Uh. They're all
(09:04):
complicated ways of changing the chemical structure of a thing
to change its freezing points. At that point, you can
work the fats to create crystallization, the same as with
butter fats. But you know, butter is as old as
the hills, right, Lauren. I mean it's like, we can't
really credit somebody with inventing butter, right, well, not one person,
That's what I'm saying. But we can do that with Marjarine.
(09:26):
Can't wait? Oh yeah, that was a French guy back. Yeah,
Napoleon put out an all call in Napoleon put out
an all call for a substitute. Correct, Yeah, because butter
is so expensive that he was like, we need people
to eat food, and this food is expensive to who
has a cheaper alternative? And Nolan, I know a little
bit about this, but to consult our expert for the
(09:49):
pronunciation of Marjarine's inventor, I believe it's time for Casey
on the case or what are we calling on? Is
this a sub segment we're doing? Yeah, we're doing like
segments and segments over here. Yeah, well on the case
with Casey. Okay, we're still on the case, but we'll
get there here he is, Wow, I guess people just
(10:13):
appear here. Lauri's boy, serious history witchcraft here today? So
what's what's what's the name of the lovely French scientists
who invented Marjarine? Al Right, the inventor of margarine pronounced
in my best French accent is epolite mes moy is
and Latin gentleman. That's been Casey on the Thank you
(10:36):
so much for dropping by and letting us know, Casey
how to pronounce the name of this French chemist who
invented margarine? In did he did? He invented in eighteen
sixty nine? Then as it turns out, without being a
fact gene myself, I happen to know. That is the
case he invented in eighteen sixty nine. And his recipe.
If you guys don't know this, it will be interested
to know was was as such he did finally meant
(10:57):
to be fat, potassium, salt, fresh sheep stomach, raise the
temperature to a d thirteen degrees, the PEPs in from
the sheep's guts mixed with the beef to separate the
fat from the cellulo tissue. They are put under pressure
to separate those oils. Then milk and water was added,
and a food coloring called a nato that was made
from the seeds of the aquillote tree um. And it's
(11:18):
interesting actually because today that is used in butter a
lot of the times too, because people want that stuff
to be super yellow so they know it's the real deal,
even though it's it's not similar to salmon being pink
right cartoonishly so, and cheddar cheese being orange. That was
a free fact. We didn't ask for that. One counts.
That counts. That counts is one of our three. I
(11:38):
think we're we're we're going for the third one now,
since we have but one more fact to ask for.
I think the question that's on everybody's mind is, Lauren
Vogel bomb, where can people hear more of you? Oh goodness.
You can find me on food stuff and also on
brain stuff that's brain stuff show dot com and shows
dot how stuff works dot com slash food stuff. We're
working on it. Also on social media. Look up food
(12:00):
stuff or just google Lauren vocal Bam. I'm literally the
only one on the planet. And I want to commend
you for being such an effective fact Genie that we
only really needed to Yeah, and one of them was
like a free one kind of so well done, thank you,
and we release you from your bonds, right we have
to say that, I think, so go go be free, Genie. Well, hey,
(12:26):
congratulations though, us man. That was not only our first
fact Genie segment, but we had a segment in a segment.
You know, it's not every day you get to do
a segment within a segment. I'm really glad though, that
we didn't like open up some sort of portal to
Hell with that disruption of the universe. Yeah, that's true.
We we were pushing the envelope just a bit. But
I believe the gambit was worth it because we learned
(12:49):
a lot in a very short span of time, and
we have set the broad brush context of the great
painting that is the Margarine butter War. So we established
that this margarine is French in origin and it is
designed at the time to fulfill a need because not everyone,
(13:09):
for one reason or another, would have access to butter,
despite the fact that it was often considered a staple. Yeah,
even in our story about Martin Luther and his relationship
with butter and indulgences in the Roman Catholic Church, butter
was kind of considered to be uh, not only a staple,
but a sign of opulence in some way. But notice
that we said for various reasons people might not be
(13:33):
able to access butter. It could be uh, it could
be related to a a social thing such as income
or the influence right of an institution like the Catholic Church.
It also could just be a matter of climate. And
that's where we journey to Newfoundland's right. In a paper
called Margarine in Newfoundland History by Wealth H. Hike from
(13:56):
Newfoundland and Studies to UM, he talks about the reason
that marjarine trade popped up in Newfoundland specifically was because
the climate is just not conducive to supporting a dairy
industry um cows they need a stable temperature nine months
of the year um. The costs were prohibitive for that region,
(14:19):
and because of that, there were no significant industrialized dairy
interests in Newfoundland at all. Right, so butter had to
be imported, and this created a market demand for something
to fill the gap, because importing something will automatically make
it more expensive in most cases. And this is where
(14:40):
people began to manufacture marjarine. Well, they heard tell, they
heard tell Ben of our French inventor, whose name I've
already forgotten how to pronounce correctly. But you can backtrack
to the casey on the case segment and you'll hear
all about it there. And it was blowing up in
the United States, and it went by the name of buttering.
At the time. It wasn't even called Oleo margarine there was,
(15:02):
Buttering was kind of the name that was being thrown around,
and they realized, Wow, we might have something on our
hands here that we can use as a butter substitute. Yes,
this is interesting historically because we already began to see
in sources of the time and contemporary sources the growing controversy.
The Daily Telegraph of London ran an article on misleading
(15:25):
packaging of buttering that the Newfoundlander paper in Newfoundland, oddly enough,
also carried in August of eighteen eighty three, and the
people of Newfoundland in general began concluding that this much
cheaper substitute, this buttering, could be beneficial, especially for the
poorer segments of society. So a merchant firm named Harvey
(15:50):
and Company begins to manufacture margarine or buttering in the
colony in eighteen eighty three. And not to get too
into the weeds with the history of the production of
margarine in the region, but at the end of a
handful of years there were three primary margarine interests um
and one of them, I think, hilariously enough, was called
(16:11):
the Newfoundland Butter Company. But they just made marjarine. It's
it's sort of like the Egg Company from our earlier episode.
What was that the Pacific Egg Company of the Pacific
Egg Company, But at least they had eggs the mark
the Newfoundland Butter Company and made no butter, right, that
is that is true. They were making margarine and the
thing that was amazing about this for someone of lower
income in Newfoundland was that since marjarine could be made
(16:36):
with a combination of vegetable, mineral, and animal oils, most
notably seal oil at this time, I know, that's that's
a rough one. The end result was that margarine was
incredibly cheaper to produce, and these costs trickled down to
the consumer and it looked like it might be a
(16:56):
win win for almost everybody in society. Almost almost, because
there was one group that very very very much opposed
the idea of cheap butter for the people. Butter substitute
big butter, big Canadian butter. Because at the time we
haven't mentioned this, Newfoundland wasn't part of Canada. No, it's colony, colony.
(17:19):
It was an English colony. And the English, you know,
they were a little more las fair about this production
of margin. They didn't see it as a threat. There
wasn't a whole lot of exporting they were. They were
doing it mainly to satisfy their own needs. But here's
the thing. Then, the people in Canada, even before Newfoundland
was incorporated into Canada, they wanted that margarine. Yeah, yeah,
(17:40):
they wandered to margarine, and you can easily see why.
Although you know, there there are gonna be many many people,
uh some of us in the studio today, folks who
will argue that butter is superior in terms of taste
to margarine. There's still many people who say, hey, you
know what, it's good enough and it's not breaking the bank.
(18:01):
The thing about it, too, is there were like health
considerations too, right, because these people that in Newfoundland have
become such loyal customers of this food stuff. There were
studies that went around in the Newfoundland region that showed
that folks there were quite deficient in some vitamins, vitamins
A and D, and they also found that margarine was
(18:22):
deficient in vitamins A and D. And you know, the
health benefits of marjarine versus butter have largely been called
into question because of things like saturated fat transfers transpat
which both have so you're supposed to use both of
them sparingly, right, But at this time, you know what
big Marjarine did in Newfoundland, they did a lot like
our pals that made the vitamin donuts. Yeah, they just
(18:44):
fortified that biz. Yeah, and they wanted to keep the
consumers incentivized to eat this. So now they could say,
not only is this more affordable than butter, but this
is also healthy or it's you know, fortified with for
any jamin doughnut listeners out there, so everyone could afford it.
Everyone got a little bit more vitamin A and d
(19:07):
intake for PEP for pep for for vigor. Right at
the time, as we said, Newfoundland was still a British colony,
but in nineteen forty nine it became part of Canada,
so that eighteen eighties six law banning marjarine in Canada
didn't apply to Newfoundland at the time because it was
a colony. And we're talking about the idea of bootlegging margarine.
(19:31):
Maybe that's a little loaded, but it's interesting because when
we say bootlegging, we're talking about bootlegging in the same
way that during Prohibition people would uh smuggle illegal booze.
They were making it themselves in stills or whatever. Right,
the marjarine thing was happening at the very same time
people were smuggling it from Newfoundland into the rest of Canada.
(19:55):
Because in Newfoundland, even when it got incorporated into the
Dominion of Canada, uh, they were still allowed to make
the stuff, they couldn't ship it anywhere else throughout the
entire country. It was totally isolated to Newfoundland, which is
a little bit isolated in and of itself. It's kind
of an island, right, yeah, it's it's it is a
little bit isolated. I would I I would argue from
(20:16):
our perspective down here, Canada's Parliament past federal legislation in nine,
the same year that Newfoundland became part of Canada, to
prohibit the manufacturing sale of margarine anywhere in Canada except
for two places, Newfoundland and Labrador, because they both had
this pre existing industrial base for the production of margarine, right.
(20:38):
The other one of Labrador being all the retrievers right yes, yes,
the famous home of all retrievers. That's where they come from. Um.
But this is the thing, the whole um joining up
Newfoundland with Canada. There are some caveats, ben because big
Butter put its big giant buttery foot down and influenced
(20:58):
lawmakers to the point we got this delightful little section
from the nineties nine British North American Act, Section forty six.
As it happens, OLEO margarine or margarine may be manufactured
or sold in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador after
the date of the Union, and the Parliament of Canada
shall not prohibit or restrict such manufacture or sale accepted
(21:20):
the request of the legislature of the Province of Newfoundland.
But nothing in this term shall affect the power of
the Parliament of Canada to require compliance with standards of
quality acceptable throughout Canada. That's the set up, and now
we'd like to Now we'd like to share where the
rubber hits the road legislatively big time number two, unless
the Parliament of Canada otherwise provides, or unless the sale
(21:43):
and manufacture in and the interprovincial movement between all provinces
of Canada other than Newfoundland and Labrador of oleo, margarine
and margarine. It's interesting they call them two different things.
We did not realize that was the case. Uh is lawful.
Under the laws of Canada. Oleomargin or margarine shall not
be sent, shipped, brought, or carried from the Province of
Newfoundland and Labrador into any other province of Canada. So
(22:07):
there you got the black market marjarine trade popping up overnight.
It wasn't overnight though, because it was already happening, right. Yeah,
It wasn't like all of a sudden Canada was like,
what is this magical marjarine? They knew what it was.
You could get to Newfoundland. People knew each other. They
you know, they talked. But the dairy industry does have
profound influence at this point, and they didn't just wage
(22:29):
the war in the halls of parliament. They also waged
the war in the public domain. It's interesting. In the
Dupre paper, Uh, the author says that in both the
United States and Canada, the people who were prosecuting against
margarine argued that they were acting in the public interest.
(22:49):
In one case, and this goes back to that quotation
you had earlier, they would say that they were protecting
consumers from a product that was injurious to health, or
they were protecting people from the fraudulent sale of margarine
as butter. And that is the thing that we see
in the United States side of this story as well.
In a story from the New York Times from eighteen
(23:12):
seventy seven, we have this quote. Christopher Strauss, a grocer
of number sixteen Second Avenue, was arraigned before Justice Murray
in the fifty seven Street Police court yesterday charged with
selling OLEO margarine representing it to be pure butter. S A. Churchill,
a former manufacturer of the artificial article and who was
now employed as a detective by the Butter and Cheese Exchange,
(23:33):
appeared as complaint. Yeah, and this this is strange because
it turns out those accusations of fraud are pretty well founded.
Margarine was often sold as buttered because both could be
sold in bulk, and it was virtually impossible to distinguish
between the two by sensory examination, you know, So like
if you if you and I just saw blocks of
(23:56):
marginal one side, butter on one side, and they were
made to look relatively I enticle, we wouldn't be able
to tell without a little bit more in depth investigation.
And there's a there's a weird thing here because from
its inception or a multiple times throughout history, butter was
regulated the same way you would regulate the so called
(24:18):
vice products like tobacco or alcohol of some sort, which
is strange because it's not going to affect you mentally, Right,
You're not going to get a butter buzz, or maybe
you and I just haven't eaten enough butter and I
love the phrase butter buzz dude. I mean sometimes I
just take a bite out of a stick of butter,
(24:39):
just just to feel that euphoric rush, some a dopamine sensors.
I saw the guy at a baseball game casually eating
a stick of butter. That's a fair food. They deep
fry a stick of butter. They'll deep fry anything at
a fair now, and a stick of butter. It's apparently
the wave of the future. It's crazy. It looked like
he bought it from home, Like he had the foil
and it was unwrapping it and he just are to
(25:00):
eating it. It's a brave new world, my friend. It's
a brave new world, Knoll. And this was a brave
new trade front right because there's market demand. Big Dairy
is fighting tooth and nail against this. And as as
we had said, I I think we'd be remiss if
we didn't spend just a little bit of time on
(25:21):
the United States version of this conflict totally, man, I
think we've drawn the parallels between the two situations. How
you know, the American story definitely influenced the Canadian um
because all this was kind of happening around the same time.
But there are some very interesting little fact nuggets from
the American side that we have not mentioned yet. Yes,
we owe it to everyone, ourselves included, to dive a
(25:45):
little deeper into the butter churn of big dairy in
the United States, so in the Midwest, in Wisconsin specifically,
in other states like Minnesota and such. This was a
tremendous deal because dairy was a huge, hugely influential industry, right,
and it provided a lot of jobs. It was super
(26:05):
crucial to the economy. And the governors and the senators
and the representatives understood this, and they were all kind
of many of them were running to be on the
side of of butter and dairy right and to fight
the perfidious threat of margarine, especially if they were representing
constituents who had those jobs and depended on those jobs.
(26:26):
I'm sure there was also some some palm greasing but
buttering of palms going on, but you know, at the
end of the day, they were looking out for their constituents,
possibly a little too vehemently. But what happened. Yeah, there
was a fantastic example we found in a national geographic
account written by Rebecca Rupp called the Butter Wars when
margarine was pink. That's a little spoiler for you later too,
(26:50):
And it concerns a Wisconsin taste test in nineteen fifty
five in which senators were blindfolded and they were It's
sort of like the Pepsi challenge. If anybody remembers that
from what was that the nineties or so? Yeah, yeah,
I think that, you know, an when Michael Jackson set
his hair on fire. Taste of a new Generation. And
(27:10):
the reason we bring this up is because the arrangement
was essentially the same. These senators were blindfolded and they
had to taste butter and they had to taste margarine
and tell the difference between the two, which, of course,
they all claimed that they could do, no question, And
most of these folks were not fooled, except famously, a
(27:31):
guy named Gordon rose Lip. Yeah. He was extremely pro butter,
a huge advocate of butter, and he tasted it and
he got it wrong. He preferred the margarine consistently. He
told the people who were testing him, who, of course
we're not wearing blindfolds, that they were wrong and they
must have mixed it up because he knew his butter
(27:52):
by gum. Yeah, there is, there is yes, because it
turned out that his why have been worried about her
husband's health, specifically his heart, and for years she had
been sneaking this guy yellow margarine, which was illegal at
the time, at dinner, at lunch, whenever they ate at
(28:14):
the house. So he literally had no idea what butter
was supposed to taste like. You must have forgotten. Yeah,
I bet he didn't want to get that out though,
because that would have been a pretty soaring co sign
on how convincing that butter substitute is. Oh, and we
(28:37):
do want to add one thing here, one point of order, uh,
just while it's on our minds. We earlier said that
the Canadian prohibition was from eighteen eighty six until nine,
when they allowed at Newfoundland and Labrador. There was a
brief shining moment from margarine during that time, and that
was between nineteen seventeen and nineteen twenty two when the
(29:01):
band was lifted due to the War Measure Act. Just
scarcity of of food stuts in general and stuff. Yeah, well,
well we'll give you a pass. But then it was
back in full effect. But what's what's the deal with
margarine in Canada? Now? Then? It's interesting that we get
to this point because as of recent history, butter has
(29:21):
surpassed margarine as America's favorite spread. Now people are eating
on average five point six pounds of butter a year
as opposed to three point five pounds of margarine. The
marjarine is still doing gangbusters in both Canada and the
United States. Right, yeah, yeah, we're just now we're just
talking about like their um their comparison, but by no
(29:43):
means is either industry small. When did dwin Did Canada
finally bite the bullet and say, okay, all are welcome,
you know, make make your make your food substitutes. Oh yeah,
it went provincial similar to the way that uh in
some regards no one on one comparison. But it's similar
(30:04):
to the way that marijuana began to be treated differently.
Yeah yeah, yeah, So provinces could have their own sort
of serenity over that law, and they didn't all legalized margarine.
At the same time, there were some holdouts. Quebec had
a band specifically on colorized margarine because it could look
(30:26):
like butter, and that band wasn't repealed until two thousand
and eight because like margarine in its natural state, I
guess is white. I think it's pure white um, and
it's it was different too. And this this came into
play in the American story where you had stuff like
crisco that was a food substitute, but it was not
(30:47):
something you would like eat on its own. It would
be part of cooking and be part of baked goods,
whereas margarine was a spread, so you had to interact
with it in its current form and you would see it.
So there was a time where when in the United
States that colorization of margarine was banned. There was a
company that even had like little packets that came with
(31:11):
it so you could diet yourself. That reminds me of
the old Great concentrate blocks that were sold during Prohibition,
where they said the instructions on the box would say
things like don't do the following steps because you will
create wine. Okay. Whenever I hear the words steps and wine,
(31:31):
I always think of that, uh, that woman at the
winery that's stumping on the grapes and then falls out,
and just like, oh, no, I think she's actually hurt. No,
I think she is. It's just the saddest sound. Beautifully
(31:55):
portrayed in Family Guy um. But back to America just
brief and we we set this up earlier with some
of the quote, some of the anti margarine propaganda that
Big Butter put out. Um. You know, Canadians are are
they have a reputation as being a little more civil
and friendly perhaps than we are. And it does seem
like the stories are a little out of whack with
(32:16):
one another, whereas the American side, boy, were they ruthless
and awful? And you know, there was actually some kind
of faux scientists that were employed, um and presented some
findings quote unquote in a Chicago newspaper. UM. And this
this guy's name was Professor Piper, just Professor Piper. And
he said that he did analyzes of margarine samples, UM
(32:42):
and and this was in five and in his analyzes, UM,
he claimed to have found these the best samples had
many kinds of living organisms in them, with masses of
dead mold, bits of cellulose, various colored particles, shreds of hair, bristles, etcetera.
Well other samples teamed with life. Doubtful portions of worms
(33:04):
were also noticed. Core pustles from a cockroach, small bits
of claws, corpuscles of sheep the egg of a tape warm.
It sounds like a witch's brew. And what as I
have Newton here, what's the threshold for a doubtful amount
of worms? Yeah? Unclear. All I'm saying is Man America,
you mean, be more like Canada. At least they were
(33:26):
civil about their muddern war and it was also propaganda.
They let Newfoundland keep doing it because they just really
liked it. Yeah, and also where they the economic argument
is pretty tough to sell, like, no, you have to
keep importing butter and pain much more. That's not gonna fly, right.
Pro butter cartoonists in the United States also drew these
(33:47):
hit pieces on margarine where they have a visual depiction
of the stuff that you just mentioned they had. They
put straight cats in margarine and soap paint, arsenic rubber boots.
There is also an implication by somebody who's probably as
legit as Professor Piper that marjarine might cause insanity marjarine madness. Huh. Well,
(34:09):
there's a lot to both sides of this story. I'm
just again praising Canada for their prevailing level headedness and
and u s history. You can chill out a little bit,
but I think we can wrap this story up, yes,
And the best way for us to wrap it up
is to note that this is not in any way
unique phenomenon. And in the course of digging into this,
(34:31):
we found some what would you call them analogs I guess, so, yeah,
that's totally accurate. So you and I both found a couple.
One conflict that surprised me from our current day is
the conflict between municipal broadband and telecoms. It's a similar
situation where and you know, there's one part of country
or a state or region where they say we want
(34:54):
to build a telecoms substitute for lack of a better word, right,
and then the telecoms will use their influence to sty
me this in hopes of preserving their own established industry.
So we want to be clear this isn't just food.
But boy, we did find food comparisons to yeah, lots,
and my favorite is because mainly I like to say
it is nut milk. Big dairy is out to get
(35:17):
nut milk. And when I say that, I mean things
like almond milk, um cash. You milk is even a thing,
and of course, so a milk and a representative of
the national Milk Producers Federation said this in a case
that was levied against one of the big manufacturers of
some of those nut milks. He says, mammals produced milk
(35:38):
plants dun't. This guy's name was Jim mulherne, same last
name as my my buddy Frank. I wonder if he's
um secretly part of Big Dairy. Yeah, Frank listens to
our show. So hey, Frank, let us know, man, spill
the beans. We want to know your secret life as
a as a dairy soldier. But now here's the thing.
It's in the same way that big butter. You know,
we'll call it big dairy. We can lump it all
(35:59):
under Big Dairy, trying to protect their interests, protect their turf.
They're doing the same thing today with products like these,
the soy based products, And they're basically saying that the
use of the words like soy milk, almond milk that
are put together, they're joined together as one words um.
The dairy industry says that that's just sort of a
cheap way of getting away with using the word milk,
which again they say exclusively comes from mammals. Um. This
(36:23):
came from an article called dairy producers targeting quote fake
milk in latest food fight from CTV News, and this
is how the Plant Based Foods Association responded. They say
that it's it's it's a different animal entirely from what
they're talking about. They say, these companies are charging more
money because consumers are gravitating towards them. I think that
(36:45):
says it all right there. You know the margarine thing,
it was cheaper, you could I'm not saying that Big
Butter was doing the right thing at all, and they
were clearly jerks about it, but you know, I could
see that as being a legitimate threat. Nobody is buying
soy milk because they think it's milk, and they certainly
aren't getting a sweet deal on it. That stuff is
pretty pricey. And with this, we would like to hear
(37:09):
from you, folks, what's your take on margarine versus butter?
Do you have a preference? Do you feel that one
legitimately taste better? Would you ever? I think most people
are gonna say no, but would you ever smuggle margarine?
Because Casey Nolan I might have a job for you.
Then I know you've been waiting for it. Butter smuggler
(37:29):
whenever I just let's be clear, I just want to say,
butter smuggler. It's been bugging me all week and I
know we're talking about Margarine smuggling. So there is our
only chance to say I'm glad you finally got that chance,
and we hope you'll take a chance and write us
a ridiculous at how stuff Works dot com. You can
also hit us up on social media on Facebook or
Ridiculous History, or on Twitter where we're at Ridiculous History
(37:52):
and Instagram. And we're still toying with the idea of
bringing back the joke about not doing a pinterest so
right and is it a joke? We want to thank
everybody who wrote in it told us that they missed
us continually debating whether or not we will ever have
a pinterest. So we're thinking about maybe bringing that debate back,
but we're definitely still never gonna have a pinterest, right,
(38:14):
Maybe we'll put it. We'll put a pint artist in it.
Uh So thanks to everyone who already wrote into us,
and we look forward to hearing from everyone in the future.
As always, we want to thank our long suffering super producer,
Casey Pegro and Candice Gibson, who wrote the awesome article
on the butter Wars for our parent website, House up
works dot com. Not to mention Alex Williams, who composed
(38:36):
our theme and today's resident fact genie Lauren Vogelbaum, who
dropped in um under complete darress. Yes, yes, and most
especially thank you for listening and we hope you'll continue
doing that and hang out with us next time for
another episode of ridiculous History. Take care everyone,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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