December 1, 2023 • 36 mins
This spice blend can contain any number of ingredients – the idea is that they should work together to balance five traditional flavors: bitter, sweet, sour, pungent, and salty. Anney and Lauren dip into the history and science of Chinese five spice.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm any reasons and unlarn vocal bamb and today we
have an episode for you about five spice.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, was there any particular reason this was on your mind? Lauren? Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Sure, ish I had been thinking about trying to do
another spice related episode, and and being that it is
kind of the holiday season or the holiday season is
upon us. It has risen back up from the depths,
and it has brought Mariah Carey with it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I mean, no offense Mariah Carey, but I did love
all those memes of like popular Halloween icons shutting down
her song just because you get a whole month. Come
on now, just just wait your turn.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Just yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's after Thanksgiving. I'm fine
with this now, but okay, But but at any rate,
so I feel like every year, more and more I
see recipes online that are like, hey, in your holiday
cooking or baking, if you were going to use you know,
one of these kind of like warm holiday spices or
(01:22):
perhaps pumpkin pie spice or something like that, why not
try sebbing in Chinese five spice because it'll be heck
and delicious and I do have friends who have done this.
I my dear friend Darryl would make like a like
a hot buttered rum spiced with five spice, and it
(01:45):
was a lot, but in a good way.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
That sounds amazing. Yeah, that's interesting because I feel like
I had a specific idea of what you use five
spice for, but when I was looking at what's in it,
I was like, of course that makes sense. You could
use it, you know, of course, like the depending on
who who is making it, because it is kind of
(02:09):
easy to kind of make a tailor to your own
taste maybe at home, that you could use it for
a lot of things that are I would not have
thought you could use it for.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
There are certainly kind of traditional preparations that use it
and the less traditional, which is, you know, the weird
and wonderful thing about food.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's true, it's true. And I believe everyone listening to this,
if you've been listening for a minute, knows that I
am someone I'm constantly substituting for things. I'm constantly like,
well this is what I have.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I'm certainly not going out and getting that other thing.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So here we are. No, but I did buy some
Chinese vie spice, even though I have all of the
ingredients really typical Okay, typical ingredients, I will say, because
it's not always the same.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It is certainly not Nope. As with many spice blends,
it's kind of what what do you like? What do
you have on hand? What's going on?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Indeed? Indeed, but I did buy something and I'm very
excited about it. Yeah. And speaking of these ingredients, so
you can see our episodes on cinnamon, shechuan, peppercorns, cloves, finnels, storanis, ginger, nutmeg,
and licorice, maybe orange, black pepper. A lot of things
(03:34):
do end up on in this spice ballind but uh yeah,
we've done a lot of these already, which is fun.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Oh yeah, yeah, and I what weird generally upsetting, excellent
stories they all are.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, that's true. But I guess that brings us to
our question.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I guess it does five spice?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well of? Five spice is an open ended blend of
spices and or herbs that lends warm, complex seasoning to
all kinds of dishes. It is not made up of
precisely five ingredients. The five here refers to the five
flavors considered primary in some cuisines or perhaps ideologies, and
(04:28):
those are sweet, bitter, sour, pungent, or spicy and salty
or savory. More on that in a second. So, yeah,
as you might have caught on to by now, those
ingredients can be a lot of things, but they tend
to include kind of like warm, woody, sort of medicinal
(04:49):
flavored things like star annis, cassia, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and
or fennel seeds, plus a little bit of a kick
from things like black pepper and or sish onecorn. And
the idea here is to have a balance of the
five flavors within whatever you choose. Yeah, the ingredients can
be used whole to simmer into sauces or braises or
(05:12):
stews or muld wine or whatever other kind of liquid
you're simmering, or they can be ground or powdered and
applied to all kinds of dishes, from like dry rubbed
meats to baked goods.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Uh. Yeah, it's a it's.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
A warm, complex, bitter, multi dimensional spice blend. It's like
a it's like if you put all of your winter
holiday spices in a blender with your wreath. It's like
pumpkin pie spices older sibling. It's like, okay, I feel
(05:50):
like it's the flavor equivalent to that scene in two
thousand and one of Space Odyssey where Dave the astronaut
is in that like rainbow Stargate wormhole tunnel thing, like
just having this mind opening experience of so much all
at once, but like it's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You know, these are glowing reviews. Five. I love it
every time you do these. I'm like, we should make
t shirts out all of your descriptions. Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Let's get let's get with tea Public on the line.
Do we still have a shop there? Speaking of the holidays?
Oh my goodness. Yeah, search for saver or possibly food
stuff on Tea Public. There you go. We've got designs
that make references to what we were talking about five
years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
But one does include an astronaut. It does, so we'll
try to update it hopefully.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh man, yeah, I know we should do that. I wonder,
I wonder. Okay, yeah, great, great, great conversation later, back
to back to five spice. Okay, so, yes, the five
flavors here come from traditional Chinese medicine, which does not
precisely line up with like the modern American idea of
flavor profiles. I'd say that like like to us, when
(07:16):
we're talking about flavor, would categorize it into like bitter, sweet, sour, savory, salty,
and spicy. In traditional Chinese medicine, a pungent is applied
to like kind of a range of foods that I'd
say are savory spicy like a wine, ginger, hot pepper, fennel, onion, tangerine,
(07:40):
stuff like that. And then their salty is a range
of like savory to salty foods like seaweed, ham duck,
and barley. So yeah, if if if some of these
ingredients aren't like matching up in your mind with what
you're picturing when you hear these these flavor words, then
that's why. But right, all kinds of ingredients can go
(08:02):
in there. The idea is having a balance, so different
things can be subbed in or out depending on what
you have and what you want. Dried citrus peels, specifically mandarin,
orange or tangerine makes its way in there. Ginger or
black cardamom or galengal galandel. I've heard it both ways
on Miriamwebster dot com, So who knows they're all related?
(08:24):
To ginger. Yeah, those things, dried licorice root, regular cardamom,
white pepper, and other dried roots from various aromatic members
of the carrot family. Salt does not usually go into
five spice blends, although usually something salty like soy sauce
will be part of your liquid component for cooking a
(08:47):
savory dish flavored with five spice, and yet you can
mix your own out of anything that you like. You
can also purchase it as a mix of whole spices
or as a ground powder. Friend of show Spicewalla makes some,
so check that out if you'd like to. If you
are making a blend at home, make sure to toast
your spices first, like carefully in a dry pan on
(09:08):
low heat on the stovetop, maybe in the oven if
that's what you're working with. Toasting spices really brings.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Out the flavor.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Good advice generally for using spices. Check online for a
guid if you're unfamiliar with this process. It's easy to overtoast,
and them's is expensive. So yeah, but at any rate,
you're going to hopefully wind up with a blend that
has these like cooling herbal notes from things like the
fennel seed and the cloves, and then like warm almost
(09:35):
sweet woody notes from like the cinnamon and annis spicy
notes from things like the peppercorn and ginger. And yeah,
you can use it at that point to make savory
sauces or sweet syrups, to add to all kinds of
braises or stews or roasts, to add kick to deep frybreading. Yeah,
(09:57):
to flavor pastries or candies, to flavor tea or cold
beverages or alcohol. However you'd use a spice blend, it
can be kind of overwhelming, like a little goes a
long way. Many recipes recommend steeping it into a sort
of like ta marinade kind of situation or a sugar
(10:18):
syrup before adding it to your recipe, just so you
can control that wallop of flavor. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Wow, Yeah, I've got a lot of cravings for some
some pork, some duck. Oh yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, I am there's like
nine different things that I really want, right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yes, Well, that is the thing about spices, right, because
you can add them to all kinds of things. But
this is a very distinctive profile. It is it is
it is. Yes, Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Ah, you're not usually consuming enough of it for like
for it to really make a nutritive difference. It will
add a lot of flavor for your caloric buck. And
there is a lot of research into how extracts of
the spices that generally go into this blend might act
in our food and in our bodies. Like, many of
(11:17):
these plants do have anti microbial properties that partially explain
why humans glommed on to them in the first place,
you know, like they might have helped preserve our foods
and in our bodies. They may have antioxidant properties, but like,
more research is necessary Saber motto. Before consuming a medicinal
amount of anything, consult a medical professional who is not us.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Nope, nope, no books. We do have some numbers for you.
Oh we have like two numbers. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It was difficult to track down for this one, like
because certainly, right, this is a blend that's sold industrially,
but it's like more traditionally home product. So anyway, as
of twenty twenty, spice market research showed that forty one
percent of Americans had heard of five spice, but only
twenty four percent had ever had it.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I'm not doubting these survey participants, but I'm wondering if
they've had it, didn't know they had.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Oh oh sure, sure possibly. I'm also like, yeah, like
it's I feel like I read that number and I
was like, that is so low. But then I was
like checking my bubble, like I was like, am I
just in this bubble of like, of course I know
what that is, and of course I've had it. It's
in my kitchen right now. What's going on?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But I grew up in a food household and I
run a food podcast. I kind of a special case
in more ways than one, kind of.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
A special case, right in the best way.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Lauren, No, no thanks, Annie, Oh heck. At any rate,
if the number, if the numbers are that low, then
we can also say that spice use is going up worldwide.
And one report that I read said that the global
market for five spice seasoning in particular is on track
to be worth some six hundred and forty million dollars
(13:17):
by twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Wow. This is something I would love to hear from
listeners about about whether if this is something that you
grew up with, if it's something that you made in
your home or did you buy it commercially, and there's
no judgment from me. Please know that is.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh zero percent.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah. Also if you've never had it, or if you
don't think that you have, yeah, yeah, let us let
us know. Always, let us know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I always let us know.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And recipes, yes, please, oh please certainly definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Oh well, we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Oh we do. But first we've got a quick break
for work from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Thank you sponsors, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And again please see the episodes we've done on the
specific ingredients that come together to make Chinese spice spy,
specifically the main ones, because as we said, it can
be a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Of things, it can, it can, yeah, like very basically
the spice road brought together these products in different places
at different times, and they were often the most expensive
and in demand thing being traded during the era of
like mostly land based travel. They also like sort of
(14:44):
spurred the era of water based travel. And each one
is its own complicated thing, yes.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Very much is. And that being said, the origin of
Chinese spy spice powder is very unclear, but many think
it originated with traditional Chinese medicine. The popular explanation is
that it was meant to balance the five primary flavors
utilized in the country's cuisine. As Lauren said, sweet, salty, sour, ungeent,
(15:15):
and bitter, and these were in turn aligned with, or
perhaps just reflective of, the five primary elements earth, fire, metal, water,
and wood. And yes, I'm ashamed to say that I
went on a captain planet. My mind got very confused
that I'm back now. Okay, that's good, that's welcome back, Annie.
(15:39):
But the song was in my head for a long time, Lauren,
and it wasn't correct with the information.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
No.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, anyway, by balancing these things, it was believed that
one could find balance and harmony in body and mind.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, there's an idea than traditional Chinese medicine, that these
five flavors each relate to specific organs and bodily processes,
and that you want to pay attention to all five.
Myths place the origins of this this five flavor ideology
around two thousand BCE or so, but who knows mysteries history.
(16:22):
Certainly the concept was established by around four hundred BCE
because Dallast philosophy dating back to around then talked about
the five flavors in different ways. Many many of these
philosophies seem to have used the idea of their combination
as sort of a counterpoint to the ideal of simplicity
(16:43):
or straightforwardness, like Laos, often considered the founder of Daoism,
said that the five flavors would cause you to not
taste at all in the idea that they'd like overwhelm
your senses, and that that was bad. But of course,
there were other philosophies in play. By the three hundred CE,
(17:03):
the historical slash political text Swooshun used a metaphor of
five spices being in harmony in like a soup, leading
to both harmonious flavor and harmonious mind. Apologies if I'm
butchering this Chinese, I do not speak the language. Annie
is kindly helping me behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yes, and I have been removed for a minute, so
blame all of us on me. Don't blame it on Larine.
We did try to look it up.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
We did, we did.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Well. On top of this, people also thought that these
spice ones were tasty and could elevate dishes to new heights.
Oh yeah, and also of note, historians looking into Chinese
cuisine have pointed out that, yeah, the concept of five
flavors became something common when it came to ingredients and spices,
referring to more than just these five primary flavors that
(18:00):
we discussed.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, five being a kind of common number of balance
of elements. So, right, the concept of like five components
or facets of something dietary got extrapolated out to other areas. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And so while we may never know the exact date
or even the exact date range of five spice powder,
there are some pieces of evidence experts have used to
deposits some theories, and of course many are contingent on
what they defined as five spice. People in China have
been experimenting with a spice mixed similar to five spice
(18:40):
for centuries, trying to find a balance of flavors, and
it varied from region to region based on what was
available and based on the timing, like it changed over
time based on technology that also changed over time, crops
and taste things like that. Books out of China from
(19:00):
the fifth or sixth century BCE referred to using cinnamon
and sheshwan peppercorns as seasonings. So a lot of people
are looking at when the ingredient started to get used
in this way at all, to try to figure out
when this was when it might have come together. At
the time, these seasonings might have been expensive and difficult
(19:22):
to get a hold of depending on where folks were located,
but that changed with the introduction of roads and brutes
in the country in the two hundreds ish BCE, spices
and ingredients, once isolated in certain regions, spread out. A
Song Dynasty cookbook from sometime between nine thirty and twelve
seventy six CE had a recipe for hot fermented soybeans
(19:46):
that included several of the five spice ingredients like star annis, penyl, cinnamon,
sheshwan peppercorns, dried tangerine, peel, and ginger.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, that sounds good.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I know right. The sixteenth century, star annis was imported
from Southeast Asia and eliminated in China, along with clothes
and cardamom. Star Annis in particular took off and was
planted across the country again. You can see our star
Anis episode for more about that. Yes, in the early days,
(20:17):
these spices were packaged whole in muslin bags and cooked
whole and dishes and these small bags of spices were
typically purchased at places specializing in medicine. The shopkeepers would
sometimes mix the spices in front of the purchasers like
they were filling out a prescription. I read in a
few places that rich stewed meat seasoned with five spice
(20:41):
was originally pretty much relegated to the wealthy, but that
allegedly changed during the Song dynasty as well, when a
demotion led to a well known literary figure and gourmet
named Su dong Po to serve as an official in
an impoverished province, and he was like desperate to recreate
(21:05):
some of his up till then fancy taste, so he
purchased some cheap cuts of local pork and stewed them
with five spice powder, and the dish group in popularity.
I read over the generations, but I feel like it
was pretty quick and eventually earned the name dong Po
(21:25):
meat our dong Po pork, which I searched, and yes,
is definitely still a thing and you can still order it,
and I want it in Atlanta, Like I know, it
was still a thing outside, but I couldn't get it here. Yeah,
but that's amazing. That's how far it spread, which, speaking
of in the way of things that we so often
(21:45):
talked about, it ended up on the table of the rich,
even though huh it was him just trying to recreate
something with like the cheapest ingredients he had. Well, yeah,
Zuo dung Po apparently wrote a poem about this whole thing.
Here is the translation, Huang Joe's fine pork as cheap
(22:09):
as manure. Rich folk won't touch it, Poor folk can't
cook it. But on a slow fame with a little water,
by and by, it takes a fine flavor. You eat
a bowl each day on rising, and you'll be so
full you won't have a care in the world. Oh wow,
yeah wow. Oh. A record from the Qing dynasty, dating
(22:37):
somewhere between sixteen eleven and sixteen seventy nine ce mentions
a five spice condiment used for cold noodles. But those
five spices were soy sauce, crushed sesame seeds, chopped seschewon peppercorns, vinegart,
and savor bro so not what we think of commercially
sold five spice powder is actually relatively new. One popular
(23:01):
use quote in a lot of articles that I read
suggested it wasn't easy to find as recently as nineteen eighty,
which I know is still you know, kind of far away,
but that's pretty recent to me, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yes, yeah, that's yes, thank you for saying that's not
too far away. I appreciate that on a deeply personal level.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
But ancient times all, no.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
No, no, years ago is you know a minute certainly
in terms of culinary history, because yeah, right right, that's
that's like vaguely within my lifetime. And I'm like, oh wow.
I mean it makes sense though, with the expansion, especially
in the United States of cuisines other than like English
(23:52):
and maybe right in the nineteen eighties, yes, and waves
of immigration for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
But the popular quote comes from a scholar in Chinese cuisine,
and she was saying like, yeah, we would go, we
would still in the nineteen eighties go and get Chinese
spice spice at the herbal herbal medicine store.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Like just you just couldn't find those things other places.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, but again, listeners, if you have any experience, any
recipes anything like that, we would love to hear from you,
because I could. I looked for when did it become
kind of commercially available, and I couldn't find any I
couldn't nail down a specific number. I just assume it
sort of happened as Chinese food in the US became
(24:43):
more common, more commercially available.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
But yeah, yeah, and with the proliferation of of you know,
celebrity chefs like like Martin Yan of Yen Can Cook
and I don't know, like like Iron Chef stuff like
that coming over and getting some of that influence as well.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I did run into a lot of celebrity chefs who
have their own personal recipes for five Spices powder, so
that definitely makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
That's that's excellent. The only celebrity recipe I saw for
it was from Gordon Ramsey, and I was kind of like,
I'm not going to click on that, right, no offense,
mister Ramsey.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Don't come after us. I'm a constitution. I can't handle it. Oh,
I'm just kidding. Oh but yeah, yeah, truly, we'd love
to hear from listeners, especially if you have like a
holiday recipe that you use yeah powder with.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, if this inspires you to kind of recreate a
holiday recipe with it, then let us know, Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Please let us know. But that is what we have
to say about five Spies Powder for now it is.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break forward
from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with this. It's the warming and cooling qualities.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Look, I am freezing right now. My fear is so cold.
I'm wearing like three pairs of socks and oh, some slippers,
so I could use some warm you.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Could, yeah, yeah, Oh, doing that just reminded me of
recording the I did a reading for one of our
other in house horror anthology series called twelve Days. It
was originally going to be twelve Days of Christmas and
then we backed off of that. But anyway, it's like
(26:59):
Aaron Meggy's Twelve Days, which has less of a ring
to it, but that's okay, Attention. The actual title of
the show is Aaron Minky's Twelve Ghosts. It was originally
twelve Ghosts of Christmas. Everyone who's worked on both Thirteen
Days of Halloween and twelve Ghosts makes this mistake all
the time. But I read a piece for that last year,
(27:24):
written by the excellent local writer kiit Fe and during it,
I had to record all of this like shivering noise
because my character was everyone's character is like walking through
a snowy woods on a winter evening when you first
meet them, And I was like, how do you how
(27:47):
do you make that noise into a microphone? Do you
want my teeth to chatter? Like?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
What shall I get an ice pad on you?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Because I feel like the noise that I usually make
when I'm that cold is like I'm going inside, which
isn't which I don't think is what the director was
looking for.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So yeah, it's like burying under blankets. Anyway. I love
some haunted Christmas winter stuff I love. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, I feel like it's almost a spookier season than Halloween,
Like Halloween is kind of fun times for me, like
like winter Solstice is season is very spooky.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, once you get that like cool howling wind yeah
and the cold yeah, the dark that are really dark. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Twelve Days available wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yes, yes, again.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
The actual title of the show is Aaron Monkey's twelve
got Thank you for your attention.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I'm ready, I've like have missed, I tried to. I
already started my holiday movies, but I'm like, but where
am I like scary?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well, cramp is not this coming up?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So yeah, yeah, that's true. All right, I write all right.
We have a couple of messages from Uric. The first
one covers a range of topics, starting with pandomerto, which
I apologize because I kept adding an ass on it
in the episode.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh, I think that's that's a typical. I think that's
that's pretty typical. It's I I was trying really hard
to not do it, but I've always said colloquially upon
the morthos.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Because it's.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, but all of the like Spanish language resources that
I found did not pluralize it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So anyway, Yeah, here we are. Well, thank you, Lauren,
Thanks to all your listeners. We're being very kind about it.
All No, no one said anything, but I was like
waiting for it, all right. Rite moyse pooh sounds wonderful.
(30:17):
Celebration Breads covers such a great spectrum. Always interesting to
see what various people do. It is interesting that while
there are a lot of differences, you can see how
different influences have come into things. Now, I really want
to loaf or twelve of each type. Yes, Alvardo is
definitely interesting. There are many ways to enjoy it. Such
(30:38):
a wonderfully rich tasting product. If you are pan finishing
a pasta editionist skillet, toss a few thin slices into
the mix, and if you want to wrap your partner laro,
you do you, but I agree probably better not to
cook them, got it? I think some nice grilled shabbata
(31:02):
slices and tossing on some larto and mold on sea
salt right as it comes off. Maybe a thin slice
of heirloom tomato and fresh basil as well. The Fanny
Farmer episode was interesting. Had really only heard the name,
learned all sorts of interesting things, did not realize it
was Fanny that really pushed standardizing measurements makes a world
(31:25):
of difference to give people a starting point. Do you
have a Pemmican queued up at all? Pemicon episode? I
don't recall an episode on it, and it sounds interesting.
And finally, Thirteen Days of Halloween was amazing as usual
everyone involved nailed it again.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Oh thanks yeah. Eric also wrote in about Chowder. Loved
the Chowder episode. Lauren will come out. You to keep
bringing up stuff that people will argue about always love
a good chowder and always interesting to see what people
will come up with with clam chowder. I love both
the New England style and the Manhattan style. It depends
(32:02):
on what my bood is at the time. I agree
with Lauren on the oyster crackers. For some reason, there
is a time were a handful of them playing to
snack on. Just hits a spot. If you really want
to try something, dip them in some white barbecue sauce.
Hopefully we can get some more recipe. Poetry corner.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, yes, we've had that in our list for a
long time long.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, yes, and speaking I think of the winter season
like we might. We might have some poetry shorts for
you all the time I've had I've had one on
my list to do for a while at least. But uh,
let's see, let's go. Let's go vaguely in order lardo
(32:46):
melting it into pan finished pasta.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yes, yes, I'm trying to find some. I look today
and I'm going to have to I'm going to have
to go deeper, I think, okay, and I want some.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, We've got a couple of really good local butchers
around Atlanta that that do that that do their own
caring programs, the names of all of which I'm forgetting
right now. So this has helped all right, But if
you google like Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Butcher, Yeah, sure. I always make it sound like I
have no way to find out. I do appreciate your
expertise and thoughts, Lauren, but I yes, I could look
at it.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah you have you do have the technology literally, uh,
Pemmican Pemmican.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
We have not done an episode on it. It has
been in the back of my mind for a while.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
It does sound like a super interesting thing to dive into.
And it's also one of the kind of things that
I would love to find, like, uh, an indigenous researcher
who has looked into the history of this kind of
thing to invite on to tell us what we don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right, because that's that's something that's come up a lot
and certain episodes. We've never done an episode on it,
but we have talked about it several times and yeah, agreed,
totally agreed, and yeah, yes, the chowder I have found
in the listener mail. Oh, people do have very strong
(34:23):
opinions and I like it. I personally, I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I have I have procured a cam of Manhattan style
clam chowder that seems that seems like it's from like
a legitimate soup source. It's a legitimate I mean by
which I mean it's not like it's not like condensed
Campbell's or something like. You know, I have not consumed
(34:56):
it yet, but you know.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Wow, report back, I will please please a legitimate souper.
Oh yeah. And also several listeners have written in about
how they like to eat oyster crackers. Oh yeah, whether
it's like with dil season or there's a lot of
(35:21):
things you can do with oyster crackers. Sure, yeah, yeah,
totally on board with that.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Really really snackable, especially right like for like a like
a holiday holiday season kind of kind of time. Yeah,
if you need something vaguely quick and easy to put out,
that's also just like, oh yeah, I could eat a
large quantity of these.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Let's go mm hmm. I do like them sprinkled on soup,
but not too many, but like then it gives you
a nice crunch every now and then then they get soggy. Anyway,
Thank you Eric for writing in. We always love to
(35:59):
hear from you, listen. We love hearing your recipes, holiday
time recipes. So if you would like to contact us
you can. Our email is hello atsaverpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(36:33):
more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm any reasons and unlarn vocal bamb and today we
have an episode for you about five spice.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, was there any particular reason this was on your mind? Lauren? Uh?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Sure, ish I had been thinking about trying to do
another spice related episode, and and being that it is
kind of the holiday season or the holiday season is
upon us. It has risen back up from the depths,
and it has brought Mariah Carey with it.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I mean, no offense Mariah Carey, but I did love
all those memes of like popular Halloween icons shutting down
her song just because you get a whole month. Come
on now, just just wait your turn.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Just yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's after Thanksgiving. I'm fine
with this now, but okay, But but at any rate,
so I feel like every year, more and more I
see recipes online that are like, hey, in your holiday
cooking or baking, if you were going to use you know,
one of these kind of like warm holiday spices or
(01:22):
perhaps pumpkin pie spice or something like that, why not
try sebbing in Chinese five spice because it'll be heck
and delicious and I do have friends who have done this.
I my dear friend Darryl would make like a like
a hot buttered rum spiced with five spice, and it
(01:45):
was a lot, but in a good way.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
That sounds amazing. Yeah, that's interesting because I feel like
I had a specific idea of what you use five
spice for, but when I was looking at what's in it,
I was like, of course that makes sense. You could
use it, you know, of course, like the depending on
who who is making it, because it is kind of
(02:09):
easy to kind of make a tailor to your own
taste maybe at home, that you could use it for
a lot of things that are I would not have
thought you could use it for.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
There are certainly kind of traditional preparations that use it
and the less traditional, which is, you know, the weird
and wonderful thing about food.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
It's true, it's true. And I believe everyone listening to this,
if you've been listening for a minute, knows that I
am someone I'm constantly substituting for things. I'm constantly like,
well this is what I have.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I'm certainly not going out and getting that other thing.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So here we are. No, but I did buy some
Chinese vie spice, even though I have all of the
ingredients really typical Okay, typical ingredients, I will say, because
it's not always the same.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It is certainly not Nope. As with many spice blends,
it's kind of what what do you like? What do
you have on hand? What's going on?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Indeed? Indeed, but I did buy something and I'm very
excited about it. Yeah. And speaking of these ingredients, so
you can see our episodes on cinnamon, shechuan, peppercorns, cloves, finnels, storanis, ginger, nutmeg,
and licorice, maybe orange, black pepper. A lot of things
(03:34):
do end up on in this spice ballind but uh yeah,
we've done a lot of these already, which is fun.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Oh yeah, yeah, and I what weird generally upsetting, excellent
stories they all are.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, that's true. But I guess that brings us to
our question.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I guess it does five spice?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Well of? Five spice is an open ended blend of
spices and or herbs that lends warm, complex seasoning to
all kinds of dishes. It is not made up of
precisely five ingredients. The five here refers to the five
flavors considered primary in some cuisines or perhaps ideologies, and
(04:28):
those are sweet, bitter, sour, pungent, or spicy and salty
or savory. More on that in a second. So, yeah,
as you might have caught on to by now, those
ingredients can be a lot of things, but they tend
to include kind of like warm, woody, sort of medicinal
(04:49):
flavored things like star annis, cassia, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and
or fennel seeds, plus a little bit of a kick
from things like black pepper and or sish onecorn. And
the idea here is to have a balance of the
five flavors within whatever you choose. Yeah, the ingredients can
be used whole to simmer into sauces or braises or
(05:12):
stews or muld wine or whatever other kind of liquid
you're simmering, or they can be ground or powdered and
applied to all kinds of dishes, from like dry rubbed
meats to baked goods.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Uh. Yeah, it's a it's.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
A warm, complex, bitter, multi dimensional spice blend. It's like
a it's like if you put all of your winter
holiday spices in a blender with your wreath. It's like
pumpkin pie spices older sibling. It's like, okay, I feel
(05:50):
like it's the flavor equivalent to that scene in two
thousand and one of Space Odyssey where Dave the astronaut
is in that like rainbow Stargate wormhole tunnel thing, like
just having this mind opening experience of so much all
at once, but like it's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You know, these are glowing reviews. Five. I love it
every time you do these. I'm like, we should make
t shirts out all of your descriptions. Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Let's get let's get with tea Public on the line.
Do we still have a shop there? Speaking of the holidays?
Oh my goodness. Yeah, search for saver or possibly food
stuff on Tea Public. There you go. We've got designs
that make references to what we were talking about five
years ago.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
But one does include an astronaut. It does, so we'll
try to update it hopefully.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh man, yeah, I know we should do that. I wonder,
I wonder. Okay, yeah, great, great, great conversation later, back
to back to five spice. Okay, so, yes, the five
flavors here come from traditional Chinese medicine, which does not
precisely line up with like the modern American idea of
flavor profiles. I'd say that like like to us, when
(07:16):
we're talking about flavor, would categorize it into like bitter, sweet, sour, savory, salty,
and spicy. In traditional Chinese medicine, a pungent is applied
to like kind of a range of foods that I'd
say are savory spicy like a wine, ginger, hot pepper, fennel, onion, tangerine,
(07:40):
stuff like that. And then their salty is a range
of like savory to salty foods like seaweed, ham duck,
and barley. So yeah, if if if some of these
ingredients aren't like matching up in your mind with what
you're picturing when you hear these these flavor words, then
that's why. But right, all kinds of ingredients can go
(08:02):
in there. The idea is having a balance, so different
things can be subbed in or out depending on what
you have and what you want. Dried citrus peels, specifically mandarin,
orange or tangerine makes its way in there. Ginger or
black cardamom or galengal galandel. I've heard it both ways
on Miriamwebster dot com, So who knows they're all related?
(08:24):
To ginger. Yeah, those things, dried licorice root, regular cardamom,
white pepper, and other dried roots from various aromatic members
of the carrot family. Salt does not usually go into
five spice blends, although usually something salty like soy sauce
will be part of your liquid component for cooking a
(08:47):
savory dish flavored with five spice, and yet you can
mix your own out of anything that you like. You
can also purchase it as a mix of whole spices
or as a ground powder. Friend of show Spicewalla makes some,
so check that out if you'd like to. If you
are making a blend at home, make sure to toast
your spices first, like carefully in a dry pan on
(09:08):
low heat on the stovetop, maybe in the oven if
that's what you're working with. Toasting spices really brings.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Out the flavor.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Good advice generally for using spices. Check online for a
guid if you're unfamiliar with this process. It's easy to overtoast,
and them's is expensive. So yeah, but at any rate,
you're going to hopefully wind up with a blend that
has these like cooling herbal notes from things like the
fennel seed and the cloves, and then like warm almost
(09:35):
sweet woody notes from like the cinnamon and annis spicy
notes from things like the peppercorn and ginger. And yeah,
you can use it at that point to make savory
sauces or sweet syrups, to add to all kinds of
braises or stews or roasts, to add kick to deep frybreading. Yeah,
(09:57):
to flavor pastries or candies, to flavor tea or cold
beverages or alcohol. However you'd use a spice blend, it
can be kind of overwhelming, like a little goes a
long way. Many recipes recommend steeping it into a sort
of like ta marinade kind of situation or a sugar
(10:18):
syrup before adding it to your recipe, just so you
can control that wallop of flavor. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Wow, Yeah, I've got a lot of cravings for some
some pork, some duck. Oh yeah, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, I am there's like
nine different things that I really want, right.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yes, Well, that is the thing about spices, right, because
you can add them to all kinds of things. But
this is a very distinctive profile. It is it is
it is. Yes, Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Ah, you're not usually consuming enough of it for like
for it to really make a nutritive difference. It will
add a lot of flavor for your caloric buck. And
there is a lot of research into how extracts of
the spices that generally go into this blend might act
in our food and in our bodies. Like, many of
(11:17):
these plants do have anti microbial properties that partially explain
why humans glommed on to them in the first place,
you know, like they might have helped preserve our foods
and in our bodies. They may have antioxidant properties, but like,
more research is necessary Saber motto. Before consuming a medicinal
amount of anything, consult a medical professional who is not us.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Nope, nope, no books. We do have some numbers for you.
Oh we have like two numbers. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It was difficult to track down for this one, like
because certainly, right, this is a blend that's sold industrially,
but it's like more traditionally home product. So anyway, as
of twenty twenty, spice market research showed that forty one
percent of Americans had heard of five spice, but only
twenty four percent had ever had it.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
I'm not doubting these survey participants, but I'm wondering if
they've had it, didn't know they had.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Oh oh sure, sure possibly. I'm also like, yeah, like
it's I feel like I read that number and I
was like, that is so low. But then I was
like checking my bubble, like I was like, am I
just in this bubble of like, of course I know
what that is, and of course I've had it. It's
in my kitchen right now. What's going on?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
But I grew up in a food household and I
run a food podcast. I kind of a special case
in more ways than one, kind of.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
A special case, right in the best way.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Lauren, No, no thanks, Annie, Oh heck. At any rate,
if the number, if the numbers are that low, then
we can also say that spice use is going up worldwide.
And one report that I read said that the global
market for five spice seasoning in particular is on track
to be worth some six hundred and forty million dollars
(13:17):
by twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Wow. This is something I would love to hear from
listeners about about whether if this is something that you
grew up with, if it's something that you made in
your home or did you buy it commercially, and there's
no judgment from me. Please know that is.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Oh zero percent.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah. Also if you've never had it, or if you
don't think that you have, yeah, yeah, let us let
us know. Always, let us know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I always let us know.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
And recipes, yes, please, oh please certainly definitely.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Oh well, we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Oh we do. But first we've got a quick break
for work from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Thank you sponsors, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And again please see the episodes we've done on the
specific ingredients that come together to make Chinese spice spy,
specifically the main ones, because as we said, it can
be a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Of things, it can, it can, yeah, like very basically
the spice road brought together these products in different places
at different times, and they were often the most expensive
and in demand thing being traded during the era of
like mostly land based travel. They also like sort of
(14:44):
spurred the era of water based travel. And each one
is its own complicated thing, yes.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Very much is. And that being said, the origin of
Chinese spy spice powder is very unclear, but many think
it originated with traditional Chinese medicine. The popular explanation is
that it was meant to balance the five primary flavors
utilized in the country's cuisine. As Lauren said, sweet, salty, sour, ungeent,
(15:15):
and bitter, and these were in turn aligned with, or
perhaps just reflective of, the five primary elements earth, fire, metal, water,
and wood. And yes, I'm ashamed to say that I
went on a captain planet. My mind got very confused
that I'm back now. Okay, that's good, that's welcome back, Annie.
(15:39):
But the song was in my head for a long time, Lauren,
and it wasn't correct with the information.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
No.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Well, anyway, by balancing these things, it was believed that
one could find balance and harmony in body and mind.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah, there's an idea than traditional Chinese medicine, that these
five flavors each relate to specific organs and bodily processes,
and that you want to pay attention to all five.
Myths place the origins of this this five flavor ideology
around two thousand BCE or so, but who knows mysteries history.
(16:22):
Certainly the concept was established by around four hundred BCE
because Dallast philosophy dating back to around then talked about
the five flavors in different ways. Many many of these
philosophies seem to have used the idea of their combination
as sort of a counterpoint to the ideal of simplicity
(16:43):
or straightforwardness, like Laos, often considered the founder of Daoism,
said that the five flavors would cause you to not
taste at all in the idea that they'd like overwhelm
your senses, and that that was bad. But of course,
there were other philosophies in play. By the three hundred CE,
(17:03):
the historical slash political text Swooshun used a metaphor of
five spices being in harmony in like a soup, leading
to both harmonious flavor and harmonious mind. Apologies if I'm
butchering this Chinese, I do not speak the language. Annie
is kindly helping me behind the scenes.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yes, and I have been removed for a minute, so
blame all of us on me. Don't blame it on Larine.
We did try to look it up.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
We did, we did.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Well. On top of this, people also thought that these
spice ones were tasty and could elevate dishes to new heights.
Oh yeah, and also of note, historians looking into Chinese
cuisine have pointed out that, yeah, the concept of five
flavors became something common when it came to ingredients and spices,
referring to more than just these five primary flavors that
(18:00):
we discussed.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, five being a kind of common number of balance
of elements. So, right, the concept of like five components
or facets of something dietary got extrapolated out to other areas. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
And so while we may never know the exact date
or even the exact date range of five spice powder,
there are some pieces of evidence experts have used to
deposits some theories, and of course many are contingent on
what they defined as five spice. People in China have
been experimenting with a spice mixed similar to five spice
(18:40):
for centuries, trying to find a balance of flavors, and
it varied from region to region based on what was
available and based on the timing, like it changed over
time based on technology that also changed over time, crops
and taste things like that. Books out of China from
(19:00):
the fifth or sixth century BCE referred to using cinnamon
and sheshwan peppercorns as seasonings. So a lot of people
are looking at when the ingredient started to get used
in this way at all, to try to figure out
when this was when it might have come together. At
the time, these seasonings might have been expensive and difficult
(19:22):
to get a hold of depending on where folks were located,
but that changed with the introduction of roads and brutes
in the country in the two hundreds ish BCE, spices
and ingredients, once isolated in certain regions, spread out. A
Song Dynasty cookbook from sometime between nine thirty and twelve
seventy six CE had a recipe for hot fermented soybeans
(19:46):
that included several of the five spice ingredients like star annis, penyl, cinnamon,
sheshwan peppercorns, dried tangerine, peel, and ginger.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Well, that sounds good.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
I know right. The sixteenth century, star annis was imported
from Southeast Asia and eliminated in China, along with clothes
and cardamom. Star Annis in particular took off and was
planted across the country again. You can see our star
Anis episode for more about that. Yes, in the early days,
(20:17):
these spices were packaged whole in muslin bags and cooked
whole and dishes and these small bags of spices were
typically purchased at places specializing in medicine. The shopkeepers would
sometimes mix the spices in front of the purchasers like
they were filling out a prescription. I read in a
few places that rich stewed meat seasoned with five spice
(20:41):
was originally pretty much relegated to the wealthy, but that
allegedly changed during the Song dynasty as well, when a
demotion led to a well known literary figure and gourmet
named Su dong Po to serve as an official in
an impoverished province, and he was like desperate to recreate
(21:05):
some of his up till then fancy taste, so he
purchased some cheap cuts of local pork and stewed them
with five spice powder, and the dish group in popularity.
I read over the generations, but I feel like it
was pretty quick and eventually earned the name dong Po
(21:25):
meat our dong Po pork, which I searched, and yes,
is definitely still a thing and you can still order it,
and I want it in Atlanta, Like I know, it
was still a thing outside, but I couldn't get it here. Yeah,
but that's amazing. That's how far it spread, which, speaking
of in the way of things that we so often
(21:45):
talked about, it ended up on the table of the rich,
even though huh it was him just trying to recreate
something with like the cheapest ingredients he had. Well, yeah,
Zuo dung Po apparently wrote a poem about this whole thing.
Here is the translation, Huang Joe's fine pork as cheap
(22:09):
as manure. Rich folk won't touch it, Poor folk can't
cook it. But on a slow fame with a little water,
by and by, it takes a fine flavor. You eat
a bowl each day on rising, and you'll be so
full you won't have a care in the world. Oh wow,
yeah wow. Oh. A record from the Qing dynasty, dating
(22:37):
somewhere between sixteen eleven and sixteen seventy nine ce mentions
a five spice condiment used for cold noodles. But those
five spices were soy sauce, crushed sesame seeds, chopped seschewon peppercorns, vinegart,
and savor bro so not what we think of commercially
sold five spice powder is actually relatively new. One popular
(23:01):
use quote in a lot of articles that I read
suggested it wasn't easy to find as recently as nineteen eighty,
which I know is still you know, kind of far away,
but that's pretty recent to me, Like.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yes, yeah, that's yes, thank you for saying that's not
too far away. I appreciate that on a deeply personal level.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
But ancient times all, no.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
No, no, years ago is you know a minute certainly
in terms of culinary history, because yeah, right right, that's
that's like vaguely within my lifetime. And I'm like, oh wow.
I mean it makes sense though, with the expansion, especially
in the United States of cuisines other than like English
(23:52):
and maybe right in the nineteen eighties, yes, and waves
of immigration for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
But the popular quote comes from a scholar in Chinese cuisine,
and she was saying like, yeah, we would go, we
would still in the nineteen eighties go and get Chinese
spice spice at the herbal herbal medicine store.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Like just you just couldn't find those things other places.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, but again, listeners, if you have any experience, any
recipes anything like that, we would love to hear from you,
because I could. I looked for when did it become
kind of commercially available, and I couldn't find any I
couldn't nail down a specific number. I just assume it
sort of happened as Chinese food in the US became
(24:43):
more common, more commercially available.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
But yeah, yeah, and with the proliferation of of you know,
celebrity chefs like like Martin Yan of Yen Can Cook
and I don't know, like like Iron Chef stuff like
that coming over and getting some of that influence as well.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
I did run into a lot of celebrity chefs who
have their own personal recipes for five Spices powder, so
that definitely makes sense.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
That's that's excellent. The only celebrity recipe I saw for
it was from Gordon Ramsey, and I was kind of like,
I'm not going to click on that, right, no offense,
mister Ramsey.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Don't come after us. I'm a constitution. I can't handle it. Oh,
I'm just kidding. Oh but yeah, yeah, truly, we'd love
to hear from listeners, especially if you have like a
holiday recipe that you use yeah powder with.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, if this inspires you to kind of recreate a
holiday recipe with it, then let us know, Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Please let us know. But that is what we have
to say about five Spies Powder for now it is.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break forward
from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with this. It's the warming and cooling qualities.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Look, I am freezing right now. My fear is so cold.
I'm wearing like three pairs of socks and oh, some slippers,
so I could use some warm you.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Could, yeah, yeah, Oh, doing that just reminded me of
recording the I did a reading for one of our
other in house horror anthology series called twelve Days. It
was originally going to be twelve Days of Christmas and
then we backed off of that. But anyway, it's like
(26:59):
Aaron Meggy's Twelve Days, which has less of a ring
to it, but that's okay, Attention. The actual title of
the show is Aaron Minky's Twelve Ghosts. It was originally
twelve Ghosts of Christmas. Everyone who's worked on both Thirteen
Days of Halloween and twelve Ghosts makes this mistake all
the time. But I read a piece for that last year,
(27:24):
written by the excellent local writer kiit Fe and during it,
I had to record all of this like shivering noise
because my character was everyone's character is like walking through
a snowy woods on a winter evening when you first
meet them, And I was like, how do you how
(27:47):
do you make that noise into a microphone? Do you
want my teeth to chatter? Like?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
What shall I get an ice pad on you?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Because I feel like the noise that I usually make
when I'm that cold is like I'm going inside, which
isn't which I don't think is what the director was
looking for.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So yeah, it's like burying under blankets. Anyway. I love
some haunted Christmas winter stuff I love. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, I feel like it's almost a spookier season than Halloween,
Like Halloween is kind of fun times for me, like
like winter Solstice is season is very spooky.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, once you get that like cool howling wind yeah
and the cold yeah, the dark that are really dark. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Twelve Days available wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Yes, yes, again.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
The actual title of the show is Aaron Monkey's twelve
got Thank you for your attention.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
I'm ready, I've like have missed, I tried to. I
already started my holiday movies, but I'm like, but where
am I like scary?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well, cramp is not this coming up?
Speaker 1 (29:18):
So yeah, yeah, that's true. All right, I write all right.
We have a couple of messages from Uric. The first
one covers a range of topics, starting with pandomerto, which
I apologize because I kept adding an ass on it
in the episode.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Oh, I think that's that's a typical. I think that's
that's pretty typical. It's I I was trying really hard
to not do it, but I've always said colloquially upon
the morthos.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Because it's.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah, but all of the like Spanish language resources that
I found did not pluralize it.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
So anyway, Yeah, here we are. Well, thank you, Lauren,
Thanks to all your listeners. We're being very kind about it.
All No, no one said anything, but I was like
waiting for it, all right. Rite moyse pooh sounds wonderful.
(30:17):
Celebration Breads covers such a great spectrum. Always interesting to
see what various people do. It is interesting that while
there are a lot of differences, you can see how
different influences have come into things. Now, I really want
to loaf or twelve of each type. Yes, Alvardo is
definitely interesting. There are many ways to enjoy it. Such
(30:38):
a wonderfully rich tasting product. If you are pan finishing
a pasta editionist skillet, toss a few thin slices into
the mix, and if you want to wrap your partner laro,
you do you, but I agree probably better not to
cook them, got it? I think some nice grilled shabbata
(31:02):
slices and tossing on some larto and mold on sea
salt right as it comes off. Maybe a thin slice
of heirloom tomato and fresh basil as well. The Fanny
Farmer episode was interesting. Had really only heard the name,
learned all sorts of interesting things, did not realize it
was Fanny that really pushed standardizing measurements makes a world
(31:25):
of difference to give people a starting point. Do you
have a Pemmican queued up at all? Pemicon episode? I
don't recall an episode on it, and it sounds interesting.
And finally, Thirteen Days of Halloween was amazing as usual
everyone involved nailed it again.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Oh thanks yeah. Eric also wrote in about Chowder. Loved
the Chowder episode. Lauren will come out. You to keep
bringing up stuff that people will argue about always love
a good chowder and always interesting to see what people
will come up with with clam chowder. I love both
the New England style and the Manhattan style. It depends
(32:02):
on what my bood is at the time. I agree
with Lauren on the oyster crackers. For some reason, there
is a time were a handful of them playing to
snack on. Just hits a spot. If you really want
to try something, dip them in some white barbecue sauce.
Hopefully we can get some more recipe. Poetry corner.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Well, yes, we've had that in our list for a
long time long.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, yes, and speaking I think of the winter season
like we might. We might have some poetry shorts for
you all the time I've had I've had one on
my list to do for a while at least. But uh,
let's see, let's go. Let's go vaguely in order lardo
(32:46):
melting it into pan finished pasta.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yes, yes, I'm trying to find some. I look today
and I'm going to have to I'm going to have
to go deeper, I think, okay, and I want some.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Yeah, We've got a couple of really good local butchers
around Atlanta that that do that that do their own
caring programs, the names of all of which I'm forgetting
right now. So this has helped all right, But if
you google like Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Butcher, Yeah, sure. I always make it sound like I
have no way to find out. I do appreciate your
expertise and thoughts, Lauren, but I yes, I could look
at it.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah you have you do have the technology literally, uh,
Pemmican Pemmican.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
We have not done an episode on it. It has
been in the back of my mind for a while.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
It does sound like a super interesting thing to dive into.
And it's also one of the kind of things that
I would love to find, like, uh, an indigenous researcher
who has looked into the history of this kind of
thing to invite on to tell us what we don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Right, because that's that's something that's come up a lot
and certain episodes. We've never done an episode on it,
but we have talked about it several times and yeah, agreed,
totally agreed, and yeah, yes, the chowder I have found
in the listener mail. Oh, people do have very strong
(34:23):
opinions and I like it. I personally, I think it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I have I have procured a cam of Manhattan style
clam chowder that seems that seems like it's from like
a legitimate soup source. It's a legitimate I mean by
which I mean it's not like it's not like condensed
Campbell's or something like. You know, I have not consumed
(34:56):
it yet, but you know.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Wow, report back, I will please please a legitimate souper.
Oh yeah. And also several listeners have written in about
how they like to eat oyster crackers. Oh yeah, whether
it's like with dil season or there's a lot of
(35:21):
things you can do with oyster crackers. Sure, yeah, yeah,
totally on board with that.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Really really snackable, especially right like for like a like
a holiday holiday season kind of kind of time. Yeah,
if you need something vaguely quick and easy to put out,
that's also just like, oh yeah, I could eat a
large quantity of these.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Let's go mm hmm. I do like them sprinkled on soup,
but not too many, but like then it gives you
a nice crunch every now and then then they get soggy. Anyway,
Thank you Eric for writing in. We always love to
(35:59):
hear from you, listen. We love hearing your recipes, holiday
time recipes. So if you would like to contact us
you can. Our email is hello atsaverpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(36:33):
more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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