Savor Classics: Toasting

Toasting can be an art, an honor, or an excuse to drink a lot. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren explore the culture of clinking glasses (or not!), from ancient toasting traditions to how people do it around the world today. Hear hear!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to favor Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam and today
we've got another classic episode for you, this one about toasting. Yes,
as in cheersing, not a piece of bread in a toaster.
Although we do talk about pieces of bread. There's bread
in this one. We do. And I also one of

(00:28):
my characters from our soon to like very long rumored
cartoon comic series, the Toastmaster. I have that image all
ready to go. I have created the Toastmaster perfect. This
is a piece of bread. Well, we'll have to We'll
have to on the social media's somewhere, yes um. And

(00:52):
I was telling Lauren before we started this that this
episode has a really special place of my heart because
soon after we did it, I went to South Africa
with the colleague of ours, Casey Pegram, and I've sort
of just had a tough like family time. And it
was right around Christmas New Year's and Casey was such
a good sport when I was like, I want to
do all these toasting traditions. I want to do all

(01:13):
of them, and I think that will help the New
Year be great, and he was like okay, and we
did it. We did all the ones we could. Uh yeah, yeah,
it was it was great. If um if y'all, if
y'all have ever heard casey um over on a movie
crush or maybe ridiculous history, Um, he's he's a lovely

(01:36):
human person and I can absolutely picture him being like like, okay,
well if this is I am, I'm on or bound,
this is my duty. We can we can, we can
do the toasting. Yeah yeah, I really appreciate it. Is
uh just like easy going but very He has a
great voice where in he's really really funny, but sometimes

(01:58):
you don't pick up on it because yeah key, because
he's quite dry. Yeah, yes, yes, So I really appreciated
his like just straightforward. You know, maybe this sounds ridiculous
to me, but sure we'll get some scotch and I'll
cross the doorway and it'll do a thing and I'm
like thank you he yeah all right, yeah yeah, and

(02:20):
uh we we wanted to rerun this one, yeah, because
it is it is around the holidays, and um, you know,
I think a lot of a lot of toasts are
going to look a little different this year. Um more
more zoom toasting. I do love clinking a glass against
my webcam. Um, it's pretty um but uh and and
and that was that was strange listening back to this one. Um,

(02:42):
just thinking about about the differences that we're going through
right now. Um. But but it does not mean that
we cannot and should not toast. Oh absolutely, if not,
I mean now more than ever, get creative if you're toasting,
you know, yeah, yeah, incorporate, I mean, come out, use
use this media format. Get puppets. I don't know, puppets. Yes,

(03:11):
I got really excited about that. I was thinking just
filters or backgrounds. But puppets, Lauren game, you know, wigs, costumes, accents.
Oh yeah, yes, yeah, yes, and yeah send pictures of course,

(03:33):
please please please do um uh and yeah. So so
without further ado, um, we will let former Annie and
Lauren take it away. Hello, and welcome to food Stuff.

(03:54):
I'm Lauren Vogelbon and I'm Annie Reese, and we're talking
about something fun today. We are that involves very few
human atrocities, Yes, human social atrocities. Maybe we're talking about
toasting traditions and not bread. No, not toast traditions. Although
now we very much want to do an episode on that.

(04:16):
We do and we will. Oh yeah, this and this
one is one we wanted to do very early on,
but since we started right out the gate with Champagne,
we thought we'd give it some time, give it some space. Yeah.
It's currently running up on the holiday season though, a
time for even more extra toasts than normal. Exactly, and um,

(04:36):
we should say, right off the top toast responsibly, yeah,
unlike most other humans have done I know throughout history
I know, and also drink responsibly too, yes. So a
source for anyone who's interested reading more about this. Paul
Dixon wrote the book Toast Over of the Best Toast

(05:00):
to mis blessing and Graces. So if you're looking for
something to read over the holidays and you know you
don't get enough of toast history or food history, that's
a that's a good one. Yeah, it's really delightful. So toasts,
what are they? Uh? Well, it's when a group of
assembled people raise their drinking glasses and one or more

(05:23):
of them says a few or more words to honor
whatever needs to be honored. Toasts can be straightforward or flowery,
or funny or even sarcastic. And in case you were wondering,
the largest recorded toast at a single venue. According to
the Guinness Book of Records, happened in in Boston. Apparently

(05:43):
nine hundred and four participants raised a cup to celebrate
the one anniversary of Fenway Park. Wow, that is a
pretty big crowd of people toasting, but it is hugely
dwarfed by the desperate but time coordinated venue record, which
is at least four hundred and eighty five thousand participants. Wolf. Yeah, wow,

(06:09):
Well we have to have the weird food record. It
just wouldn't be an episode. Yes, So let's let's look
at some history and spoiler alert. The story you've probably
heard about toasting starting out as a way to check
for poison by putting some force behind the clinking of
glasses and thus spilling liquid into your possible murderers drink

(06:30):
is not true. Probably, or there's no evidence to back
it up. I mean, especially you know, like like think
about the physics of it, Like you have to have
your cup like filled to the brim and you'd have
to like really clink them and a lot of materials
could break or you might spill most of your drink.
I don't know. Yeah, And people in the know say

(06:51):
that maybe maybe it was more like a trust thing.
You were showing that you trusted the people in the party.
It was more like a yeah, not a literal yeah exactly.
But basically, since the dawn of humans drinking alcohol and
perhaps too much of it, we've been toasting. The ancient Persians, Hebrews, Huns, Saxon's,

(07:11):
and Egyptians had toasting traditions, but historians think the ancient
Greek practice of pouring out some of your drink to
honor the gods, called libation, was where the whole toasting
thing got started, and historical records provide a lot of
early mentions of toasting round about two thousand, five hundred
years ago. Toasting appeared in the Odyssey with Ulysses raising

(07:33):
a glass to the health of Achilles. The ancient Greeks,
who regarded people who chose to drink water over wine
with suspicion, used to celebrate the Greek symposia with big
central wine filled urns called craters. You take your cup,
fill it with wine, drink and repeat. In the fourth

(07:54):
century BC, Greek put Eubulus wrote of this practice, calling
those that went home after or three creators of wine
the wise ones, according to him, by five there was shouting,
and by the sixth quote prancing about, and the seventh
black eyes, the eight brings the police, the ninth vomiting,
and the tenth insanity and hurling the furniture. So that's

(08:20):
a pretty good breakdown. Actually, yeah, that should be like
a chart. A Symposia were the part of a party
after the dinner, where folks would talk and drink and
philosophize and might have some kind of entertainment you know, poetry, dancing, games, music. Uh.
These were, by the way, parties for dudes only until
about five b c E. Four reasons which I do

(08:41):
not have the strength to list today, but can be
summed up by deep and ignorant misogyny. There was a
tradition where the host or master of the event, the
symposi arc, would make sure everyone had a cup, then
would drink to the health of every guest present, and
then each guest would toast to the host and all
of the other guests. This apparently got real ridiculous really fast,

(09:03):
and some partiers would give up, and thus so a
forfeit in the form of a dare like a dance naked,
recited poem, walk on his hands, stuff like that mm hmmm.
In the first century v c. The Roman Senate passed
a law requiring a toast to Emperor Augustus's health at
every meal, which Romans might have and probably did, take

(09:28):
toasting and turn it into a sneaky drinking game, at
least if the first century Roman poet Marshall is to
be believed. Um One of his poems detailed a challenge
that required a party's attendees to drink a number of
glasses of wine equal to the length of their mistress's name,
and names back then could be quite long. For each

(09:51):
course of a meal, the Huns had three rounds of toast.
Also worth noting that most of these early toasts required
chugging the whole of whatever it was you were drinking.
The first recorded toast in England, as described in Geoffrey
of Moms twelfth century work History of the Kings of Britain,
purportedly occurred in four when hind Just, the leader of

(10:14):
the Saxon allies to the British, threw a party in
British King Vorda Jern's honor, and hinch just daughter Rowena,
called for the king's good health after bringing him a
goblet of wine from which they both drink, and then
the king asked Rowena to marry him, because alcohol induced
proposals of marriage are always a good idea yea to

(10:34):
your wedding. Good health back then, was said wass Hale,
which is where the name for the holiday was sail
bowl originates, you know, like the Christmas song. Yeah, I
didn't know what sel was a drink until UM listener
Rachel wrote, is about it. We have very different cookbooks.
We we really must. According to her, people would take

(10:59):
this bowl of a sale, which was sort of a
cider fruit punch holiday spice hybrid used to celebrate Christmas
and New Year's and go door to door offering some
songs and SIPs out of the bowl and return for
some gifts. I think I would be annoyed if this
happened to me. But you know, now we've ditched a
sail bowl and we just go caroling. Or maybe we
ditched that too, because I've never seen it. I've been

(11:20):
in real life. I don't know if you have right
in and thank you Rachel for that insightful Yeah, I'm
not sure. I would have to trust my neighbors a
lot if I were going to drink something that they
brought with them while they were caroling. I would just
be mad. I guess at the time you would expect it,
and so you'd have a gift to give. Singing and

(11:44):
offering me an you're like, here's this rubber spider that's
been sitting on my doorstep. I don't know why. Congratulations,
you're welcome, goodbye. And the was sail bowl itself, maybe
a reimagining of another ritual that involved partakers sipping out
of a large, heavy, two handed vessel called a loving cup,

(12:05):
and they would approach this cup in groups of threes
want to pass the cup, want to drink, and one
to protect the drinker, and then they pass it on
to the next group of three. Once the loving cup
was traded out for individual cups, people missed that feeling
of camaraderie, so they'd bring their cups together for a
moment to recapture that loving cup feeling. Oh my goodness. Yeah.

(12:27):
Allegedly this practice stemmed from tenth century CE, with King
Edward the Second death by stabbing at hands of his
stepmother while he was enjoying a glass of meat. Yeah,
there's a lot of fun, fun stories in this one.
Some historians say the clink, which wasn't really a thing
until Christianity got its start, is a leftover from this

(12:49):
loving cup tribute, a physical way to be a part
and connected to the toast. Others say it was that
whole checking for poison thing, and yet others say it
was a prac just similar to the tolling of a
church bell to ward off bad spirits, including the devil himself.
M m, but maybe not. It may have come relatively
simply from a physical way to put the contents of

(13:12):
your then opaque cup in front of everyone else. Drinking
glasses and crystal were out of the reach of most
people until the beginning of the twentieth century, so by
offering your glass outward in a toast, you were symbolically
sharing your cup and also showing everyone what you were drinking,
and also letting the host know who needed refills. The
clinking might have begun accidentally from this, yes, or Another

(13:36):
theory is that it gives the drinker maximum toast satisfaction
because it satisfies all five senses. The word toast itself
comes from a once common practice of adding spiced toast
or a crouton to a drink in hopes of improving
the taste of the drink, usually wine, by cutting the

(13:57):
acidity and bonus points. That usually improved to the bread
as well, which is probably stale. And Shakespeare's The Merry
Wives of Windsor, which was most likely penned in the
character Falseff, says go fetch me, a quote of Seck
put a toast it, which in non Shakespeare means give
me a whole bunch of wine and put some bread

(14:17):
in there. It took until the eighteenth century for toast
to refer to the person you were drinking to the
toast of the town, as opposed to the actual toast
in your drink, which was at this time traditionally given
to the person being honored. Oh thank you for this
soggy bread. Yeah, it's like that, I mean share, you know.

(14:38):
The whole concept here is that the person that you're
honoring adds flavor to the event, the way that the
toast adds flavor to the wine. The word may have
originally been applied only to women. There is a slightly
body and possibly fictional account of how toast came to
be applied to people, written by one Sir Richard Steele
in seventeen o nine and a publication called The Tattler.

(14:59):
He's that. Uh this this one time, a well admired
lady was hanging out around the Cross Bath, which is
a historic natural hot spring bathhouse which you can still
visit today. One of the gentlemen there scooped up a
glass of water from the pool and offered a toast
to her health to the company at large, upon which
a slightly more drunken gentleman said that though he liked

(15:20):
not the liquor, he would have the toast. Mm hmm.
It's funny because when I was reading about this, it
was presented in a much more wholesome way. And in
the article that I read, he toasted with water, which
I've always heard is bad luck. Oh yeah it was.
It was definitely water. It was like it was like
a scoop of water from the from the ponds hot spring,

(15:43):
so it was still water. Okay. I think that though
he liked not the liquor, through me for a second, yeah,
no liquor meaning okay, that all right? Oh. Historical words
and changing of things, um and more on toasting superstitions
in a set, because there's a lot of them. Oh yeah,
and it cheers, on the other hand, came from an
old French word meaning face that by the end of

(16:05):
the eighteenth century described a happy mood as observed on
the face and was used as encouragement, our support. So
it kind of makes sense that it came to be
I think you said, yeah, that toast. Okay. So that's
some of the early history and theories about toasting. Now
let's talk about some chaos and controversy, chow controversy, Yes

(16:27):
that toasting caused. But first a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor.
So you know what else has been around since the
dawn of humans, drinking alcohol, regret, wild nights that devolve

(16:52):
into total chaos the time on a tradition of drinking
too much, promising yourself you'll never do it again, of course,
and for getting that promise at the first opportunity. Getting
incredibly drunk used to be the goal, not a by product,
and toasting was often made competitive as an excuse to
drink more without looking necessarily like an alcoholic. To that end,

(17:18):
over the centuries, we entered something of a toasting arms race,
if you will, and things sort of got out of hand.
For example, medieval Anglo Saxon throwdowns often use these cups
with around bottom that prevented party goers from setting them
anywhere until they were empty, and then they would be

(17:39):
placed upside down on a table. Because of this, these
cups were called tumblers, which is funny considering now tumblers
are these square bottomed, untippable basically supposed to be Yeah, well, yeah,
you know if you're just then before you is King
George the Fourth, the Prince Regent, had the stems of
wine glasses removed so that guests would down all of

(18:00):
their drink at his eighteen centuries shin digs, which too
is funny considering now you can get stim was wine
glasses that are perfectly stable or I actually prefer them,
oh goodness, oh my gosh. Oh. And he also loved
this game wherein two fellows at a time would toast
to a woman's beauty with these huge glasses of wine

(18:22):
called bumpers until one of them passed out. How romantic.
I wonder if this is where some of that macho
like real man can hold their like her comes from.
I don't know, future episode. Eventually, party guests went from
toasting the king, to toasting every single guest attending a
party or an event, to the guests that weren't attending

(18:45):
because they were dead or otherwise occupied. You spent the
entire time caught him the cycle of toasting and drinking.
The British Navy exemplified this with a checklist of toast
to be performed daily for the king's health, then to
the men, then to the ships, then to your enemies,
than to your wife, sweethearts, mistresses, And speaking of toasting

(19:05):
got all tied up with these drinking games, and a
lot of them had to do with winning a lady's affections.
To prove his seriousness to his woman of choice, a
man would cut himself, used the blood as a mixer
for his drink, and then toast to the lucky lady lucky.
Shakespeare again that mentioned to this in the Merchant of Venice.

(19:26):
I stabbed my arm to drink her health. The more
full eye, the more full eye. Another toast to impress
the lady is called for drinking out of her shoe.
And I've i've seen like sports versions of this, for rugby,
for with a boot or during october Fest, but not
as like a pickup toast. I think that there's also
a wedding tradition maybe from Hungary, uh, involving that I

(19:49):
didn't write it down, but a future like like wedding tradition, Oh,
a very interesting one. The toasting arms race led to
two main things, apart from drunkenness, the anti toast movement
and the toastmaster toastmaster toastmaster, which the story of toast
very much created a cartoon character. Yes, he's a piece

(20:10):
of toast obviously. First, the anti toast movement. This was
spearheaded by what many considered to be the first temperance group,
Order of Temperance, founded in Germany in fifteen seventeen. Vanquishing
the toast was one of their primary goals. Englishman and
lawyer William Prynne wrote a book called Health Sickness dedicated

(20:34):
to the evils of toasting. The whole thing in it
included lines like this one. This drinking and coughing of
health had its origin and birth from pagans, heathens and infidels. Ye,
even from the devil himself. Yeah. During toast he refused
to raise a glass even for the King, opting instead

(20:56):
to sit on his hat and cast judging eyes on
people who did it, I can tell he was the
best at parties. He's so fun to be around. In four, Massachusetts,
happed on the bandwagon or is it off the bandwagon?
Another subtle Signfeld joke banning what they called the abominable
toasting to someone's health. In the late sixteen hundreds, in England,

(21:18):
toasting could be an act of political dissent. After the
ousting of the Catholic king James the Second and the
rise of the Protestant monarchy under William and Mary, a
group of dissenters called the Jacobites found ways to quietly
communicate their support of the old regime, despite it being
labeled treasonists. Very like hale hydra kind of stuff. James

(21:39):
the Second had been exiled to France, and when the
Jacobites held up their port glass during a toast to
the new king, that position it subtly over their water glass,
instead honoring the king over the water. Exiled to France
over the water. Yeah. Uh, there's a legend that when
this gesture was found out, it led to a new
tradition of removing water glasses from the table before the

(22:02):
port was served. Oh yeah, toasting intrigue. Mm hmmm. Louis
the fourteenth, who reigned from sixty three to seven fifteen,
it's not seven fifteen, seventeen fifteen. He didn't allow any
toasting in his court, and not that it matters really,
but I wanted to mention that he was monarch from
the House of Bourbon. Others um were more interested in

(22:27):
d drunkifying toasting ter toastmasters. It's it's I'm telling you
this character. He saves awkward parties and he's also good
at making toast and toasting. There's a yeah. And he's
also made of toast, Yes he is. It's it's going
to be a thing. As a result of unchecked toasting,

(22:47):
we got the toastmaster in the seventeenth and eighteenth century,
and they essentially were party peacekeepers, making sure no one
hogged the toasting time by toasting each and every guest,
that everyone who wanted to go got to go. Guide
books were published to aid in this task, and toastmasters
clubs were formed, and some still exist. One of these guides,
published by J roach In, boasted perhaps the longest title

(23:11):
I've ever seen, m The Royal Toastmaster, containing many thousands
of the best toast old and new, to give brilliancy
to mirth and make the joys of the glass supremely agreeable.
Also the Siemens bottle companion being a selection of exquisite
modern sea songs. Wow huh it advocated for reason when

(23:35):
quote passion blows the gale. Uh. In this book, Roach
said about toasting, a toast or sentiment very frequently excites
good humor and revives languid conversation. Often does it when
properly applied, cool the heat of resentment and blunt the
edge of animosity. A well applied toast is acknowledged universally
to soothe the flame of acrimony when season and reason

(23:58):
oft used their efforts to no purpose. That makes the
toast sound very noble. This is a job for the toastmaster.
Bom boom. Yes, the anti toasting groups didn't succeed in
banishing toasting, but they, along with the toastmasters and books
about proper ways to toast, lead to a more refined toast,

(24:22):
one more true to its origins. Often a single sip
and someone's honor instead of a game to see who
got drunk the fastest. Without being called a lush etiquette
called for the recipient of a toast to bow with
politeness and smile with an air of great kindness. And yes,
it was usually a woman. In these early days in America,

(24:42):
toasting was tied to patriotism because America, thirteen toast, one
for each new state, was required to make any official
dinner or party celebrating the end of the Revolutionary War complete.
And further cementing this America Toasting Patriotism Association was a
in seventy eight musical composition published in a London magazine

(25:03):
called to an Acreon in Heaven, named for the Greek
poet whose work often showcased his love of love and
of wine. Soon after, a gentleman's club called the Anacreon
Society opened their meetings with this song and a toast.
It was quite the hit, the song, enough so that
a bunch of popular songs incorporated the melody, including the

(25:25):
star spangled banner, Oh wow, m hm, oh thank you alcohol, Yes,
thank you um. Of course, the American temperance movement was
not fond of toasting traditions, although due to them, a
counter toast of sorts developed temperance I'll drink to that
drink what liquor and not like a liquid. Yeah. From

(25:53):
eighteen eighty to nineteen toasting was hugely popular in the US.
Famous authors wrote toast. One magazine had a toast editor.
He would gather and judge the best toast from around
the country in a monthly contest. Some historians blame prohibition
on the lapse and American toasting culture while it was
enacted from three although it certainly did not stop people

(26:17):
from inventing new toasts. Here's one from the period. Here's
the prohibition. The devil take it. They've stolen our wine,
so now we make it. A lot of things rhymed.
Back then, it was pretty popular to rhyme. YEA. Movies,
TV and books and other pop culture helped solidify toasting
as a thing you do, and to this day we
do it, but around the world we toast in different ways.

(26:40):
More on that after a brief word from our sponsor,
and we're back, Thank you sponsor. One of the fun
things about toasting is all of the unique versions of

(27:01):
it that exists around the world. So we thought we'd
go over a few. Yeah. According to our very own website,
house to works traditional Gaelic toast because as follows, May
the road rise to meet you. May the wind be
always at your back, May the sunshine warm upon your face,
the rains falls soft upon your fields. And until we
meet again, may God hold you in the palm of

(27:22):
his hand. M My grandparents had that on a plaque
in their kitchen. Yeah. The British Royal Navy's daily toasts
evolved into a set of traditional toasts, one for every
day of the week, with the understanding that it's not
so much that they're definitely drinking every day as much
as that, you know, celebratory dinners might happen any day
of the week, so you need you need to have

(27:43):
a proper one for that day. There's gotta be a regiment.
Sundays to absent friends, Monday to our ships at sea,
Tuesday to our sailors well, Wednesday to ourselves as no
one else is likely to concern themselves with our welfare.
Thursday to a body war or sickly season, Friday to
a willing foe and see room. And Saturday has long

(28:06):
been to our wives and sweethearts, to which there is
a crowd response. To our wives and sweethearts, may they
never meet adultery jokes um as the Royal Navy officially
changed that toast to our families, purportedly to include an
honor the service women in their company. Yeah. China, Japan,

(28:29):
and Korea share a few common ideas about drinking and
toasting traditions. The most common Japanese and Korean words for
like cheers root from the Chinese, and the traditions tend
to be based in a status in respect strata. First off,
in these and actually a lot of cultures, it's a
rude to begin drinking before someone raises a glass for
a first toast. That someone can be you if you're

(28:51):
a guest, mhm, anyone can toast. In Japan, the go
to word for cheers is can pie, which means dry cup,
a k drain that glass. It did originate when the
drink of choice was sake that was consumed from small cups,
and it's not necessarily literal when you're drinking with large
glasses of beer. But more on that in a sec

(29:13):
The Korean word is gone bay, and the Chinese word
is pretty close to the Korean. It's gune bay. I
think it's gone by, gone by, Okay, gone by share
toasts in China and Korea can go in rounds with
everyone offering a cheer's to everyone of higher or equal status.
If you're offering the toast and thus putting yourself in

(29:35):
the position of showing respect, it's polite at that point
to drain your glass. I've heard anecdotes from both China
and Japan about this turning into like something of a
drinking courage game, where everyone is basically trying to like
outpolite everyone else and get drunk in the process. Um,
no matter how big the glasses or strong the drinks.

(29:56):
I definitely saw this go down when I was in China.
There are self alternatives in all of these cultures, of course.
My favorite at this very current moment might be the
Japanese atsure, which literally means something like you're honored and tired,
but in the instance of toast, better translates to you've

(30:16):
worked so hard you deserve this drink. That sounds like me,
I know you deserve this, you deserve it. It's usually
someone else saying it about you that that would be
better and less sad than me saying it to myself.
One that I heard a lot um in in my travels,
especially in Europe, but also in the US is if

(30:37):
you don't make eye contact with everybody during the toast,
you have to like do it with everyone. Um, then
you're gonna have seven years bad sex. I love how.
I love how it jumped from like it's rude to
make eye contact to seven years of bad sex. You
don't want that? I couldn't. Yeah, I mean, I think

(30:59):
it's just one of the things that sort of happened
and then got spread and there's really well, obviously there's
nothing I didn't look into. We should we should look
into that further. But I think it's more of a
kind of a thing that it's just like like an
urban legend. Yeah. Yeah, um that that's popular in parts

(31:19):
of Germany and in France, among other places. By the way,
Germans u prost and similar words and other languages probably
root from the Latin post. I'm saying these with very
strange accents. I think that the Latin is probably closer
to something like prost. I'm not sure if I said
that any differently. Anyway, Um, it means something like may
it be good or it maybe beneficial? Maybe? Yeah, that's nice.

(31:42):
And going back to that water thing and this superstition
surrounding toasting with water. Why don't we do that generally?
There's definitely American and I think British naval traditions that
say that the object of a toast with water will
die by drowning. Oh no, that's serious. I mean can
you also use that? Yeah, just knock out your enemies

(32:05):
and that dark very quickly. Um. There's a legend that
the tradition of this started with the ancient Greeks. Part
of their underworld pathology held that there were these five
rivers in Hades, one of which called Leathy. The dead
would drink water from to forget about some or all
of their earthly experience or existence. Therefore, the legend goes,

(32:27):
the Greeks would toast the dead with water. I think
it's probably closer to that, like either like macheesmo or
we're pouring out this libation to the gods. It's disrespectful
to use water instead of wine kind of concept. But
but that's a nice legend, it is. It's kind of
like they were drinking from the the river to get

(32:48):
the same effect of alcohol, to forget your existence, right,
Oh wow yeah, oh oh, what about a hungry moving on.
There's there's apparently this tradition in Hungary. That's like, do
not clink your glasses. Definitely don't. I read this on

(33:08):
the Internet and the only explanation that anyone offered was
that clinking glasses reminds folks of this one time that
thirteen martyrs were executed in eighteen forty nine, and I'm
not sure. I'm not sure. Yeah, okay, Well, if anyone
knows any more about that, then let us know. Russia
has a wealth of toasting traditions. There. It's also rude

(33:31):
to drink before a first toast is made, and in
the military tradition, there are at least thirteen toasts that
are accounted for. The first two are kind of quick blessings,
then there's one for the dead, and then the rest
of the thirteen for for women. A good simple one
in Russia is by the way, a bodiam, which is

(33:52):
we will, Yeah, we will, we will. I like it.
I have it from an excellent theater artist from Belarus
by the name of Asana that the most popular Belarusian
toast is Zaludorf, meaning for love's. In Georgia, the country,
not the United States, state drinking and toasting at feasts

(34:14):
is traditionally overseen by a tamada, a toastmaster. In formal gatherings,
you do not drink until the tamada has offered the
official toast and said until the end, which is another
kind of bottoms up suggestion. Sure m, it works on
two levels too, until the end, until the end, and
then until the bottom didn't drink, Yeah, yeah, emptied up.

(34:37):
Many Western cultures use a variation on the word salude, salute, salient, etcetera.
And these come from the Proto Indo European root soul,
meaning a whole or well kept, and then eventually the
Latin salutarre meaning literally wish health to with a connotation
of of greeting or paying respect. And I find it

(35:00):
really interesting that in English this root word branched into
like the really military connoted formal salute or like salutation,
but basically every other Latin influenced language uses it in
this much more casual and friendly and like yeah sort
of way. I guess it's all honorific speaking of things

(35:22):
that we don't know about the origins of Why do
some people clink the bottom of their glass against the
table after cheers and before they drink? I don't know.
No one does really good story. I know, no dang,
but everyone has an opinion. Um. I've heard everything from
your honoring the bar or the bar tender, to your

(35:43):
honoring those not around to actually clink glasses with you,
to your dispelling evil spirits um, to your dispelling extra
foam in your beer, to your dispelling over familiarity with
your drinking mates by disrupting the path from the clink
to your lips, which is very like good work today, Wesley,
I'll likely kill you tomorrow. Yeah, but you know, I

(36:05):
did it for a while just because I thought it
was how you did it, Like I thought that it
completed the toast. But yeah, I have some groups of
friends who all do it in a respectful way, and
I have some groups of friends who do that in
that kind of like few sort of way, And I
always forget which one I'm in, especially if I've had
more than one. It turns very exciting. And now tips

(36:31):
for a good toast, just kidding, we don't have any.
I one time gave a good toast, and generally I
just didn't like shorter the better get out of there quick. Yeah,
I'm usually just like I love you guys. Thank you,
you're great. I hope you're doing nice. See excellent, very
it was words strong together. I did collect a few

(36:56):
from one of those early eighteen hundreds toast master's guides,
this one by T. Hughes Um published in London in
and a couple of ones that he recorded in this
book are good luck until we are all tired of it,
which I think is cute. Yeah, and here's here's what

(37:19):
I thought you would like. Champagne to our real friends
and real pain to our sham friends. Yes you know
me so well. Oh that's so good. But yeah, that's
that's all. I've got. Tips from us, Keep it short
and sweet. If you're not sure of the customs wherever
it is that you are, then either ask beforehand or
follow everyone else's lead. And I don't know, be friendly, yes,

(37:44):
be kind. That's our toasting episode. Serious to you for listening. Yes, cheers, well,
cheers listeners. That brings us to the end of this
classic episode. Yes, yes, um, I'm sure that all of

(38:05):
you have toast are popular cheers that we missed out on.
Please send them our way. I love how people like
within friend groups or within families, people have their specific
they do so, we would love to to get those
from you listeners, and you can email them to us

(38:26):
at Hello at savor pod dot com. You can also
get in touch via social media. We are on Twitter, Instagram,
and Facebook 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, visit the our
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, and

(38:48):
we hope that lots more good things are coming your
way