April 10, 2020 • 50 mins
Decorating eggshells predates written history and has been linked to Easter celebrations for a thousand years. Anney and Lauren explore how Easter eggs became a tradition, how they became chocolate, and why a rabbit is said to bring them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to save a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam and today
we're talking about Easter eggs. Yes, I'm very excited for
this one. Yeah you, Um, you have a continuing tradition
of Easter egg hunts in your family, right, Oh boy?
Do I? And as we record this Easter is this
(00:31):
coming Sunday. And a lot of you listeners know because
I've talked about it before on the show. I've definitely
posted some stories about it. Um. I usually go home,
um to visit my mom for an annual Easter egg hunt,
and she still hides forty two. Why forty two? I
(00:51):
don't know why forty two, but we count them every
year because every year, me, a grown woman, does this
hunt by myself, UM, and I can't There's always one
egg I can't find, and I'm determined. I feel like
someone's messing with me. And there aren't actually forty two eggs.
(01:11):
And this year I was even going to count them myself,
but I guess I couldn't know if she removed one sure,
or if one of your brothers or exactly, because if
every year we can't find one and every time I
go home, like to this day, not for Easter, anytime
I go out into the yard and I look for
these missing eggs because by now there's a handful of them.
(01:32):
Sure where could they be? But I love, I have
always loved Easter egg hunts. I am very competitive. I
They had to put in place rules when I was
four years old because I would find like all the eggs.
(01:53):
So the rules or oh my gosh, okay, yeah, there's
a great picture from that year, um where like they
would even count down, like three to one, go, and
my mom took a picture right at the like go,
and I'm already out of the like you can barely
see me and my brothers are still standing there smiling.
(02:16):
It was off to the races. But yeah, I won't
be doing it this year because of quarantine, and I
am trying to figure out a virtual way we could
do it that is not like just making my mom
do work. Um. Yeah, And I really appreciate everyone who's
already written and asking about it and the suggestions. That
(02:37):
means a lot. It means a lot to me. I Uh,
I think I stopped having Easter egg hunts by the
time I was about six or so, but my my
dad up until his death, every Easter would send me
peeps and he would usually forget to do this in
(02:59):
the later years until like a couple of days before
Easter and wind up spending like thirty dollars like FedEx
overnight ing me a package of peeps because he wanted
me to have my Easter peeps. And uh, this was
way after I had stopped appreciating eating peeps, and it
was that it was just so sweet. I didn't want
(03:22):
to tell him to stop. I was like, oh, Dad,
you gotta get your thirty dollars worth peeps. It's actually
like three dollars worth butts right, you know, Oh my gosh,
I love that. Yeah. See, I didn't. I didn't like candy,
so I successfully campaigned to replace the candy with money. Um,
(03:47):
and I make and continue to make a lot of
money on Easter dang all right, yeah yeah, yeah, I'm
not a big Easter candy fan. And we'll be talking
about that some some more in a minute. Um. I
also love dying Easter eggs and we still do that
as well. And a few years ago my mom even
bought me like like way over the top splatter system.
(04:09):
You put the egg in and you like press it up,
sprays out all the time. Yeah, we fancy, we fancy. Yeah.
A couple of years ago, I did like a like
I've been saving for who knows why, um, this Star
Wars like the prequel trilogy, like themed Easter egg dying kit.
(04:31):
My roommates and I did that and it was pretty ridiculous,
um but great. How did they turn out? You know,
pretty pretty jankie if I'm being honest. But we had
fun doing it. They had some of those little like
like paper like sleeves or or like stages that you
(04:53):
could put them on that were like the little character
like the little characters, and so it was pretty adorable
and goofy, Please tell me there was an R two
D two one. There had to have been. I'll see
if I'll go through pictures and I'll see what I
can find. This is very important information I need to know.
(05:14):
I need to know there's definitely a Yoda one that
that I think we saved. But I'm wearing my baby
Yoda shirt right now. Yeah you are. YEA Easter is
a big day for brunch too, and I know a
lot of places are doing take away our delivery brunches
in Atlanta, and I'm going to assume probably wherever you
(05:34):
are as well, that's something you want to check out. Um.
And we have done a lot of egg adjacent episodes,
and we talked about that in our brunch episode complimentary
bar snacks, deviled eggs, which is a popular Easter food
here in the South. Um, the giant egg in the
Parokee episode. And now we're doing Easter eggs, not eggs,
(05:54):
but one day. Oh, I'm not ready. I'm not ready
for it yet. Yes, it's it'll be a big one.
We're doing a similar thing with potatoes. We've done a
lot of things around potatoes, but not potatoes yet. Yeah. Yeah,
we're just chipping chipping away at the egg egg there, um,
and the and the potato egg, both of those eggs. Yes,
(06:17):
which king first, the egg or the potato egg. We'll
answer that question on another day because we have to
answer this question, is Easter eggs? What are they? Well,
Easter eggs are either literal or figurative eggs decorated in
(06:38):
ostensible celebration of the Easter holiday, which is itself a
Christian feast day. In the stensible celebration of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ and like kind of like low key,
like a celebration of the bounty of spring. If Easter
eggs are actual eggs, they might be hard boiled or
have the innards blown out, and the shells might be
dyed or otherwise decorated. If their figure ative, they can
(07:00):
be oh gosh anything um uh. It can be other
edible options like molded chocolate or marspan or hard candy
or cake or pastry um. All those are common. Some
inedible options, like a molded plastic eggshells are sometimes filled
with candy or money, um or other treats, or they
can be treats unto themselves, like a fabulous jeweled Faberge eggs. Yes,
(07:24):
I found more than one article lamenting the plastic egg,
how it was like the antithesis of what Easter was
supposed to represent. And I really appreciated that I didn't
have to search too hard to find multiple arguments. I've
always liked a plastic egg because it could be it
(07:45):
could hold anything. Yes, oh, I do too. Like we
when we died eggs, we didn't usually hide those ones,
but sometimes we did. We did both. We did both, Okay,
so numbers. We do have some numbers. One hundred and
eighty million eggs are sold for Easter in the United States,
like actual eggs, not like chocolate eggs or anything like that.
(08:06):
Yet ten million people plan on dyeing some of these eggs,
and since the invention and widespread adoption of plastic eggs
for hiding, both of those numbers have gone down substantially.
Really see, I feel like it's two separate issues. You
die some eggs and you hide some plastic eggs because
if you don't want to hide the diet eggs, because
then you're just going to crush your pretty diet eggs anyway, exactly,
(08:29):
and the wait, okay, this really surprised me. Easter candy
out sells both Halloween and Valentine's Day can really exactly.
I would have thought it was Halloween for sure, but
then both of us are big Halloween fans, so maybe
that's coloring our judgment there. Yes, yes, and I guess
there's no like I was able to campaign for money
(08:50):
for to replace candy for Easter, but I couldn't be
like on Halloween. Hey, yeah, no, it doesn't work as well. Nope.
One report from twenty nineteen estimated Americans would spend five
point seven four billion dollars on food for eastern and
around two point five billion of that is estimated to
go to candy. Yeah yeah, so about half peeps. Let's
(09:15):
talk about peeps. Yes, oh gosh, very very divisive food.
I know. According to the company, they make five point
five million peeps a day, and up to a third
of all peeps sold are for decoration. They their own
website says that is wild. That is wild. I know,
(09:37):
I know. I'm thinking I need to get some from
my previously mentioned Avengers themed gingerbread D and D diorama.
Oh my gosh, I want you to do that so much.
And I can tell you from personal experience that peeps
will last years, years unchanged. That's don't ask how I
(10:00):
know that. I it's you know, we all make mistakes,
that's true. I totally hear you, Lauren. On Easter, we
collectively eat one five billion peeps. Okay, eat or purchase. Well,
I think it's said eat, but I don't know how
(10:22):
they would know specifically that we're eating that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um.
There are so many flavors of peeps, at least twenty
four I think The oddest flavor I saw was pancakes
and syrup, which I imagine would be very coying, but
I could be wrong. Oh and speaking of dioramas, there's
(10:47):
a peep diorama contest. How have I missed this? Maybe
you could? You could enter yours, you could enter next year.
I really appreciate your vote of confidence, Flora, but I'm
gonna set some expectations. It's not a contest injury worthy,
(11:09):
but it would give people some laughs. I think, there
you go. That's you know, it's not always about winning,
that's true. I need to change. This is why people
think I'm a Slytherin. It's the journey that counts. The
first contest took place in two thousand and four. When
(11:30):
it comes to eating the chocolate Easter bunny, according to
Chocolate Manufacturers Association and National Confectioners Association, s of Americans
go years first when eating them. I also saw one
number that was sixty that was frequently reported as well,
So it's still a majority, but it's up there right right. Um.
(11:51):
A ninety million of these chocolate bunnies are produced each year.
M hm uh. Sixteen billion jelly beans are pumped out
to meet Easter demand. According to one chart I found,
cherry is the most popular flavor. Not quite an Easter
(12:13):
egg unto themselves, but they are sort of egg shaped. Yeah,
I bet it. Said a lot of decoration as well, Yeah, totally. Yeah.
We used to make those. My mom would make those
cupcakes with like the green shredded coconut on top and
then the three pastel colored Eminem's. Oh okay, so I
(12:35):
think there is a lot of like decoration going on
in the Eastern dessert world. Sure, okay, I love this.
Apparently in County Durham in England, there is an Easter
tradition of egg tapping, basically two people hitting hard boiled
eggs together to see which one cracks first. I've read
that this is a thing in places. Just it's just
(12:58):
a thing, and I never heard of this, and it
seems amazing. Please yeah, just like it just seems very silly,
but I love it and the eggs. For this particular one,
they had to be submitted the day before um and
judges look for signs that the egg has been dipped
(13:19):
in beer or covered in nail polished things like that. Yeah,
I do love that. For this one, it is so
serious that they're like no, no, no, no, no no.
You give us the eggs, make sure they haven't been
tampered with, and then and then you can tap your
eggs together. We can't undermine seriousness that this egg tapping competition,
(13:43):
not at all. Never I would. I would not dare no,
no me either. So that's kind of a roundup of
some numbers, some not so Easter egg based, but a
lot of that candy ends up in Easter eggs. Sure, yeah,
it's Easter egg adjacent. I mean there there's also there
are peeps that are shaped like Easter eggs are they're
(14:04):
really Yeah, there's bunny shaped ones. There's Easter bunny shaped ones,
and I believe there's egg shaped ones as well the
whole wide world. I know. Y well, that's the rest
of my day. We do have a lot of history
for you, oh my gosh, we do. But first we've
got a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(14:33):
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. Um
and okay, so so history of Easter eggs, the practice
of decorating eggs and eggshells goes back thousand to sixty
five thousand years, um, like the middle of the Stone Age.
Uh Ostrich eggs with designs scratched into them were found
(14:55):
in what's now South Africa, dating from that period of time.
They were pab be used for storing water um and
later they might have been intentionally colored bright hues like
blues and reds. Those are the those are the oldest
records we have because ostrich eggs are so much bigger
and sturdier than chicken eggs. But but certainly by the
fourth century see chicken eggs have been found that are
(15:16):
thought to have been part of various holidays and end
of burials. UM. One was found in the tomb of
a girl in Germany, dating from around that time. The
Easter egg tradition dates back to medieval Europe. Whether or
not it originated with Christianity, that's doubtful. A lot of
historians think that Easter and a lot of traditions associated
with it, originated with an Anglo Saxon festival held to
(15:40):
celebrate winter's end and the coming of spring and to
honor the goddess Estra or Ostara or Eostra, the Germanic
goddess of dawn and spring. Eating eggs was part of
the festival, and there was also perhaps a tradition of
bearing them to promote fertility. However, I think there is
(16:00):
literally one mention of this goddess and historical records, so yeah,
this one is a complicated one to sess out and
a little little bit more on this later. But um
but okay. So the one historical, historical kind of in
scare quotes record that we have of of the goddess Easter. Um,
(16:21):
it's from the seven hundreds CE. And this Christian English
writer bead bed Bill, I've heard different pronunciations. I'm not
sure how to say it. I apologize, um, but but yeah,
he wrote about the worship of this Anglo Saxon goddess
Ester in times past previous to his Um, but yeah,
there's no other written record of her, and oh more
(16:45):
on her later. It's great, okay, in the meanwhile. In
the meanwhile, at the time, Christian missionaries frequently held Christian
Holy Day celebrations around the same time as pagan festivals,
with the end goal of converting folks to Christianity, and
to make conversion more appealing, several pagan traditions were adopted
and or adapted into Christian celebrations. So probably maybe this
(17:11):
is where the Easter egg got its start, Yeah, all
of us in medieval Europe Um. Around the same time,
a roasted egg was also part of Jewish Passover uh
Satyr traditions um, which is another spring holiday that is
historically tied to Easter. So like maybe eggs came into
Easter that way to or right? Yeah yeah, yeah, another
(17:35):
theory and it's one I know we have mentioned before.
Has much more to do with stricter Lent rules that
did not allow for the eating of eggs, no animal
products at all. But you can't tell him stappling eggs,
so folks would collect and hard boil the eggs for later.
Since Lent builds up to Easter, it would make sense
(17:56):
that the eggs would be handed out that day, often
to those that couldn't afford meat, and that they would
become associated with the holiday. Worth noting. Decorated eggs have
also been a tradition of Iranian New Year, which takes
place on spring equinox for thousands of years, and it's
also viewed as a symbol of fertility. Also worth noting,
(18:19):
and languages like French and Spanish, the words for Easter
come from the Greek or Latin word for passover. So yeah,
like you were saying lauren. As far as dying eggs
or Easter, one of the first records of that came
out of twelve and nine Britain and one Edward, the
first to celebrate Easter. Edward commanded that four d and
fifty eggs be decorated with gold leaf or died to
(18:40):
hand out as gifts. Meanwhile, uh, folks, and let's now Ukraine,
we're developing traditional pisnki. I think I'm saying that right.
Let me know if I'm not. Uh. These are like
wax bersist too, died eggs, originally for for pagan purposes,
but around this time merged into Christian beliefs. Um and yeah.
(19:01):
On these patterns of wax are are applied and then
uh die is applied in layers um, and then more
wax than more die, and then the wax is all
melted off to reveal these intricate designs and and shading
created by all of that layering um. And this is
a folk art that continues today. Oh, I love it.
(19:21):
Thirteenth century English towns people gave their Lord of the
Men or Easter eggs and bought them as good Friday
offerings at their churches and just f a I I
went on a very unnecessary rabbit hole about this whole
lord of the Manner thing because I was I just
wanted to know what I was talking about. So I
was like, what does that actually mean? And apparently you
(19:41):
can like still try to get that title today, but
it's really difficulty. I found like modern legal blogs about this,
and again I had to remind myself, this is a
food show. Time to stop looking up how I can
become a lady of the banner. But anyway, the Vatican
(20:03):
sent a young Henry the eighth and egg in a
silver case around Easter time towards the end of the
fourteen hundred's and this type of gift was called an
egg silver MHM. Later on in the sixteenth and seventeenth century,
some records suggest that British folks were dying eggs and
handing them out as gifts because the color red symbolized
(20:23):
joy in that area back then, it was a popular choice,
or possibly it was meant to represent the blood of
Jesus Christ. A lot of the color and patterns were
biblical in nature up until the eighteenth century. An area
of Lancashire, eggs were acceptable Easter Jews in the place
of money, m and in some renditions of the story
(20:45):
or are like, we've talked about this a lot before,
a lot of times, frequently in Christianity, a lot of traditions,
kind of religious leaders step in and try to explain
the religious reason behind while we were doing these things
we've already been doing for a long time. Yeah, or
or try to turn that tradition into a lesson in
a symbolism and in scripture. Yes, yes, so in some
(21:08):
retellings renditions, the hard egg shell is the ceiling of
the tomb that Jesus was placed in and the cracking
of the egg. The resurrection egg rolling meanwhile, which we're
going to talk to you, we're gonna talk about in
a minute, was allegedly meant to symbolize the rolling away
of the rock from the tomb. Yes, some sources suggested
(21:31):
Martin Luther held one of the earliest Easter egg hunts
and listening men to hide eggs from women and children.
That so, that would have been in about the fift
hundreds UM and certainly by sixteen eighty two there was
in place a German tradition of of an Easter hare
like rabbit who laid eggs for children to find. Um.
(21:51):
It was written about that year in an academic essay.
This brings us to the nineteenth century, and this is
when people pivoted to giving Easter eggs two children. Historians
think the impetus behind this might be shifting Victorian ideals
focusing on the importance of family, with particular attention paid
to kids. And then in tandem there was an interest
(22:14):
in older traditions. These things came together to make holiday
traditions more kid friendly, and one of these things being
dying of Easter eggs. The Easter bunny was a part
of this. To Easter egg hunts followed soon after. H Yeah,
and all of that was over in the English speaking world.
But um, But meanwhile, it is also around this time,
(22:34):
the early eighteen hundreds, that myths about the goddess Astara
started really cementing, thanks to, of all things, the German
Romantic nationalist movement and folklore. Is. Like Jacob Graham in
his book German Mythology, he proposed based on bead beds,
that guy's based on that dude's mentioned. Graham surmised and
(22:56):
he wrote that that Ostara must have been a widespread goddess,
and all of these other works over the next hundred
years by other folklorists just developed her mythology, UM, including
a story that she rode in a chariot drawn by birds,
and then later stories so that it was drawn by hairs.
And then some other people got confused later about the
(23:16):
wording there and assumed that she had transformed the birds
into hairs. It is wonderfully confusing, UM, but at any rate,
the story of a star's creation of the Easter hair
developed during the eighteen and nineteen hundreds and UM. Modern
tellings often include the idea that UM that this goddess
(23:37):
turned a bird into a hair to to save it
UM and then ingratitude it continued laying eggs, or that
she did it as a punishment, but such was the
hair's grief that she allowed it to lay eggs once
a year. Oh wow, so the hair was really upset.
It wasn't a hair anymore. The hair was really upset.
It wasn't a bird anymore. Okay that yeah, that makes persense,
(23:59):
no offense. Hairs, but like flying, yeah, flying, it's pretty rad,
I would assume, so yeah, uh so, yeah, deep thanks
to a literary historian, Stephen Winnick over at the Library
of Congress for looking into all of this. I love it.
And this brings us to a question I know you
(24:20):
all have at this point, the easter bunny. What's up
with that? What is up with that? The residing theory
is that German immigrants to America, specifically Pennsylvania, brought their
tradition and story of an eggling rabbit called ulster Hassa
or oxter Halls. Apologies is I you know, I took
(24:42):
like five years of Germany, but it's been a long
time this this may have happened as early as the
late sixteen eighties that this story made its way over
to America. But the first paper evidence that we have
from here are our drawings from the eighteen oots of
a hair kind of leaping over a basket of Easter eggs.
(25:02):
It makes sense with the whole fertility thing and rabbit's
reputation of you know, mating like rats. Um kids would
make nests hoping that the oster haza would lay beautiful
colored eggs inside of them, and I've read that often
um these nests where where the children would would put
down their hats like their little caps or bonnets, um,
(25:24):
and make a nest out of that and maybe like
maybe like fill it with colored flowers so that the
hair could eat it and and leave colored eggs. Oh.
The practice spread from from Pennsylvania across the country and
also expanded to include not only eggs, but also candy
and other gifts. The nest were replaced with baskets. Apparently
(25:47):
some families will leave carrots out for the Easter Bunny.
We did this when I was a kid, did you really? Yes? Absolutely,
as like you leave cookies and milk for Santa, and
you leave carrots for the Easter Bunny. Okay, all right,
I we We were in Ohio and Pennsylvania though, so
maybe maybe it was a local thing. Yeah. Maybe. Another
(26:09):
story goes that Easter Bunny arose from a poor woman
who would hide eggs for her children to find on Easter,
and while searching for the mysterious hidden eggs, the children
saw a hair were hopping around and believed that it
had laid the eggs. Um. So my parents made Easter
(26:29):
baskets for us until I was in college, and mine
was usually movies because again, I didn't like candy that much.
But me and my dad we both loved movies. And
I gotta say, I know I've mentioned this on a
previous podcast, but I never want, not one single instant,
believed that the Easter Bundy was real. Um and I
(26:52):
toothfair yes, hook line, sinker Easter Bunny. My parents told
me that. I remember being like, no, I don't know
what you're trying not. I mean, you can make me
a basket. I really appreciate it, but I know there's
no Easter Bunny. I think I think the Easter Bunny
was the first one that I was like, Mom, Dad,
(27:12):
Like I was like five or maybe six. I was
like Mom, Dad, like, y'all don't have to I don't
have to pretend anymore with the Easter Bunny. And it's
it's okay, Like I like, I appreciate it, but you're
off the hook. Yeah, I think. I like even the
vision I had in my head, and this could be
the problem. I wasn't imagining like an actual rabbit. I
(27:32):
was imagining like a man in a suit, you know,
a huge yea, And the very idea of it freaked
me out and I just thought, no way, no, okay,
al Right, well we're getting into like murkami rookie territory here,
So let's move let's move on, all right. Uh. The
(27:53):
nineteenth century was also when we started seeing chocolate eggs
in France and Germany. At first, they were hard to
eat in a bit bitter, but with innovation, chocolate makers
were able to produce this sweeter, hollow chocolate eggs we
were more familiar with today. Yeah, the early eighteen hundreds
were a time of just amazing chocolate science innovations because
(28:14):
prior to then, people would grind and cook whole cacao
beans until they were a liquid, uh, cocoa liquor or liqueur.
And and this stuff is like cocoa butter, only like
scent cocoa solids. So it's really hard to make like
a solid chocolate the way that we think of solid
chocolates today. Most chocolate up until that time was was
(28:37):
drink rather than a solid food. And it's also kind
of like just like just like grainy and weird. But
in eight a Dutch chemist by the name of a
Conrad von Houghton, who looked sort of like Willem Dafoe
by the way, he created this hydraulic press that would
smoosh a whole bunch of the fats out of cocoa
(28:57):
liqueur um or liquor nails or whichever one um, leaving
a sort of pressed cake of mostly cocoa salads that
was only about cocoa butter. So at that point you
could grind this this cake into cocoa powder, which was
pretty much the same stuff we know and used today,
and which also could be treated um chemically so that
(29:17):
it plays nicer with liquids um as in with alkaline salts,
which is called dutching or Dutch process. For this, dude.
You might have seen packages of cocoa powder in the
store that say that their Dutch process, and that's what
it means. Yeah, So at that point you can combine
this cocoa powder back with cocoa butter in order to
(29:38):
create like a creamy and malleable final product that can
in fact be molded into solid bars or whatever. The
first molded bar, ever, was, was supposedly produced in seven
by an English family of chocolate makers, the Fry family.
Yes that Fries. Anyone who's not famil year with British
(30:00):
confectionery is probably very confused. Believe me. It's a whole thing. Um. Uh.
But yeah, they developed their chocolate cream bar um which
has which is chocolate with some creamy fond in the
center in eighteen sixty six, and then the UK's first
chocolate eggs in eighteen seventy three. Well then in eighteen
seventy nine another chocolate maker rolled off Lint, and yes
(30:22):
that Lint developed counching um, which is the heating and
mixing and aerating process that develops the flavor and texture
of chocolate, making it even easier and more affordable to produce,
which really helped open up the chocolate industry. Meanwhile, Canbury
canberry eggs debuted in eight seventy five. Oh yes, arrival
(30:44):
of Fries. Uh. These these first Cadbury eggs were hollow
and filled with sugared almonds um, and their first decorated
eggs had chocolate piping and marzipan flowers. They would introduce
their milk chocolate eggs in nineteen o five, which is
just really caught on um. And then the two companies,
Fries and Cadbury would would join forces in nineteen nineteen.
(31:07):
The early nineteenth centuries also probably when we got edible
Easter bunnies, probably invented in either Germany or America. The
first were made out of a sugared pastry. Some of
these bunnies had hard boiled eggs inside them. I don't
understand it, but I but I appreciate it, you know. Yeah,
it's like a nick cage at the end of Spider
(31:29):
verse when as the Rubik's cue. It's the same thing,
exactly like that. I'm sure that that was the inspiration. Yeah. Um. Meanwhile,
the first bunny shaped chocolates may have been produced in
Munich in the eighteen fifties, as that chocolate technology developed.
Candy eggs had made it to America by the eighteen eighties,
(31:51):
and in eighteen eighty five we see the most opulent
version of the Easter egg, the Faberge egg. Um. Czar
Alexander the third had had the first made that year
for his wife, Empress Maria on Easter for their twentieth
wedding anniversary, and it was already a tradition in Russian
Orthodox families to exchange decorated eggs after services on Easter,
(32:15):
and so Alexander ordered one from this kind of up
and coming jeweler whose work Maria liked. Peter Carl faberge,
and the first one that this company made for them
UM was a deceptively simple, white enameled egg that opened
to reveal a golden ball like a yoke, which itself
opened to reveal a small golden hen, which itself opened
(32:39):
to reveal a tiny diamond replica of the imperial crown
and a ruby pendant. Whoa, I know, right, the hen
comes first? Yeah? Yeah, okay, yeah, well, I mean but
it's all inside an egg. So oh, it's the egg.
(33:00):
It's the egg, and then the chicken and then the egg.
This is the problem. This is why we can't get
to the bottom of that. I feel like that was
a very like true detective moment for a second there. Okay,
the egg is a flat circle, all right. So over
(33:20):
the next few decades, UH Alexander and then later his
his son Nicholas would UM every year commission these eggs,
and they became ever more elaborate and super world famous UM.
And these days, these days they are often viewed as
like a concrete symbol of the frivolity that doomed UM
(33:41):
the Russian Imperial family during the Revolution of the nineteen teens.
Easter eggs are beautiful, though gosh, they're real pretty. They're nuts.
That is. That is my recommended rabbit hole of the day.
I love it. Towards the end of the nineteenth century,
(34:02):
New Jersey drug store owner William Townley invented Easter egg
die tablets in five colors. You just added water and white,
vinegar and boa lah and I totally forgot that you
added vinegar and that's and it gives it that really
particular smell. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally forgot about that.
They were enough of a success that Townley renamed his
(34:24):
business pause registered trademark diet company. He got the name
from the Pennsylvania Dutch word for Easter, Poston, again tying
back to passover. Yeah, exactly. In eighteen seventy six, the
White House hosted its first Easter egg Roll. Um, if
you haven't heard of this, it's an annual event we
(34:44):
have here in the United States held on Easter Monday,
where families congregate on the White House South lawn and
the kids have an egg rolling race, among other activities.
Uh in a vent I by the way, find hilarious
and creepy because there's also someone dressed as the Easter Budding.
But like the costume was really weird. It's just like
standing around freaks me out. Is this the Easter Bunny
(35:07):
you're always picturing when you were a kid? Kay of
kind of maybe just seeing I don't know. Uh. Nevertheless,
it is the largest yearly event at the White House.
It's big enough that there's a lottery now to get in.
About thirty thousand people attend, depending on the source. The
(35:29):
tradition of taking hard boiled eggs and rolling them goes
all the way back to Andrew Jackson or James Madison
and became a popular activity in Washington, d C. Frequently
on Capitol Hill after what must have been one heck
of a role. In eighteen seventies six, Congress passed the
law prohibiting that Capitol hillgrounds could be it could not
(35:52):
be quote used as a children's playground. Um. Then President
Hayes opened up the White House South on for the
festivities in eight He actually opened it before, but I
think it got rained out. So that was the first
year official that it happened, right, Yeah, The first egg
(36:13):
race didn't happen until Nixon in nineteen seventy four, and
it was preceded by games like egg picking, where you
try to crack the shell of a hard boiled egg
with your own but without cracking your shell. And egg croquet, Yeah, yeah,
the egg the egg tapping like we were talking about before. Yeah,
it sounds very yeah. Um, and egg croquet, which is
(36:36):
a game where you'd use a fan to move a
hollowed out eggshell. And that sounds so fun to me.
I'm so angry that I have not been making more
use of my egg shells. Gosh, set up a whole
thing here. Okay, we we need to as soon as
we can be physically in the same place at the
(36:56):
same time, and again, we need to do this. Yeah,
Oh my god, I'm so excited. The tradition was put
on hold during World War Two, but President Eisenhower revived
it in nineteen fifty three, and apparently that year it
was a free for all. Here's a quote. By noon,
the grounds were a dreadful mass of mashed eggs, gooey chocolate, marshmallow,
(37:20):
melting jellybeans, and picnic midden. Most unexpected casualty, A press
photographer lost both shoes. What what kind of day was? He?
I A very strange one, I assume, I assume. In
two thousand nine, President Obama formally invited gay and lesbian
couples and their families to attend. Yeah. Back to Easter
(37:45):
egg dying and hunting. More and more middle class folks
started adopting these things in the early twentieth century as
they built up more disposable income. It was even more
adapted when Easter became a national holiday, so people had
more time and more reason to do things like die
Easter eggs and do Easter egg hunts. And apparently, according
(38:06):
to dictionary dot com, easter egg was a derogatory term
for a woman who wore too much makeup in the
nineteen twenties, indeed, all painted up like an Easter egg. Sure,
I guess. Well, let's talk about Peep's Lauren. Oh. Sure.
(38:27):
They were a product of the nineteen fifties and Russian
immigrant to the United States Sam Born, who founded Just
Born Like It, a candy company. In the beginning, one
single peep took an entire twenty seven hours to make. Yeah,
nowadays it's about six minutes. Martial Yeah, yeah, I know
(38:48):
all about the See our Marshmall episode on a fair form.
More on that one m h to save money in time,
American chocolate maker, Richard Palmer of R. M. Palmer Confectionery
started making hollow chocolate bunnies as opposed the solid ones.
I've actually never heard of this company, but they're still
up and running. Oh yeah, yeah, I've I've definitely eaten
things from from that company. So yeah, the history of
(39:11):
plastic eggs is a bit murky. We do know that
father and son team Irwin and Donald Wetter, patented hinged
plastic eggs in so people didn't have to struggle with
finding the right have the right to havelves or are
them coming apart at the wrong time. As a kid,
I definitely preferred that the hinged ones. Their company was
(39:32):
also involved in the creation of that green plastic grass
often found in easter baskets. Gosh. Yeah. As as a young,
slightly anal retentive, Lauren like really disliked that easter grass
because it got everywhere everywhere. It was chaos. It was
chaos in plastic grass form, and I didn't I didn't
approve it was chaos, you are correct, And I didn't
(39:56):
like it, Like it got so tangled in the center. Yeah,
and you weren't sure if there was something in there,
and it was like rough, rough times. Alright, quick, easter
egg pop culture aside. So like the pop culture term.
I feel like we've talked about this in a previous episode,
(40:18):
but well we'll recap it. You probably know, but these
Easter eggs are something that a creator adds in for
people to find. They're usually kind of like funny or
a message in movies or video games. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. Uh. Though the first recorded instance of this
term didn't take place until one of the first known
(40:38):
easter eggs was in the game Adventure, as seen in
the book and movie Ready Player One, which is self
is all about Easter egg Oh my gosh. Yes. One
of the most famous running Easter eggs is the Stanley
cameo in Every Marvel Movie. An article at huff Post
claims that Steve right over at Atari Coin Easter egg
(41:00):
in nineteen eighty and it was actually after this whole first. Actually,
some earlier ones have been found, but it's one of
the first ones found an Adventure. The higher ups sort
of freaked out about it because it's just essentially like
created by this guy. Um and a kid wrote in
and said he loved it and he was so excited,
and the higher ups were like, oh, this is terrible,
(41:23):
but right convinced them that they should think of it
as a good idea because this letter they got from
the kid, he was so excited he found it. He
found something that wasn't supposed to be in the game
that was a little like not like oh, man, like
you found this weird thing. Yeah, exactly like finding an
Easter egg. And he according to this article, he didn't
even know it was really a thing that he had
(41:45):
coined until pretty recently. So he also in uh in
the eighties, the the Cadbury Bunny audition commercials started coming
out in nine. Um that those those commercials where the
Cadbury bunny, which which is this clucking bunny there they're
the Cadbury Company is like holding auditions for the next
(42:06):
Cadbury Bunny and all kinds of animals show up. But
but but the kind of like like moral at the
end of the commercial was for a long time that
that like the bunny was the best at the job,
so it would always get the job. At these days,
new bunnies are like crowned every year and it's really sweet. Um,
this year's winner is a dog from Ohio. The dog
(42:26):
is named Lieutenant Dan because it has lost its hind
legs but still gets around just fine and like a
little doggie movement helper aid and they put they put
a little bunny ear bunny earhead band on it, and
it's real. Is this real? Cute? Oh? That is cute. Yeah.
(42:46):
I did have some pet rabbits growing up. Yeah, yeah,
Fluffy an Amber, and my brother's rabbit's name was Shack,
and Shack was scrappy. Shot got a fight with a dog,
Oh my god, and like came out victorious. How big
was the dog on the smaller side of medium but
(43:09):
medium bigger than a rabbit for sure? Oh yeah, okay,
but Shack was like no, yeah, yeah, he had a
scar though he was in titts. I've I've never really
met a rabbit that I didn't get the distinct impression,
like I didn't want to eat my eyeballs like all
of them who have been kind of aggro um. So,
(43:33):
I don't know. I've heard that some rabbits are delightful.
I've to be fair, I have not interacted with that
many of them, um, and most of them have probably
been in like petting zoo kind of situations where the
rabbit is probably just done, just done, and I get that,
you know, so yeah, we both can understand, we can appreciate.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, but yeah that um that brings
(43:58):
us to to the end of this our episode about
Easter eggs, it does. It was a good one. It's
a fun one. Yeah. Absolutely, I could have kept researching
for a long time. I really really really want to
do an episode about Cadbury now, all kinds of all
kinds of off shoots of research to do well. I
(44:19):
love it when that happens. Future, the whole world ahead
of us. Absolutely, But in the meantime, we do have
a little bit more for you. But first we've got
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(44:41):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with That was a fun body one, though
it might not have worked out in the vocal. Yeah,
it was good. It was a good hop hippie hippie hop. Yeah. Yeah.
(45:02):
I Lauren and I are having to develop what I'm calling,
uh podcast posture because of the way our closet studios
are set up. So I really appreciated the chance to
move first such a straighten up yeah, like like actually
extend your spine in some way. Yes, yeah, yes, it
(45:23):
was nice. Melissa wrote, Hi, ladies, not to add to
the cravings in this time of quarantine and hall to travel,
but on listening to the bond Me episode, I had
to share one of my favorite Toronto restaurants, bond Me Boys.
It's like if a bond Me restaurant had a baby
with five guys. Kim she poutine or puzza. It's incredible.
(45:45):
I love it so much. I think he would do. Yes,
I want that so badly, kim She Puttina, I'd never
thought of I want that. I know, I know we're gonna,
like when this is all over, finally over, We're gonna
have so many food adventures to go on. Oh yeah yeah,
really really important food adventures. Oh yes, that is one
(46:07):
of them. Meanwhile, Kenna or Kina wrote, I consider myself
a pretty good cook and an okay baker. I've made pretzels, cakes, cookies, muffins,
carrot cake, and several deep dish pizzas. But for some reason,
bread eludes me. Multiple attempts with various breadmakers have turned
into inedible pastes of flour and gunk. Last time I
(46:27):
tried to make bread. I used it to lure a
friend over for an afternoon of writing, only to find
after two hours that the delicious smell coming from the
bread machine was, in the words of my friend, a
sad piece of brick. The yeast alas was dead. Fast
forward to quarantine, two weeks since my last grocery run.
My available vegetables are carrots, onions, and potatoes. Just carrots, onions,
(46:50):
and potatoes. There might be a brick of frozen spinach
in the freezer, but frozen spinach does not a meal make.
So I get the bright idea to make potato nyolki.
I lay out the ingredients potatoes, parmesan, butter, flour, and
I'm just filling the pot up to start boiling potatoes
when I read the step after boil skin potatoes and
put them through a potato racer. What I wonder is
(47:14):
a potato racer, and more importantly, where can I get
one without leaving my house. A quick search of the
drawers turned up and no such things, So I resigned
myself to a soup made of carrots and onions until
I remembered something wonderful. My grandmother's knuffles or k nuffles.
I'm gonna go with knuffles. I hadn't had any in
about ten years because the only time my mom made
(47:35):
chicken knuffle soup was when she was seriously trying to
stock the freezer. It is far, far superior to chicken
noodle soup. And the only problem was I didn't have
a recipe neither, it turns out, did Google. I could
not get a single English language site that acknowledged the
knuffles were a thing. The spelling here is k and
(47:56):
U F f l e s. By the way, I
couldn't get a single German language side with recipes. When
I searched nuffles. I finally pulled out the nuclear option.
I called my mother quote it's just one egg, one
cup of flour, and half a teaspoon of salt. She said,
because even now, at least a decade since either of
us has set eyes on this dish, she had it memorized.
(48:17):
I followed her instructions, made delicious tiny doughballs for very
carroty soup, and enjoyed it for several days. I even
posted the recipe to my blog, whereupon a friend told me, actually,
that's just spaetzel needless to say, After a discussion of
what was and was not Spatzel, held mostly over Facebook,
my mother weighed in on the issue. It's spelled niffle,
(48:40):
she said to my everlasting now permanently enshrined on the internet. Shame,
that's why you couldn't google a recipe for my next
trick of grain baste hupris. I'll try to make sour dough.
After all, I have half a dozen probably dead packs
of active dry yeast, three half used bags of flour,
(49:02):
and time there you go. I gotta say I love
nuffles and niffles. Yeah, all of these words are amazing
and I approve of them. Yeah. Hey, I believe I've
never heard of at least niffles. So fun. Yeah, I
(49:24):
need to go. I need to go look up some
we should do. We should do a Spitzel episode. Yes,
I have had that so few times in my life,
but every time I do, I'm like, this is so good.
It more often just tiny, tiny dumplings fried with onions.
Pretty good, pretty good turns out surprise, surprise, weird in
(49:47):
butter Yeah, weird delicious, Oh my gosh, And I want that.
The cravings, the cravings, Um, thanks so much to both
of them for writing in. If you like to write in,
we would love like to know what your Easter game is,
if you are really good at decorating, what are you
doing for Easter? What projects are you working on during quarantine?
Um all of the above. You can email us at
(50:10):
hello at favor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at
savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio four more podcasts
my Heart Radio. You can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagin and
(50:30):
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and I hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to save a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam and today
we're talking about Easter eggs. Yes, I'm very excited for
this one. Yeah you, Um, you have a continuing tradition
of Easter egg hunts in your family, right, Oh boy?
Do I? And as we record this Easter is this
(00:31):
coming Sunday. And a lot of you listeners know because
I've talked about it before on the show. I've definitely
posted some stories about it. Um. I usually go home,
um to visit my mom for an annual Easter egg hunt,
and she still hides forty two. Why forty two? I
(00:51):
don't know why forty two, but we count them every
year because every year, me, a grown woman, does this
hunt by myself, UM, and I can't There's always one
egg I can't find, and I'm determined. I feel like
someone's messing with me. And there aren't actually forty two eggs.
(01:11):
And this year I was even going to count them myself,
but I guess I couldn't know if she removed one sure,
or if one of your brothers or exactly, because if
every year we can't find one and every time I
go home, like to this day, not for Easter, anytime
I go out into the yard and I look for
these missing eggs because by now there's a handful of them.
(01:32):
Sure where could they be? But I love, I have
always loved Easter egg hunts. I am very competitive. I
They had to put in place rules when I was
four years old because I would find like all the eggs.
(01:53):
So the rules or oh my gosh, okay, yeah, there's
a great picture from that year, um where like they
would even count down, like three to one, go, and
my mom took a picture right at the like go,
and I'm already out of the like you can barely
see me and my brothers are still standing there smiling.
(02:16):
It was off to the races. But yeah, I won't
be doing it this year because of quarantine, and I
am trying to figure out a virtual way we could
do it that is not like just making my mom
do work. Um. Yeah, And I really appreciate everyone who's
already written and asking about it and the suggestions. That
(02:37):
means a lot. It means a lot to me. I Uh,
I think I stopped having Easter egg hunts by the
time I was about six or so, but my my
dad up until his death, every Easter would send me
peeps and he would usually forget to do this in
(02:59):
the later years until like a couple of days before
Easter and wind up spending like thirty dollars like FedEx
overnight ing me a package of peeps because he wanted
me to have my Easter peeps. And uh, this was
way after I had stopped appreciating eating peeps, and it
was that it was just so sweet. I didn't want
(03:22):
to tell him to stop. I was like, oh, Dad,
you gotta get your thirty dollars worth peeps. It's actually
like three dollars worth butts right, you know, Oh my gosh,
I love that. Yeah. See, I didn't. I didn't like candy,
so I successfully campaigned to replace the candy with money. Um,
(03:47):
and I make and continue to make a lot of
money on Easter dang all right, yeah yeah, yeah, I'm
not a big Easter candy fan. And we'll be talking
about that some some more in a minute. Um. I
also love dying Easter eggs and we still do that
as well. And a few years ago my mom even
bought me like like way over the top splatter system.
(04:09):
You put the egg in and you like press it up,
sprays out all the time. Yeah, we fancy, we fancy. Yeah.
A couple of years ago, I did like a like
I've been saving for who knows why, um, this Star
Wars like the prequel trilogy, like themed Easter egg dying kit.
(04:31):
My roommates and I did that and it was pretty ridiculous,
um but great. How did they turn out? You know,
pretty pretty jankie if I'm being honest. But we had
fun doing it. They had some of those little like
like paper like sleeves or or like stages that you
(04:53):
could put them on that were like the little character
like the little characters, and so it was pretty adorable
and goofy, Please tell me there was an R two
D two one. There had to have been. I'll see
if I'll go through pictures and I'll see what I
can find. This is very important information I need to know.
(05:14):
I need to know there's definitely a Yoda one that
that I think we saved. But I'm wearing my baby
Yoda shirt right now. Yeah you are. YEA Easter is
a big day for brunch too, and I know a
lot of places are doing take away our delivery brunches
in Atlanta, and I'm going to assume probably wherever you
(05:34):
are as well, that's something you want to check out. Um.
And we have done a lot of egg adjacent episodes,
and we talked about that in our brunch episode complimentary
bar snacks, deviled eggs, which is a popular Easter food
here in the South. Um, the giant egg in the
Parokee episode. And now we're doing Easter eggs, not eggs,
(05:54):
but one day. Oh, I'm not ready. I'm not ready
for it yet. Yes, it's it'll be a big one.
We're doing a similar thing with potatoes. We've done a
lot of things around potatoes, but not potatoes yet. Yeah. Yeah,
we're just chipping chipping away at the egg egg there, um,
and the and the potato egg, both of those eggs. Yes,
(06:17):
which king first, the egg or the potato egg. We'll
answer that question on another day because we have to
answer this question, is Easter eggs? What are they? Well,
Easter eggs are either literal or figurative eggs decorated in
(06:38):
ostensible celebration of the Easter holiday, which is itself a
Christian feast day. In the stensible celebration of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ and like kind of like low key,
like a celebration of the bounty of spring. If Easter
eggs are actual eggs, they might be hard boiled or
have the innards blown out, and the shells might be
dyed or otherwise decorated. If their figure ative, they can
(07:00):
be oh gosh anything um uh. It can be other
edible options like molded chocolate or marspan or hard candy
or cake or pastry um. All those are common. Some
inedible options, like a molded plastic eggshells are sometimes filled
with candy or money, um or other treats, or they
can be treats unto themselves, like a fabulous jeweled Faberge eggs. Yes,
(07:24):
I found more than one article lamenting the plastic egg,
how it was like the antithesis of what Easter was
supposed to represent. And I really appreciated that I didn't
have to search too hard to find multiple arguments. I've
always liked a plastic egg because it could be it
(07:45):
could hold anything. Yes, oh, I do too. Like we
when we died eggs, we didn't usually hide those ones,
but sometimes we did. We did both. We did both, Okay,
so numbers. We do have some numbers. One hundred and
eighty million eggs are sold for Easter in the United States,
like actual eggs, not like chocolate eggs or anything like that.
(08:06):
Yet ten million people plan on dyeing some of these eggs,
and since the invention and widespread adoption of plastic eggs
for hiding, both of those numbers have gone down substantially.
Really see, I feel like it's two separate issues. You
die some eggs and you hide some plastic eggs because
if you don't want to hide the diet eggs, because
then you're just going to crush your pretty diet eggs anyway, exactly,
(08:29):
and the wait, okay, this really surprised me. Easter candy
out sells both Halloween and Valentine's Day can really exactly.
I would have thought it was Halloween for sure, but
then both of us are big Halloween fans, so maybe
that's coloring our judgment there. Yes, yes, and I guess
there's no like I was able to campaign for money
(08:50):
for to replace candy for Easter, but I couldn't be
like on Halloween. Hey, yeah, no, it doesn't work as well. Nope.
One report from twenty nineteen estimated Americans would spend five
point seven four billion dollars on food for eastern and
around two point five billion of that is estimated to
go to candy. Yeah yeah, so about half peeps. Let's
(09:15):
talk about peeps. Yes, oh gosh, very very divisive food.
I know. According to the company, they make five point
five million peeps a day, and up to a third
of all peeps sold are for decoration. They their own
website says that is wild. That is wild. I know,
(09:37):
I know. I'm thinking I need to get some from
my previously mentioned Avengers themed gingerbread D and D diorama.
Oh my gosh, I want you to do that so much.
And I can tell you from personal experience that peeps
will last years, years unchanged. That's don't ask how I
(10:00):
know that. I it's you know, we all make mistakes,
that's true. I totally hear you, Lauren. On Easter, we
collectively eat one five billion peeps. Okay, eat or purchase. Well,
I think it's said eat, but I don't know how
(10:22):
they would know specifically that we're eating that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um.
There are so many flavors of peeps, at least twenty
four I think The oddest flavor I saw was pancakes
and syrup, which I imagine would be very coying, but
I could be wrong. Oh and speaking of dioramas, there's
(10:47):
a peep diorama contest. How have I missed this? Maybe
you could? You could enter yours, you could enter next year.
I really appreciate your vote of confidence, Flora, but I'm
gonna set some expectations. It's not a contest injury worthy,
(11:09):
but it would give people some laughs. I think, there
you go. That's you know, it's not always about winning,
that's true. I need to change. This is why people
think I'm a Slytherin. It's the journey that counts. The
first contest took place in two thousand and four. When
(11:30):
it comes to eating the chocolate Easter bunny, according to
Chocolate Manufacturers Association and National Confectioners Association, s of Americans
go years first when eating them. I also saw one
number that was sixty that was frequently reported as well,
So it's still a majority, but it's up there right right. Um.
(11:51):
A ninety million of these chocolate bunnies are produced each year.
M hm uh. Sixteen billion jelly beans are pumped out
to meet Easter demand. According to one chart I found,
cherry is the most popular flavor. Not quite an Easter
(12:13):
egg unto themselves, but they are sort of egg shaped. Yeah,
I bet it. Said a lot of decoration as well, Yeah, totally. Yeah.
We used to make those. My mom would make those
cupcakes with like the green shredded coconut on top and
then the three pastel colored Eminem's. Oh okay, so I
(12:35):
think there is a lot of like decoration going on
in the Eastern dessert world. Sure, okay, I love this.
Apparently in County Durham in England, there is an Easter
tradition of egg tapping, basically two people hitting hard boiled
eggs together to see which one cracks first. I've read
that this is a thing in places. Just it's just
(12:58):
a thing, and I never heard of this, and it
seems amazing. Please yeah, just like it just seems very silly,
but I love it and the eggs. For this particular one,
they had to be submitted the day before um and
judges look for signs that the egg has been dipped
(13:19):
in beer or covered in nail polished things like that. Yeah,
I do love that. For this one, it is so
serious that they're like no, no, no, no, no no.
You give us the eggs, make sure they haven't been
tampered with, and then and then you can tap your
eggs together. We can't undermine seriousness that this egg tapping competition,
(13:43):
not at all. Never I would. I would not dare no,
no me either. So that's kind of a roundup of
some numbers, some not so Easter egg based, but a
lot of that candy ends up in Easter eggs. Sure, yeah,
it's Easter egg adjacent. I mean there there's also there
are peeps that are shaped like Easter eggs are they're
(14:04):
really Yeah, there's bunny shaped ones. There's Easter bunny shaped ones,
and I believe there's egg shaped ones as well the
whole wide world. I know. Y well, that's the rest
of my day. We do have a lot of history
for you, oh my gosh, we do. But first we've
got a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(14:33):
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. Um
and okay, so so history of Easter eggs, the practice
of decorating eggs and eggshells goes back thousand to sixty
five thousand years, um, like the middle of the Stone Age.
Uh Ostrich eggs with designs scratched into them were found
(14:55):
in what's now South Africa, dating from that period of time.
They were pab be used for storing water um and
later they might have been intentionally colored bright hues like
blues and reds. Those are the those are the oldest
records we have because ostrich eggs are so much bigger
and sturdier than chicken eggs. But but certainly by the
fourth century see chicken eggs have been found that are
(15:16):
thought to have been part of various holidays and end
of burials. UM. One was found in the tomb of
a girl in Germany, dating from around that time. The
Easter egg tradition dates back to medieval Europe. Whether or
not it originated with Christianity, that's doubtful. A lot of
historians think that Easter and a lot of traditions associated
with it, originated with an Anglo Saxon festival held to
(15:40):
celebrate winter's end and the coming of spring and to
honor the goddess Estra or Ostara or Eostra, the Germanic
goddess of dawn and spring. Eating eggs was part of
the festival, and there was also perhaps a tradition of
bearing them to promote fertility. However, I think there is
(16:00):
literally one mention of this goddess and historical records, so yeah,
this one is a complicated one to sess out and
a little little bit more on this later. But um
but okay. So the one historical, historical kind of in
scare quotes record that we have of of the goddess Easter. Um,
(16:21):
it's from the seven hundreds CE. And this Christian English
writer bead bed Bill, I've heard different pronunciations. I'm not
sure how to say it. I apologize, um, but but yeah,
he wrote about the worship of this Anglo Saxon goddess
Ester in times past previous to his Um, but yeah,
there's no other written record of her, and oh more
(16:45):
on her later. It's great, okay, in the meanwhile. In
the meanwhile, at the time, Christian missionaries frequently held Christian
Holy Day celebrations around the same time as pagan festivals,
with the end goal of converting folks to Christianity, and
to make conversion more appealing, several pagan traditions were adopted
and or adapted into Christian celebrations. So probably maybe this
(17:11):
is where the Easter egg got its start, Yeah, all
of us in medieval Europe Um. Around the same time,
a roasted egg was also part of Jewish Passover uh
Satyr traditions um, which is another spring holiday that is
historically tied to Easter. So like maybe eggs came into
Easter that way to or right? Yeah yeah, yeah, another
(17:35):
theory and it's one I know we have mentioned before.
Has much more to do with stricter Lent rules that
did not allow for the eating of eggs, no animal
products at all. But you can't tell him stappling eggs,
so folks would collect and hard boil the eggs for later.
Since Lent builds up to Easter, it would make sense
(17:56):
that the eggs would be handed out that day, often
to those that couldn't afford meat, and that they would
become associated with the holiday. Worth noting. Decorated eggs have
also been a tradition of Iranian New Year, which takes
place on spring equinox for thousands of years, and it's
also viewed as a symbol of fertility. Also worth noting,
(18:19):
and languages like French and Spanish, the words for Easter
come from the Greek or Latin word for passover. So yeah,
like you were saying lauren. As far as dying eggs
or Easter, one of the first records of that came
out of twelve and nine Britain and one Edward, the
first to celebrate Easter. Edward commanded that four d and
fifty eggs be decorated with gold leaf or died to
(18:40):
hand out as gifts. Meanwhile, uh, folks, and let's now Ukraine,
we're developing traditional pisnki. I think I'm saying that right.
Let me know if I'm not. Uh. These are like
wax bersist too, died eggs, originally for for pagan purposes,
but around this time merged into Christian beliefs. Um and yeah.
(19:01):
On these patterns of wax are are applied and then
uh die is applied in layers um, and then more
wax than more die, and then the wax is all
melted off to reveal these intricate designs and and shading
created by all of that layering um. And this is
a folk art that continues today. Oh, I love it.
(19:21):
Thirteenth century English towns people gave their Lord of the
Men or Easter eggs and bought them as good Friday
offerings at their churches and just f a I I
went on a very unnecessary rabbit hole about this whole
lord of the Manner thing because I was I just
wanted to know what I was talking about. So I
was like, what does that actually mean? And apparently you
(19:41):
can like still try to get that title today, but
it's really difficulty. I found like modern legal blogs about this,
and again I had to remind myself, this is a
food show. Time to stop looking up how I can
become a lady of the banner. But anyway, the Vatican
(20:03):
sent a young Henry the eighth and egg in a
silver case around Easter time towards the end of the
fourteen hundred's and this type of gift was called an
egg silver MHM. Later on in the sixteenth and seventeenth century,
some records suggest that British folks were dying eggs and
handing them out as gifts because the color red symbolized
(20:23):
joy in that area back then, it was a popular choice,
or possibly it was meant to represent the blood of
Jesus Christ. A lot of the color and patterns were
biblical in nature up until the eighteenth century. An area
of Lancashire, eggs were acceptable Easter Jews in the place
of money, m and in some renditions of the story
(20:45):
or are like, we've talked about this a lot before,
a lot of times, frequently in Christianity, a lot of traditions,
kind of religious leaders step in and try to explain
the religious reason behind while we were doing these things
we've already been doing for a long time. Yeah, or
or try to turn that tradition into a lesson in
a symbolism and in scripture. Yes, yes, so in some
(21:08):
retellings renditions, the hard egg shell is the ceiling of
the tomb that Jesus was placed in and the cracking
of the egg. The resurrection egg rolling meanwhile, which we're
going to talk to you, we're gonna talk about in
a minute, was allegedly meant to symbolize the rolling away
of the rock from the tomb. Yes, some sources suggested
(21:31):
Martin Luther held one of the earliest Easter egg hunts
and listening men to hide eggs from women and children.
That so, that would have been in about the fift
hundreds UM and certainly by sixteen eighty two there was
in place a German tradition of of an Easter hare
like rabbit who laid eggs for children to find. Um.
(21:51):
It was written about that year in an academic essay.
This brings us to the nineteenth century, and this is
when people pivoted to giving Easter eggs two children. Historians
think the impetus behind this might be shifting Victorian ideals
focusing on the importance of family, with particular attention paid
to kids. And then in tandem there was an interest
(22:14):
in older traditions. These things came together to make holiday
traditions more kid friendly, and one of these things being
dying of Easter eggs. The Easter bunny was a part
of this. To Easter egg hunts followed soon after. H Yeah,
and all of that was over in the English speaking world.
But um, But meanwhile, it is also around this time,
(22:34):
the early eighteen hundreds, that myths about the goddess Astara
started really cementing, thanks to, of all things, the German
Romantic nationalist movement and folklore. Is. Like Jacob Graham in
his book German Mythology, he proposed based on bead beds,
that guy's based on that dude's mentioned. Graham surmised and
(22:56):
he wrote that that Ostara must have been a widespread goddess,
and all of these other works over the next hundred
years by other folklorists just developed her mythology, UM, including
a story that she rode in a chariot drawn by birds,
and then later stories so that it was drawn by hairs.
And then some other people got confused later about the
(23:16):
wording there and assumed that she had transformed the birds
into hairs. It is wonderfully confusing, UM, but at any rate,
the story of a star's creation of the Easter hair
developed during the eighteen and nineteen hundreds and UM. Modern
tellings often include the idea that UM that this goddess
(23:37):
turned a bird into a hair to to save it
UM and then ingratitude it continued laying eggs, or that
she did it as a punishment, but such was the
hair's grief that she allowed it to lay eggs once
a year. Oh wow, so the hair was really upset.
It wasn't a hair anymore. The hair was really upset.
It wasn't a bird anymore. Okay that yeah, that makes persense,
(23:59):
no offense. Hairs, but like flying, yeah, flying, it's pretty rad,
I would assume, so yeah, uh so, yeah, deep thanks
to a literary historian, Stephen Winnick over at the Library
of Congress for looking into all of this. I love it.
And this brings us to a question I know you
(24:20):
all have at this point, the easter bunny. What's up
with that? What is up with that? The residing theory
is that German immigrants to America, specifically Pennsylvania, brought their
tradition and story of an eggling rabbit called ulster Hassa
or oxter Halls. Apologies is I you know, I took
(24:42):
like five years of Germany, but it's been a long
time this this may have happened as early as the
late sixteen eighties that this story made its way over
to America. But the first paper evidence that we have
from here are our drawings from the eighteen oots of
a hair kind of leaping over a basket of Easter eggs.
(25:02):
It makes sense with the whole fertility thing and rabbit's
reputation of you know, mating like rats. Um kids would
make nests hoping that the oster haza would lay beautiful
colored eggs inside of them, and I've read that often
um these nests where where the children would would put
down their hats like their little caps or bonnets, um,
(25:24):
and make a nest out of that and maybe like
maybe like fill it with colored flowers so that the
hair could eat it and and leave colored eggs. Oh.
The practice spread from from Pennsylvania across the country and
also expanded to include not only eggs, but also candy
and other gifts. The nest were replaced with baskets. Apparently
(25:47):
some families will leave carrots out for the Easter Bunny.
We did this when I was a kid, did you really? Yes? Absolutely,
as like you leave cookies and milk for Santa, and
you leave carrots for the Easter Bunny. Okay, all right,
I we We were in Ohio and Pennsylvania though, so
maybe maybe it was a local thing. Yeah. Maybe. Another
(26:09):
story goes that Easter Bunny arose from a poor woman
who would hide eggs for her children to find on Easter,
and while searching for the mysterious hidden eggs, the children
saw a hair were hopping around and believed that it
had laid the eggs. Um. So my parents made Easter
(26:29):
baskets for us until I was in college, and mine
was usually movies because again, I didn't like candy that much.
But me and my dad we both loved movies. And
I gotta say, I know I've mentioned this on a
previous podcast, but I never want, not one single instant,
believed that the Easter Bundy was real. Um and I
(26:52):
toothfair yes, hook line, sinker Easter Bunny. My parents told
me that. I remember being like, no, I don't know
what you're trying not. I mean, you can make me
a basket. I really appreciate it, but I know there's
no Easter Bunny. I think I think the Easter Bunny
was the first one that I was like, Mom, Dad,
(27:12):
Like I was like five or maybe six. I was
like Mom, Dad, like, y'all don't have to I don't
have to pretend anymore with the Easter Bunny. And it's
it's okay, Like I like, I appreciate it, but you're
off the hook. Yeah, I think. I like even the
vision I had in my head, and this could be
the problem. I wasn't imagining like an actual rabbit. I
(27:32):
was imagining like a man in a suit, you know,
a huge yea, And the very idea of it freaked
me out and I just thought, no way, no, okay,
al Right, well we're getting into like murkami rookie territory here,
So let's move let's move on, all right. Uh. The
(27:53):
nineteenth century was also when we started seeing chocolate eggs
in France and Germany. At first, they were hard to
eat in a bit bitter, but with innovation, chocolate makers
were able to produce this sweeter, hollow chocolate eggs we
were more familiar with today. Yeah, the early eighteen hundreds
were a time of just amazing chocolate science innovations because
(28:14):
prior to then, people would grind and cook whole cacao
beans until they were a liquid, uh, cocoa liquor or liqueur.
And and this stuff is like cocoa butter, only like
scent cocoa solids. So it's really hard to make like
a solid chocolate the way that we think of solid
chocolates today. Most chocolate up until that time was was
(28:37):
drink rather than a solid food. And it's also kind
of like just like just like grainy and weird. But
in eight a Dutch chemist by the name of a
Conrad von Houghton, who looked sort of like Willem Dafoe
by the way, he created this hydraulic press that would
smoosh a whole bunch of the fats out of cocoa
(28:57):
liqueur um or liquor nails or whichever one um, leaving
a sort of pressed cake of mostly cocoa salads that
was only about cocoa butter. So at that point you
could grind this this cake into cocoa powder, which was
pretty much the same stuff we know and used today,
and which also could be treated um chemically so that
(29:17):
it plays nicer with liquids um as in with alkaline salts,
which is called dutching or Dutch process. For this, dude.
You might have seen packages of cocoa powder in the
store that say that their Dutch process, and that's what
it means. Yeah, So at that point you can combine
this cocoa powder back with cocoa butter in order to
(29:38):
create like a creamy and malleable final product that can
in fact be molded into solid bars or whatever. The
first molded bar, ever, was, was supposedly produced in seven
by an English family of chocolate makers, the Fry family.
Yes that Fries. Anyone who's not famil year with British
(30:00):
confectionery is probably very confused. Believe me. It's a whole thing. Um. Uh.
But yeah, they developed their chocolate cream bar um which
has which is chocolate with some creamy fond in the
center in eighteen sixty six, and then the UK's first
chocolate eggs in eighteen seventy three. Well then in eighteen
seventy nine another chocolate maker rolled off Lint, and yes
(30:22):
that Lint developed counching um, which is the heating and
mixing and aerating process that develops the flavor and texture
of chocolate, making it even easier and more affordable to produce,
which really helped open up the chocolate industry. Meanwhile, Canbury
canberry eggs debuted in eight seventy five. Oh yes, arrival
(30:44):
of Fries. Uh. These these first Cadbury eggs were hollow
and filled with sugared almonds um, and their first decorated
eggs had chocolate piping and marzipan flowers. They would introduce
their milk chocolate eggs in nineteen o five, which is
just really caught on um. And then the two companies,
Fries and Cadbury would would join forces in nineteen nineteen.
(31:07):
The early nineteenth centuries also probably when we got edible
Easter bunnies, probably invented in either Germany or America. The
first were made out of a sugared pastry. Some of
these bunnies had hard boiled eggs inside them. I don't
understand it, but I but I appreciate it, you know. Yeah,
it's like a nick cage at the end of Spider
(31:29):
verse when as the Rubik's cue. It's the same thing,
exactly like that. I'm sure that that was the inspiration. Yeah. Um. Meanwhile,
the first bunny shaped chocolates may have been produced in
Munich in the eighteen fifties, as that chocolate technology developed.
Candy eggs had made it to America by the eighteen eighties,
(31:51):
and in eighteen eighty five we see the most opulent
version of the Easter egg, the Faberge egg. Um. Czar
Alexander the third had had the first made that year
for his wife, Empress Maria on Easter for their twentieth
wedding anniversary, and it was already a tradition in Russian
Orthodox families to exchange decorated eggs after services on Easter,
(32:15):
and so Alexander ordered one from this kind of up
and coming jeweler whose work Maria liked. Peter Carl faberge,
and the first one that this company made for them
UM was a deceptively simple, white enameled egg that opened
to reveal a golden ball like a yoke, which itself
opened to reveal a small golden hen, which itself opened
(32:39):
to reveal a tiny diamond replica of the imperial crown
and a ruby pendant. Whoa, I know, right, the hen
comes first? Yeah? Yeah, okay, yeah, well, I mean but
it's all inside an egg. So oh, it's the egg.
(33:00):
It's the egg, and then the chicken and then the egg.
This is the problem. This is why we can't get
to the bottom of that. I feel like that was
a very like true detective moment for a second there. Okay,
the egg is a flat circle, all right. So over
(33:20):
the next few decades, UH Alexander and then later his
his son Nicholas would UM every year commission these eggs,
and they became ever more elaborate and super world famous UM.
And these days, these days they are often viewed as
like a concrete symbol of the frivolity that doomed UM
(33:41):
the Russian Imperial family during the Revolution of the nineteen teens.
Easter eggs are beautiful, though gosh, they're real pretty. They're nuts.
That is. That is my recommended rabbit hole of the day.
I love it. Towards the end of the nineteenth century,
(34:02):
New Jersey drug store owner William Townley invented Easter egg
die tablets in five colors. You just added water and white,
vinegar and boa lah and I totally forgot that you
added vinegar and that's and it gives it that really
particular smell. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally forgot about that.
They were enough of a success that Townley renamed his
(34:24):
business pause registered trademark diet company. He got the name
from the Pennsylvania Dutch word for Easter, Poston, again tying
back to passover. Yeah, exactly. In eighteen seventy six, the
White House hosted its first Easter egg Roll. Um, if
you haven't heard of this, it's an annual event we
(34:44):
have here in the United States held on Easter Monday,
where families congregate on the White House South lawn and
the kids have an egg rolling race, among other activities.
Uh in a vent I by the way, find hilarious
and creepy because there's also someone dressed as the Easter Budding.
But like the costume was really weird. It's just like
standing around freaks me out. Is this the Easter Bunny
(35:07):
you're always picturing when you were a kid? Kay of
kind of maybe just seeing I don't know. Uh. Nevertheless,
it is the largest yearly event at the White House.
It's big enough that there's a lottery now to get in.
About thirty thousand people attend, depending on the source. The
(35:29):
tradition of taking hard boiled eggs and rolling them goes
all the way back to Andrew Jackson or James Madison
and became a popular activity in Washington, d C. Frequently
on Capitol Hill after what must have been one heck
of a role. In eighteen seventies six, Congress passed the
law prohibiting that Capitol hillgrounds could be it could not
(35:52):
be quote used as a children's playground. Um. Then President
Hayes opened up the White House South on for the
festivities in eight He actually opened it before, but I
think it got rained out. So that was the first
year official that it happened, right, Yeah, The first egg
(36:13):
race didn't happen until Nixon in nineteen seventy four, and
it was preceded by games like egg picking, where you
try to crack the shell of a hard boiled egg
with your own but without cracking your shell. And egg croquet, Yeah, yeah,
the egg the egg tapping like we were talking about before. Yeah,
it sounds very yeah. Um, and egg croquet, which is
(36:36):
a game where you'd use a fan to move a
hollowed out eggshell. And that sounds so fun to me.
I'm so angry that I have not been making more
use of my egg shells. Gosh, set up a whole
thing here. Okay, we we need to as soon as
we can be physically in the same place at the
(36:56):
same time, and again, we need to do this. Yeah,
Oh my god, I'm so excited. The tradition was put
on hold during World War Two, but President Eisenhower revived
it in nineteen fifty three, and apparently that year it
was a free for all. Here's a quote. By noon,
the grounds were a dreadful mass of mashed eggs, gooey chocolate, marshmallow,
(37:20):
melting jellybeans, and picnic midden. Most unexpected casualty, A press
photographer lost both shoes. What what kind of day was? He?
I A very strange one, I assume, I assume. In
two thousand nine, President Obama formally invited gay and lesbian
couples and their families to attend. Yeah. Back to Easter
(37:45):
egg dying and hunting. More and more middle class folks
started adopting these things in the early twentieth century as
they built up more disposable income. It was even more
adapted when Easter became a national holiday, so people had
more time and more reason to do things like die
Easter eggs and do Easter egg hunts. And apparently, according
(38:06):
to dictionary dot com, easter egg was a derogatory term
for a woman who wore too much makeup in the
nineteen twenties, indeed, all painted up like an Easter egg. Sure,
I guess. Well, let's talk about Peep's Lauren. Oh. Sure.
(38:27):
They were a product of the nineteen fifties and Russian
immigrant to the United States Sam Born, who founded Just
Born Like It, a candy company. In the beginning, one
single peep took an entire twenty seven hours to make. Yeah,
nowadays it's about six minutes. Martial Yeah, yeah, I know
(38:48):
all about the See our Marshmall episode on a fair form.
More on that one m h to save money in time,
American chocolate maker, Richard Palmer of R. M. Palmer Confectionery
started making hollow chocolate bunnies as opposed the solid ones.
I've actually never heard of this company, but they're still
up and running. Oh yeah, yeah, I've I've definitely eaten
things from from that company. So yeah, the history of
(39:11):
plastic eggs is a bit murky. We do know that
father and son team Irwin and Donald Wetter, patented hinged
plastic eggs in so people didn't have to struggle with
finding the right have the right to havelves or are
them coming apart at the wrong time. As a kid,
I definitely preferred that the hinged ones. Their company was
(39:32):
also involved in the creation of that green plastic grass
often found in easter baskets. Gosh. Yeah. As as a young,
slightly anal retentive, Lauren like really disliked that easter grass
because it got everywhere everywhere. It was chaos. It was
chaos in plastic grass form, and I didn't I didn't
approve it was chaos, you are correct, And I didn't
(39:56):
like it, Like it got so tangled in the center. Yeah,
and you weren't sure if there was something in there,
and it was like rough, rough times. Alright, quick, easter
egg pop culture aside. So like the pop culture term.
I feel like we've talked about this in a previous episode,
(40:18):
but well we'll recap it. You probably know, but these
Easter eggs are something that a creator adds in for
people to find. They're usually kind of like funny or
a message in movies or video games. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah exactly. Uh. Though the first recorded instance of this
term didn't take place until one of the first known
(40:38):
easter eggs was in the game Adventure, as seen in
the book and movie Ready Player One, which is self
is all about Easter egg Oh my gosh. Yes. One
of the most famous running Easter eggs is the Stanley
cameo in Every Marvel Movie. An article at huff Post
claims that Steve right over at Atari Coin Easter egg
(41:00):
in nineteen eighty and it was actually after this whole first. Actually,
some earlier ones have been found, but it's one of
the first ones found an Adventure. The higher ups sort
of freaked out about it because it's just essentially like
created by this guy. Um and a kid wrote in
and said he loved it and he was so excited,
and the higher ups were like, oh, this is terrible,
(41:23):
but right convinced them that they should think of it
as a good idea because this letter they got from
the kid, he was so excited he found it. He
found something that wasn't supposed to be in the game
that was a little like not like oh, man, like
you found this weird thing. Yeah, exactly like finding an
Easter egg. And he according to this article, he didn't
even know it was really a thing that he had
(41:45):
coined until pretty recently. So he also in uh in
the eighties, the the Cadbury Bunny audition commercials started coming
out in nine. Um that those those commercials where the
Cadbury bunny, which which is this clucking bunny there they're
the Cadbury Company is like holding auditions for the next
(42:06):
Cadbury Bunny and all kinds of animals show up. But
but but the kind of like like moral at the
end of the commercial was for a long time that
that like the bunny was the best at the job,
so it would always get the job. At these days,
new bunnies are like crowned every year and it's really sweet. Um,
this year's winner is a dog from Ohio. The dog
(42:26):
is named Lieutenant Dan because it has lost its hind
legs but still gets around just fine and like a
little doggie movement helper aid and they put they put
a little bunny ear bunny earhead band on it, and
it's real. Is this real? Cute? Oh? That is cute. Yeah.
(42:46):
I did have some pet rabbits growing up. Yeah, yeah,
Fluffy an Amber, and my brother's rabbit's name was Shack,
and Shack was scrappy. Shot got a fight with a dog,
Oh my god, and like came out victorious. How big
was the dog on the smaller side of medium but
(43:09):
medium bigger than a rabbit for sure? Oh yeah, okay,
but Shack was like no, yeah, yeah, he had a
scar though he was in titts. I've I've never really
met a rabbit that I didn't get the distinct impression,
like I didn't want to eat my eyeballs like all
of them who have been kind of aggro um. So,
(43:33):
I don't know. I've heard that some rabbits are delightful.
I've to be fair, I have not interacted with that
many of them, um, and most of them have probably
been in like petting zoo kind of situations where the
rabbit is probably just done, just done, and I get that,
you know, so yeah, we both can understand, we can appreciate.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, but yeah that um that brings
(43:58):
us to to the end of this our episode about
Easter eggs, it does. It was a good one. It's
a fun one. Yeah. Absolutely, I could have kept researching
for a long time. I really really really want to
do an episode about Cadbury now, all kinds of all
kinds of off shoots of research to do well. I
(44:19):
love it when that happens. Future, the whole world ahead
of us. Absolutely, But in the meantime, we do have
a little bit more for you. But first we've got
one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(44:41):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with That was a fun body one, though
it might not have worked out in the vocal. Yeah,
it was good. It was a good hop hippie hippie hop. Yeah. Yeah.
(45:02):
I Lauren and I are having to develop what I'm calling,
uh podcast posture because of the way our closet studios
are set up. So I really appreciated the chance to
move first such a straighten up yeah, like like actually
extend your spine in some way. Yes, yeah, yes, it
(45:23):
was nice. Melissa wrote, Hi, ladies, not to add to
the cravings in this time of quarantine and hall to travel,
but on listening to the bond Me episode, I had
to share one of my favorite Toronto restaurants, bond Me Boys.
It's like if a bond Me restaurant had a baby
with five guys. Kim she poutine or puzza. It's incredible.
(45:45):
I love it so much. I think he would do. Yes,
I want that so badly, kim She Puttina, I'd never
thought of I want that. I know, I know we're gonna,
like when this is all over, finally over, We're gonna
have so many food adventures to go on. Oh yeah yeah,
really really important food adventures. Oh yes, that is one
(46:07):
of them. Meanwhile, Kenna or Kina wrote, I consider myself
a pretty good cook and an okay baker. I've made pretzels, cakes, cookies, muffins,
carrot cake, and several deep dish pizzas. But for some reason,
bread eludes me. Multiple attempts with various breadmakers have turned
into inedible pastes of flour and gunk. Last time I
(46:27):
tried to make bread. I used it to lure a
friend over for an afternoon of writing, only to find
after two hours that the delicious smell coming from the
bread machine was, in the words of my friend, a
sad piece of brick. The yeast alas was dead. Fast
forward to quarantine, two weeks since my last grocery run.
My available vegetables are carrots, onions, and potatoes. Just carrots, onions,
(46:50):
and potatoes. There might be a brick of frozen spinach
in the freezer, but frozen spinach does not a meal make.
So I get the bright idea to make potato nyolki.
I lay out the ingredients potatoes, parmesan, butter, flour, and
I'm just filling the pot up to start boiling potatoes
when I read the step after boil skin potatoes and
put them through a potato racer. What I wonder is
(47:14):
a potato racer, and more importantly, where can I get
one without leaving my house. A quick search of the
drawers turned up and no such things, So I resigned
myself to a soup made of carrots and onions until
I remembered something wonderful. My grandmother's knuffles or k nuffles.
I'm gonna go with knuffles. I hadn't had any in
about ten years because the only time my mom made
(47:35):
chicken knuffle soup was when she was seriously trying to
stock the freezer. It is far, far superior to chicken
noodle soup. And the only problem was I didn't have
a recipe neither, it turns out, did Google. I could
not get a single English language site that acknowledged the
knuffles were a thing. The spelling here is k and
(47:56):
U F f l e s. By the way, I
couldn't get a single German language side with recipes. When
I searched nuffles. I finally pulled out the nuclear option.
I called my mother quote it's just one egg, one
cup of flour, and half a teaspoon of salt. She said,
because even now, at least a decade since either of
us has set eyes on this dish, she had it memorized.
(48:17):
I followed her instructions, made delicious tiny doughballs for very
carroty soup, and enjoyed it for several days. I even
posted the recipe to my blog, whereupon a friend told me, actually,
that's just spaetzel needless to say, After a discussion of
what was and was not Spatzel, held mostly over Facebook,
my mother weighed in on the issue. It's spelled niffle,
(48:40):
she said to my everlasting now permanently enshrined on the internet. Shame,
that's why you couldn't google a recipe for my next
trick of grain baste hupris. I'll try to make sour dough.
After all, I have half a dozen probably dead packs
of active dry yeast, three half used bags of flour,
(49:02):
and time there you go. I gotta say I love
nuffles and niffles. Yeah, all of these words are amazing
and I approve of them. Yeah. Hey, I believe I've
never heard of at least niffles. So fun. Yeah, I
(49:24):
need to go. I need to go look up some
we should do. We should do a Spitzel episode. Yes,
I have had that so few times in my life,
but every time I do, I'm like, this is so good.
It more often just tiny, tiny dumplings fried with onions.
Pretty good, pretty good turns out surprise, surprise, weird in
(49:47):
butter Yeah, weird delicious, Oh my gosh, And I want that.
The cravings, the cravings, Um, thanks so much to both
of them for writing in. If you like to write in,
we would love like to know what your Easter game is,
if you are really good at decorating, what are you
doing for Easter? What projects are you working on during quarantine?
Um all of the above. You can email us at
(50:10):
hello at favor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at
savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio four more podcasts
my Heart Radio. You can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our super producers Dylan Fagin and
(50:30):
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and I hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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