October 2, 2020 • 38 mins
This brand of easily prepared rice pilaf and noodle dishes was born from a marriage of cultures during America’s era of convenience food. Anney and Lauren dig into the story behind Rice-A-Roni.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we're
talking about Rice Serrooni. It's just immediately funny to me.
Rice Serrooni. It's a name, funny name, it's it's got
a lot of it's got a lot it does. It's
both it's evocative and very straight to the point. It
(00:31):
is what it is. Oh, I have a new thing.
My friends hate it, but I'll tell all of you anyway.
I'm trying to get it catch on. It's called Uba
which is it is what it is? Mm hmm okay.
I also just randomly say Abby Abby Abbey now, but
I'm not. I'm totally doing well in Quarantine. This is
(00:55):
a remnant of the Last of Us two plus playing
a lot of betrayal at the House off from the Hill.
They came together because you have to come up with
the chant in that game, and uh, you know, we
decided on Abby, Abby Abbey, and I find it's really
satisfying to say Abby Abby Abbey out there. Yeah see,
but you gotta you gotta mutterate like Abby Abby Abby. Anyway,
(01:20):
I'm doing totally well. Um and thanks to Christie for
the suggestion. Christie also suggested the Buffy the Vampire Slayer food. Yeah,
lots of good suggestions coming in from listeners. We do
have what we have this huge list, gigantic. Yeah, we're
not running out of topics ever, So y'all are stuck
with us. Um, yes, yes, I'm sure that is inspires
(01:43):
happiness and nothing else. Uh, but yeah, please keep him coming.
We do take the suggestions you send into account and
they often lead to I don't know that I ever
would have thought about Rice SERRONI to be honest, and
story behind it is great. It is Oh gosh, it's
so good. Um. I do have to admit that that
sometimes I I say yes to brand related episodes, like
(02:08):
primarily because I really enjoy listing off flavors. Oh okay,
It's just there's something really fun and funny about it
to me, Like when you get like a bunch of
flavors just right in a row, they start to really
sound I don't just wild, just real weird, and just
(02:28):
I start doubting my sanity because I'm like, how many
different types of chicken can you really have a flavor for? Like?
How many in the in the cool aid episode, like
how many types of Like how many times am I
going to say Barry in this list? It was a lot,
it was. I mean, there's just something inspiring about the
level of innovation. Um, flavor innovation never stops. We've been
(02:51):
seeing a lot of it with Reese's coming out with
all these new flavors. Deritos. Didn't Derito's have some strange
new flavors change to me? Yeah? Usually that's true. Um,
when it comes to Rice Seroni, I I don't know
much about it, Like, I don't really have a memory
attached to it. I think every now and then I
(03:12):
get a massive craving, usually pretty random for something like it.
I can't even say specifically if it's Rice Seroni. Especially
in college, I would get these like I just want
this kind of salty starchy. Yeah. That that's my main
experience with the brand was being in college and UM
and having no idea how to cook for myself and
(03:34):
so getting getting something like this and probably not actually
adding anything to it, just eating it straight out of
the right mhm. Actually probably literally straight out of the pan.
I was like, do I put it in Did I
put it in the bow first? Probably? Not? Probably not
who knows. College Lauren was up to a lot of
a lot of questions and yeah, that's a nicer way
(03:55):
of putting it. Shenanigan's occasionally, um, meet me in my
roommates will be like, what we want is rice Serroney.
Let's make our own, um and and kind of making
a Rice Serrooney inspired dish. Oh okay, yeah, I mean
it's a very comforting and satisfying meal. It is. It's
(04:18):
it's salty and delicious. There's carbs. Everybody loves carbs. Well,
most everybody loves carbs. All right, let's get to our question.
Rice Serony what is it? Well, Rice Serony is a
(04:41):
brand of relatively inexpensive, dry, shelf stable grains packaged with
a with a packet of powdered seasonings and a little
bits of dried veg usually um. It intended to be
cooked up quickly and easily by the consumer as a
side dish or like the base of a main dish. Um.
It's like a It's like a little bit like instant ramen,
except generally the expectation is that you will be adding
(05:04):
things to make it a meal. Unlike College Lauren, I
didn't know that Okay, yeah, Wow, we'll see college Andy
didn't didn't do that either. I don't think. Hey, you know,
I'm like, hey, there's like dried onion right here in
the box. What else am I doing? Likewise, I mean,
what else do you need? Uh? Yeah? The traditional grain
(05:25):
blend in in a box of rice serrone is a
mix of white rice with pieces of a skinny wheat
pasta like a vermicelli, broken to about the same length
of the rice, maybe a smidge longer. Um. Some of
the products they may include just rice, though some include
orzo pasta, which is a sort of a small, pointed,
oval shaped pasta. A couple include wild rice. Rice SERRONI
(05:46):
comes in twenty two flavors at the moment um basics
like oh and I get to do the list basics
like chicken beef, urban butter, long grain and wild rice
and cilantro lime. Riffs on the above like chicken and garlic,
chicken and broccoli and buffalo chicken, Spanish rice and Mexican rice.
Stir fried rice with Asian seasonings including leak a creamy
(06:09):
flavors like cheddar, broccoli, country cheddar, creamy for cheese, and
palapeno cheddar um and the original that started at all
rice pull off uh, which for the record, is seasoned
with onions, chicken, garlic, and spices which the Internet seems
to think are things like thyme and parsley, the mysterious
spices m hm uh. The instructions for these things usually
(06:35):
call for you to take this first step that I
have apparently been missing out on in rice making for
like my whole life, because I've pretty much always made
rice and rice cookers. Um. And that first step is
that you heat a butter or other cooking oil in
a pan and then toast the rice or in this
case like rice and pasta until it's until it's golden brown,
(06:56):
and then you add the water in seasonings. It's so good.
I have been a fool. I never did that either,
but my mom did, and it was always hers was
always better than mine. Oh my heck. It does depend
on what kind of rice thing you're going for. This
kind of treatment does tend to help help the rice
grains be more separate, more like fluffy as opposed to
(07:20):
sticky or mushy. Um. And and those are two two
different things, so you could be going for at any rate.
Um that o g rice pull off is based on
Armenian pull off recipes, whearing you you brown the grains
and then cook with broth and other seasonings and addens.
Pull Off itself is a word that came to English
through Um, the Turkish palave um. It's a dish common
(07:42):
in Muslim influenced cuisines from the Middle East through Western
and Central and South Asia and uh and denotes yeah
like a like a rice and maybe other grain stuff
dish that is fluffy, not mushy um with distinctly separated
grains and its seasoned and includes stuff um from meat
to veg to nuts, to beans to fruit. The brand
(08:04):
also produces pasta roni, where in the grains provided are
are pastas in a number of shapes. Pasta Roni comes
in fifteen flavors butter and garlic, garlic and olive oil,
olive oil and Italian herb, butter and herb, italiano angel
hair with herbs, parmesan, cheese, white cheddar, halapeno, cheddar, four cheese, alfredo,
white cheddar, white cheddar, and broccoli, chicken and broccoli, bofalo, chicken,
(08:27):
and just chicken, which to me, after all of the
rest of those sounds a little bit sinister. You think
the just chicken something going on there? Right? Not too sure?
M hmm, I like where your head's at, always paranoid.
What do is only chicken have to hide? Or is
(08:51):
or does that? Or do all the other flavors have
something to hide? Does that why they're gussying themselves up
like that? Oh? Interesting? Interesting anyway? Maybe maybe I've been
playing too much D and D watching too much Supernatural.
Never did not have both of those things, uh um. Anyway. Yeah,
(09:16):
So the common packaging here is a multi serving box,
but there are also uh six flavors available in single
serving microwavable cups, including the fifteen pasta Roni flavor, Parmesan
and romano. It's just so hard for me. I hear
pasta rone and I immediately kind of want to like
(09:37):
I smile and kind of want to laugh, and then
it's pan and romano. This is an interesting juxtaposition because
it does sound like something that you would like ask
a toddler to say to get to smile on camera,
say pasta rownie. Like now, I'm kind of sad that
(09:58):
I didn't earn the nickname Reeserroni at in my life
I'm someone who's collected many nicknames, but I never Norisa
Roney for me. I guess there's still times. Yeah, it's
too late, it's never okay, Okay, So I can't I
can't force this. That's the curse of the nickname. All right. Yeah,
(10:22):
well it's out there. I'll see what I can do
to to delicately engineer it so that the opportunity presents itself. Yeah,
just subtly, you know, like pass it on to someone else,
They pass it on to someone else, and then it
comes up at one of our like happy hours. Yeah. Yeah,
(10:44):
it's the only way I appreciate that thought you're putting
into this. I really, I really am. Like I'm like
full on, like like head tilt obvious thought bubble like yeah, okay, okay, okay, alright,
I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Um. I will say
that that all of the all of the packaging um
of Rice Serroney and these other sub brands, UM, including
(11:07):
those microwave cups, includes recipes or or ideas to make
it a meal. UM, as if to say, hey, college Lauren,
probably don't just eat salty carbs with the smattering of
dehydrated herbs. And vegetables for dinner. Probably don't do that.
They are looking out for you, honestly. Well, okay, good segue.
(11:31):
What about the nutrition. Uh, these products contain a lot
of salt um. They are enriched with a decent smattering
of vitamins and minerals though um pretty low and fat
out of the box, still totally decent on fat if
you prepare them as directed um, they're they're you know,
they're made of carbs um and they're pretty low and
dietary fiber also low though in in in added sugars,
(11:52):
which is great. They'll pelp fill you up, but to
keep you going, you definitely want to pair them with
like at least some kind of protein and ideally also
some kind of vegetable. I always need a vegetable, that's
what we say, Yeah, we do for good reason. Always
need a vegetable. Um. Many of them do contain some
monosodium glutamate or MSG for savory punch, which has not,
(12:17):
by the way, been proven to have negative effects or
not more so than like an equivalent amount of regular
old table salt um. But you know, drink water. Water
is good eating vegetable drinks and water all full of
the sage advice here that I'm sure it's new to you,
never heard anywhere else. Absolutely breaking the news here we are,
(12:39):
we are so cutting edged. Um. They also these products
also often employ um East by products to help create
like complex savory flavors, so East food. Yeah, that was
a surprise and one I didn't know that wash. Yeah
I was. I was excited. Yeah. Um, same kind of
(13:01):
a lot of the same kind of yeast products or
by products rather that would go into to like a
mar miter a vegemite kind of situation. Yeah, okay, I
can see that, all right. Do we have any numbers,
Lauren who? They were hard to track down, y'all, and
I tried. Um. I will say, as of the turn
of the twenty one century, Rice Erroni dominated the flavor
(13:25):
rice dish category in the United States with over six
of the total share of the then one point one
billion dollar market. So it's nothing to sneeze. It nothing
to sneeze. It still sounds funny when you see it
out loud. It does very very much. And I also
like the idea of you get a group of people
(13:46):
and just having it's really serious conversation, what categories are
we going to break it down into flavor and rice
must be one just coming up with all these foods
debating it because you know they oh of course they did. Yeah.
And and like from the from the article that I
pulled this from, which I believe was one from the
New York Times from uh, like the folks at Uncle
(14:09):
Ben's were mad about it, like mad with a while
like they were they were sweating the like two points
below rice erroney that they were sitting at. So I
don't have any updates for you on that. Well, uh,
let's make it some money. It is it is and
and and and and not to in any way, uh,
(14:32):
dennigrade the important business work that all of these companies
do in UM, in producing and marketing food products that
help feed people, which is important and great. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
So how did we get this San Francisco treat as
it's sometimes called. Yes, well, we'll get into that after
(14:55):
we get into a quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, yes, thank you.
So UM. It is a little bit difficult to track
down when pull Off originated. UM historians think it developed
(15:18):
as part of Persian cuisine in what's now Iran sometime
between nine hundred and twelve hundred C. And was further
developed by by all the people influenced by this culture
all along the Silk Road um from then until today. UM.
And you'll find rifts on it um in all kinds
of cuisines in in those in those areas. But the
(15:41):
story of Rice Errony specifically begins in the nineteen forties.
So Lois day Domenico met her husband, Tom Day Dominico
and San Francisco in ninet. Lois had grown up in Edmonton, Canada,
and Tom's father was an Italian immigrant who owned a
pasta making company called the Golden Grain Macaroni Company in
(16:02):
San Francisco, or Tom and his brothers worked if we
step back a bit, according to the company's history. Domenico
Day Domenico immigrated to the US from Italy in eight ninety,
where the immigration officer probably misunderstood, misinterpreted his name and
wrote down Charlie or or just kind of gave him
(16:24):
and he was like, no, that's not where you're known
as anymore, Charlie, now get out. Um. Yeah, and that
was his name for the rest of his life. Five
years later, he moved to California, where he opened a
series of produce stores. He and his wife Maria opened
what was then the Grandiano Products Incorporated in nineteen twelve
and it was renamed So that's Tom's dad. But back
(16:49):
to Lewis and Tom. Housing was tricky to find in
that city in the immediate aftermath of World War Two
in San Francisco, So when the couple found an ad
for room to posted by Pilatsu Captanian, it was the
ad is it was super cute to me. It was
like seventy year old woman looking to rent lives alone,
(17:10):
looking to rent out room in my apartment. Yeah, they
took her up on it and they moved in with her. Uh,
and Lois spent much of the day home by herself,
and she was eighteen at the time, she was pregnant
and Tom was working in the factory during the day,
which meant she had to spend a lot of time
with Captanian, who, Yes, she was this seventy year old
(17:32):
woman who spent much of the day every day, it seemed,
making yogurt. Lois says that at the time she didn't
even know what yogurt was, so, yeah, she wasn't much
of a cook. Yeah, and Capitanian kind of took her
under rowing and taught her how to make some of
her favorite recipes soups pakleva or bakleva, and her special
(17:56):
recipe for Armenian pull off. And they would give Captainian
golden grain brand Vermicelli, but she always wanted to break
it up into rice sized pieces. During their time together,
Captainian shared her life story with Lois and what a
(18:16):
life story it was, Oh gosh, yeah right. She spoke
about as she fled the Armenian genocide, how she lost
her husband, how she was separated from both of her
young sons, leaving them in the care of a Greek couple,
and her journey from Turkey to Syria in nineteen fifteen,
a journey embarked on by thousands of deported women and children.
(18:38):
She wrote all of this down in her nineteen nineteen
memoir Memory Deporte Uh. That same year she was reunited
with her two sons. And this book is extremely rare.
Most accounts of the Armenian genocide were written decades after
the facts. Yeah. Um, and it's never been published in English.
There is a German translation. Um oh, and I didn't
(19:00):
look up how to pronounce this um der volkermande um
the Armenian I think is vaguely what that would probably
sound like. UM. That German translation is slightly more available
than the French, but um uh yark quick note about
the Armenian genocide of nineteen fifteen. This was the result
(19:21):
of um. This this sweeping nationalist campaign in Turkey that
killed nearly one point five million people um and displaced
tens or hundreds of thousands more. Mm hmm. Yeah, and
uh Captanian when she when she was reunited with her sons, which,
by the way, she was pregnant on this journey, and
(19:43):
she had another son when she arrived in Aleppo in Syria.
They all moved to New York, where she worked as
a seamstress, even working on the drapes for the Hyde
Park home of F. D. R. After her sons made
it through their schooling, she moved to San Francisco, of
eventually the day Dominico's moved into a place of their own,
(20:03):
which I'm sure it was an upgrade from a single room,
but I'm kind of sad. But CAPTAINI and Josephus stayed
in the rotation, including the Armenian pull off On one occasion,
after a long day at work, Tom's brother Vince, joined
a couple for dinner and remarked, how great it would
be if you could get the pull off in a
box and there you go, lightbulb moment, Off to the races.
(20:27):
It took three or four years of experimentation in the
Golden Green Test kitchen before they arrived at a one
pot recipe. And this was during the fifties when convenience
was everything and there weren't many competitors when it came
to convenient boxed sides specifically. Yeah, and especially with that
(20:48):
that included rice. Rice was still relatively unknown on American tables. Yeah,
that's right. According to a interview with Tom, the name
came out of simplicity. Uh. They were kind of bouncing
names around and they asked themselves, what is this product,
and the answer, of course, was rice and macaroni, and
(21:08):
there you go Rice Roony and it just stuck, he said,
it wasn't It was almost like they just couldn't get
it out of their heads. It's not that they were
in love with it immediately, but it just stuck. Just
that was what it was, and they couldn't argue with it. Yeah,
it's like the nickname rule sometimes. This is also in
More and more Americans had televisions and the commercial for
(21:31):
chicken rice Seroni introduced years to the product with the
catchy San Francisco treat jingle with San Francisco imagery in
the background, and it worked for a while. Rice Saroni
was so popular it gave macaroni and Cheese craft Macaroni
and Cheese serious competition. Yeah about that jingle. Uh. The
(21:52):
guy who wrote it, um one, Robert tinkin Um recently
in two thousand seventeen, put his Glen Arc San Francisco
mansion on the market for twelve point five million dollars. Oh,
that's we should purchase that. That's that's a drop in
the bucket for us. That's nothing. We got a sweet
(22:13):
awkward food podcasting money coming in. I say, as I
come from my tying glasses, it's like piled with costumes
and books around me. Yeah yeah, I'm I'm I'm speaking
also into my closet with piles of of of boxes
(22:33):
surrounding me because my landlord is kicking us out in
the middle of a pandemic. Um. Yeah, we're really living
it up. This is this is a m it's time
we we we move into a mansion. I've been thinking
about it for a while, and when I play Mash,
I frequently would get mansion. So for anyone who doesn't
know what that is, it's just a very silly game
(22:57):
that for some reason took off among like elementary middle
school students. So don't worry about it. You're not missing anything.
Uh well so so so Robert Pertinken is doing better
than we are. Um. But but also um that that
campaign um uh was discontinued for for a while. I
(23:20):
believe it came back later, but it was discontinued for
a while. In seven, the VP of Product management told
The l A Times, it's just that the ad became
so familiar that people stopped listening to it. Oh wow, Yeah,
it does seem like it was very people knew it.
Oh yeah. I it was really hard for me at
(23:41):
the top of the episode when I was like, and
today we're talking about Rice Errouni to not amend it
with like col In the San Francisco treat, Like it's
just part of the phrase in my head. I've never
heard it, and I'm afraid Oh no, you've never Oh gosh, okay,
I don't want it. What sit site to show you cool? Uh?
(24:04):
But yeah. The the new tagline as seven um was
a Rice Serroni who says you can't please everyone. That.
I'm always wary of the question like mottos because immediately
like I'm like, well, I'm sure you won't please these people.
(24:24):
And I would never say that to anybody, but there
are people that would, um. So you know, it's a
risky gamble in my mind, a question mark. Well it was.
It was before the internet as we know it, so
that probably helped. Yeah, because these days I wouldn't dare
put a rhetorical question. It's just leaving the door open
to all kinds of trolling. It is. But but at
(24:48):
any rate, Back to back, back to Ryce serrouni um
and and small jingle aside aside. Yes. Three new flavors
were introduced in nineteen sixty two, beef Spanish fried rice.
Two years later, a noodles Alfredo, which is an Italian
dish um inspired product, was introduced Noodle Rowney, Noodle Rowney Parmisano,
(25:10):
followed soon after by a beef stroganof and fettucchini Alfredo.
The product line would be renamed pasta Roney. I kind
of missed noodle roney. I think that's great. Noodle roney
is very funny too. Noodle the word is just oh,
it's such a great word, right, Yeah, inherently comical. Inherently
(25:33):
The Quaker Oats Company purchased the Golden Grain Company in
for two hundred and seventy five million dollars. Golden Grains
was making an annual two hundred and fifty million at
the time. Microwavable cups were introduced in Vincent Day. Domenico
died in two thousand and seven, and from a lot
(25:55):
of the coverage I saw that he frequently is called
the inventor of rice RONI um a lot of stuff
I read never specifically said it was him, Like, it
sounds kind of like a group effort, but a lot
of this stuff that happened, a lot of the coverage
that happened when he died. So yeah, yeah, I guess
there doesn't have to be a solo creator. Yeah. In
(26:16):
two thousand eight, MPR tracked down Grandma Caps nephew Ted
and that's what he called her, Grandma Cap, and he
shared with them a memoir of her experience as an
Armenian refugee photos and of course a recipe for her
Armenian pull off that had been passed down for generations
like they could track like oh ant whoever had it
(26:37):
then and gave it to you know. He told MPR
he grew up eating these recipes, and he told them
that his father, Yes, was born in nineteen fifteen after
Grandma cap made it to Lepo, Syria, meaning yes, you're right,
she made that journey pregnant so wild yeah. From the
(26:59):
MPR R Cool here's a quote from Ted. Every time
we heard that jingle, my father would say, you know,
your grandmother gave a rice recipe to the people who
started that company, So every time you hear it, think
of her. To be honest, I know, to be honest.
We kind of thought, could that possibly be true? Could
this iconic American dish actually be attributed to some recipe
(27:19):
my grandmother gave years ago? And then they had another
quote in the article from Lois the impact she had
on me in my life. I only lived there four months,
but it was four months that brought all of these
things together. Myself from Canada, Tommy Italian, Mrs Captanian, Armenian,
all that converging in San Francisco. In and out of
(27:42):
that comes Rice A Roney. Oh so good, so beautiful.
Mm hmmm mmm. Oh I love it when we have
heartwarming ones. Yeah, I mean it's such a great story.
And uh yeah, I mean when when people ask us
(28:04):
to describe what is it you love about the show
or why do you show about food? I mean, this
is pretty much it. These connections people make and the
memories and all of that coming together, and it's beautiful,
it is, right, Seroni, Right, Seronio. It's a treat everywhere,
(28:25):
the everywhere treats um and yeah, that's uh, that's about
what we have to say about Rice, Seroni. We we
do have some listener mail for you, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(28:49):
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listener man like a nice hug. If
I knew the jingle, I would have attempted it. But again,
I have a I have a big fear of getting
a song stuck in your head never getting it out.
This is a legitimate getting stuck in getting a song
(29:10):
stuck in my head, or getting a song stuck in general.
I don't want it to happen to anybody. Oh okay, okay,
Oh well, then I'm really glad that I didn't just
in the middle of you saying that, interrupt you and
started singing the jingle. I'm glad for both of us
if that didn't happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the
(29:31):
method of getting it out. You're supposed to say, like
a really short jingle like by men and oh huh,
so I've I've got like an arsenal. I've prepared for
the day, but I'm still I'm still nervous, and please listeners,
don't take this as an opportunity flutter in box that
really catchy slogans and tunes. Oh no, no, okay, okay, okay,
(29:55):
you're gonna it's gonna be okay for right now at
any rate. I can't promise about the future. Okay, Okay,
you know this this is a SpongeBob episode, but you know,
just so, okay, alright, Rob wrote your recent sidebars on
salt and pepper shakers have struck a chord with me.
I have a small, unintentional collection of shakers and sellers,
and I thought i'd share my favorites with you. The
(30:16):
shaker set featuring the mice was a gift from my
great aunt on my fifth birthday. Whatever possessed the dear
woman to give a five year old a set of
porcelain salt and pepper shakers is beyond me, but I
can test that. Forty five years later, these remain very
dear to me and feature prominently in my kitchen, much
to the dismay of my wife and entertainment of my kids.
(30:38):
I'm still uncertain how a top hat and old book
make a set. Maybe sauces for the upper class and
pepper for the working class. Social commentary in the form
of rodent themed spice dispensers. The pepper mouse is about
to sneeze, but the salt mouse, well, I've never been
sure about the salt mouse. Honestly, I think that mouse's
expression is what my wife just lay about them. She
(31:01):
can't really say what fathers are about them, but it
looks mildly lecherous to me. The Friar text belonged to
my great grandparents, then grandparents, and now reside with me
and my family. After my grandparents passed away, we were
cleaning out their home and my niece, then about seven
or eight years old, said I should have them because
they look like me. I also inherited my mom's collection
(31:24):
of salt sellers. She in turn inherited them from both
her family and my dad's family. I particularly like the
bird themed sellers and the Viking longship. Um. The one
on the far right came from a restaurant owned by
my great grandparents. Not overly practical these days, but bursting
with family history. So yes, Rob sent those pictures, and
(31:44):
I believed that the descriptions were clear enough that we
could read it anyway. And and yes, these are excellent. Yeah, yeah,
excellent lecherous expression salt. That salt mouse does have something
going on. I you can sense it, you can, you can.
It's clear, it's clear through the image even. Yeah, and
(32:07):
I think that a salt seller is very useful. Um.
I I love I love having one on a table,
including like the silly little spoons that they so frequently
come with, that that give you like five grains of salt,
and you feel like a like a like a like
an out of place giant using because they're so tiny,
they're so and you're just like, oh, I'm gonna I'm
(32:28):
gonna smush everything. Um I like that. I like that
mild rush of awkward fear. Yeah yeah, I like you know,
I like to make eating an exciting experience every now
and then. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh Michelle wrote, I really
(32:49):
enjoyed the ice cream truck episode. It brought back some
interesting childhood memories. When I was a kid in the
early eighties, the ice cream truck would come down the
streets several times a week in summer. I loved it
and always looked forward to it. My mom was less
thrilled because apparently he always came just before dinner. One time,
she finally had it and went out and, in her
version of the story, asked him to please come earlier
(33:12):
in the day. My version has her yelling at him.
He never came back, so I got to spend the
rest of the summer being the kid whose mom ran
the ice cream man off. As you can imagine, I
did not win any popularity contests that summer and have
never been allowed to live it down. Also, because you
(33:34):
liked pets with food names, I adopted this cutie pie
last week from the local animal shelter, and UH attached
a picture of a cat um. They described her as
a bit timid. When I got her home, she immediately
ran and hid under the bed and won't come out
except to hide behind the window curtain as long as
I don't watch her do it. As soon as she
sees me looking, she's back under the bed. I even
(33:56):
had to put the food and water under there, and
the litter box right next to the ad. I'm holding
off on officially naming her until I can get to
know her real personality. I know it's normal for cats
to take a while to get comfortable in a new setting,
and she clearly had some trauma based on healed injuries,
so I get it. But at the moment, I'm calling
her noodle short for chicken noodle, because she's currently being
(34:18):
a bit of a chicken, and because I can usually
only see her tail when it sticks out from under
the bed or down from behind the curtain. It follows
a long family tradition of really inappropriate food based pet names.
I grew up with a cat my dad named pancake
because my parents got her when she ran under their
cars they pulled out of a gas station, and they
(34:39):
nearly squished her flat as a pancake, Noodle is starting
to warm up a little and if I lie on
the floor with my arm under the bed to pet her,
she'll pur and make biscuits. I have a feeling she'll
be a playful, curious kitty in no time. Oh An,
(35:01):
there's an update. Her official name is now Amber because
of those big gold eyes, but still sometimes call her
Noodle because when she's comfortable she just flops over bonelessly
like a wet noodle. It took two weeks of hiding
under furniture, but now, in the way of cats, she
owns the house and I just live here. I've lost
my seat on the couch and most of the bed,
(35:22):
and she has taken an unhealthy interest in my toes
if I moved my feet in my sleep, but I'm
not complaining. You can see from the picture that she's
gotten pretty comfortable and pretty noodlely. I shared your box
wine episode with my parents. They live part of the
year on the central coast of California, which is a
big wine region, and have very strong opinions about different
wine makers. They aren't wine snobs, but they have issues
(35:44):
with makers who cut down old growth oak forests or
have unethical labor practices. It cracked them up because it
reminded them of a camping trip when they were young,
where they put the box in the ice chest to
keep the wine cold. The ice melted, which made the
box disintegrate, and they were left with a floating bag
of wine and a bunch of pieces of saggy cardboard.
(36:04):
The wine was still good, though, which I guess is
the important thing. Indeed, probably very well chilled. Yeah, yeah,
not all fine. Yeah. Also, amber slash Noodle is adorable. Yes, yes,
(36:25):
so happy to hear. Uh yeah, please keep I love
when you listeners, you'll send in your pets um and
updates on them of snail updates. Yeah, amber slash Noodle
for anyone who needs to know, is A is A
is a gray striped kitty with with Yeah those big
(36:48):
amber eyes and and looks in the first photo a
little dubious, but in the second photo very very very
noodly in a very fluffy way. Ry relax, Yes, yes,
and uh you've certainly heard Lawrence cats on the podcast
(37:08):
sometimes makes a well the cat that adopted you, I suppose.
And then Andrew has been regaling of his cat stories.
So yeah, we we get it, We do very much
and always appreciate these these sorts of things. Yes, So
thanks to both of those listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can. Our
(37:29):
email is hello at savor pod dot com. We're also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of my Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers
Dylan Bagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(37:51):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we're
talking about Rice Serrooni. It's just immediately funny to me.
Rice Serrooni. It's a name, funny name, it's it's got
a lot of it's got a lot it does. It's
both it's evocative and very straight to the point. It
(00:31):
is what it is. Oh, I have a new thing.
My friends hate it, but I'll tell all of you anyway.
I'm trying to get it catch on. It's called Uba
which is it is what it is? Mm hmm okay.
I also just randomly say Abby Abby Abbey now, but
I'm not. I'm totally doing well in Quarantine. This is
(00:55):
a remnant of the Last of Us two plus playing
a lot of betrayal at the House off from the Hill.
They came together because you have to come up with
the chant in that game, and uh, you know, we
decided on Abby, Abby Abbey, and I find it's really
satisfying to say Abby Abby Abbey out there. Yeah see,
but you gotta you gotta mutterate like Abby Abby Abby. Anyway,
(01:20):
I'm doing totally well. Um and thanks to Christie for
the suggestion. Christie also suggested the Buffy the Vampire Slayer food. Yeah,
lots of good suggestions coming in from listeners. We do
have what we have this huge list, gigantic. Yeah, we're
not running out of topics ever, So y'all are stuck
with us. Um, yes, yes, I'm sure that is inspires
(01:43):
happiness and nothing else. Uh, but yeah, please keep him coming.
We do take the suggestions you send into account and
they often lead to I don't know that I ever
would have thought about Rice SERRONI to be honest, and
story behind it is great. It is Oh gosh, it's
so good. Um. I do have to admit that that
sometimes I I say yes to brand related episodes, like
(02:08):
primarily because I really enjoy listing off flavors. Oh okay,
It's just there's something really fun and funny about it
to me, Like when you get like a bunch of
flavors just right in a row, they start to really
sound I don't just wild, just real weird, and just
(02:28):
I start doubting my sanity because I'm like, how many
different types of chicken can you really have a flavor for? Like?
How many in the in the cool aid episode, like
how many types of Like how many times am I
going to say Barry in this list? It was a lot,
it was. I mean, there's just something inspiring about the
level of innovation. Um, flavor innovation never stops. We've been
(02:51):
seeing a lot of it with Reese's coming out with
all these new flavors. Deritos. Didn't Derito's have some strange
new flavors change to me? Yeah? Usually that's true. Um,
when it comes to Rice Seroni, I I don't know
much about it, Like, I don't really have a memory
attached to it. I think every now and then I
(03:12):
get a massive craving, usually pretty random for something like it.
I can't even say specifically if it's Rice Seroni. Especially
in college, I would get these like I just want
this kind of salty starchy. Yeah. That that's my main
experience with the brand was being in college and UM
and having no idea how to cook for myself and
(03:34):
so getting getting something like this and probably not actually
adding anything to it, just eating it straight out of
the right mhm. Actually probably literally straight out of the pan.
I was like, do I put it in Did I
put it in the bow first? Probably? Not? Probably not
who knows. College Lauren was up to a lot of
a lot of questions and yeah, that's a nicer way
(03:55):
of putting it. Shenanigan's occasionally, um, meet me in my
roommates will be like, what we want is rice Serroney.
Let's make our own, um and and kind of making
a Rice Serrooney inspired dish. Oh okay, yeah, I mean
it's a very comforting and satisfying meal. It is. It's
(04:18):
it's salty and delicious. There's carbs. Everybody loves carbs. Well,
most everybody loves carbs. All right, let's get to our question.
Rice Serony what is it? Well, Rice Serony is a
(04:41):
brand of relatively inexpensive, dry, shelf stable grains packaged with
a with a packet of powdered seasonings and a little
bits of dried veg usually um. It intended to be
cooked up quickly and easily by the consumer as a
side dish or like the base of a main dish. Um.
It's like a It's like a little bit like instant ramen,
except generally the expectation is that you will be adding
(05:04):
things to make it a meal. Unlike College Lauren, I
didn't know that Okay, yeah, Wow, we'll see college Andy
didn't didn't do that either. I don't think. Hey, you know,
I'm like, hey, there's like dried onion right here in
the box. What else am I doing? Likewise, I mean,
what else do you need? Uh? Yeah? The traditional grain
(05:25):
blend in in a box of rice serrone is a
mix of white rice with pieces of a skinny wheat
pasta like a vermicelli, broken to about the same length
of the rice, maybe a smidge longer. Um. Some of
the products they may include just rice, though some include
orzo pasta, which is a sort of a small, pointed,
oval shaped pasta. A couple include wild rice. Rice SERRONI
(05:46):
comes in twenty two flavors at the moment um basics
like oh and I get to do the list basics
like chicken beef, urban butter, long grain and wild rice
and cilantro lime. Riffs on the above like chicken and garlic,
chicken and broccoli and buffalo chicken, Spanish rice and Mexican rice.
Stir fried rice with Asian seasonings including leak a creamy
(06:09):
flavors like cheddar, broccoli, country cheddar, creamy for cheese, and
palapeno cheddar um and the original that started at all
rice pull off uh, which for the record, is seasoned
with onions, chicken, garlic, and spices which the Internet seems
to think are things like thyme and parsley, the mysterious
spices m hm uh. The instructions for these things usually
(06:35):
call for you to take this first step that I
have apparently been missing out on in rice making for
like my whole life, because I've pretty much always made
rice and rice cookers. Um. And that first step is
that you heat a butter or other cooking oil in
a pan and then toast the rice or in this
case like rice and pasta until it's until it's golden brown,
(06:56):
and then you add the water in seasonings. It's so good.
I have been a fool. I never did that either,
but my mom did, and it was always hers was
always better than mine. Oh my heck. It does depend
on what kind of rice thing you're going for. This
kind of treatment does tend to help help the rice
grains be more separate, more like fluffy as opposed to
(07:20):
sticky or mushy. Um. And and those are two two
different things, so you could be going for at any rate.
Um that o g rice pull off is based on
Armenian pull off recipes, whearing you you brown the grains
and then cook with broth and other seasonings and addens.
Pull Off itself is a word that came to English
through Um, the Turkish palave um. It's a dish common
(07:42):
in Muslim influenced cuisines from the Middle East through Western
and Central and South Asia and uh and denotes yeah
like a like a rice and maybe other grain stuff
dish that is fluffy, not mushy um with distinctly separated
grains and its seasoned and includes stuff um from meat
to veg to nuts, to beans to fruit. The brand
(08:04):
also produces pasta roni, where in the grains provided are
are pastas in a number of shapes. Pasta Roni comes
in fifteen flavors butter and garlic, garlic and olive oil,
olive oil and Italian herb, butter and herb, italiano angel
hair with herbs, parmesan, cheese, white cheddar, halapeno, cheddar, four cheese, alfredo,
white cheddar, white cheddar, and broccoli, chicken and broccoli, bofalo, chicken,
(08:27):
and just chicken, which to me, after all of the
rest of those sounds a little bit sinister. You think
the just chicken something going on there? Right? Not too sure?
M hmm, I like where your head's at, always paranoid.
What do is only chicken have to hide? Or is
(08:51):
or does that? Or do all the other flavors have
something to hide? Does that why they're gussying themselves up
like that? Oh? Interesting? Interesting anyway? Maybe maybe I've been
playing too much D and D watching too much Supernatural.
Never did not have both of those things, uh um. Anyway. Yeah,
(09:16):
So the common packaging here is a multi serving box,
but there are also uh six flavors available in single
serving microwavable cups, including the fifteen pasta Roni flavor, Parmesan
and romano. It's just so hard for me. I hear
pasta rone and I immediately kind of want to like
(09:37):
I smile and kind of want to laugh, and then
it's pan and romano. This is an interesting juxtaposition because
it does sound like something that you would like ask
a toddler to say to get to smile on camera,
say pasta rownie. Like now, I'm kind of sad that
(09:58):
I didn't earn the nickname Reeserroni at in my life
I'm someone who's collected many nicknames, but I never Norisa
Roney for me. I guess there's still times. Yeah, it's
too late, it's never okay, Okay, So I can't I
can't force this. That's the curse of the nickname. All right. Yeah,
(10:22):
well it's out there. I'll see what I can do
to to delicately engineer it so that the opportunity presents itself. Yeah,
just subtly, you know, like pass it on to someone else,
They pass it on to someone else, and then it
comes up at one of our like happy hours. Yeah. Yeah,
(10:44):
it's the only way I appreciate that thought you're putting
into this. I really, I really am. Like I'm like
full on, like like head tilt obvious thought bubble like yeah, okay, okay, okay, alright,
I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Um. I will say
that that all of the all of the packaging um
of Rice Serroney and these other sub brands, UM, including
(11:07):
those microwave cups, includes recipes or or ideas to make
it a meal. UM, as if to say, hey, college Lauren,
probably don't just eat salty carbs with the smattering of
dehydrated herbs. And vegetables for dinner. Probably don't do that.
They are looking out for you, honestly. Well, okay, good segue.
(11:31):
What about the nutrition. Uh, these products contain a lot
of salt um. They are enriched with a decent smattering
of vitamins and minerals though um pretty low and fat
out of the box, still totally decent on fat if
you prepare them as directed um, they're they're you know,
they're made of carbs um and they're pretty low and
dietary fiber also low though in in in added sugars,
(11:52):
which is great. They'll pelp fill you up, but to
keep you going, you definitely want to pair them with
like at least some kind of protein and ideally also
some kind of vegetable. I always need a vegetable, that's
what we say, Yeah, we do for good reason. Always
need a vegetable. Um. Many of them do contain some
monosodium glutamate or MSG for savory punch, which has not,
(12:17):
by the way, been proven to have negative effects or
not more so than like an equivalent amount of regular
old table salt um. But you know, drink water. Water
is good eating vegetable drinks and water all full of
the sage advice here that I'm sure it's new to you,
never heard anywhere else. Absolutely breaking the news here we are,
(12:39):
we are so cutting edged. Um. They also these products
also often employ um East by products to help create
like complex savory flavors, so East food. Yeah, that was
a surprise and one I didn't know that wash. Yeah
I was. I was excited. Yeah. Um, same kind of
(13:01):
a lot of the same kind of yeast products or
by products rather that would go into to like a
mar miter a vegemite kind of situation. Yeah, okay, I
can see that, all right. Do we have any numbers,
Lauren who? They were hard to track down, y'all, and
I tried. Um. I will say, as of the turn
of the twenty one century, Rice Erroni dominated the flavor
(13:25):
rice dish category in the United States with over six
of the total share of the then one point one
billion dollar market. So it's nothing to sneeze. It nothing
to sneeze. It still sounds funny when you see it
out loud. It does very very much. And I also
like the idea of you get a group of people
(13:46):
and just having it's really serious conversation, what categories are
we going to break it down into flavor and rice
must be one just coming up with all these foods
debating it because you know they oh of course they did. Yeah.
And and like from the from the article that I
pulled this from, which I believe was one from the
New York Times from uh, like the folks at Uncle
(14:09):
Ben's were mad about it, like mad with a while
like they were they were sweating the like two points
below rice erroney that they were sitting at. So I
don't have any updates for you on that. Well, uh,
let's make it some money. It is it is and
and and and and not to in any way, uh,
(14:32):
dennigrade the important business work that all of these companies
do in UM, in producing and marketing food products that
help feed people, which is important and great. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
So how did we get this San Francisco treat as
it's sometimes called. Yes, well, we'll get into that after
(14:55):
we get into a quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsors, yes, thank you.
So UM. It is a little bit difficult to track
down when pull Off originated. UM historians think it developed
(15:18):
as part of Persian cuisine in what's now Iran sometime
between nine hundred and twelve hundred C. And was further
developed by by all the people influenced by this culture
all along the Silk Road um from then until today. UM.
And you'll find rifts on it um in all kinds
of cuisines in in those in those areas. But the
(15:41):
story of Rice Errony specifically begins in the nineteen forties.
So Lois day Domenico met her husband, Tom Day Dominico
and San Francisco in ninet. Lois had grown up in Edmonton, Canada,
and Tom's father was an Italian immigrant who owned a
pasta making company called the Golden Grain Macaroni Company in
(16:02):
San Francisco, or Tom and his brothers worked if we
step back a bit, according to the company's history. Domenico
Day Domenico immigrated to the US from Italy in eight ninety,
where the immigration officer probably misunderstood, misinterpreted his name and
wrote down Charlie or or just kind of gave him
(16:24):
and he was like, no, that's not where you're known
as anymore, Charlie, now get out. Um. Yeah, and that
was his name for the rest of his life. Five
years later, he moved to California, where he opened a
series of produce stores. He and his wife Maria opened
what was then the Grandiano Products Incorporated in nineteen twelve
and it was renamed So that's Tom's dad. But back
(16:49):
to Lewis and Tom. Housing was tricky to find in
that city in the immediate aftermath of World War Two
in San Francisco, So when the couple found an ad
for room to posted by Pilatsu Captanian, it was the
ad is it was super cute to me. It was
like seventy year old woman looking to rent lives alone,
(17:10):
looking to rent out room in my apartment. Yeah, they
took her up on it and they moved in with her. Uh,
and Lois spent much of the day home by herself,
and she was eighteen at the time, she was pregnant
and Tom was working in the factory during the day,
which meant she had to spend a lot of time
with Captanian, who, Yes, she was this seventy year old
(17:32):
woman who spent much of the day every day, it seemed,
making yogurt. Lois says that at the time she didn't
even know what yogurt was, so, yeah, she wasn't much
of a cook. Yeah, and Capitanian kind of took her
under rowing and taught her how to make some of
her favorite recipes soups pakleva or bakleva, and her special
(17:56):
recipe for Armenian pull off. And they would give Captainian
golden grain brand Vermicelli, but she always wanted to break
it up into rice sized pieces. During their time together,
Captainian shared her life story with Lois and what a
(18:16):
life story it was, Oh gosh, yeah right. She spoke
about as she fled the Armenian genocide, how she lost
her husband, how she was separated from both of her
young sons, leaving them in the care of a Greek couple,
and her journey from Turkey to Syria in nineteen fifteen,
a journey embarked on by thousands of deported women and children.
(18:38):
She wrote all of this down in her nineteen nineteen
memoir Memory Deporte Uh. That same year she was reunited
with her two sons. And this book is extremely rare.
Most accounts of the Armenian genocide were written decades after
the facts. Yeah. Um, and it's never been published in English.
There is a German translation. Um oh, and I didn't
(19:00):
look up how to pronounce this um der volkermande um
the Armenian I think is vaguely what that would probably
sound like. UM. That German translation is slightly more available
than the French, but um uh yark quick note about
the Armenian genocide of nineteen fifteen. This was the result
(19:21):
of um. This this sweeping nationalist campaign in Turkey that
killed nearly one point five million people um and displaced
tens or hundreds of thousands more. Mm hmm. Yeah, and
uh Captanian when she when she was reunited with her sons, which,
by the way, she was pregnant on this journey, and
(19:43):
she had another son when she arrived in Aleppo in Syria.
They all moved to New York, where she worked as
a seamstress, even working on the drapes for the Hyde
Park home of F. D. R. After her sons made
it through their schooling, she moved to San Francisco, of
eventually the day Dominico's moved into a place of their own,
(20:03):
which I'm sure it was an upgrade from a single room,
but I'm kind of sad. But CAPTAINI and Josephus stayed
in the rotation, including the Armenian pull off On one occasion,
after a long day at work, Tom's brother Vince, joined
a couple for dinner and remarked, how great it would
be if you could get the pull off in a
box and there you go, lightbulb moment, Off to the races.
(20:27):
It took three or four years of experimentation in the
Golden Green Test kitchen before they arrived at a one
pot recipe. And this was during the fifties when convenience
was everything and there weren't many competitors when it came
to convenient boxed sides specifically. Yeah, and especially with that
(20:48):
that included rice. Rice was still relatively unknown on American tables. Yeah,
that's right. According to a interview with Tom, the name
came out of simplicity. Uh. They were kind of bouncing
names around and they asked themselves, what is this product,
and the answer, of course, was rice and macaroni, and
(21:08):
there you go Rice Roony and it just stuck, he said,
it wasn't It was almost like they just couldn't get
it out of their heads. It's not that they were
in love with it immediately, but it just stuck. Just
that was what it was, and they couldn't argue with it. Yeah,
it's like the nickname rule sometimes. This is also in
More and more Americans had televisions and the commercial for
(21:31):
chicken rice Seroni introduced years to the product with the
catchy San Francisco treat jingle with San Francisco imagery in
the background, and it worked for a while. Rice Saroni
was so popular it gave macaroni and Cheese craft Macaroni
and Cheese serious competition. Yeah about that jingle. Uh. The
(21:52):
guy who wrote it, um one, Robert tinkin Um recently
in two thousand seventeen, put his Glen Arc San Francisco
mansion on the market for twelve point five million dollars. Oh,
that's we should purchase that. That's that's a drop in
the bucket for us. That's nothing. We got a sweet
(22:13):
awkward food podcasting money coming in. I say, as I
come from my tying glasses, it's like piled with costumes
and books around me. Yeah yeah, I'm I'm I'm speaking
also into my closet with piles of of of boxes
(22:33):
surrounding me because my landlord is kicking us out in
the middle of a pandemic. Um. Yeah, we're really living
it up. This is this is a m it's time
we we we move into a mansion. I've been thinking
about it for a while, and when I play Mash,
I frequently would get mansion. So for anyone who doesn't
know what that is, it's just a very silly game
(22:57):
that for some reason took off among like elementary middle
school students. So don't worry about it. You're not missing anything.
Uh well so so so Robert Pertinken is doing better
than we are. Um. But but also um that that
campaign um uh was discontinued for for a while. I
(23:20):
believe it came back later, but it was discontinued for
a while. In seven, the VP of Product management told
The l A Times, it's just that the ad became
so familiar that people stopped listening to it. Oh wow, Yeah,
it does seem like it was very people knew it.
Oh yeah. I it was really hard for me at
(23:41):
the top of the episode when I was like, and
today we're talking about Rice Errouni to not amend it
with like col In the San Francisco treat, Like it's
just part of the phrase in my head. I've never
heard it, and I'm afraid Oh no, you've never Oh gosh, okay,
I don't want it. What sit site to show you cool? Uh?
(24:04):
But yeah. The the new tagline as seven um was
a Rice Serroni who says you can't please everyone. That.
I'm always wary of the question like mottos because immediately
like I'm like, well, I'm sure you won't please these people.
(24:24):
And I would never say that to anybody, but there
are people that would, um. So you know, it's a
risky gamble in my mind, a question mark. Well it was.
It was before the internet as we know it, so
that probably helped. Yeah, because these days I wouldn't dare
put a rhetorical question. It's just leaving the door open
to all kinds of trolling. It is. But but at
(24:48):
any rate, Back to back, back to Ryce serrouni um
and and small jingle aside aside. Yes. Three new flavors
were introduced in nineteen sixty two, beef Spanish fried rice.
Two years later, a noodles Alfredo, which is an Italian
dish um inspired product, was introduced Noodle Rowney, Noodle Rowney Parmisano,
(25:10):
followed soon after by a beef stroganof and fettucchini Alfredo.
The product line would be renamed pasta Roney. I kind
of missed noodle roney. I think that's great. Noodle roney
is very funny too. Noodle the word is just oh,
it's such a great word, right, Yeah, inherently comical. Inherently
(25:33):
The Quaker Oats Company purchased the Golden Grain Company in
for two hundred and seventy five million dollars. Golden Grains
was making an annual two hundred and fifty million at
the time. Microwavable cups were introduced in Vincent Day. Domenico
died in two thousand and seven, and from a lot
(25:55):
of the coverage I saw that he frequently is called
the inventor of rice RONI um a lot of stuff
I read never specifically said it was him, Like, it
sounds kind of like a group effort, but a lot
of this stuff that happened, a lot of the coverage
that happened when he died. So yeah, yeah, I guess
there doesn't have to be a solo creator. Yeah. In
(26:16):
two thousand eight, MPR tracked down Grandma Caps nephew Ted
and that's what he called her, Grandma Cap, and he
shared with them a memoir of her experience as an
Armenian refugee photos and of course a recipe for her
Armenian pull off that had been passed down for generations
like they could track like oh ant whoever had it
(26:37):
then and gave it to you know. He told MPR
he grew up eating these recipes, and he told them
that his father, Yes, was born in nineteen fifteen after
Grandma cap made it to Lepo, Syria, meaning yes, you're right,
she made that journey pregnant so wild yeah. From the
(26:59):
MPR R Cool here's a quote from Ted. Every time
we heard that jingle, my father would say, you know,
your grandmother gave a rice recipe to the people who
started that company, So every time you hear it, think
of her. To be honest, I know, to be honest.
We kind of thought, could that possibly be true? Could
this iconic American dish actually be attributed to some recipe
(27:19):
my grandmother gave years ago? And then they had another
quote in the article from Lois the impact she had
on me in my life. I only lived there four months,
but it was four months that brought all of these
things together. Myself from Canada, Tommy Italian, Mrs Captanian, Armenian,
all that converging in San Francisco. In and out of
(27:42):
that comes Rice A Roney. Oh so good, so beautiful.
Mm hmmm mmm. Oh I love it when we have
heartwarming ones. Yeah, I mean it's such a great story.
And uh yeah, I mean when when people ask us
(28:04):
to describe what is it you love about the show
or why do you show about food? I mean, this
is pretty much it. These connections people make and the
memories and all of that coming together, and it's beautiful,
it is, right, Seroni, Right, Seronio. It's a treat everywhere,
(28:25):
the everywhere treats um and yeah, that's uh, that's about
what we have to say about Rice, Seroni. We we
do have some listener mail for you, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
(28:49):
and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listener man like a nice hug. If
I knew the jingle, I would have attempted it. But again,
I have a I have a big fear of getting
a song stuck in your head never getting it out.
This is a legitimate getting stuck in getting a song
(29:10):
stuck in my head, or getting a song stuck in general.
I don't want it to happen to anybody. Oh okay, okay,
Oh well, then I'm really glad that I didn't just
in the middle of you saying that, interrupt you and
started singing the jingle. I'm glad for both of us
if that didn't happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the
(29:31):
method of getting it out. You're supposed to say, like
a really short jingle like by men and oh huh,
so I've I've got like an arsenal. I've prepared for
the day, but I'm still I'm still nervous, and please listeners,
don't take this as an opportunity flutter in box that
really catchy slogans and tunes. Oh no, no, okay, okay, okay,
(29:55):
you're gonna it's gonna be okay for right now at
any rate. I can't promise about the future. Okay, Okay,
you know this this is a SpongeBob episode, but you know,
just so, okay, alright, Rob wrote your recent sidebars on
salt and pepper shakers have struck a chord with me.
I have a small, unintentional collection of shakers and sellers,
and I thought i'd share my favorites with you. The
(30:16):
shaker set featuring the mice was a gift from my
great aunt on my fifth birthday. Whatever possessed the dear
woman to give a five year old a set of
porcelain salt and pepper shakers is beyond me, but I
can test that. Forty five years later, these remain very
dear to me and feature prominently in my kitchen, much
to the dismay of my wife and entertainment of my kids.
(30:38):
I'm still uncertain how a top hat and old book
make a set. Maybe sauces for the upper class and
pepper for the working class. Social commentary in the form
of rodent themed spice dispensers. The pepper mouse is about
to sneeze, but the salt mouse, well, I've never been
sure about the salt mouse. Honestly, I think that mouse's
expression is what my wife just lay about them. She
(31:01):
can't really say what fathers are about them, but it
looks mildly lecherous to me. The Friar text belonged to
my great grandparents, then grandparents, and now reside with me
and my family. After my grandparents passed away, we were
cleaning out their home and my niece, then about seven
or eight years old, said I should have them because
they look like me. I also inherited my mom's collection
(31:24):
of salt sellers. She in turn inherited them from both
her family and my dad's family. I particularly like the
bird themed sellers and the Viking longship. Um. The one
on the far right came from a restaurant owned by
my great grandparents. Not overly practical these days, but bursting
with family history. So yes, Rob sent those pictures, and
(31:44):
I believed that the descriptions were clear enough that we
could read it anyway. And and yes, these are excellent. Yeah, yeah,
excellent lecherous expression salt. That salt mouse does have something
going on. I you can sense it, you can, you can.
It's clear, it's clear through the image even. Yeah, and
(32:07):
I think that a salt seller is very useful. Um.
I I love I love having one on a table,
including like the silly little spoons that they so frequently
come with, that that give you like five grains of salt,
and you feel like a like a like a like
an out of place giant using because they're so tiny,
they're so and you're just like, oh, I'm gonna I'm
(32:28):
gonna smush everything. Um I like that. I like that
mild rush of awkward fear. Yeah yeah, I like you know,
I like to make eating an exciting experience every now
and then. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh Michelle wrote, I really
(32:49):
enjoyed the ice cream truck episode. It brought back some
interesting childhood memories. When I was a kid in the
early eighties, the ice cream truck would come down the
streets several times a week in summer. I loved it
and always looked forward to it. My mom was less
thrilled because apparently he always came just before dinner. One time,
she finally had it and went out and, in her
version of the story, asked him to please come earlier
(33:12):
in the day. My version has her yelling at him.
He never came back, so I got to spend the
rest of the summer being the kid whose mom ran
the ice cream man off. As you can imagine, I
did not win any popularity contests that summer and have
never been allowed to live it down. Also, because you
(33:34):
liked pets with food names, I adopted this cutie pie
last week from the local animal shelter, and UH attached
a picture of a cat um. They described her as
a bit timid. When I got her home, she immediately
ran and hid under the bed and won't come out
except to hide behind the window curtain as long as
I don't watch her do it. As soon as she
sees me looking, she's back under the bed. I even
(33:56):
had to put the food and water under there, and
the litter box right next to the ad. I'm holding
off on officially naming her until I can get to
know her real personality. I know it's normal for cats
to take a while to get comfortable in a new setting,
and she clearly had some trauma based on healed injuries,
so I get it. But at the moment, I'm calling
her noodle short for chicken noodle, because she's currently being
(34:18):
a bit of a chicken, and because I can usually
only see her tail when it sticks out from under
the bed or down from behind the curtain. It follows
a long family tradition of really inappropriate food based pet names.
I grew up with a cat my dad named pancake
because my parents got her when she ran under their
cars they pulled out of a gas station, and they
(34:39):
nearly squished her flat as a pancake, Noodle is starting
to warm up a little and if I lie on
the floor with my arm under the bed to pet her,
she'll pur and make biscuits. I have a feeling she'll
be a playful, curious kitty in no time. Oh An,
(35:01):
there's an update. Her official name is now Amber because
of those big gold eyes, but still sometimes call her
Noodle because when she's comfortable she just flops over bonelessly
like a wet noodle. It took two weeks of hiding
under furniture, but now, in the way of cats, she
owns the house and I just live here. I've lost
my seat on the couch and most of the bed,
(35:22):
and she has taken an unhealthy interest in my toes
if I moved my feet in my sleep, but I'm
not complaining. You can see from the picture that she's
gotten pretty comfortable and pretty noodlely. I shared your box
wine episode with my parents. They live part of the
year on the central coast of California, which is a
big wine region, and have very strong opinions about different
wine makers. They aren't wine snobs, but they have issues
(35:44):
with makers who cut down old growth oak forests or
have unethical labor practices. It cracked them up because it
reminded them of a camping trip when they were young,
where they put the box in the ice chest to
keep the wine cold. The ice melted, which made the
box disintegrate, and they were left with a floating bag
of wine and a bunch of pieces of saggy cardboard.
(36:04):
The wine was still good, though, which I guess is
the important thing. Indeed, probably very well chilled. Yeah, yeah,
not all fine. Yeah. Also, amber slash Noodle is adorable. Yes, yes,
(36:25):
so happy to hear. Uh yeah, please keep I love
when you listeners, you'll send in your pets um and
updates on them of snail updates. Yeah, amber slash Noodle
for anyone who needs to know, is A is A
is a gray striped kitty with with Yeah those big
(36:48):
amber eyes and and looks in the first photo a
little dubious, but in the second photo very very very
noodly in a very fluffy way. Ry relax, Yes, yes,
and uh you've certainly heard Lawrence cats on the podcast
(37:08):
sometimes makes a well the cat that adopted you, I suppose.
And then Andrew has been regaling of his cat stories.
So yeah, we we get it, We do very much
and always appreciate these these sorts of things. Yes, So
thanks to both of those listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can. Our
(37:29):
email is hello at savor pod dot com. We're also
on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is a production of my Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers
Dylan Bagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(37:51):
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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