September 28, 2018 • 33 mins
Several cultures claim hummus as their own invention, but all agree that the dish (although seen as a hippie/health food in the West) soothes the soul. Anney and Lauren explore the contentious history of hummus.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm Anny Rees and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking about hummus. Yes, hummus.
I love some hummus. Do you like hummas? Oh? I
love a hummus. It has ruined many, by many, I
mean too first dates for me. What did you do?
Because I carry with me always ate many toothbrush and
(00:30):
a many toothpaste. Okay, but I always lose it, like
it's on my person now, and I guarantee you if
I tried to find it, I wouldn't be able to
find it until it was too late, all right. So
I'd had some hummus and that was too embarrassed to
admit because it's first date. I got really bad breath, friend,
and I kind of want to be away from you, yeah,
like I don't want to kiss you or like be
(00:51):
up on you. Yeah. And it turned into a whole
argument one time, it turned into a whole scene. I'm
sorry it was, Okay, I think that's a clear sign.
Wasn't meant to be? Yeah, no, if you can't get
over the hammis breath. Then and then once I was
at a fancy restaurant on a date and I was
leaping from the restaurant going straight to the airport, going
(01:13):
out of the country or something, and I had in
my purse some hummus had gone bad at a whole
mold thing happening, and I wanted to throw it away
in a public garbage can and not in my home.
And it turns out I couldn't find a public guards
can anywhere, and so you were trying to board a
plane with a jar of no the valet he saw
(01:36):
me looking around trying to find a trash can, and
it became a scene. Everyone came out and wanted to
know what hummus was, Why, what was I just carrying
it around? Where was I going? But eventually one of
the waiters came and he found a place to throw
it away from me. Well, that's very good. I can't
(01:57):
say that I've ever had such an exciting moment in
my life that was hummis based. But while we were
in Asheville recently, a bunch of the people that we
were talking to mentioned there's a very large and successful
hommis brand, yes called Rus and one of the most
Ashville things we heard, there's this Hummus brand as a
(02:19):
tesla that they drive around that's painted decoration, been wrapped. Yeah,
as one of their jars of hummus. So big yellow
Tesla Hummus vehicle, which right is about the most Nashville
thing we could possibly imagine it was, And we thought
we would include a quote from food critic Ashville food
(02:39):
critic McKenzie Lunsford about this, this tesla and the people
behind Roots Hummus. The guy who started making Hummus routs
Humus and a closet and in the course of twelve
years gone from two square feet to twenty seven thousand
square feet warehouse with like this is so Asheville. But
(03:03):
they're building an observation deck so you can walk and
watch them make the hummus, you know, and yeah, it's
three million dollar facility. You know, they're starting to build
their shipping line there. You know, they have the tesla
that's painted yellow and they drive to you know, solar
expos and give away little bits of hummus. That's a
(03:25):
pretty cool success story, absolutely, and coming off of that,
not necessarily off of your personal tragedies, we wanted to
do this episode on Hummus, which brings us to our question, Hummus,
what is it? Well, Hummus is a spread or dip
that's made from cooked period chickpeas also called garbanzo beans,
(03:49):
plus a number of seasonings. Lemon, juice, fresh garlic, salt,
and tahini are the basics. Yeah, and the word hummus
comes from the Arabic word meaning chickpea, which makes sense
for that reason, though in the Middle East it's called
hamas pizzahini, which is chickpi with tahini, because you're not
just going to say chick right, not the same thing,
(04:10):
And we will have to do a whole episode on
chickpeas someday, but in the meanwhile, tahini. Tahini is a
seed butter sort of like almond butter, but made with
sesame seeds, usually which have been a hold and toasted
before being ground into a smooth saucer or paste. M
And so the basic result when you combine those chickpeas
(04:30):
and the tahini and the lemon and garlic and salt
is a spread that's a savory and a little bit tangy,
with a sort of sweet, earthy kind of undertone. And
when it is made well, it is just dreamy, smooth
and light on the tongue so dreamy that sounds like
how in my diary are described my crush dreamy, smooth
(04:52):
and light on the tongue. But who's strangely enough, you
wouldn't want to have tried to kiss after eating hamis.
It's a paradox, the Thomas paradox. It's a dish made
throughout the Middle East and the southern and western areas
of the Mediterranean, and there are as many recipes for
hummas as there are folks who make it, which is
(05:13):
basically everyone Israeli is often add human and like a
lot of tahini. The lebonese may use paprika and maybe
a little bit of olive oil or you know, at
least drizzled upon serving. Palestinians often eat it for breakfast
alongside the earthy fresh herb and spice mix as a tar,
and as it's spread to other cultures around the world,
folks have made hummus with all sorts of ingredients from
(05:35):
other lagoons like fava beans in Egypt or even in
the West with like winter squash like pumpkin or sweet potatoes,
and then all sorts of additions and flavorings from olives
to sabi, to guacamole, to pizza, pizza flavoring, pizza flavorings,
pizza like. I haven't seen it personally. I wouldn't be
surprised if someone put hamas on a pizza somewhere. I
(05:57):
wouldn't either, probably definitely that's happened. This is bringing back
memories for me. Of I think it was a fad. Anyway,
it was really popular a couple of years ago to
make sweet hummus. Like he would use chickpeas and put
chocolate chips in it and it was like a healthy
chocolate chip dip. And I made it and it was good.
But that was a really popular thing for a while. Anyway,
(06:20):
I try not to Oh, who am I kidding? I
don't try not to judge that hard, but um, i'd
try it. Sure, it's pretty good. I'm going to say
it's pretty good. And the reason this was a fad
is because of nutrition. It was perceived as a healthier dessert,
which is what we're talking about now. Hummus nutrition at
its root, it's pretty healthy. It's a good source of protein,
(06:40):
fiber and fallic acid. Britain's National Health Service recommends it
for pregnant women. Once you start adding in stuff though,
like maybe a slice of pizza and then I don't know,
if you hear what you're using to dip with it,
maybe a slice of pizza, then your mileage may vary. Yeah,
depending on how you make it. It's probably either low
(07:01):
in fat or rich in good fats. It's got some
fox late vitamins K and C, plus zinc, iron magnesium.
It's a pretty good substitute for heavier, more processed snacks
and great for adding flavor to sandwiches and wraps without
adding a whole lot of calories. A study published in
the Journal of Nutrition and Food Science is found the
people who eat chickpeas and or hemis have better overall
(07:23):
diet quality and lower rates of obesity and lower rates
of elevated glucose. Hamas eaters are healthier here to hear
folks that being said, like, don't eate a whole tub.
I mean, you know, pay attention to your serving size
as always, friends, But it's pretty good for you, especially
if you serve it with some fresh vege and maybe
some pickles, crackers or breads that are baked instead of fried.
(07:43):
It shows up frequently at our D and D session.
Oh yes, it is believed to be by some an aphrodisiacs.
Anyone surprised. I'm a little surprised, So I even say
it's the Queen of aphrodisiacs, the Queen. It also can
(08:05):
allegedly be a convincing coffee substitute. I have my doubts,
but I would try it. I would try hummus or hummus.
I think, well, some type of like roasted chicken situation.
The face I'm making is not good. But I read
that it can be passable as coffee and that I
should try it. INSI shall, but not currently because we're
(08:29):
podcasting Hummus numbers. Okay, So Hamas has experienced quite a
bit of growth in the US. The U S. Hammas
market was valued at seve million. That's up from five million.
According to estimates, twenty of Americans had hummus in their
(08:51):
fridges that year. But and these numbers are also from
another quarter of Americans had no idea what hamas was really. Yeah,
I had never heard of it. I guess I can
see that I hadn't heard of it until a couple
of years ago, A couple of years mean, in college.
I heard of it in college. Yeah, Yeah. I don't
think that I knew what it was until I was
in college. Yeah, because I was from a small town
(09:14):
and that town is a college town and it has
grown a lot. But when I was there, like it
was news. When the Walmart opened, I remember, oh my gosh,
we want to drive forty five minutes to get to
a store. What news? So there was no hummus, is
what I'm saying. I did not grow up with it either.
The big brand of hummus Sabra in the business, in
(09:34):
the food industry business, it's seen as an incredible success story.
Over the space of eight years, Sabra went from less
than ten percent of the market to over sixty percent,
which is just remarkable growth. And part of the driver
behind this growth was the way the company went about marketing,
(09:54):
because the average American didn't know much about hummus, so
Sabra set out to change that. They kind of at too,
because otherwise who was going to buy their product. One
of their first commercials featured a well to do husband
and wife watching the sunset, drinking wine, eating hummus, laughing
about how they don't have to go to the Mediterranean
because they had all the makings right here and then crash,
(10:18):
Something flies to the window behind them and lands in
their hummus and they look around, what what? And they
storm inside and there's a big what looks to be
high school party happening, and their son appears with something
like a lampshade. I don't know, some kind of stereotypical
party thing happening, And he said, I thought your parents
(10:38):
were in the Mediterranean. YEA, well that's pretty good. That's
pretty good. And then in the two thousands they launched
a taste intervention and this was like you could enter
a friend online who needs an intervention because they don't
know what food is. And it was pretty popular, and
(11:00):
it became the official dip of the NFL and the
two thousand's. And I imagine I didn't find anything saying
this anywhere, but I imagine the popularity of the Mediterranean
diet helped boost sales of hummus and sabrahamas as well. Sure, sure,
lots more emphasis on high protein kind of diets happening
around that time. From two thousand to two thousand and ten,
(11:20):
the United States switched from exporting for chickpeas to just
because of this increased interest in hamas, Wow, and there
is a hummus wrap. There's a rap for every food
these days, there is. Indeed, this one is from two
thousand eight and it currently has about three million views
(11:43):
on YouTube. It's called Hummus calling the rap straight to
the point. Yeah, it's by one a Remy Munisifi, who
is a Virginia songwriter who performs as Habib abdual Habib
and for shaking our head wordlessly because it's a thing
of beauty. It is is he plays to chickpey cans
like bongos. The to the model down so much bread
(12:08):
you think I've had some gone? What's the next chick?
Chick in the pant how about some bread sticks? Hummus
is really popular in Britain too, inn they were going
through twelve thousand tons of hummus a here. British folks
have it in their fridge, which is double the amount
of the rest of Europe. By the way, and um,
(12:29):
this is pretty impressive since grocery stores didn't start stalking
hummus until the nineteen eighties were coming to an end.
There's a lot of think pieces about why it's so
popular in Britain. Oh there really are you and nowadays
people are big fans of hummus. There's a movie appropriately
called Hummus exclamation point the movie. There are books, there
are a podcast. We are one of them. The flavor
(12:52):
variety now includes chocolate and peanut butter. And this is
not just people making it at home. This is like
SAA has you know, Yeah, yeah, these are grocery store
mass produced brands. In summer, recalled thirty cases of hummus
due to possible listeria contamination, but it really didn't slow
(13:14):
down the hummus train too much. And of course hummus
has broken a world record. Of course, the Guinness World
Record for largest dish of hummus was awarded in the
dish made by three cooks in Lebanon weighed twenty three
thousand pounds. That comes out to eight tons of chickpeas
(13:34):
on pounds of olive oil, and two tons each of
lemon juice and tahini. And that's actually kind of an
important historical event that we're going to return to. Oh yeah,
that one comes back. But if you don't have access
to this massive dish of hummus, you can make your
own so easily and cheaply at home. Yeah, all you've
really got to do is get the stuff and blended together.
(13:57):
One of my favorite recipe tinkerers on j Kenji Lopez
alt over It Serious Eats recommends processing the lemon, juice
and garlic together first, though, because the acid of the
lemon will prevent the garlic from producing so much of
the hot, pungent compound Allison, which is that kind of
Bernie flavor. That Bernie flavor is a compound that's only
created in garlic when it is crushed or chopped and
(14:19):
its cell walls are disrupted, so the acid and the
lemon stops that enzyme responsible for making it happen. Anyway,
beyond that, there are a lot of tips and tricks
for hommus, making dried chickpeas versus canned, how to remove
some of the chickpea skins for optimum smoothness, and uh yeah,
lots of recipes online for different styles. Google around, find
what you like. Yeah, And that's all so fun about
(14:40):
it is you can customize it and it is one
of my go too's. It is typically eaten more as
a snack or an advertiser in the United States, but
in places like the Middle East or in the Mediterranean.
It is much more than that, and it has been
for some time, and we'll get into the history, but
first we're gonna pause for a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes,
(15:13):
thank you. Homas has probably been around a long time
and probably was invented in several different places independently. It's
the source of much modern day tension. But we do
know a bit more about chickpeas, even if we don't
know about when the first human to enjoy some hummus. Briefly,
(15:33):
chickpeas probably originated in Asia and were cultivated as far
back as seven thousand years ago. They were especially popular
in India and the Mediterranean. The first recorded recipe for
hubmas maybe depending on your definition, appeared in cookbooks out
of Egypt and Syria from the thirteenth century. However, the
(15:54):
recipe out of Syria didn't include tahini, so some historians
dismiss it as not hummus. However, the first recorded recipe
for tahini does also come out of thirteenth century Arabic cookbooks.
Maybe they were combined, maybe they weren't. Maybe still, some
(16:15):
historians say that without the limit and garlic. The Egyptian
recipe doesn't count either. Potentially, Hummus was mentioned earlier in
the Book of Ruth, which is the final section of
the Hebrew Bible, quote, come hither and eat of the
bread and dip thy morsel in the hummets. However, and
these are modern times, the Hebrew word hummets means vinegar,
(16:37):
which would not be as tasty or particularly hospitable, which
is like the point of the passage, so there's still
some doubt, still some doubt. Greece, also, like Silly, claimed
to hummus. They had a pretty close trading relationship with Egypt,
so it's likely their traders bought hummas back from Egypt
and they started making it in their own country. If
our definition of hummus does call for those four and
(17:00):
edience Chickpea's limon, garlic, and tahini, then the first written
record doesn't come along until eighteen century out of Damascus, Syria. However,
since they were so close to hummus, if you define
it as needing all of these things in those thirteenth
century recipes, and the ingredients were all around for well
over a thousand years, someone probably came up with the
(17:21):
idea to combine all of those things before this. Yeah,
maybe maybe they just didn't write it down. Yeah, maybe
it was so commonplace people that even consider like, yeah,
that's just what you do. That's obvious. So we don't
need to write that down. We're too busy eating it
to talk about it. Whatever the case. By nineteen fifties Israel,
hummus was an everyday food item, due in part to
(17:43):
the fact that the Israeli Army served it in their
mess halls. It would go on become this sort of hip,
sort of masculine food in that country, and an entire
subculture developed around it. Also in the nineteen fifties we
got the first known written mentions of hummus in English
by Elizabeth David, a British cookery writer cookery just meaning
(18:04):
food writer, but in the most British way possible. Yeah,
she talked about it in her nineteen fifty book Mediterranean
Food and Hamas is kind of associated with hippies, but
I can't find strong evidence that it was kicking around
in the United States until like the late seventies. I
think that certainly it would have been accepted by those
counterculture of vegetarian communities but I think it came to
the English speaking world a little bit later than things
(18:26):
like Tofu and perhaps through like increased tourism to the
Mediterranean in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, I wonder if that
hippie connotation has more to do with Now it's seen
as a very vegetarian kind of vegan thing that you
can eat instead of animal protein, right, which fits in
with the whole movement of the time, But right, right interesting.
(18:49):
Rabbi Yehuda Pearl launched Sabra in nineteen eighties six. PepsiCo
would purchase half of it in two thousand six to
co run it with stra House, and they had purchased
Stacy's Pea chips, and they saw the combo of sober
with these Pia chips as the premium chip and dip situation.
(19:12):
I have never really considered it as chip and dip,
but I suppose yeah, and especially by like I think
the early two thousand's were peak chip and dip, peak
chip and dip. Oh man, I have a very strong
memory of watching in high school watching I Know what
you did last summer and eating an entire tub of
(19:35):
French onion dip with Lads chips and I really had
no concerns about my health back then. You were just
living the life. Also, I love so much that you
can trace every horror movie, or track every horror movie
to what you were eating at the time. I do
have very strong horror movie and food memories. I could
do an entire series on it. I remember what I
(19:57):
ate this when I was watching this movie. Anyway, we
should make a vlog, can we We're going to look
into that later. But now we have about arrived at
the source of tension in the Middle East that Hummus
kind of causes or as a part of that we
mentioned at the top. Yes, all this all this modern
(20:17):
history of Hamas, but first we're going to take one
more quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. This brings
us to two thousand eight and the beginning of the
(20:38):
Hummus Wars. The two main players in this war are
Lebanon and Israel, and the fight is over which country
can lay claim to inventing mus Lebanon believes that Hamas
is their invention and their cultural heritage, and they blame
Israel for profiting off of Hummus. Monetarily, but also culturally
(21:00):
when it comes to world exposure, and this is because
of how hummus is marketed throughout most of the West
as an Israeli food. So Lebanon went to the EU,
the European Union, demanding that they formally recognized hummus as Lebanese,
giving it protected status similar to Champagne in France. The
(21:20):
EU turned their petition down. This whole campaign was called
hands off our dishes. By the way, enter Lebanon's first
record breaking giant plate of hummus in two thousand nine.
It was about pounds, that's about two thousands of hummus.
It was La Hummus, and the idea was the brainchild
(21:41):
of Lebanon's Minister of Tourism Fati about He said, I
thought the best way to tell the world that the
hummus is Lebanese is to break the Guinness Book of Records.
So yes, this was a strategic move in the hummus wars.
And yes, I said first first record breaking giant plate
of humus, because Israel countered with their own record breaking
(22:03):
hummus served not just in a dish, but a satellite dish.
And this was eight thousand nine hundred and ninety three
pounds of hammas, or about four thousand and seventy nine
down but not out. Lebanon fired back in with the
current record holder. The event was called Hummus and tabula
(22:25):
are one dent. Lebanese I like it straight to the point,
and Israeli food journal is called hummus a symbol of
all the tension in the Middle East. Palestine got into
the fray to claiming that hummus is their tradition. When
visiting Palestine has been compared to getting pizza in Rome.
(22:45):
So that's one of the first things you do is
find a good hummas restaurant, and a Palestine is a
tradition to make it early and have it with your
family on Fridays. One restaurant owner in Palestine says the
key ingredient that makes the difference in types of hummus
is nafs, the Arabic word for soul. Food historian Charles
Perry thinks that Beiru is a solid second when it
(23:08):
comes to the question of who invented Thomas, but first,
he thinks, goes to Damascus, Syria, and the reason has
to do with the red clay bowl that hummus is
traditionally served in as this raised edge to facilitate the
whipping of chickpeas in hummus, and to him, this means
that hummus was a more recent invention and one invented
(23:29):
in a city Damascus was the biggest city in the region.
If he's right, this means we would have to revise
up Hummas's invention to the eighteenth century, which is a
way later than that first recipe that was pretty close
that we mentioned. Or in Rosenfield, director of Hummus the Movie,
thinks we need to call an end to the Hummus
(23:49):
war quote Hummus is a Middle Eastern food claimed by
all and owned by none. As of Israeli dancer and
choreographer HELLEL. Cogan debuted this highly sardonic and farcical play
about modern dance and Israel Palestine relations and Hemis and
it's called We Love Arabs. I had the chance to
(24:12):
see it at Emery's Exposed Festival back in It's this
two man show about this ignorant and egotistical Israeli director
hiring a Palestinian dancer and choreographing this piece that the
director thinks is like all like edgy and its diversity
and inclusion, but it is such a mess. And the
show ends spoiler alert with these two men bonding over hummus,
(24:34):
like kind of despite themselves, and they like literally spread
hummus on each other's faces. It's it's held up as
like the possible glue between their cultures. That's so sweet,
it really was. It's very hopeful, very An MPR article
I read kind of touches on a similar thing. It
(24:54):
describes the tension surrounding hummus in the Middle East, and
one person they interviewed from Israel said being Palestinian hummus
was political because it's acknowledging its existence. And the article
goes on to describe the fraud journey to a refugee
camp in Israel, one thousand people using the same road.
Traffic is awful. There's a real fear that you might
(25:16):
be shot or that a bomb will go off. But
along the road food venders pop up and some of
them sell hummus. Another person interviewed in this article set
of the journey, suddenly you're not a human being. The
kitchen of the checkpoint is really crucial to connect people
together as human beings, and another person said hummus and falafel.
(25:36):
Food is maybe the only thing that gets people to
sit together. And one thing that everyone does seem to
agree on is that fresh made humus is best and
that the ingredients that supermarket brands add are not ideal. Nope, blasphemous.
Even in a BBC article Israeli Tour Guide. No, I'm yes,
Steve said that's not hummus. There should be a sign
(25:58):
on that hem us the way there's a sign on
kosher shrimp. It should be labeled fake hummus. There should
be an international law opinions. I love it. Still, it
will take more than a hummus to work through this
tension in the Middle East, but the shared experience, history
and inheritance of a food is a lovely place to start. Yeah.
(26:18):
I wasn't expecting hummus to to take you there to
get so political, but yeah it did. It's beautiful, fraught
with tension very much, and too Heini and to Uni.
Tension into UNI should be a play as well. It
rights itself. So this is our hummus episode and it
(26:43):
brings us to listener mail. Yeah it's a firework. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and we won't have a listener mail in every episode now.
But but all of these studio episodes, we're gonna, you know,
because guys send us lovely things about your lives and stuff,
and we want to read them. Yes, and MICHAELA sent
(27:06):
does a very lovely thing about our lives and stuff.
She wrote, I grew up just forty five minutes from Austin, Minnesota,
and frequented the Spam Museum often. We had to expose
my out of state brothers in law to the wackiness
that is spam. Much like the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania,
which ironically I now live forty five minutes from, is
to the Hershey Chocolate Plant, awesome, Minnesota is to all
(27:29):
things spam. It also pays a nod to Battle Creek,
Michigan and the homage they pay to Kellogg's. The museum
is a delightfully playful place where you can find all
the history of spam and how it aided the war
efforts which you highlighted in your episode. You can hear
and see accounts and pictures of the soldiers experience and
to an extent, their frustration with only having spam to
(27:51):
eat at various times, as well as play a game
where you dressed up like a factory worker and try
to package play cans of spam, placing a bean bag
into a plastic spam can, topping it with a lid,
and putting a stretchy fabric sleeve around the camp, and
then comparing how many cans of spam the factor was
(28:12):
able to fill in the time that it took you
to fill and label six of your play cans. You
can also find yourself in the lobby where there is
an entire wall of cans of spam to give you
a visual of how many cans are produced in a
given amount of time. The museum holds fond memories for me,
and I strongly encourage anyone to visit it if that
is the kind of sight seeing you like to do.
(28:33):
I also underwrite to you about an experience I had
with a McDonald's when my husband and I traveled to
Norway last May. We had a four hour drive from
the airport to our destination and it was evening before
we had left the States. We had printed Google Map
instructions on how to get to our destination because we
were not sure if our GPS on our phones would
work how we want it. Before we left for Norway.
(28:54):
We made the decision then order to fully experience the culture.
We didn't want to eat any fast food restauran, runts,
or chains. We were hoping to be able to find
something along our route to stop for supper. Boy, were
we in for a rude awakening. While we had our
Google Map instructions, we didn't have any other way to
know how to get back to our route if we
(29:15):
were to stray from our instructions. Being the somewhat naive
American tours we were, we didn't realize that Norway would
not be like the US, and that there would be
places to turn off just off the highway. We had
gone about three hours, which just about a p m
at this point, and we still had not found a
place to eat. We were so hungry. We finally said
that the next thing we saw that would possibly have food,
(29:37):
even if it was a gas station, we would stop
and get something. About ten minutes later, we saw it,
the shining lights of those golden arches. We started laughing
at the thought of traveling nine hours across the ocean
just to have our first meal. The McDonald's we went in.
I was determined to get anything that wasn't something I
could get at an American McDonald's, as I knew previously
(29:59):
that many items would change depending on the country in
which it was located. I saw a chicken sandwich that
was not described as it was in the States and
decided that that was what I would order. I was
pleasantly surprised to find out it was nothing like the
chicken sandwiches here in the States. It was very flavorful,
and the sauce they had on it actually made it
taste more like a Taco Bell taco than a chicken sandwich.
It was certainly not what we expected from our trip
(30:21):
to Norway, but it sure provided a great memory cautionary
tail everyone. You can't just turn off Nope, Nope, that's
an American thing. Or actually, I don't know. I mean,
have you seen that in other places? Uh? Usually you can,
but it is maybe not as close right off the road.
(30:42):
The darkest experience I have with this was in Australia,
where I remember seeing a sign that said next Donney
which is toilet eight kilometers. Oh heck, I was out
in the middle of nowhere. Though. It's always worth investigating.
But this is a very funny story. Definitely something I
would have done. Oh whatever, Yeah, nope, nope, nope, not necessarily,
(31:07):
Nelson wrote, I'm from Honduras, where pregnant women are known
to crave green, unripe mangoes with salt, human black pepper,
a little lime juice, and sometimes hot sauce. This is
a pretty typical craving for Latin American countries. There are
countless stories of husbands being woken up at midnight because
of this craving. I love how specific that is. Yeah, yeah, old,
(31:29):
Because we just did our our pickles episode, and yeah,
we had mentioned in that that we wanted to hear
the steer type of what pregnant women craving out the countries,
because in the US it's pickles and ice cream that
combination specifically. Yes, it's the source of many jokes. I've
seen it in all kinds of movies. I love this
one because it is so specific. But salt human up,
(31:54):
I mean, but green mangoes with hot sauce. I mean
that sounds delicious. It does. I don't want to try it. Yeah,
I absolutely want to try it. If there are any
other pregnant food grapings from around the world, please send
those in please keep telling us about the Spam Museum
because it sounds awesome. Oh yeah, yeah, we've gotten two
postcards from you from it so far, and oh it
(32:14):
is always so delightful. Thank you. We've got spam chaps
to Oh yeah, just not spam flavored, no, just spam labeled.
It's right. I think it's vanilla. I haven't put mine
on yet. I have it's lovely. Okay, I'm a big
chap stick of fishonado. But we would love to hear
about any of those things or anything else, especially where
(32:35):
we should go to next, and you can send those
emails to hello at savor pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook at savor pod. We hope to hear from you.
Thank you as always to our super producer Dylan Fagan.
Thank you to you for listening, and we hope that
lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm Anny Rees and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're talking about hummus. Yes, hummus.
I love some hummus. Do you like hummas? Oh? I
love a hummus. It has ruined many, by many, I
mean too first dates for me. What did you do?
Because I carry with me always ate many toothbrush and
(00:30):
a many toothpaste. Okay, but I always lose it, like
it's on my person now, and I guarantee you if
I tried to find it, I wouldn't be able to
find it until it was too late, all right. So
I'd had some hummus and that was too embarrassed to
admit because it's first date. I got really bad breath, friend,
and I kind of want to be away from you, yeah,
like I don't want to kiss you or like be
(00:51):
up on you. Yeah. And it turned into a whole
argument one time, it turned into a whole scene. I'm
sorry it was, Okay, I think that's a clear sign.
Wasn't meant to be? Yeah, no, if you can't get
over the hammis breath. Then and then once I was
at a fancy restaurant on a date and I was
leaping from the restaurant going straight to the airport, going
(01:13):
out of the country or something, and I had in
my purse some hummus had gone bad at a whole
mold thing happening, and I wanted to throw it away
in a public garbage can and not in my home.
And it turns out I couldn't find a public guards
can anywhere, and so you were trying to board a
plane with a jar of no the valet he saw
(01:36):
me looking around trying to find a trash can, and
it became a scene. Everyone came out and wanted to
know what hummus was, Why, what was I just carrying
it around? Where was I going? But eventually one of
the waiters came and he found a place to throw
it away from me. Well, that's very good. I can't
(01:57):
say that I've ever had such an exciting moment in
my life that was hummis based. But while we were
in Asheville recently, a bunch of the people that we
were talking to mentioned there's a very large and successful
hommis brand, yes called Rus and one of the most
Ashville things we heard, there's this Hummus brand as a
(02:19):
tesla that they drive around that's painted decoration, been wrapped. Yeah,
as one of their jars of hummus. So big yellow
Tesla Hummus vehicle, which right is about the most Nashville
thing we could possibly imagine it was, And we thought
we would include a quote from food critic Ashville food
(02:39):
critic McKenzie Lunsford about this, this tesla and the people
behind Roots Hummus. The guy who started making Hummus routs
Humus and a closet and in the course of twelve
years gone from two square feet to twenty seven thousand
square feet warehouse with like this is so Asheville. But
(03:03):
they're building an observation deck so you can walk and
watch them make the hummus, you know, and yeah, it's
three million dollar facility. You know, they're starting to build
their shipping line there. You know, they have the tesla
that's painted yellow and they drive to you know, solar
expos and give away little bits of hummus. That's a
(03:25):
pretty cool success story, absolutely, and coming off of that,
not necessarily off of your personal tragedies, we wanted to
do this episode on Hummus, which brings us to our question, Hummus,
what is it? Well, Hummus is a spread or dip
that's made from cooked period chickpeas also called garbanzo beans,
(03:49):
plus a number of seasonings. Lemon, juice, fresh garlic, salt,
and tahini are the basics. Yeah, and the word hummus
comes from the Arabic word meaning chickpea, which makes sense
for that reason, though in the Middle East it's called
hamas pizzahini, which is chickpi with tahini, because you're not
just going to say chick right, not the same thing,
(04:10):
And we will have to do a whole episode on
chickpeas someday, but in the meanwhile, tahini. Tahini is a
seed butter sort of like almond butter, but made with
sesame seeds, usually which have been a hold and toasted
before being ground into a smooth saucer or paste. M
And so the basic result when you combine those chickpeas
(04:30):
and the tahini and the lemon and garlic and salt
is a spread that's a savory and a little bit tangy,
with a sort of sweet, earthy kind of undertone. And
when it is made well, it is just dreamy, smooth
and light on the tongue so dreamy that sounds like
how in my diary are described my crush dreamy, smooth
(04:52):
and light on the tongue. But who's strangely enough, you
wouldn't want to have tried to kiss after eating hamis.
It's a paradox, the Thomas paradox. It's a dish made
throughout the Middle East and the southern and western areas
of the Mediterranean, and there are as many recipes for
hummas as there are folks who make it, which is
(05:13):
basically everyone Israeli is often add human and like a
lot of tahini. The lebonese may use paprika and maybe
a little bit of olive oil or you know, at
least drizzled upon serving. Palestinians often eat it for breakfast
alongside the earthy fresh herb and spice mix as a tar,
and as it's spread to other cultures around the world,
folks have made hummus with all sorts of ingredients from
(05:35):
other lagoons like fava beans in Egypt or even in
the West with like winter squash like pumpkin or sweet potatoes,
and then all sorts of additions and flavorings from olives
to sabi, to guacamole, to pizza, pizza flavoring, pizza flavorings,
pizza like. I haven't seen it personally. I wouldn't be
surprised if someone put hamas on a pizza somewhere. I
(05:57):
wouldn't either, probably definitely that's happened. This is bringing back
memories for me. Of I think it was a fad. Anyway,
it was really popular a couple of years ago to
make sweet hummus. Like he would use chickpeas and put
chocolate chips in it and it was like a healthy
chocolate chip dip. And I made it and it was good.
But that was a really popular thing for a while. Anyway,
(06:20):
I try not to Oh, who am I kidding? I
don't try not to judge that hard, but um, i'd
try it. Sure, it's pretty good. I'm going to say
it's pretty good. And the reason this was a fad
is because of nutrition. It was perceived as a healthier dessert,
which is what we're talking about now. Hummus nutrition at
its root, it's pretty healthy. It's a good source of protein,
(06:40):
fiber and fallic acid. Britain's National Health Service recommends it
for pregnant women. Once you start adding in stuff though,
like maybe a slice of pizza and then I don't know,
if you hear what you're using to dip with it,
maybe a slice of pizza, then your mileage may vary. Yeah,
depending on how you make it. It's probably either low
(07:01):
in fat or rich in good fats. It's got some
fox late vitamins K and C, plus zinc, iron magnesium.
It's a pretty good substitute for heavier, more processed snacks
and great for adding flavor to sandwiches and wraps without
adding a whole lot of calories. A study published in
the Journal of Nutrition and Food Science is found the
people who eat chickpeas and or hemis have better overall
(07:23):
diet quality and lower rates of obesity and lower rates
of elevated glucose. Hamas eaters are healthier here to hear
folks that being said, like, don't eate a whole tub.
I mean, you know, pay attention to your serving size
as always, friends, But it's pretty good for you, especially
if you serve it with some fresh vege and maybe
some pickles, crackers or breads that are baked instead of fried.
(07:43):
It shows up frequently at our D and D session.
Oh yes, it is believed to be by some an aphrodisiacs.
Anyone surprised. I'm a little surprised, So I even say
it's the Queen of aphrodisiacs, the Queen. It also can
(08:05):
allegedly be a convincing coffee substitute. I have my doubts,
but I would try it. I would try hummus or hummus.
I think, well, some type of like roasted chicken situation.
The face I'm making is not good. But I read
that it can be passable as coffee and that I
should try it. INSI shall, but not currently because we're
(08:29):
podcasting Hummus numbers. Okay, So Hamas has experienced quite a
bit of growth in the US. The U S. Hammas
market was valued at seve million. That's up from five million.
According to estimates, twenty of Americans had hummus in their
(08:51):
fridges that year. But and these numbers are also from
another quarter of Americans had no idea what hamas was really. Yeah,
I had never heard of it. I guess I can
see that I hadn't heard of it until a couple
of years ago, A couple of years mean, in college.
I heard of it in college. Yeah, Yeah. I don't
think that I knew what it was until I was
in college. Yeah, because I was from a small town
(09:14):
and that town is a college town and it has
grown a lot. But when I was there, like it
was news. When the Walmart opened, I remember, oh my gosh,
we want to drive forty five minutes to get to
a store. What news? So there was no hummus, is
what I'm saying. I did not grow up with it either.
The big brand of hummus Sabra in the business, in
(09:34):
the food industry business, it's seen as an incredible success story.
Over the space of eight years, Sabra went from less
than ten percent of the market to over sixty percent,
which is just remarkable growth. And part of the driver
behind this growth was the way the company went about marketing,
(09:54):
because the average American didn't know much about hummus, so
Sabra set out to change that. They kind of at too,
because otherwise who was going to buy their product. One
of their first commercials featured a well to do husband
and wife watching the sunset, drinking wine, eating hummus, laughing
about how they don't have to go to the Mediterranean
because they had all the makings right here and then crash,
(10:18):
Something flies to the window behind them and lands in
their hummus and they look around, what what? And they
storm inside and there's a big what looks to be
high school party happening, and their son appears with something
like a lampshade. I don't know, some kind of stereotypical
party thing happening, And he said, I thought your parents
(10:38):
were in the Mediterranean. YEA, well that's pretty good. That's
pretty good. And then in the two thousands they launched
a taste intervention and this was like you could enter
a friend online who needs an intervention because they don't
know what food is. And it was pretty popular, and
(11:00):
it became the official dip of the NFL and the
two thousand's. And I imagine I didn't find anything saying
this anywhere, but I imagine the popularity of the Mediterranean
diet helped boost sales of hummus and sabrahamas as well. Sure, sure,
lots more emphasis on high protein kind of diets happening
around that time. From two thousand to two thousand and ten,
(11:20):
the United States switched from exporting for chickpeas to just
because of this increased interest in hamas, Wow, and there
is a hummus wrap. There's a rap for every food
these days, there is. Indeed, this one is from two
thousand eight and it currently has about three million views
(11:43):
on YouTube. It's called Hummus calling the rap straight to
the point. Yeah, it's by one a Remy Munisifi, who
is a Virginia songwriter who performs as Habib abdual Habib
and for shaking our head wordlessly because it's a thing
of beauty. It is is he plays to chickpey cans
like bongos. The to the model down so much bread
(12:08):
you think I've had some gone? What's the next chick?
Chick in the pant how about some bread sticks? Hummus
is really popular in Britain too, inn they were going
through twelve thousand tons of hummus a here. British folks
have it in their fridge, which is double the amount
of the rest of Europe. By the way, and um,
(12:29):
this is pretty impressive since grocery stores didn't start stalking
hummus until the nineteen eighties were coming to an end.
There's a lot of think pieces about why it's so
popular in Britain. Oh there really are you and nowadays
people are big fans of hummus. There's a movie appropriately
called Hummus exclamation point the movie. There are books, there
are a podcast. We are one of them. The flavor
(12:52):
variety now includes chocolate and peanut butter. And this is
not just people making it at home. This is like
SAA has you know, Yeah, yeah, these are grocery store
mass produced brands. In summer, recalled thirty cases of hummus
due to possible listeria contamination, but it really didn't slow
(13:14):
down the hummus train too much. And of course hummus
has broken a world record. Of course, the Guinness World
Record for largest dish of hummus was awarded in the
dish made by three cooks in Lebanon weighed twenty three
thousand pounds. That comes out to eight tons of chickpeas
(13:34):
on pounds of olive oil, and two tons each of
lemon juice and tahini. And that's actually kind of an
important historical event that we're going to return to. Oh yeah,
that one comes back. But if you don't have access
to this massive dish of hummus, you can make your
own so easily and cheaply at home. Yeah, all you've
really got to do is get the stuff and blended together.
(13:57):
One of my favorite recipe tinkerers on j Kenji Lopez
alt over It Serious Eats recommends processing the lemon, juice
and garlic together first, though, because the acid of the
lemon will prevent the garlic from producing so much of
the hot, pungent compound Allison, which is that kind of
Bernie flavor. That Bernie flavor is a compound that's only
created in garlic when it is crushed or chopped and
(14:19):
its cell walls are disrupted, so the acid and the
lemon stops that enzyme responsible for making it happen. Anyway,
beyond that, there are a lot of tips and tricks
for hommus, making dried chickpeas versus canned, how to remove
some of the chickpea skins for optimum smoothness, and uh yeah,
lots of recipes online for different styles. Google around, find
what you like. Yeah, And that's all so fun about
(14:40):
it is you can customize it and it is one
of my go too's. It is typically eaten more as
a snack or an advertiser in the United States, but
in places like the Middle East or in the Mediterranean.
It is much more than that, and it has been
for some time, and we'll get into the history, but
first we're gonna pause for a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes,
(15:13):
thank you. Homas has probably been around a long time
and probably was invented in several different places independently. It's
the source of much modern day tension. But we do
know a bit more about chickpeas, even if we don't
know about when the first human to enjoy some hummus. Briefly,
(15:33):
chickpeas probably originated in Asia and were cultivated as far
back as seven thousand years ago. They were especially popular
in India and the Mediterranean. The first recorded recipe for
hubmas maybe depending on your definition, appeared in cookbooks out
of Egypt and Syria from the thirteenth century. However, the
(15:54):
recipe out of Syria didn't include tahini, so some historians
dismiss it as not hummus. However, the first recorded recipe
for tahini does also come out of thirteenth century Arabic cookbooks.
Maybe they were combined, maybe they weren't. Maybe still, some
(16:15):
historians say that without the limit and garlic. The Egyptian
recipe doesn't count either. Potentially, Hummus was mentioned earlier in
the Book of Ruth, which is the final section of
the Hebrew Bible, quote, come hither and eat of the
bread and dip thy morsel in the hummets. However, and
these are modern times, the Hebrew word hummets means vinegar,
(16:37):
which would not be as tasty or particularly hospitable, which
is like the point of the passage, so there's still
some doubt, still some doubt. Greece, also, like Silly, claimed
to hummus. They had a pretty close trading relationship with Egypt,
so it's likely their traders bought hummas back from Egypt
and they started making it in their own country. If
our definition of hummus does call for those four and
(17:00):
edience Chickpea's limon, garlic, and tahini, then the first written
record doesn't come along until eighteen century out of Damascus, Syria. However,
since they were so close to hummus, if you define
it as needing all of these things in those thirteenth
century recipes, and the ingredients were all around for well
over a thousand years, someone probably came up with the
(17:21):
idea to combine all of those things before this. Yeah,
maybe maybe they just didn't write it down. Yeah, maybe
it was so commonplace people that even consider like, yeah,
that's just what you do. That's obvious. So we don't
need to write that down. We're too busy eating it
to talk about it. Whatever the case. By nineteen fifties Israel,
hummus was an everyday food item, due in part to
(17:43):
the fact that the Israeli Army served it in their
mess halls. It would go on become this sort of hip,
sort of masculine food in that country, and an entire
subculture developed around it. Also in the nineteen fifties we
got the first known written mentions of hummus in English
by Elizabeth David, a British cookery writer cookery just meaning
(18:04):
food writer, but in the most British way possible. Yeah,
she talked about it in her nineteen fifty book Mediterranean
Food and Hamas is kind of associated with hippies, but
I can't find strong evidence that it was kicking around
in the United States until like the late seventies. I
think that certainly it would have been accepted by those
counterculture of vegetarian communities but I think it came to
the English speaking world a little bit later than things
(18:26):
like Tofu and perhaps through like increased tourism to the
Mediterranean in the nineteen seventies. Yeah, I wonder if that
hippie connotation has more to do with Now it's seen
as a very vegetarian kind of vegan thing that you
can eat instead of animal protein, right, which fits in
with the whole movement of the time, But right, right interesting.
(18:49):
Rabbi Yehuda Pearl launched Sabra in nineteen eighties six. PepsiCo
would purchase half of it in two thousand six to
co run it with stra House, and they had purchased
Stacy's Pea chips, and they saw the combo of sober
with these Pia chips as the premium chip and dip situation.
(19:12):
I have never really considered it as chip and dip,
but I suppose yeah, and especially by like I think
the early two thousand's were peak chip and dip, peak
chip and dip. Oh man, I have a very strong
memory of watching in high school watching I Know what
you did last summer and eating an entire tub of
(19:35):
French onion dip with Lads chips and I really had
no concerns about my health back then. You were just
living the life. Also, I love so much that you
can trace every horror movie, or track every horror movie
to what you were eating at the time. I do
have very strong horror movie and food memories. I could
do an entire series on it. I remember what I
(19:57):
ate this when I was watching this movie. Anyway, we
should make a vlog, can we We're going to look
into that later. But now we have about arrived at
the source of tension in the Middle East that Hummus
kind of causes or as a part of that we
mentioned at the top. Yes, all this all this modern
(20:17):
history of Hamas, but first we're going to take one
more quick break for a word from our sponsor, and
we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. This brings
us to two thousand eight and the beginning of the
(20:38):
Hummus Wars. The two main players in this war are
Lebanon and Israel, and the fight is over which country
can lay claim to inventing mus Lebanon believes that Hamas
is their invention and their cultural heritage, and they blame
Israel for profiting off of Hummus. Monetarily, but also culturally
(21:00):
when it comes to world exposure, and this is because
of how hummus is marketed throughout most of the West
as an Israeli food. So Lebanon went to the EU,
the European Union, demanding that they formally recognized hummus as Lebanese,
giving it protected status similar to Champagne in France. The
(21:20):
EU turned their petition down. This whole campaign was called
hands off our dishes. By the way, enter Lebanon's first
record breaking giant plate of hummus in two thousand nine.
It was about pounds, that's about two thousands of hummus.
It was La Hummus, and the idea was the brainchild
(21:41):
of Lebanon's Minister of Tourism Fati about He said, I
thought the best way to tell the world that the
hummus is Lebanese is to break the Guinness Book of Records.
So yes, this was a strategic move in the hummus wars.
And yes, I said first first record breaking giant plate
of humus, because Israel countered with their own record breaking
(22:03):
hummus served not just in a dish, but a satellite dish.
And this was eight thousand nine hundred and ninety three
pounds of hammas, or about four thousand and seventy nine
down but not out. Lebanon fired back in with the
current record holder. The event was called Hummus and tabula
(22:25):
are one dent. Lebanese I like it straight to the point,
and Israeli food journal is called hummus a symbol of
all the tension in the Middle East. Palestine got into
the fray to claiming that hummus is their tradition. When
visiting Palestine has been compared to getting pizza in Rome.
(22:45):
So that's one of the first things you do is
find a good hummas restaurant, and a Palestine is a
tradition to make it early and have it with your
family on Fridays. One restaurant owner in Palestine says the
key ingredient that makes the difference in types of hummus
is nafs, the Arabic word for soul. Food historian Charles
Perry thinks that Beiru is a solid second when it
(23:08):
comes to the question of who invented Thomas, but first,
he thinks, goes to Damascus, Syria, and the reason has
to do with the red clay bowl that hummus is
traditionally served in as this raised edge to facilitate the
whipping of chickpeas in hummus, and to him, this means
that hummus was a more recent invention and one invented
(23:29):
in a city Damascus was the biggest city in the region.
If he's right, this means we would have to revise
up Hummas's invention to the eighteenth century, which is a
way later than that first recipe that was pretty close
that we mentioned. Or in Rosenfield, director of Hummus the Movie,
thinks we need to call an end to the Hummus
(23:49):
war quote Hummus is a Middle Eastern food claimed by
all and owned by none. As of Israeli dancer and
choreographer HELLEL. Cogan debuted this highly sardonic and farcical play
about modern dance and Israel Palestine relations and Hemis and
it's called We Love Arabs. I had the chance to
(24:12):
see it at Emery's Exposed Festival back in It's this
two man show about this ignorant and egotistical Israeli director
hiring a Palestinian dancer and choreographing this piece that the
director thinks is like all like edgy and its diversity
and inclusion, but it is such a mess. And the
show ends spoiler alert with these two men bonding over hummus,
(24:34):
like kind of despite themselves, and they like literally spread
hummus on each other's faces. It's it's held up as
like the possible glue between their cultures. That's so sweet,
it really was. It's very hopeful, very An MPR article
I read kind of touches on a similar thing. It
(24:54):
describes the tension surrounding hummus in the Middle East, and
one person they interviewed from Israel said being Palestinian hummus
was political because it's acknowledging its existence. And the article
goes on to describe the fraud journey to a refugee
camp in Israel, one thousand people using the same road.
Traffic is awful. There's a real fear that you might
(25:16):
be shot or that a bomb will go off. But
along the road food venders pop up and some of
them sell hummus. Another person interviewed in this article set
of the journey, suddenly you're not a human being. The
kitchen of the checkpoint is really crucial to connect people
together as human beings, and another person said hummus and falafel.
(25:36):
Food is maybe the only thing that gets people to
sit together. And one thing that everyone does seem to
agree on is that fresh made humus is best and
that the ingredients that supermarket brands add are not ideal. Nope, blasphemous.
Even in a BBC article Israeli Tour Guide. No, I'm yes,
Steve said that's not hummus. There should be a sign
(25:58):
on that hem us the way there's a sign on
kosher shrimp. It should be labeled fake hummus. There should
be an international law opinions. I love it. Still, it
will take more than a hummus to work through this
tension in the Middle East, but the shared experience, history
and inheritance of a food is a lovely place to start. Yeah.
(26:18):
I wasn't expecting hummus to to take you there to
get so political, but yeah it did. It's beautiful, fraught
with tension very much, and too Heini and to Uni.
Tension into UNI should be a play as well. It
rights itself. So this is our hummus episode and it
(26:43):
brings us to listener mail. Yeah it's a firework. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and we won't have a listener mail in every episode now.
But but all of these studio episodes, we're gonna, you know,
because guys send us lovely things about your lives and stuff,
and we want to read them. Yes, and MICHAELA sent
(27:06):
does a very lovely thing about our lives and stuff.
She wrote, I grew up just forty five minutes from Austin, Minnesota,
and frequented the Spam Museum often. We had to expose
my out of state brothers in law to the wackiness
that is spam. Much like the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania,
which ironically I now live forty five minutes from, is
to the Hershey Chocolate Plant, awesome, Minnesota is to all
(27:29):
things spam. It also pays a nod to Battle Creek,
Michigan and the homage they pay to Kellogg's. The museum
is a delightfully playful place where you can find all
the history of spam and how it aided the war
efforts which you highlighted in your episode. You can hear
and see accounts and pictures of the soldiers experience and
to an extent, their frustration with only having spam to
(27:51):
eat at various times, as well as play a game
where you dressed up like a factory worker and try
to package play cans of spam, placing a bean bag
into a plastic spam can, topping it with a lid,
and putting a stretchy fabric sleeve around the camp, and
then comparing how many cans of spam the factor was
(28:12):
able to fill in the time that it took you
to fill and label six of your play cans. You
can also find yourself in the lobby where there is
an entire wall of cans of spam to give you
a visual of how many cans are produced in a
given amount of time. The museum holds fond memories for me,
and I strongly encourage anyone to visit it if that
is the kind of sight seeing you like to do.
(28:33):
I also underwrite to you about an experience I had
with a McDonald's when my husband and I traveled to
Norway last May. We had a four hour drive from
the airport to our destination and it was evening before
we had left the States. We had printed Google Map
instructions on how to get to our destination because we
were not sure if our GPS on our phones would
work how we want it. Before we left for Norway.
(28:54):
We made the decision then order to fully experience the culture.
We didn't want to eat any fast food restauran, runts,
or chains. We were hoping to be able to find
something along our route to stop for supper. Boy, were
we in for a rude awakening. While we had our
Google Map instructions, we didn't have any other way to
know how to get back to our route if we
(29:15):
were to stray from our instructions. Being the somewhat naive
American tours we were, we didn't realize that Norway would
not be like the US, and that there would be
places to turn off just off the highway. We had
gone about three hours, which just about a p m
at this point, and we still had not found a
place to eat. We were so hungry. We finally said
that the next thing we saw that would possibly have food,
(29:37):
even if it was a gas station, we would stop
and get something. About ten minutes later, we saw it,
the shining lights of those golden arches. We started laughing
at the thought of traveling nine hours across the ocean
just to have our first meal. The McDonald's we went in.
I was determined to get anything that wasn't something I
could get at an American McDonald's, as I knew previously
(29:59):
that many items would change depending on the country in
which it was located. I saw a chicken sandwich that
was not described as it was in the States and
decided that that was what I would order. I was
pleasantly surprised to find out it was nothing like the
chicken sandwiches here in the States. It was very flavorful,
and the sauce they had on it actually made it
taste more like a Taco Bell taco than a chicken sandwich.
It was certainly not what we expected from our trip
(30:21):
to Norway, but it sure provided a great memory cautionary
tail everyone. You can't just turn off Nope, Nope, that's
an American thing. Or actually, I don't know. I mean,
have you seen that in other places? Uh? Usually you can,
but it is maybe not as close right off the road.
(30:42):
The darkest experience I have with this was in Australia,
where I remember seeing a sign that said next Donney
which is toilet eight kilometers. Oh heck, I was out
in the middle of nowhere. Though. It's always worth investigating.
But this is a very funny story. Definitely something I
would have done. Oh whatever, Yeah, nope, nope, nope, not necessarily,
(31:07):
Nelson wrote, I'm from Honduras, where pregnant women are known
to crave green, unripe mangoes with salt, human black pepper,
a little lime juice, and sometimes hot sauce. This is
a pretty typical craving for Latin American countries. There are
countless stories of husbands being woken up at midnight because
of this craving. I love how specific that is. Yeah, yeah, old,
(31:29):
Because we just did our our pickles episode, and yeah,
we had mentioned in that that we wanted to hear
the steer type of what pregnant women craving out the countries,
because in the US it's pickles and ice cream that
combination specifically. Yes, it's the source of many jokes. I've
seen it in all kinds of movies. I love this
one because it is so specific. But salt human up,
(31:54):
I mean, but green mangoes with hot sauce. I mean
that sounds delicious. It does. I don't want to try it. Yeah,
I absolutely want to try it. If there are any
other pregnant food grapings from around the world, please send
those in please keep telling us about the Spam Museum
because it sounds awesome. Oh yeah, yeah, we've gotten two
postcards from you from it so far, and oh it
(32:14):
is always so delightful. Thank you. We've got spam chaps
to Oh yeah, just not spam flavored, no, just spam labeled.
It's right. I think it's vanilla. I haven't put mine
on yet. I have it's lovely. Okay, I'm a big
chap stick of fishonado. But we would love to hear
about any of those things or anything else, especially where
(32:35):
we should go to next, and you can send those
emails to hello at savor pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook at savor pod. We hope to hear from you.
Thank you as always to our super producer Dylan Fagan.
Thank you 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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