May 5, 2021 • 42 mins
These small but fiery chili peppers became so widely popular that they’ve caused historical confusion. Anney and Lauren give some hot takes on the history and science of habaneros.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, I'm welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about Haban arrows. Yes, oh, as you all know,
I love peppers. I love spicy things. Early in Quarantine,
I was just eating halban arrow's whole. I was dipping
(00:29):
them in a hot sauce for lunch, like raw haban arrows. Yeah, okay, yes,
with somehow pinos mixed in there. Oh all right, Well,
I wouldn't want you to sound weird, so cool, that's yeah,
thank you. I'm glad I don't sound weird never. I
(00:49):
really do think it's the running thing. I think it's
the runners high because I'm not reading anymore and I
used to run every day. Now this pepper thing. Need
to kind of a dream, need some kind of adrenaline push. Sure.
I mean you, well, you were already watching. Would you
say that you stepped up your consumption of the horror
(01:10):
genre over the course of Quarantine or is it about equal?
I would say I stepped it up, but at the
same time, I've really exhausted the things that actually scare me.
It's a lot of horror movies that I often enjoy,
but I don't. Legitimately they're not They're not frightening. It's
(01:34):
not the adrenaline rush. It's just there and it. Yeah. Yeah,
I have been using habaneras in hole in that ox
tails mentioned. Yeah, you're supposed to use a scratch bonnet,
but I have trouble finding those, and haben narrows are
often suggested as a substitute for them. Sure, um, and
(01:58):
normally it were out totally fine for me. But one
time I remember very vividly, I was watching a Rival
and I was near the beginning of the movie and
I got a super hot one and I must have
like down eight glass water very quickly. I know that's
(02:18):
not like the best thing in terms of alleviating, but
it's all I had, louren and I was miserable until
about the end of the movie, both because of the
heat but also because of the water. I was just
so floated. Yeah, sure, sure, yes. I also learned researching this,
(02:41):
uh that. Yeah, the Scotch bonnet, which is related to
the Hopa narrow, is named after the resemblance it has
to the traditional Scottish hat. Oh yeah, okay, well that
just makes more sense than I suppose I thought it would.
It does to me. To you, It's another one of
those things where I'm not entirely sure why I never
(03:04):
questioned it was called that, but I didn't. I was
just like, yeah, that's a Scotch Scotch bonnet, okay. And
then I am growing my own shashidos coming in. They're
so cute, They're cute. Oh my gosh, I I do.
I'm like, oh, look at you, and then I eat
(03:24):
you and you're delicious. That's my that's my favorite part
about gardening. Yes, when you're like, oh, look at the
cute little Oh it's so sweet, amare Yeah m hm oh.
But what I've realized is the problem, and maybe this
won't be a problem for long, is they they're all
coming in at very different times. So it's like I'm
(03:46):
eating one shsho pepper it. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like
a full on crop. Yeah. Yeah, that that does tend
to happen with with with with a lot of individual
pepper plants. In order to get a true like dish
of shid knows, you would need multiple plants um or
a freezer, I mean one or the other. Uh. But yeah,
(04:07):
I'm not currently growing any hot peppers. Um, I usually
am I. We we had a we had a roommate
misunderstanding during the quarantine where various people thought that various
other people were watering the plants, and the plants were
not being watered at all. So we had we had
a number of casualties from that, and the current pepper
(04:29):
plant was one of them. But oh dear, yeah, it happens.
It happens, those roommate misunderstandings. It's okay, it's okay. There
there are other pepper plants out there. We're gonna we're
gonna get it going again. Yes, more pepper plants in
the sea. Um. You listeners can check out our related
(04:50):
episodes on how Pinos Louisiana style hot sauces answer ratcha
and I feel like we've done some other related things,
but those were the ones that came to mind. Yeah, yeah, um,
and I guess that brings us to our question. Yes,
huban arrows, what are they? Well? The haban arrow is
(05:13):
the fruit of a type of chili pepper plant botanical
name Capsicum chinensee. They grow on a smallish flowering shrubs
that might reach up to four feet in height a
little bit over in meter. They're semi tropical, not frost hardy,
but will come back year after year, and one plant
can produce a lot of peppers slowly over the course
(05:34):
of the season. That fruit ranges from from pale to
deep green as it's growing, and then once it's mature,
it will ripen to anywhere from like a pale yellow
to a bright orange, to a deep red to even
a purply black. Um. There are a bunch of varietals
and and they're They're pretty small, just a couple inches
in length, maybe up to five centimes, and more like
(05:55):
a chunky and rumpled looking than than lots of smoother,
more more elongated peppers. Sounds like a bit of a
backhanded insult, Lauren, they're smoother, guffin. I love a chunk.
(06:16):
If there's anything that my history of Internet liking UH
can prove to you, it's that I think chunky things
are great pun not intended. Broadly speaking, Hoban arrows are
considered to range from around a hundred thousand to three
hundred thousand on the Scoville scale UH, though types that
(06:39):
are more mild or significantly more hot have been developed.
The highest that I saw for a habban arrow was
over a million, and this is still, by the way,
way less hot than what what might call like stunt
peppers like the Carolina reaper, which ranks in the two
to three million units sort of range. Lots of those
(07:00):
on peppers, though, are created by interbreeding habban arrows with
other capsicum species. Meanwhile, for reference, more mild chili peppers
like the Hallopeno ranks somewhere between like two and eight thousand.
So you know, ah it is, you know, a little spicy,
but like a lot less than a hundred to three
hundred thousand. Yes, and so yes, the flavor of habban
(07:23):
arrows could be said to be mostly hot, but there
are some just lovely like floral and melon and citrus
notes in there. Quick aside about spice levels, the compound
responsible for what we call spicy heat or pungency is
kept sasin, which is this chemical defense mechanism that some
(07:45):
plants evolved that makes the nervous system of some animals
such as humans um think that they are actually on fire.
But like jokes on the plant, like we decided that
we like that humans are weird, you know, gosh, we
are um, And what's going on there? Is that cap
(08:07):
sasin activates the same nerve pathways uh, specifically in our
mucous membranes um that tell us when something is physically
warm at a potentially dangerous level, like like, please stop
and get away from that before you damage yourself physically warm. Um,
it's not actually physically dangerous and will not hurt your skin.
(08:29):
But but as both of us going to test, yes,
it can make you feel real uncomfortable for a minute there.
Mm hmm mhm um. A bunch of the spiciness will
be in the seeds um, which makes sense because that
is the part of the plant that would like particularly
benefit from not getting eaten or chewed up, especially by
(08:51):
like mammals with chewing teeth. Um. So yeah, so if
you don't like spice, leave the seeds out. Interestingly, birds
do not appear to be susceptible to the effects of
capsasan um, which means that the spread of these plants
is probably done by a lot of birds in addition
to humans. Yeah. Yes, I my mom one of her
(09:15):
neighbors gave her a big uh crop of pablano peppers
and I was like, oh my god, I love poblanos
and uh. Later I asked your how it went. She
was like, oh, you know, it was pretty good. It
was like real spicy. And I was just asking how
she cooked him, and she's like, I just ate them,
you know, a whole. Well, yeah, that that'll that'll be it. Yeah.
(09:37):
You know, usually if you're even worried about the spice,
you take the membrane and seeds out. She's like, oh,
I never heard of that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, take
them out. Wash your hands, take them out, always wash
your hands, wash your cutting boards. Yes, everything just full. Yes,
I know it's Scoville units also um. This is a
totally subjective test that was developed by one Wilbert's Oville
(10:00):
in nineteen twelve, though it is now largely carried out
by more precise identification of capsas and levels via various
kinds of chromatography. I love this idea that one guy
was like, that's really spicy. That was not so much. Well,
it's good to know. Um and yeah. Haban arrows can
(10:23):
be used in all sorts of dishes. Um. Due to
its heat, it's mostly used in small amounts as more
of a spice or seasoning than like as a whole vegetable.
Unless you are Annie reese um. But yeah, you know,
raw in salceas and seviches cooked into sauces and soups
and stews can give a kick to marinades or pickles.
(10:44):
Pairs well with both savory and sweet flavors. Um can
be made into like fruity jams or jellies. Modernly might
be used in cocktails. Yes, and in fact, as we
record this, it is Star Wars Day and one of
my cocktails Off and Stormy. You can use you can
use opinions what I like to Okay, all right, oh man,
(11:07):
I don't have any cocktails planned for today. Heck fool,
I have a big list. I do have Star Wars
festivities planned. But man, okay, alright, well yes, well okay,
what about the nutrition? Well okay, uh, hot peppers do
(11:33):
give you a lot of flavor bang for your caloric buck.
Hob and arrows do contain a bunch of vitamins and
other good stuff, plus a bit of fiber. You're not
usually Annie Again, I'm looking at you eating enough hob
and arrow for it to like really make a nutritional
difference in your diet. But I guess if you are,
you know they will help fill you up just you know,
maybe pair it with a protein and some fat to
(11:54):
help keep you going. All right, I will say I
do think like when I remember my arrival experience, it
is wild how it feels like you could breathe fire
burning every breath you take. Yeah, I have another one.
(12:21):
What's this bain pass? Yeah, it's your Your body thinks
that you are on fire. That is that is what
is happening in there. You still your mammal. Don't eat that.
Get on board because I'm not changing my ways. Um.
(12:42):
We don't have too many numbers for you, but we
do have a few. Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is the largest
producer of having arrows, where about acres or about two
square miles are dedicated to growing them. Um And there
is a lot of genetic variety there. At least forty
genotypes are agriculturally produced in the area. I saw that
(13:04):
Spain and the Netherlands follow up with the second and
third largest export shares and values. How interesting, hard agree
um and in the United States does import the most.
Mm hmm. That's actually something I've been thinking about as
I have been eating my peppers with hot sauce. Is
(13:25):
kind of like what people might call hot sauce people. Yeah,
and just how that's become, at least to me, Yeah,
a much bigger thing in the US recently. We touched
on that briefly in the history. But speaking of we
do have some history for you. We do, but first
we've got a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(13:55):
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. Just
a quick note before we get into this one, this
history section. There's a lot of conflicting information out there
about the Halban arrow. Uh yeah, try to consolidate it
into a yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's one of those
(14:19):
things where like someone made a very large mistake at
a certain point in history, and so tracing everything backwards
and forwards from that point, like you kind of have
to come back around to it and like recognize what
ripple effects were occurring because of that, the Haban narrow effect,
Theban arrow effect. That's a horror movie. We so interesting,
(14:45):
like a very food based horror movie. Okay, why, okay, alright,
we really we really need to yes, yes, yes, we
get our horror or food based horror movie production company
up and running soon. I mean more based cookbooks as well.
Come on, yes, come on, yes, I'm so into that. Okay,
(15:09):
you and me and ben Bala need to have a meeting. Meeting,
I'm ready. So. Haban arrows originated in the Amazon region
of South America, possibly as far back as six thousand,
five hundred b c E. An intact pod estimated to
be eight thousand five years old, was found in a
(15:33):
Peruvian cave. Historians postulate that the Mayans incorporated haban arrows
into their food and may have even crossbred them to
produce stronger, larger peppers. Ancient meso American settlers developed a
taste for peppers, and as they spread out, they took
haban arrows with them, and yes, as Lauren said, birds
(15:53):
are believed to have been a big part of spreading
these peppers as well. From South America, habanaro cultivation reached Mexico,
where it really flourished. Migrations of indigenous people's introduced it
to the Caribbean sometime between two hundred and fifty and
one thousand those unclear how successfully or not it took
(16:14):
off there. By one thousand CE, it had been domesticated
throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America. When Columbus arrived
and discovered haban arrows, discovered yes and heavy quotes. He
brought them back to Portugal and from there they were
introduced to Africa. The British, Spanish, and particularly Portuguese empires
(16:37):
spread haban arrows across the world, ironically in part for
their search for peppers. So, I guess that's another episode.
You listeners could, oh, black pepper. Yeah. Yeah, people are like,
we love the spicy thing. What else is spicy? I
guess that counts. Let's do it similar feeling. The habanaro
was so successful in places like India, for instance, it
propagated far beyond the air as the Portuguese planted these plants,
(17:02):
and by the seventeen hundreds there was so much confusion
about where haban arrows came from. Taxonomists named it the
Chinese pepper the scientific name, believing its place of origin
to be China. It was not. Nope. North Africa adopted
the habanaro into their cuisine, and when enslaved people's from
(17:25):
the area were sent to the Caribbean, they adapted using
the available and similar Scotch bonnet pepper. One of the
reasons that ingredient pops up in Caribbean recipes so often.
The Scotch bonnet is a cousin of the haban earro
that is thought to have originated in Jamaica. Also, the
history on that one very very sparse, but yes, hat
(17:47):
named after a hat. The chocolate habaneros thought to have
originated in the Caribbean as well. The habanero got its
name from the Cuban city La Habana or Anna in English,
a city that was key in the trade of habaneros,
despite the fact that they never really became a part
of traditional Cuban cuisine. According to Marion Webster, the first
(18:11):
known recorded use of habanero in this context occurred in
nineteen seventy two, which to me feels extremely recent. Goodness. Um. Also, yes,
you you might have heard uh habanero pronounced habanero and
uh and that's yeah like a like a oh gosh,
what would the word be, like a malapropism, No, something
(18:34):
similar to that. It's it's just just a phony and
mix up from words like hallapago, which does have the
n a um habanero does not. Nope. As we've discussed
in previous episodes, things like immigration and the growing popularity
of cuisines like text mex in the US throughout the
twentieth century led to an increased awareness of and appreciation
(18:55):
for ingredients like habaneros in the United States. On top
of that, the affinity for hot sauce and heat has
risen when it comes to the American palate at large.
In fact, in the last fifteen years or so, Americans
love of heat in their food as increase, expanding from
popular hot sauces that have cult like followings. We talked
(19:16):
about that in the Sarach episode, and I believe in
the Louisiana Hot Sauce episode um to expanding to a
lesser known independent hot sauces. Many of those hot sauces
that do include hob and narrow those are my favorites.
By the way, Yes I love them too, but yeah,
this is something I'd love to come back to. Is
(19:36):
just that kind of why do people like hot sauce
and heat? This? To me, it seems like a pretty
rapid expansion of in the United States of this like yeah,
well it's that's safe danger thing. It's it's like this
gives me this a little bit of of adrenaline rush,
but is not actually going to harm me. Even though
(19:58):
it might really feel like it's gonna right. But yeah, yeah,
and I and I find I need to have some
more scientific method of determining this. But I find that
haban arrows um bother my stomach less than um capsicum
and um related chili peppers. So um. I don't know.
(20:23):
Maybe maybe it's like a really wishful thinking. In general,
the spicier the pepper, the better. So anyway, that is
interesting Lawren's guts aside, cool story, Lauren, that is the
one funny thing about liking spicy things, because I feel
like that's sort of implied. Oh no, I mean, I
mean see like look like like sweet peppers are much
(20:44):
more of a dangerous zone for me than spicy peppers.
Like sweet peppers are what give me terrible indigestion. Um,
spice peppers are basically fine human body. It's complicated mystery
in there. There's clearly some kind of protein that just
like whatever it is about my gut like just never
learned how to digest it. And it's like this, why
(21:07):
why is this here? We cannot do anything with this,
and you shall suffer. It feels like a fairy tale curse.
Like it's like I curse this child to never like
anything sweet, only spicy hell fire? What what fakee creen
(21:28):
did I piss off as an infant? You're need to
get to the bottom of it, Lauren or else anyway,
Speaking of or else, Guinness World Records named the hapn
arrow specifically the red Sabena have an arrow as the
world's hottest chili at five hundred seventy seven thousand Scoville
(21:51):
units from two six, but it has yes since been dethroned. Yeah. Um,
the red Savina habanero was selectively bread in California fairly recently,
but the story is surprisingly tough to pin down. Um.
The popular version is that a man named Frank Garcia
(22:13):
wanted to find a way to produce habanarrows cheaply in
the United States for his company G n S Spices.
So while he was out in the pot of habban arrows,
Garcia noticed a bright red one that stood out. Um,
so he picked it, and, as the story goes, kind
of forgot about it for a while, but then started
cross breeding with this habanero, eventually arriving at the Red
(22:36):
Savina Habanero. Yeah, there's there's been lots of work in
breeding new varietals UM in two thousand and six this
extra spicy, bright bright orange type called Tiger Paw, and
our debut um researchers created it to a yes appeal
to consumers who like spice. UM. It has been clocked
(22:57):
at over three hundred forty eight thousands goville units and
b uh okay so so that n R in the
name stands for nematode resistant UM. Nematodes being these microscopic
worms that live in soil. It can cause just serious
damage to plant roots. UM and you can treat the soil,
but that's expensive and not very environmentally friendly. So developing
(23:21):
plants that are naturally resistant to nematode damage is a
priority in a lot of different agricultural research. UM and yeah,
they achieved it in this case by crossing a typical
hoban arrow with a resistant Scotch bonnet Scotch bonnet. For
(23:43):
his doctoral program Cornell University plant reader Michael Mazurek created
a heatless haban arrow called a habanata in two thousand seven.
This is a great fun I love this pun if.
It's excellent if you are unfamiliar, If you're totally unfamiliar
with Spanish, the word nada means like nothing. Uh so
(24:06):
hob not a anyway, please continue. Um. He got the
idea after encountering a heatless pepper that behaved differently than
expected genetically. It didn't taste very good by all accounts,
so he crossed it with a hobb and narrow. And
I've heard eating them as a real interesting experience, like
(24:27):
you're expecting the heat in your mouth might water in anticipation,
but it never comes. Yeah, because like that that original?
That or that not original, but like first scent of
hoban narrow that you get, that's kind of like fresh
and fruity. It's going to make you think, right, burning
shall follow, but it does not. Um and the researchers
were specifically looking to get people thinking about how crops
(24:49):
are intentionally developed UM in order to create these specific
effects and hard pivot. But something I never thought I'd
be talking about on an episode on Habban Arrows and
perhaps the show in general. Um. In a episode of
(25:13):
Bachelor and Paradise, Evan and Carly names mean nothing to me,
but I assume they mean something to a lot of
You set the Guinness World Record for longest hottest kiss
after they ate a Hobban arrow and kissed for one
minute in forty one seconds. Carly puked after and apparently
(25:35):
said she thought Evan was unattractive at the time, But
then I guess they got married. Also. I think that
was their second try. I don't think they succeeded on
the first try. Uh and yeah, I learned a lot
about kissing world records set in the Bachelor universe researching
this episode on Haban arrows. Sure, yeah, uh yep, but
(26:02):
you never you never know where the research is gonna
take you. And I just feel like morally obligated to
put in here. Like no shade to anyone who enjoys
watching or participating in this sort of thing, but like
this entire Bachelor cinematic universe seems to be just a
(26:23):
really major exemplification of like, are the Straights okay? Are
they doing all right? What's going on there? I would say,
I have a memory. I try to keep in the
back shelves of my brain. But I once threw up
right after a kiss all over a guy. No. No, yeah, wow,
(26:50):
it happens. It happens to the best of us. I
did tell him I didn't feel well. There was a warning. UM,
that's not the first story I've heard about something like
that happening, So so you're not You're not alone, Annie. Uh,
(27:11):
you know Habanero involved. Look, Evan and Carla did that
to themselves. Yeah, or I don't know if the producer,
how involved the producers were at any rate. UM. Moving on,
some fun research out of Mexico and UM showed that
(27:33):
habannaro concentrations or extracts are particularly good at helping isolate
silver nanoparticles out of silver nitrate salt. UM. Silver nano
particles being useful in making some types of lab equipment. UM.
They're also the Schmancy antibacterial coating in your Schmancy podcasters,
(27:55):
Schmancy underpants, UM, among other antibacterial application. UM. They're not
not just for underwear anymore. Uh. And I don't understand
the nanophysics like extremely well, but from what I can gather, UM,
you you want to use substances of a certain pH
level and a certain antioxidant content when you're isolating silver
(28:17):
ions because you're breaking down silver nitrate salts to obtain
the nano particles of silver, but you also want to
stabilize them and the antioxidants in a antioxidant rich fruit
like a hob and narrow can help do that. Um.
That's why stuff containing antioxidants is said to be good
(28:37):
for you, because like they can help prevent the breakdown
of stuff in your body, um, which helps prevent cellular damage,
which can help prevent a lot of various conditions and diseases.
I am summarizing hardcore on on both of these things. Um,
but yeah, there you go, more more environmentally friendly, economically
(28:58):
viable Nanosilver. Thanks haban Arros, Thanks Sabaarros, nano silver. Wow,
we went from Bachelor in Paradise. Well, yeah, that's kind
of the experience of a habanaro. You never know, you
(29:21):
never know what you're gonna get, how spanky it's gonna be.
And and I guess that's also the experience of saver
in general. You never know how spicy we're going to be.
That is true. It is true, Lauren especially. Well, Um,
(29:42):
that's approximately what we have to say about habaneros today.
It is. But we do have some listening mail for you.
We do, which we will get into after we get
back from one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you. Sponsored. Yes, thank you,
(30:06):
and we're back with I meant to do an over
nine thousand joke and then I we moved on, so
I thought I'd try to put it in here. I
like it. I like, yeah, I know it was starting
(30:26):
that way, it didn't finish that way, but well, to
be fair, most dragon Balls, the episodes never really arrive
at the conclusion until several years, and you're unsure what
the original plot was. You're like, are we still doing
the one punch? It's still the same punch. It's been
(30:48):
four episodes. It's okay, it's still the same punch. Yes,
get it. No, I appreciate that. Some fun times growing
up watching that. And then the first like twenty minutes,
we and my friend beyond the landline phone together and
it's just like recap and then maybe a little bit
happens at the end, but maybe good times. It's still
(31:12):
still a fun time. Oh, speaking of fun times, Shannon wrote,
when I saw that your latest episode was about root beer,
I squealed a little bit because root beer has a
special place in my heart. My mom and I travel
a lot together and we would like to taste us
the craft root beers we find at Mom and popa,
general stores, local breweries, farm to table restaurants, et cetera.
(31:33):
Wherever we go, we have found some amazing root beers
along the way, and the tasting experience is always fun
for us. My mom and I had to cancer our
plan tripped to the Smokies last year for obvious reasons,
but late in the year we decided to rent a
house in the middle of nowhere in the cat Skills,
driving a meeting there from our respective locations in Michigan
and Massachusetts. After getting tested and quarantining, of course, we
(31:55):
spent two glorious weeks in a round house in the woods,
and I decided that during that time I wanted to
try my hand at making root beer of my own.
I bought all the supplies ahead of time, special ordering
the SASA Fast root Bark and Sasaparilla route, along with
the bottling kit and other ingredients like winter green tea
and distilled water. Since normal tap water has chemicals that
(32:15):
will likely kill the east. The only thing I wasn't
able to find most brewers yeast, so I bought regularly
yeast from the Baking Eye at the grocery store. It'll
make bacteria poop, just as well. Right, big mistake. The
first batch I made exploded out of the bottle when
I opened it, sending a geyser of fizzy herbal water
(32:36):
shooting ten feet into the air in the middle of
the kitchen of the house we were rent saying. My
mom and I just stood there with dumbfounded looks on
her faces, before bursting into laughter and settling in to
clean it all up. It went everywhere, the walls, the floors,
the counters me. We ended up opening the rest of
the bottles outside and shooting them off the edge of
(32:57):
the deck. What little like had remained inside was not good.
It tasted like liquid bread from the baker's east with
a nice minty finish. I tried two more times to
make a worthwhile root beer with little success, so I
think I'll just leave it to the professionals. Well, that's
(33:18):
a that's a delightful memory you created. At least that
is that is that's that's fun with pressurization and growth
and its very sciency. I've I've really been appreciating people
writing in about their Honestly, so far failures are interesting.
(33:40):
Experience is trying to brew root beer. But those are
the elements of pressure, and yeah the yeast. And hey,
uh you put in the effort. Did you tried, you
tried a new thing. Yeah, we have faith in you. Like,
I totally understand if you want to leave it to
the professionals, but I've heck, yeah, I think you could
(34:02):
do it. Yeah maybe maybe with brewers used nothing. But no, no, no,
there's a reason why these things are often left to professionals,
and that's why humans specialize. Yeah, okay, Rose wrote, I
(34:22):
am sure by now you've heard from many non North
Americans about their distaste or love question mark of root beer.
Let me lend my voice and experience to the dissenters
among them. Oh and I did want to put in here. Uh,
this this one for anyone who's sensitive to stories about
vomit um. I didn't. We didn't mean to make this
episode like like really oh vomit heavy. But this this
(34:47):
listener mail does have a few mentions of it. So
if you're very sensitive to that, maybe maybe to skip
this one. To continue. Growing up in Stuart, Germany, we
have both mouthwash and certain kinds of over the counter
cough medicines that have a medicinal taste like root beer.
I recalled distinctly a cough serup I was given as
a child that I would call a root beer concentrate flavor.
(35:10):
As one of the key flavors is liquorice, and I
detest anything that tastes like liquorice. My stomach always began
to churn when I had to take it, and I
invariably threw up. From the time I was about five
or six years old, I began moving back and forth
between Seattle in the US and Sucker, Germany about every
six months or so. Making friends was hard as a result,
and cultural differences between the U S and West Germany
(35:33):
was always a jarring experience. As English was my third language,
my adjustment time in the US always seemed to lag
compared to when I returned to Germany. However, I did
slowly pick up on things in the US, like the
coveted birthday invitation from a classmate, or even more sacred,
an invitation to a birthday party at a magical place
(35:54):
called chuck E Cheese. I would listen to classmates rattle
on about pizza, animatronics, shows, games, rides, and so on.
To be honest, I confused Chucky Cheese with Disneyland, as
euro Disney didn't open in France until the early nineties.
I thought Disneyland existed everywhere in the US and this
was some kind of local Disneyland extension. Then, when I
(36:16):
was about seven, it happened. I got my first invitation
to a birthday party, and at Chuck E Cheese No Less,
I could hardly believe it. Learning and understanding English at
this point was still a struggle for me, so this
felt like my first true sign of acceptance. My grandmother
dressed me in my best party dress. Needless to say,
I was over dressed for romping around in an indoor playground,
(36:36):
and I made the birthday girl cry because my dress
was better than hers. I found the animatronic animals frightening,
and when it came time to eat and drink, well,
that was problematic too. I guess the ultimate combo for
children's birthday parties was pepperoni, pizza and root beer details
I had missed listening to my classmates. Being Jewish. I
(36:57):
could not eat the pizza, and the only beverage offer
was a brown liquid that I assumed was Coca cola
because Coca Cola was from America. Furthermore, I had never
really enjoyed pop of any kind. I looked to see
if another beverage was available, but no, only Coca Cola.
Being a well raised child, when an adult plopped down
a slice of pizza and a glass of pop, I
(37:18):
did my best to eat around the pepperoni. But then
I took a drink. This was not Coca cola. This
smelled of medicine. This this root beer. I could not
believe they gave me a tall glass of medicine. All
the excitement and anxiety that had built up trying to
be a good guest fit in and the noise and
(37:39):
the lights of the stage show finally became too much.
My stomach churned and I threw up all over the table,
covering the pepperoni, pizza and the two kids across from me,
who immediately burst into tears and began to scream at
the top of their lungs. This, my friends, was my
first taste of root beer. Oh dear. Fast forward to
(38:00):
my early twenties, this time on a college ski trip
to British Columbia, Canada. Still not a big fan of
root beer or pop in general, I did come to
love the other offerings at a n W Their burgers
and fries are really good. And living in the US
long enough, I know root beer is ubiquitous with floats.
Hungry after a long day on the slopes, my friends
(38:22):
and I see an A and W on the side
of the road and many of them pipe up they
would love nothing more than a root beer float. Obliging,
I pull over and we walk in and wow, this
was like no ANW we had seen before. They had
real tableware, like plates you could break, forks, and knives
made of metal. There was a lot of bilingual English
French advertisements for fried chicken. For some reason, this place
(38:45):
was filled with elderly locals that seemed to treat the
AMW like the town meeting center. But the real kicker
here was no root beer floats. That's right. In W
had root beer, but no ice cream. And there's no
root beer floats. Remember I don't even like root beer,
but my friends and I had never heard of an
n W not serving root beer floats. The server was
(39:07):
baffled we would even want such a thing, which was
all the more confusing. On top of all of that,
the entire restaurant of elderly people went silent and watched
us in our disbelief. Finally, we were so shaken we
just ordered some fries and left. Even now, I have
unfortunate run ins with root beer. A very sweet elderly
(39:28):
client of mine loves to give me cans of her
favorite pop, a Stevia based ginger root beer. As always
being the good guest, I accept graciously as possible. Fortunately,
with COVID, I cannot drink the dreaded beverage in front
of her anymore. As on top of everything else, I
also detest alternative sweet nerves, the curse of the root beer. Indeed,
(39:53):
that was heck an epic, very well written. I felt
your child anguish within me. Oh yeah, man, man, that's
even I will growing up in like a relatively single culture, uh,
(40:14):
being a very anxious child, Yeah yeah. Lots of social
anxiety around birthday parties and like how to behave and
what just all this stuff? You weren't alone? Oh no,
oh no. Uh. For some reason, this reminded me of
I had a good friend who I felt like, you know,
(40:35):
it was like the age seven to nine, and I
did have a party at Chuck E Cheese and it
was the best, but her party she always just seemed
more put together than me, and I gave her this
gift that I really liked, and she, uh kind of
just tossed it aside. So I stole it back. I
stole it and I still think about it to this day.
(41:01):
Did she notice? I don't know. I don't know. I
don't think I got away with it. I don't think
I was as clever as I believed I was. I
feel like most children are not. I feel like most
humans are not because I didn't have like a person
or anything. So I'm trying to remember how I got
it back home without my mom being like, isn't that
(41:22):
the gift that I bought for your friend for you
to give to your friend whose birthday it is? Yeah? Yeah,
I think I said it was a party favor. Oh
not good, not good at all. But yes, children's birthday
parties source of anxiety, fraught with anxiety. Yes, Oh heck,
(41:45):
oh heck indeed. Uh yeah. Loving these root beer emails.
A lot of people wrote in about Blue Crab, which
has been amazing. Um yeah, We're excited to share those
in the future. In the meantime, thanks as always to
both of those listeners for writing and if you would
like to write to us. You can or email us
hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
(42:08):
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
to 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 superproducers Dylan Fagin
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, I'm welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about Haban arrows. Yes, oh, as you all know,
I love peppers. I love spicy things. Early in Quarantine,
I was just eating halban arrow's whole. I was dipping
(00:29):
them in a hot sauce for lunch, like raw haban arrows. Yeah, okay, yes,
with somehow pinos mixed in there. Oh all right, Well,
I wouldn't want you to sound weird, so cool, that's yeah,
thank you. I'm glad I don't sound weird never. I
(00:49):
really do think it's the running thing. I think it's
the runners high because I'm not reading anymore and I
used to run every day. Now this pepper thing. Need
to kind of a dream, need some kind of adrenaline push. Sure.
I mean you, well, you were already watching. Would you
say that you stepped up your consumption of the horror
(01:10):
genre over the course of Quarantine or is it about equal?
I would say I stepped it up, but at the
same time, I've really exhausted the things that actually scare me.
It's a lot of horror movies that I often enjoy,
but I don't. Legitimately they're not They're not frightening. It's
(01:34):
not the adrenaline rush. It's just there and it. Yeah. Yeah,
I have been using habaneras in hole in that ox
tails mentioned. Yeah, you're supposed to use a scratch bonnet,
but I have trouble finding those, and haben narrows are
often suggested as a substitute for them. Sure, um, and
(01:58):
normally it were out totally fine for me. But one
time I remember very vividly, I was watching a Rival
and I was near the beginning of the movie and
I got a super hot one and I must have
like down eight glass water very quickly. I know that's
(02:18):
not like the best thing in terms of alleviating, but
it's all I had, louren and I was miserable until
about the end of the movie, both because of the
heat but also because of the water. I was just
so floated. Yeah, sure, sure, yes. I also learned researching this,
(02:41):
uh that. Yeah, the Scotch bonnet, which is related to
the Hopa narrow, is named after the resemblance it has
to the traditional Scottish hat. Oh yeah, okay, well that
just makes more sense than I suppose I thought it would.
It does to me. To you, It's another one of
those things where I'm not entirely sure why I never
(03:04):
questioned it was called that, but I didn't. I was
just like, yeah, that's a Scotch Scotch bonnet, okay. And
then I am growing my own shashidos coming in. They're
so cute, They're cute. Oh my gosh, I I do.
I'm like, oh, look at you, and then I eat
(03:24):
you and you're delicious. That's my that's my favorite part
about gardening. Yes, when you're like, oh, look at the
cute little Oh it's so sweet, amare Yeah m hm oh.
But what I've realized is the problem, and maybe this
won't be a problem for long, is they they're all
coming in at very different times. So it's like I'm
(03:46):
eating one shsho pepper it. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like
a full on crop. Yeah. Yeah, that that does tend
to happen with with with with a lot of individual
pepper plants. In order to get a true like dish
of shid knows, you would need multiple plants um or
a freezer, I mean one or the other. Uh. But yeah,
(04:07):
I'm not currently growing any hot peppers. Um, I usually
am I. We we had a we had a roommate
misunderstanding during the quarantine where various people thought that various
other people were watering the plants, and the plants were
not being watered at all. So we had we had
a number of casualties from that, and the current pepper
(04:29):
plant was one of them. But oh dear, yeah, it happens.
It happens, those roommate misunderstandings. It's okay, it's okay. There
there are other pepper plants out there. We're gonna we're
gonna get it going again. Yes, more pepper plants in
the sea. Um. You listeners can check out our related
(04:50):
episodes on how Pinos Louisiana style hot sauces answer ratcha
and I feel like we've done some other related things,
but those were the ones that came to mind. Yeah, yeah, um,
and I guess that brings us to our question. Yes,
huban arrows, what are they? Well? The haban arrow is
(05:13):
the fruit of a type of chili pepper plant botanical
name Capsicum chinensee. They grow on a smallish flowering shrubs
that might reach up to four feet in height a
little bit over in meter. They're semi tropical, not frost hardy,
but will come back year after year, and one plant
can produce a lot of peppers slowly over the course
(05:34):
of the season. That fruit ranges from from pale to
deep green as it's growing, and then once it's mature,
it will ripen to anywhere from like a pale yellow
to a bright orange, to a deep red to even
a purply black. Um. There are a bunch of varietals
and and they're They're pretty small, just a couple inches
in length, maybe up to five centimes, and more like
(05:55):
a chunky and rumpled looking than than lots of smoother,
more more elongated peppers. Sounds like a bit of a
backhanded insult, Lauren, they're smoother, guffin. I love a chunk.
(06:16):
If there's anything that my history of Internet liking UH
can prove to you, it's that I think chunky things
are great pun not intended. Broadly speaking, Hoban arrows are
considered to range from around a hundred thousand to three
hundred thousand on the Scoville scale UH, though types that
(06:39):
are more mild or significantly more hot have been developed.
The highest that I saw for a habban arrow was
over a million, and this is still, by the way,
way less hot than what what might call like stunt
peppers like the Carolina reaper, which ranks in the two
to three million units sort of range. Lots of those
(07:00):
on peppers, though, are created by interbreeding habban arrows with
other capsicum species. Meanwhile, for reference, more mild chili peppers
like the Hallopeno ranks somewhere between like two and eight thousand.
So you know, ah it is, you know, a little spicy,
but like a lot less than a hundred to three
hundred thousand. Yes, and so yes, the flavor of habban
(07:23):
arrows could be said to be mostly hot, but there
are some just lovely like floral and melon and citrus
notes in there. Quick aside about spice levels, the compound
responsible for what we call spicy heat or pungency is
kept sasin, which is this chemical defense mechanism that some
(07:45):
plants evolved that makes the nervous system of some animals
such as humans um think that they are actually on fire.
But like jokes on the plant, like we decided that
we like that humans are weird, you know, gosh, we
are um, And what's going on there? Is that cap
(08:07):
sasin activates the same nerve pathways uh, specifically in our
mucous membranes um that tell us when something is physically
warm at a potentially dangerous level, like like, please stop
and get away from that before you damage yourself physically warm. Um,
it's not actually physically dangerous and will not hurt your skin.
(08:29):
But but as both of us going to test, yes,
it can make you feel real uncomfortable for a minute there.
Mm hmm mhm um. A bunch of the spiciness will
be in the seeds um, which makes sense because that
is the part of the plant that would like particularly
benefit from not getting eaten or chewed up, especially by
(08:51):
like mammals with chewing teeth. Um. So yeah, so if
you don't like spice, leave the seeds out. Interestingly, birds
do not appear to be susceptible to the effects of
capsasan um, which means that the spread of these plants
is probably done by a lot of birds in addition
to humans. Yeah. Yes, I my mom one of her
(09:15):
neighbors gave her a big uh crop of pablano peppers
and I was like, oh my god, I love poblanos
and uh. Later I asked your how it went. She
was like, oh, you know, it was pretty good. It
was like real spicy. And I was just asking how
she cooked him, and she's like, I just ate them,
you know, a whole. Well, yeah, that that'll that'll be it. Yeah.
(09:37):
You know, usually if you're even worried about the spice,
you take the membrane and seeds out. She's like, oh,
I never heard of that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, take
them out. Wash your hands, take them out, always wash
your hands, wash your cutting boards. Yes, everything just full. Yes,
I know it's Scoville units also um. This is a
totally subjective test that was developed by one Wilbert's Oville
(10:00):
in nineteen twelve, though it is now largely carried out
by more precise identification of capsas and levels via various
kinds of chromatography. I love this idea that one guy
was like, that's really spicy. That was not so much. Well,
it's good to know. Um and yeah. Haban arrows can
(10:23):
be used in all sorts of dishes. Um. Due to
its heat, it's mostly used in small amounts as more
of a spice or seasoning than like as a whole vegetable.
Unless you are Annie reese um. But yeah, you know,
raw in salceas and seviches cooked into sauces and soups
and stews can give a kick to marinades or pickles.
(10:44):
Pairs well with both savory and sweet flavors. Um can
be made into like fruity jams or jellies. Modernly might
be used in cocktails. Yes, and in fact, as we
record this, it is Star Wars Day and one of
my cocktails Off and Stormy. You can use you can
use opinions what I like to Okay, all right, oh man,
(11:07):
I don't have any cocktails planned for today. Heck fool,
I have a big list. I do have Star Wars
festivities planned. But man, okay, alright, well yes, well okay,
what about the nutrition? Well okay, uh, hot peppers do
(11:33):
give you a lot of flavor bang for your caloric buck.
Hob and arrows do contain a bunch of vitamins and
other good stuff, plus a bit of fiber. You're not
usually Annie Again, I'm looking at you eating enough hob
and arrow for it to like really make a nutritional
difference in your diet. But I guess if you are,
you know they will help fill you up just you know,
maybe pair it with a protein and some fat to
(11:54):
help keep you going. All right, I will say I
do think like when I remember my arrival experience, it
is wild how it feels like you could breathe fire
burning every breath you take. Yeah, I have another one.
(12:21):
What's this bain pass? Yeah, it's your Your body thinks
that you are on fire. That is that is what
is happening in there. You still your mammal. Don't eat that.
Get on board because I'm not changing my ways. Um.
(12:42):
We don't have too many numbers for you, but we
do have a few. Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula is the largest
producer of having arrows, where about acres or about two
square miles are dedicated to growing them. Um And there
is a lot of genetic variety there. At least forty
genotypes are agriculturally produced in the area. I saw that
(13:04):
Spain and the Netherlands follow up with the second and
third largest export shares and values. How interesting, hard agree
um and in the United States does import the most.
Mm hmm. That's actually something I've been thinking about as
I have been eating my peppers with hot sauce. Is
(13:25):
kind of like what people might call hot sauce people. Yeah,
and just how that's become, at least to me, Yeah,
a much bigger thing in the US recently. We touched
on that briefly in the history. But speaking of we
do have some history for you. We do, but first
we've got a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(13:55):
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. Just
a quick note before we get into this one, this
history section. There's a lot of conflicting information out there
about the Halban arrow. Uh yeah, try to consolidate it
into a yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's one of those
(14:19):
things where like someone made a very large mistake at
a certain point in history, and so tracing everything backwards
and forwards from that point, like you kind of have
to come back around to it and like recognize what
ripple effects were occurring because of that, the Haban narrow effect,
Theban arrow effect. That's a horror movie. We so interesting,
(14:45):
like a very food based horror movie. Okay, why, okay, alright,
we really we really need to yes, yes, yes, we
get our horror or food based horror movie production company
up and running soon. I mean more based cookbooks as well.
Come on, yes, come on, yes, I'm so into that. Okay,
(15:09):
you and me and ben Bala need to have a meeting. Meeting,
I'm ready. So. Haban arrows originated in the Amazon region
of South America, possibly as far back as six thousand,
five hundred b c E. An intact pod estimated to
be eight thousand five years old, was found in a
(15:33):
Peruvian cave. Historians postulate that the Mayans incorporated haban arrows
into their food and may have even crossbred them to
produce stronger, larger peppers. Ancient meso American settlers developed a
taste for peppers, and as they spread out, they took
haban arrows with them, and yes, as Lauren said, birds
(15:53):
are believed to have been a big part of spreading
these peppers as well. From South America, habanaro cultivation reached Mexico,
where it really flourished. Migrations of indigenous people's introduced it
to the Caribbean sometime between two hundred and fifty and
one thousand those unclear how successfully or not it took
(16:14):
off there. By one thousand CE, it had been domesticated
throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America. When Columbus arrived
and discovered haban arrows, discovered yes and heavy quotes. He
brought them back to Portugal and from there they were
introduced to Africa. The British, Spanish, and particularly Portuguese empires
(16:37):
spread haban arrows across the world, ironically in part for
their search for peppers. So, I guess that's another episode.
You listeners could, oh, black pepper. Yeah. Yeah, people are like,
we love the spicy thing. What else is spicy? I
guess that counts. Let's do it similar feeling. The habanaro
was so successful in places like India, for instance, it
propagated far beyond the air as the Portuguese planted these plants,
(17:02):
and by the seventeen hundreds there was so much confusion
about where haban arrows came from. Taxonomists named it the
Chinese pepper the scientific name, believing its place of origin
to be China. It was not. Nope. North Africa adopted
the habanaro into their cuisine, and when enslaved people's from
(17:25):
the area were sent to the Caribbean, they adapted using
the available and similar Scotch bonnet pepper. One of the
reasons that ingredient pops up in Caribbean recipes so often.
The Scotch bonnet is a cousin of the haban earro
that is thought to have originated in Jamaica. Also, the
history on that one very very sparse, but yes, hat
(17:47):
named after a hat. The chocolate habaneros thought to have
originated in the Caribbean as well. The habanero got its
name from the Cuban city La Habana or Anna in English,
a city that was key in the trade of habaneros,
despite the fact that they never really became a part
of traditional Cuban cuisine. According to Marion Webster, the first
(18:11):
known recorded use of habanero in this context occurred in
nineteen seventy two, which to me feels extremely recent. Goodness. Um. Also, yes,
you you might have heard uh habanero pronounced habanero and
uh and that's yeah like a like a oh gosh,
what would the word be, like a malapropism, No, something
(18:34):
similar to that. It's it's just just a phony and
mix up from words like hallapago, which does have the
n a um habanero does not. Nope. As we've discussed
in previous episodes, things like immigration and the growing popularity
of cuisines like text mex in the US throughout the
twentieth century led to an increased awareness of and appreciation
(18:55):
for ingredients like habaneros in the United States. On top
of that, the affinity for hot sauce and heat has
risen when it comes to the American palate at large.
In fact, in the last fifteen years or so, Americans
love of heat in their food as increase, expanding from
popular hot sauces that have cult like followings. We talked
(19:16):
about that in the Sarach episode, and I believe in
the Louisiana Hot Sauce episode um to expanding to a
lesser known independent hot sauces. Many of those hot sauces
that do include hob and narrow those are my favorites.
By the way, Yes I love them too, but yeah,
this is something I'd love to come back to. Is
(19:36):
just that kind of why do people like hot sauce
and heat? This? To me, it seems like a pretty
rapid expansion of in the United States of this like yeah,
well it's that's safe danger thing. It's it's like this
gives me this a little bit of of adrenaline rush,
but is not actually going to harm me. Even though
(19:58):
it might really feel like it's gonna right. But yeah, yeah,
and I and I find I need to have some
more scientific method of determining this. But I find that
haban arrows um bother my stomach less than um capsicum
and um related chili peppers. So um. I don't know.
(20:23):
Maybe maybe it's like a really wishful thinking. In general,
the spicier the pepper, the better. So anyway, that is
interesting Lawren's guts aside, cool story, Lauren, that is the
one funny thing about liking spicy things, because I feel
like that's sort of implied. Oh no, I mean, I
mean see like look like like sweet peppers are much
(20:44):
more of a dangerous zone for me than spicy peppers.
Like sweet peppers are what give me terrible indigestion. Um,
spice peppers are basically fine human body. It's complicated mystery
in there. There's clearly some kind of protein that just
like whatever it is about my gut like just never
learned how to digest it. And it's like this, why
(21:07):
why is this here? We cannot do anything with this,
and you shall suffer. It feels like a fairy tale curse.
Like it's like I curse this child to never like
anything sweet, only spicy hell fire? What what fakee creen
(21:28):
did I piss off as an infant? You're need to
get to the bottom of it, Lauren or else anyway,
Speaking of or else, Guinness World Records named the hapn
arrow specifically the red Sabena have an arrow as the
world's hottest chili at five hundred seventy seven thousand Scoville
(21:51):
units from two six, but it has yes since been dethroned. Yeah. Um,
the red Savina habanero was selectively bread in California fairly recently,
but the story is surprisingly tough to pin down. Um.
The popular version is that a man named Frank Garcia
(22:13):
wanted to find a way to produce habanarrows cheaply in
the United States for his company G n S Spices.
So while he was out in the pot of habban arrows,
Garcia noticed a bright red one that stood out. Um,
so he picked it, and, as the story goes, kind
of forgot about it for a while, but then started
cross breeding with this habanero, eventually arriving at the Red
(22:36):
Savina Habanero. Yeah, there's there's been lots of work in
breeding new varietals UM in two thousand and six this
extra spicy, bright bright orange type called Tiger Paw, and
our debut um researchers created it to a yes appeal
to consumers who like spice. UM. It has been clocked
(22:57):
at over three hundred forty eight thousands goville units and
b uh okay so so that n R in the
name stands for nematode resistant UM. Nematodes being these microscopic
worms that live in soil. It can cause just serious
damage to plant roots. UM and you can treat the soil,
but that's expensive and not very environmentally friendly. So developing
(23:21):
plants that are naturally resistant to nematode damage is a
priority in a lot of different agricultural research. UM and yeah,
they achieved it in this case by crossing a typical
hoban arrow with a resistant Scotch bonnet Scotch bonnet. For
(23:43):
his doctoral program Cornell University plant reader Michael Mazurek created
a heatless haban arrow called a habanata in two thousand seven.
This is a great fun I love this pun if.
It's excellent if you are unfamiliar, If you're totally unfamiliar
with Spanish, the word nada means like nothing. Uh so
(24:06):
hob not a anyway, please continue. Um. He got the
idea after encountering a heatless pepper that behaved differently than
expected genetically. It didn't taste very good by all accounts,
so he crossed it with a hobb and narrow. And
I've heard eating them as a real interesting experience, like
(24:27):
you're expecting the heat in your mouth might water in anticipation,
but it never comes. Yeah, because like that that original?
That or that not original, but like first scent of
hoban narrow that you get, that's kind of like fresh
and fruity. It's going to make you think, right, burning
shall follow, but it does not. Um and the researchers
were specifically looking to get people thinking about how crops
(24:49):
are intentionally developed UM in order to create these specific
effects and hard pivot. But something I never thought I'd
be talking about on an episode on Habban Arrows and
perhaps the show in general. Um. In a episode of
(25:13):
Bachelor and Paradise, Evan and Carly names mean nothing to me,
but I assume they mean something to a lot of
You set the Guinness World Record for longest hottest kiss
after they ate a Hobban arrow and kissed for one
minute in forty one seconds. Carly puked after and apparently
(25:35):
said she thought Evan was unattractive at the time, But
then I guess they got married. Also. I think that
was their second try. I don't think they succeeded on
the first try. Uh and yeah, I learned a lot
about kissing world records set in the Bachelor universe researching
this episode on Haban arrows. Sure, yeah, uh yep, but
(26:02):
you never you never know where the research is gonna
take you. And I just feel like morally obligated to
put in here. Like no shade to anyone who enjoys
watching or participating in this sort of thing, but like
this entire Bachelor cinematic universe seems to be just a
(26:23):
really major exemplification of like, are the Straights okay? Are
they doing all right? What's going on there? I would say,
I have a memory. I try to keep in the
back shelves of my brain. But I once threw up
right after a kiss all over a guy. No. No, yeah, wow,
(26:50):
it happens. It happens to the best of us. I
did tell him I didn't feel well. There was a warning. UM,
that's not the first story I've heard about something like
that happening, So so you're not You're not alone, Annie. Uh,
(27:11):
you know Habanero involved. Look, Evan and Carla did that
to themselves. Yeah, or I don't know if the producer,
how involved the producers were at any rate. UM. Moving on,
some fun research out of Mexico and UM showed that
(27:33):
habannaro concentrations or extracts are particularly good at helping isolate
silver nanoparticles out of silver nitrate salt. UM. Silver nano
particles being useful in making some types of lab equipment. UM.
They're also the Schmancy antibacterial coating in your Schmancy podcasters,
(27:55):
Schmancy underpants, UM, among other antibacterial application. UM. They're not
not just for underwear anymore. Uh. And I don't understand
the nanophysics like extremely well, but from what I can gather, UM,
you you want to use substances of a certain pH
level and a certain antioxidant content when you're isolating silver
(28:17):
ions because you're breaking down silver nitrate salts to obtain
the nano particles of silver, but you also want to
stabilize them and the antioxidants in a antioxidant rich fruit
like a hob and narrow can help do that. Um.
That's why stuff containing antioxidants is said to be good
(28:37):
for you, because like they can help prevent the breakdown
of stuff in your body, um, which helps prevent cellular damage,
which can help prevent a lot of various conditions and diseases.
I am summarizing hardcore on on both of these things. Um,
but yeah, there you go, more more environmentally friendly, economically
(28:58):
viable Nanosilver. Thanks haban Arros, Thanks Sabaarros, nano silver. Wow,
we went from Bachelor in Paradise. Well, yeah, that's kind
of the experience of a habanaro. You never know, you
(29:21):
never know what you're gonna get, how spanky it's gonna be.
And and I guess that's also the experience of saver
in general. You never know how spicy we're going to be.
That is true. It is true, Lauren especially. Well, Um,
(29:42):
that's approximately what we have to say about habaneros today.
It is. But we do have some listening mail for you.
We do, which we will get into after we get
back from one more quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you. Sponsored. Yes, thank you,
(30:06):
and we're back with I meant to do an over
nine thousand joke and then I we moved on, so
I thought I'd try to put it in here. I
like it. I like, yeah, I know it was starting
(30:26):
that way, it didn't finish that way, but well, to
be fair, most dragon Balls, the episodes never really arrive
at the conclusion until several years, and you're unsure what
the original plot was. You're like, are we still doing
the one punch? It's still the same punch. It's been
(30:48):
four episodes. It's okay, it's still the same punch. Yes,
get it. No, I appreciate that. Some fun times growing
up watching that. And then the first like twenty minutes,
we and my friend beyond the landline phone together and
it's just like recap and then maybe a little bit
happens at the end, but maybe good times. It's still
(31:12):
still a fun time. Oh, speaking of fun times, Shannon wrote,
when I saw that your latest episode was about root beer,
I squealed a little bit because root beer has a
special place in my heart. My mom and I travel
a lot together and we would like to taste us
the craft root beers we find at Mom and popa,
general stores, local breweries, farm to table restaurants, et cetera.
(31:33):
Wherever we go, we have found some amazing root beers
along the way, and the tasting experience is always fun
for us. My mom and I had to cancer our
plan tripped to the Smokies last year for obvious reasons,
but late in the year we decided to rent a
house in the middle of nowhere in the cat Skills,
driving a meeting there from our respective locations in Michigan
and Massachusetts. After getting tested and quarantining, of course, we
(31:55):
spent two glorious weeks in a round house in the woods,
and I decided that during that time I wanted to
try my hand at making root beer of my own.
I bought all the supplies ahead of time, special ordering
the SASA Fast root Bark and Sasaparilla route, along with
the bottling kit and other ingredients like winter green tea
and distilled water. Since normal tap water has chemicals that
(32:15):
will likely kill the east. The only thing I wasn't
able to find most brewers yeast, so I bought regularly
yeast from the Baking Eye at the grocery store. It'll
make bacteria poop, just as well. Right, big mistake. The
first batch I made exploded out of the bottle when
I opened it, sending a geyser of fizzy herbal water
(32:36):
shooting ten feet into the air in the middle of
the kitchen of the house we were rent saying. My
mom and I just stood there with dumbfounded looks on
her faces, before bursting into laughter and settling in to
clean it all up. It went everywhere, the walls, the floors,
the counters me. We ended up opening the rest of
the bottles outside and shooting them off the edge of
(32:57):
the deck. What little like had remained inside was not good.
It tasted like liquid bread from the baker's east with
a nice minty finish. I tried two more times to
make a worthwhile root beer with little success, so I
think I'll just leave it to the professionals. Well, that's
(33:18):
a that's a delightful memory you created. At least that
is that is that's that's fun with pressurization and growth
and its very sciency. I've I've really been appreciating people
writing in about their Honestly, so far failures are interesting.
(33:40):
Experience is trying to brew root beer. But those are
the elements of pressure, and yeah the yeast. And hey,
uh you put in the effort. Did you tried, you
tried a new thing. Yeah, we have faith in you. Like,
I totally understand if you want to leave it to
the professionals, but I've heck, yeah, I think you could
(34:02):
do it. Yeah maybe maybe with brewers used nothing. But no, no, no,
there's a reason why these things are often left to professionals,
and that's why humans specialize. Yeah, okay, Rose wrote, I
(34:22):
am sure by now you've heard from many non North
Americans about their distaste or love question mark of root beer.
Let me lend my voice and experience to the dissenters
among them. Oh and I did want to put in here. Uh,
this this one for anyone who's sensitive to stories about
vomit um. I didn't. We didn't mean to make this
episode like like really oh vomit heavy. But this this
(34:47):
listener mail does have a few mentions of it. So
if you're very sensitive to that, maybe maybe to skip
this one. To continue. Growing up in Stuart, Germany, we
have both mouthwash and certain kinds of over the counter
cough medicines that have a medicinal taste like root beer.
I recalled distinctly a cough serup I was given as
a child that I would call a root beer concentrate flavor.
(35:10):
As one of the key flavors is liquorice, and I
detest anything that tastes like liquorice. My stomach always began
to churn when I had to take it, and I
invariably threw up. From the time I was about five
or six years old, I began moving back and forth
between Seattle in the US and Sucker, Germany about every
six months or so. Making friends was hard as a result,
and cultural differences between the U S and West Germany
(35:33):
was always a jarring experience. As English was my third language,
my adjustment time in the US always seemed to lag
compared to when I returned to Germany. However, I did
slowly pick up on things in the US, like the
coveted birthday invitation from a classmate, or even more sacred,
an invitation to a birthday party at a magical place
(35:54):
called chuck E Cheese. I would listen to classmates rattle
on about pizza, animatronics, shows, games, rides, and so on.
To be honest, I confused Chucky Cheese with Disneyland, as
euro Disney didn't open in France until the early nineties.
I thought Disneyland existed everywhere in the US and this
was some kind of local Disneyland extension. Then, when I
(36:16):
was about seven, it happened. I got my first invitation
to a birthday party, and at Chuck E Cheese No Less,
I could hardly believe it. Learning and understanding English at
this point was still a struggle for me, so this
felt like my first true sign of acceptance. My grandmother
dressed me in my best party dress. Needless to say,
I was over dressed for romping around in an indoor playground,
(36:36):
and I made the birthday girl cry because my dress
was better than hers. I found the animatronic animals frightening,
and when it came time to eat and drink, well,
that was problematic too. I guess the ultimate combo for
children's birthday parties was pepperoni, pizza and root beer details
I had missed listening to my classmates. Being Jewish. I
(36:57):
could not eat the pizza, and the only beverage offer
was a brown liquid that I assumed was Coca cola
because Coca Cola was from America. Furthermore, I had never
really enjoyed pop of any kind. I looked to see
if another beverage was available, but no, only Coca Cola.
Being a well raised child, when an adult plopped down
a slice of pizza and a glass of pop, I
(37:18):
did my best to eat around the pepperoni. But then
I took a drink. This was not Coca cola. This
smelled of medicine. This this root beer. I could not
believe they gave me a tall glass of medicine. All
the excitement and anxiety that had built up trying to
be a good guest fit in and the noise and
(37:39):
the lights of the stage show finally became too much.
My stomach churned and I threw up all over the table,
covering the pepperoni, pizza and the two kids across from me,
who immediately burst into tears and began to scream at
the top of their lungs. This, my friends, was my
first taste of root beer. Oh dear. Fast forward to
(38:00):
my early twenties, this time on a college ski trip
to British Columbia, Canada. Still not a big fan of
root beer or pop in general, I did come to
love the other offerings at a n W Their burgers
and fries are really good. And living in the US
long enough, I know root beer is ubiquitous with floats.
Hungry after a long day on the slopes, my friends
(38:22):
and I see an A and W on the side
of the road and many of them pipe up they
would love nothing more than a root beer float. Obliging,
I pull over and we walk in and wow, this
was like no ANW we had seen before. They had
real tableware, like plates you could break, forks, and knives
made of metal. There was a lot of bilingual English
French advertisements for fried chicken. For some reason, this place
(38:45):
was filled with elderly locals that seemed to treat the
AMW like the town meeting center. But the real kicker
here was no root beer floats. That's right. In W
had root beer, but no ice cream. And there's no
root beer floats. Remember I don't even like root beer,
but my friends and I had never heard of an
n W not serving root beer floats. The server was
(39:07):
baffled we would even want such a thing, which was
all the more confusing. On top of all of that,
the entire restaurant of elderly people went silent and watched
us in our disbelief. Finally, we were so shaken we
just ordered some fries and left. Even now, I have
unfortunate run ins with root beer. A very sweet elderly
(39:28):
client of mine loves to give me cans of her
favorite pop, a Stevia based ginger root beer. As always
being the good guest, I accept graciously as possible. Fortunately,
with COVID, I cannot drink the dreaded beverage in front
of her anymore. As on top of everything else, I
also detest alternative sweet nerves, the curse of the root beer. Indeed,
(39:53):
that was heck an epic, very well written. I felt
your child anguish within me. Oh yeah, man, man, that's
even I will growing up in like a relatively single culture, uh,
(40:14):
being a very anxious child, Yeah yeah. Lots of social
anxiety around birthday parties and like how to behave and
what just all this stuff? You weren't alone? Oh no,
oh no. Uh. For some reason, this reminded me of
I had a good friend who I felt like, you know,
(40:35):
it was like the age seven to nine, and I
did have a party at Chuck E Cheese and it
was the best, but her party she always just seemed
more put together than me, and I gave her this
gift that I really liked, and she, uh kind of
just tossed it aside. So I stole it back. I
stole it and I still think about it to this day.
(41:01):
Did she notice? I don't know. I don't know. I
don't think I got away with it. I don't think
I was as clever as I believed I was. I
feel like most children are not. I feel like most
humans are not because I didn't have like a person
or anything. So I'm trying to remember how I got
it back home without my mom being like, isn't that
(41:22):
the gift that I bought for your friend for you
to give to your friend whose birthday it is? Yeah? Yeah,
I think I said it was a party favor. Oh
not good, not good at all. But yes, children's birthday
parties source of anxiety, fraught with anxiety. Yes, Oh heck,
(41:45):
oh heck indeed. Uh yeah. Loving these root beer emails.
A lot of people wrote in about Blue Crab, which
has been amazing. Um yeah, We're excited to share those
in the future. In the meantime, thanks as always to
both of those listeners for writing and if you would
like to write to us. You can or email us
hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
(42:08):
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
to 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 superproducers Dylan Fagin
and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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