Soaking in the Sunflowers

These large, lovely flowers each bear hundreds of seeds, prized for snacking and oil production alike. Anney and Lauren stick by ya -- and by the history and science of the sunflower.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Reese and I'm Lauren vocal Bom, and today
we have an episode for you about some flowers and
their seeds and oil. Yes, was there any particular inspiration
for this topic, Lauren? It was in our ideas sheet.
I don't know how long it's been. Specifically we had

(00:30):
sunflower oil in there. Maybe it was a listener suggestion.
So I suggested sunflower oil a while back. Actually I
would have been anti suggestion. Well, I mean you also
technically listen to the show. Sure, I do. Well. Any
reason why why you suggested it? Yes? Yes, Actually, um,

(00:54):
I my mom and I a few years back. She
took me to a sunflower farm um and it was
so so lovely and she loved some flowers, um and
they were just so pretty, and we like bought chopstick
and sunflower oil and some flower seeds. And I actually
hadn't heard about sunflower oil. I didn't know that was
a thing. We took one of the cutest pictures together

(01:17):
I think we've ever taken with all these sunflowers in
the background. It was just such a lovely day and
I was like, we should talk about that. And I
do love a good sunflower seed. My older brother that
used to be like a sign he'd been around was
a bag of something. Uh yeah, yeah. I growing up
my grandparents in Ohio. My mom's parents had a few

(01:39):
sunflowers in their little garden out back, and so so
I always remember right having some of the blooms from that.
They were the type that that has like one large
head at the top and then maybe a few smaller ones,
and so we would have the smaller ones as blooms
around the house and um and yeah, and as the
seeds would come in, we would eat the seeds. Uh

(02:00):
so good. Um. Also, I feel like it should be
obvious as I am uh, as I've said before, a
goth of a certain age. Um. I was really into
The X Files when it came out. I was in
like like late elementary, early middle school and uh and
Fox Mulder, one of the main characters, eats sunflower seeds

(02:24):
like kind of continually for a few seasons there, like
it's a very frequent snack from I can't believe I
forgot that because I loved The X Files too, although
I was forbidden from watching it for a few years.
I happened to miss the sunflower seed time. Yeah. Yeah,

(02:46):
so I definitely went through like a like a molder
sympathetic related sunflower seed eating period of my lies. I
love that. Apparently for the show, um they I didn't
know this off the top of my head, but I

(03:07):
found it while I was doing reading. Um, the bags
that he was eating from were just bags of David
brand sunflower seeds, but they had like put a sticker
over the actual brand name, um, and the sticker red
spits s p I t z UM. But otherwise it
was just it was just a David's bag. So yeah,

(03:31):
that's funny. I wonder if it has anything to do
with the whole baseball thing, which I didn't know about,
but chewing sun flower seeds for baseball, like spitting them out,
I don't know. I don't know m mysteries. I mean,
spitting in the sunflower seed shell is definitely a thing
that some humans do. It is it is? Uh And yeah,

(03:53):
I guess a final culture note before I'm sure we
have we'll have others throughout, but I have had a
post Malone song Sunflower in my head since I'm not
really I have no idea of what that is I
you've seen into the spider verse, right, yeah, yeah, it's

(04:13):
it's it's in it's it starts, it's in there twice,
so it's kind of like, okay, but it's a coffee
song he's listening to when he's like drawing. Oh cute, alright,
alright yeah yeah, well I guess this brings us do
our question. Sure, sunflowers what are they? Well? Sunflowers are beautiful,

(04:40):
bright flowers that happened to produce hundreds or even thousands
of tiny fruits which we ignore, um and eat the
single seeds inside of those fruits. Um. Sunflowers are an
art and a science. They are pretty much the greasiest
flower out there, but in like the best way post
bole um. They're like, they're like a slow blooming snack machine.

(05:07):
Oh it's lovely, and they are beautiful. They are so
pretty heck yes. Botanical name Helianthus annis or an us um,
sunflowers are an annual plant that grows tall but remains
relatively herbaceous that is soft and not not woody. Um.

(05:28):
They commonly reach a six to twelve feet in height
or about two to four meters, with a sturdy central
stem putting off these these broad dark green leaves and
flowering heads um sometimes multiple flowering heads, or sometimes just
one at the very top, and those heads will grow
into these big discs like a like sort of platter

(05:50):
shaped about four in diameter that's about ten to fifty
centimeters um, with a with the ring of these colorful
petals around the outer rim of the platter in in
hues of bright yellow to gold to reddish, and then
on on the inside making up the dish of the platter.

(06:11):
Hundreds or yes, thousands of these tiny florets that can
each develop into a single dry husky fruit that each
contains a single seed um. And these fruits are, yes,
what we call sunflower seeds. Confusing, yes, but so uh.

(06:34):
Those seeds grow in a spiral patterns out from the
center of the flower head, and most commonly, if you
count the spiraling rows of seeds, each rill will contain
a number of seeds from the Fibonacci sequence um, in
which each number is the sum of the previous two
so one, two, three, five, eight, one etcetera. Yeah, um

(07:00):
needs in the center will still be developing, while the
ones towards the outer edges mature and the husks of
those fruits or seeds, yeah, can can come in colors
from white to brown to black. When they're mature, um,
they're often dark with with white or cream colored stripes.
They're oblong, slightly flattened ovals that are pointed at one end,

(07:22):
and those inner seeds are cream colored and about the
same shape. The seeds are consumed by themselves as a snack,
sold either hold or still in their shells, usually roasted
um seasoned, either just with salt or with any number
of flavoring sweet or savory. I mean, you know all
all that, like like dill, pickle and bacon, ranch and

(07:45):
whatever the whatever the flavorings of the day are. Yeah,
to eat them in their shells, right, People generally crack
the shells with their teeth, like put the whole thing
in their mouth and crack the shell open with their
teeth and then split the shell out. The seeds can
also be used as an ingredient in baked goods um
or like a sprinkling on top of fresh salads, maybe

(08:07):
in a in a pala for granola, or a trail
mix or a candy um anything where you might want
a bit of crunch and then kind of like nutty
buttery flavor, because yeah, they can have a little bit
of a crunch to them, but they're sort of creamy
and sweet saunets. They can also be processed into a
nut butter to be used as a spread or an

(08:28):
ingredient in a savory or sweet dishes. And they are
a fairly oily type of seed about protein and oil,
though that can it can go up or down depending
on the varietal being grown. UM the oil from the
seeds is popular in cooking and baking because it's pretty
shelf stable. UM. It doesn't need to be hydrogenated in

(08:48):
order to get it to keep for any length of time. UM,
and hydrogen eating oils tends to make them less healthy,
so that's cool. UM the oil also with stands fairly
high temperatures. It's got a high smoke point, and it's
also used in the making and manufacture of vegan alternatives
to conventional animal products like a margarine or mayo or

(09:10):
various UM nut cheeses and spreads stuff like that. M
the oil is a little bit expensive to produce, even
though the seeds contain a lot of it UM, and
that's because they're also a little bit waxy. UM which
requires more filtration and processing. But nonetheless, the oil is
also used in various industries um as biofuels, cosmetics, paints, lubricants,

(09:34):
and uh and in drug preparations, and the seed hulls
are used as animal feed supplements. WHOA, what about the nutrition? Uh,
Sunflower seeds are pretty good for you. Um. They are
a source of protein and fiber and like those good
unsaturated fats, plus a whole spread of vitamins and minerals

(09:55):
and other micronutrients. They are calorically dense, so you know,
like watch your portion sizes and of vegetable hydrate, especially
if you've got that bacon ranch flavor or whatever it is.
I did have a good time looking at all the
flavors that were available. Oh yeah, Oh man, I didn't
do I didn't do a list. I kind of meant
to and then didn't get around to it before we
started recording. Yeah, because I don't think I've ever had

(10:16):
anything other than you know, your straight salted salted. Yeah. Yeah,
but of course, of course we've added bacon flavoring to it.
Why not? Why not? Well, we do have someone numbers
for you, oh we do. Um, all right, so I
know that I said that thing about the Fibonacci sequence,
about the seeds being um coming in Fibonacci sequence numbers.

(10:39):
But UM, that was kind of one of those things.
It was like, oh, yeah, they grow in Fibonacci sequences. Uh.
Some researchers did some crowdsourced science. UM. They collected UH
samples of six hundred and fifty seven reported sunflowers over
the course of four years and then published into a

(11:00):
sixteen The study that found, UM that as many as
one in five sunflowers will grow seeds that are not
in the Fibonacci sequence, and some in patterns that are
much more complicated. Right. That's interesting. Yeah, I love it.
I do too. UM. I have kind of some dated

(11:21):
numbers here, but in nine of the sunflower crops value
is due to the oil, and at the time this
oil accounted for around fourteen cent of global seed oil production.
As sunflower seeds are right high in oils. Um, you
can get more oil from sunflowers than soybeans acre for acre,

(11:42):
UM almost six hundred pounds of oil per acre from sunflowers. Dang, yeah,
I know, right, I don't know, but that sounds like
a lot UM, and and it is a big market,
especially after pretty steady growth for the past few decades. UM.
As of twenty any, the sunflower oil market was worth

(12:02):
some eighteen point five billion dollars and it was the
fourth most consumed vegetable oil in the world. Yeah, more
sunflowers are being grown and more oil is being produced
as as possible. UM. Numbers do vary, but the estimates
for for last year one where that oil production was

(12:23):
going to increase four percent to thirty nine million metric
tons thanks to a bunch of new cultivation efforts around
the world. UM, and that exports of that we're going
to increase fourteen percent to twelve point six million metric
tons thanks to these growing markets in places like the EU, China, India,

(12:44):
Iraq and Turkey. Wow. Yeah UM. As of Russia and
India were the largest producers of sunflower oil with around
three million metric tons each. Ukraine is also a major player,
Belgium and the Netherland. Meanwhile, we're consuming the most per
capita UM thirty nine and twenty six kilos per person

(13:06):
per year, with Russia just behind them. Dang, I know, right, UM.
Although these numbers are tied to safflower oil as well. So,
but yes, lots of it. Um. Meanwhile, a few world
records for you. Uh, the most heads on a single

(13:27):
sunflower plant clocks in at eight hundred and thirty seven.
I know that that plant was grown in Michigan. Um.
I think the record is from like two thousand one. Um.
I didn't write it down, but that's that's what my
brain is telling me. Um. Meanwhile, the tallest sunflower on

(13:49):
record was nine point one seven meters that's thirty ft
one inch. Wow. That was grown in Germany by a
dude who has been leap frogging a few other people
for the tallest sunflower title for the past like couple
of decades. Um. He used this this multi tier scaffolding

(14:15):
to help support it. Um. The local fire brigade came
to help measure it. It's the whole thing, the whole thing.
Love it. Yeah, what a thing to decide, you know what?
I'm going to be known for this? Yeah, I don't
care what I've got to do, and no one is
going to take it from me. Who do they think
they are? I love it? Yes, Well, We've got a

(14:43):
lot of We've got a lot of interesting history on
this one. Some art, all kinds of things we do,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break forward from
our sponsors. We're back, thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So, yes,

(15:07):
we are focusing on the seed. Um, we're gonna be
talking about the oil too. It's just so closely intertwined.
Oh yeah, yeah, it's it's the oil comes from the seeds.
It's so it's difficult to separate out. Yeah. Yes. So
historians think that sunflowers originated in North America, perhaps specifically
in western North America, but that the sunflowers migrated east

(15:29):
along with some of the tribes from that area. As
they migrated, they took the sunflowers with them, where they
were first investigated somewhere around four thousand years ago. Um. Yeah,
it's thought to be the only crop that was domesticated
in what's now the United States to have reached global importance. Wow.
Okay uh. Native Americans selected for sunflowers that grew a large,

(15:53):
single head and produced edible seeds that were hiring protein,
a larger and more resistant to pest. The seeds were
used as food, but also in art, medicine, and rituals. Yeah.
Just just for example, sunflowers were used by um by
the Aztecss offerings to the god of sun and war.

(16:14):
Makes sense. For a while, sunflowers were widely cultivated and
grown alongside crops like squash, But when Mayze came onto
the scene, that changed. By the time Europeans started showing up,
May's had replaced sunflowers as the dominant crop. Those sunflowers
were still grown, um. Some records include observations of sunflowers

(16:36):
from southern Canada all the way down to Mexico. In
the hundreds, the Spanish took sunflower seeds back to Europe
with them, where they quickly spread. At first, Europeans it seems,
mainly admired them for their size and beauty. Yeah, not
as a food source quite yet. Um. Yeah, they were
like really posh. At one point with the Italian Medici dynasty,

(17:00):
they garnered a few nicknames like the marigold or chrysanthemum
of peru Um. By the mid six hundreds, the sunflower
even came to replace traditional European flowers in retellings of
um Greek myths. Where where prior tellings of these stories
about Helios or Apollo Um, you know, the god of

(17:21):
the sun had had used heliotrope um, folks started using
this new Helios anthos, this this flower of Helios, the
sunflower um in these tellings um or or in artistic
works depicting the stories like um. Like in one myth,
the gods take pity on this water dymph who has

(17:41):
fallen head over heels for Helios and is just pining away,
her face always always watching him as he flies across
the heavens and his chariot, the sun. Um and uh.
And they turn her so that she can quit pining,
I guess, into a sunflower. And I'm not sure why
that makes it better, but that's the math. That's one

(18:02):
way to go about it. And the sunflower will um uh.
And it's and it's a little bit dramatic too, um
because it's such a large flower. But if you watch
a sunflower throughout the day, it will follow the sun
across the sky. Yeah it's pretty cool, yeah cool yeah uh.
As time passed, Europeans did come to realize the culinary

(18:26):
potential of the sunflower as well, and a lot of
that has to do with Russia, because yes, eventually sunflowers
reached Russia, where they transformed the flower into cooking oil.
And if you're like me, and you're like, huh, well,
why did that happen? And why did this sunflower take
off in Russia and its oil in particular? Some stories
suggest it might have been due to religion, or at

(18:48):
least partly. So okay, yes, because during Lent, the Russian
Orthodox Church had a list of forbidden foods, foods that
included things like butter and lard. But because the sunflower
was a new crop, new to Russia anyway, it wasn't
included on the list, and people figured out they could
use sunflower oil, causing the crop to really take off.

(19:09):
It's kind of a loophole. Uh. I am continually startled
by what a gigantic impact the Catholic Church in its
various forms across Europe had on on oil, on on
the types of fats that were eaten around continents. Wild

(19:32):
to me, anyway, I'm sorry, please continue? Huh No, I agree.
The matter of time, the number of times we bought
lint and lintz impact in particulars pretty like amazing to me.
But yes, okay, so the high protein content was a
plus of all this. Two people were a fan of that.
By the eighteen hundreds, both Russia and Ukraine had fields

(19:52):
of sunflowers from accounts that read huge fields. Soviet plant
breeders selected for varieties of sunflowers that can almost fifty
oil in their seeds under Stalin's rule, and over time
European grocery shelves started stalking sunflower oil, and the oil
and seeds spread across Asia as well. Meanwhile, European artists

(20:14):
were still just enchanted with the flowers. Um. Impressionists like
Money depicted them in the mid to late eighteen hundreds.
Oscar Wilde wrote about them. Um. This one tour that
he did of the United States in eighteen eighty two
featured sunflowers depicted on the stage backdrop and um on

(20:35):
hand fans for the audience. Yeah. And of course of
van Go did a two series of sunflower paintings, the
first from eighteen eighty seven featuring these dead flowers, and
then the second the following year with these vibrant blooms. UM.
And they appear in paintings by Climpton and Diego Rivera

(20:57):
just all over the place. It's really it's very interesting.
It's a very I mean like they're real pretty, but
like it's it's you can get really, really really into
um the different theories about what they were symbolizing to
all of these different artists and how they became such
a trope. Yeah. Yeah. And you and I were discussing

(21:18):
before we started recording how fun it is when sabor
gets to do like a little art history. Yeah. Yeah.
I Like, I was like running out of time before
the recording and I was like, oh, I still need
to talk about botany heck um yeah. Yeah. Also just
side note, as I think I have also mentioned on
the show before, if you ever really want to make

(21:40):
me cry, show me the Van Go episode of Doctor Who.
And that's I don't know why you want to that
seems mean, but um but heck, that's a tough one.
That's a tough one. I mean, I and some of
my friends just enjoyed crying. Sometimes a good cry can
be it can be nice. It's it's cathartic. You're right,

(22:02):
You're right. Maybe maybe people are just out there looking
for catharsis for me. That's yeah. Let's well put the
sunflower spin on it, the sunny one. Yes. Meanwhile, meanwhile,
plant breeders continue to have success in creating varieties of
sunflowers that became we're more commercially viable, which in turn

(22:24):
let to more farmers growing them in the Great Plains
region here in the United States. After World War Two.
These farmers could sell the oil and the seeds either
as bird seeds and side note, my mom said, my
mom is a big she's got like the binoculars, she's
got the books. She's a birdwatcher. Okay, cool, cool, and
she has a pretty decent sized backyard. But there's all

(22:44):
these different types of birdhouses and bird feeters she has,
and she says, they love the sunflower seeds are their favorite,
maybe tied with the peanuts, but those are the ones
that go down the fastest. And they fight over them.
I've seen them out there, like all right, okay, and
be your nightmare, Lauren, birds fighting all over the place.

(23:06):
They're fighting over there, and not like on my face,
I'm pretty compay with it. Okay, that's fair. Uh yeah,
but also yeah, they these farmers were able to sell
the seeds as a human snack, not just for birds. However,
the production declined in the eighties due to things like price, pest,
and disease. Since the nineteen thirties, production has increased by

(23:28):
six times, though, and the sunflower seed was the third
highest source of vegetable oil from eighty six, very specific
after palm and soybean. However, during our more modern era,
sunflower oil has typically been eclipsed by corn or soy oil,
behind olive oil. Of course here in the United States anyway,
that's not the case everywhere, but some flower oil did

(23:51):
see a bump in the nineteen nineties things to potato
chips and the Mediterranean diet. Both those things, people were
swopping out trans that's for things like olive oil, leaving
companies that use trans fats in their products scrambling for
an alternative, including companies like Freedo Lay who fried their
chips in trans fat heavy partially hydrogenated soybean oil that

(24:13):
that's what they were using at the time. Well, sunflower
breader Jerry Miller told them about the high oil producing
sunflower seeds that the Soviets had created, resulting in an
oil that it was good for you, and his words
didn't go bad when frank chips and had no trans fats.
Miller recalled Frieda Lay had a chemist named minog Groupta

(24:34):
who recognized immediately what it could do for his company,
and he said, let's go, let's do this. And I
hope I didn't butcher that name. I couldn't find a pronunciation. Yes. Uh.
And in two thousand three UH, based on Gupta's work,
Freedoa switched to sunflower oil for the manufacture of its snacks.
And these days farmers have entire fields of these new

(24:59):
UH sunfl hours in order to meet the demand from
potato chip companies, stack companies. Yeah, demand for the oil
is also tied up in research into another alternative to
conventional products that was coming up during the same time.
Biofuel research with the oil is ongoing. Breeders are attempting
to lower the saturated fat in the seeds, and if

(25:21):
they succeed, sunflower oil might become the vegetable oil with
the lowest levels of saturated fat. And what I've loved
about that story was that it was an accidental kind
of discovery. Yeah, this sunflower that did this. It was
sort of a people didn't know some flowers did that,
and the I think it might have been Miller, but

(25:42):
it was somebody who worked at the Sunflower research station,
Which I love that that exists. Um. He was like,
that's so exciting. He goes around and collect sunflowers. He's like,
so exciting. There could be something out there that we
just don't know yet. His enthusiasm was very, very infectious cool. Yes, Uh,
And the oil isn't the only thing to be more

(26:04):
widely adopted because of perceived health benefits. In recent decades,
the seeds have been viewed as a healthy snack and frequently,
uh they pop up in articles about health, some more
reputable than others, but a lot of my early search
results were all about the health of some flowers eats. Yeah,
it's it's one of those things that, especially the ones
that are sold in their shells, are talked about as

(26:28):
a UM as a good way to you know, like
get that crunchy snack that you're looking for that also
has a good amount of protein and healthier fats, and furthermore,
that will slow you down a little bit as you're
eating UM, letting your your stomach have time to contact
your brain and be like, hey dude, you're getting full
UM and so therefore leading to less overall consumption or

(26:51):
less like accidental consumption. Yes. Uh. Skipping ahead though to
UM to like nap ish cooking oils in general, have
seen price increases during the COVID nineteen pandemic as supply
chain issues have decreased supply in In the case of

(27:13):
sunflower oil, like many crops um, this is exacerbated by
recent climate change issues causing more problems with the supply um.
But research is going into um wild species in the
sunflower genus, which contains like over a hundred species, including
the domesticated sunflower, in the hopes that hybrids could help

(27:36):
create sturdier plants. And yeah, I read a couple of
articles that were that were really dear about these researchers
going out and looking for these these wild sunflower types
that grow in unexpected like just right up out of
the sand, out of the southwestern United States and stuff
like that. And I'm like, oh man, that's so cool.

(27:56):
It is. Well, stepping back a bit, we have some
more kind of arts cultural notes. Yeah, yeah, I wanted
to end on like not climate change, so um right. Um.
The X Files debut Ine uh Molder snacked on sunflower
seeds and that first pilot episode. Um. He later discusses

(28:20):
having a particular nostalgia for sunflower seeds because when he
was growing up, he says that he would wake up
in the middle of the night convinced that he was
the only person on the planet, that he was totally alone. Um.
But then he would hear from the other room his
dad snacking on sunflower seeds and be comforted by by

(28:41):
that human connection. Yeah. He also uses sunflower seeds to
uh to temporarily stop a vampire in season five, in
the episode Oh Bad Blood, because in in some vampire lore,
and for these vampires in question, if you, um, if

(29:03):
you spill uh seeds or coins or something on on
the ground, then they will compulsively stop and pick them
up or count them or whatever the mythology says. And
so and so the kid from sand Lot is this vampire.
This might be a spoiler. I'm sorry, and he and
he spills the sunflower seeds everywhere, and and Molder spills

(29:26):
the sunflower seeds and then the kid has to stop
and pick him up. I would be so annoyed. Oh yeah,
this kid is mad. I consider. I agree, I'd be furious.
And I count these sunflowers seeds. I have to say,
that's not as silly as what I thought it was
going to be, which is something like because sun is

(29:47):
in the name, never with the X files never never
never not silly. And then on kind of the other side.
Hi way Way debuted his seminal piece of art called
Sunflower Seeds in two thousand nine. For the piece, he
handcrafted sunflower seeds in porcelain and filled the exhibition hall

(30:10):
with him. A bunch of people worked on it. Actually,
one hundred million seeds fifty tons been exhibited in nine countries. Yeah,
there's a whole secumentary about the making of it. Uh,
it was intense. Oh that's so cool. Mm hmmm, hmmm, dude, Okay,
that's a lot, it is, Oh it is. I think

(30:34):
some of them have either gotten lost or like, not
all exhibition halls can have the size to display it
at its share beauty. So I think the number might
have gone down from when he first debuted it, but
it's still a lot. Yeah, a hundred million is like
a bunch that m m m ah sunflowers. This has

(30:57):
made me think this isn't a question, and I get
is often anymore, but like, I think the sunflower might
be one of my favorite flowers. Yes, I love them,
I love him. I'm getting like always ful dis imaginy.
Oh yeah, I've never I've never been out to a
to a farm with with that many of them. But

(31:18):
it sounds really really really beautiful. Um, I guess, I
I guess I never think about them as like a
flower when I'm thinking about flowers. But yeah, they're they're pretty,
They're pretty Okay, they're pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah, they've got
some fun math going on. It's lots of cool. Sense
are we really got to go all over the place

(31:39):
with this one? We did vampires who knew vampires? I know.
The only thing is I've just realized every now and then,
when I'm doing like all my pun title ideas to
send to Lauren, I'm like, she will not get this one,
but I have to put it in any way. I'm
not gonna get my post full Alan, that's all I

(32:00):
look look up, I look up the song. It's okay,
You've got to understand my puns along and it's part
of my artistic process. Well, I know, like half of
them probably only makes sense to me and one other person,

(32:22):
So it's okay, it's okay. I feel like I don't know,
I mean, maybe maybe if maybe, if I'm not getting
your original intention. Maybe they're vibing for me on a
different level. I feel like I'm not. I feel like
I'm not blatantly confused by your puns most of the time.
Yeah that's fair, because some of them, I'm like, this
is such a deep cut and probably only me, but

(32:46):
I have to make it anyway. I have to get
out of my system. I understand. I see you and
I and I suspect that anyone who is listening to
this show probably probably sees you as well. Oh, thank you,
Sunflowers for all. That's about what we have to say

(33:09):
about Sunflowers for now, though. Yes, um, but speaking of
y'all listeners, we do have some listener mail for you,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
a word from our sponsors. We're back Thank you, sponsor, Yes,

(33:31):
thank you. We're back with listen. Yes, all right. Kathleen
wrote today, I finally went to the fancy grocery store
in the rich neighborhood. I saw kumquats and was like, yes,

(33:54):
Laurence says these are the best, and it's been forever
since I had one. Don't even remember the taste. Gotta
get him. No price tag to be seen, but that's
all fine. I'll only get a few. I get to
the cash register. Two grams a half pound was almost
ten dollars. Yeah, I finally see the price on the screen.
It's thirty three dollars and nineties cents per kilogram. So

(34:18):
I'm half afraid to try them now for fear I life.
Please eat lots of kumquats and other tropical things. For
those of us in more northern remote areas, take care
of yourselves. Cheers. Ps. I recommend your podcast of Friends
all the time, most recently under the description of it's
the listening equivalent of the feeling of a hug. Please wite,

(34:47):
Are you warm, and don't worry. I don't think we
could change if we wanted to. Nope, nope, nope, nope.
What you get yep? Yep. I still have not seen kumquats,
but that is quite steepid price. Uh yeah, that's high. Yeah,
I'm I'm looking out, but I've I've also been in

(35:09):
this position where you're like, surely it can't be that bad,
and you go to check out, like, oh yeah, they
I mean they are pricey here as well, But goodness,
I'm not sure if they're that pricey. Yeah, that's a
there there. There are a number of things that I'm like, well,
this piece of fruit is going to be my treat

(35:29):
for the week. It's usually worth it. Yeah. Um. Vicky wrote,
I love your show and its predecessor and have been
meaning to write for ages that in botany only genera
is used as the plural of genus, never genuses, so

(35:50):
much so that it sounds really wrong to those of
us in the plant realm Um. I do speak from
a British and Australian perspective, so maybe in the US
botanical field genuses is why used. In typing this though
it has come up as a spelling error. Anyway, I
look forward to your always entertaining dives into foods. Huh.

(36:10):
I've never heard heard of that word generally. Um, yeah,
I've I've only ever Okay, so I've only ever seen
the plural of genus written as genera in um in
botanical uh. Contexts Um. I use the word genuses because
I always forget, and I in fact looked it up

(36:32):
before I started reading this listener meal to double check.
I always forget how to say genera. Um, I'm like
is it gener a? Is it? What are we doing? Um?
But but when I looked it up according it will
well a, um, it is not squiggly read underlined as
being an incorrect spelling genuses UM in an our American

(36:57):
Google doc over here UM and B. When I looked
it up a Merriam Webster, it says that you can
pluralize it as genuss. Mm hmmm. It's like saying it
in that way that Mary Webster says things when it's like,
well people do this, but yeah, it's kind of like
when the French deliverate on whether or not they'll moord

(37:17):
like email. Well, I guess people are doing it so
we can't stop them. Yeah, I guess that you say
that I have seen kind of those old timey botanical illustrations,
and I think I have seen genera in that sense.

(37:37):
But either way interesting note yeah, oh yeah, and I
mean and and um. Also a good reminder that that
we're just we're just podcasters. Um, We're not. We We
do not have science or history um backgrounds. Um. We
are just curious humans who are out here out here

(38:02):
reporting what we what we read. We are very curious. Indeed, yes, yes, yes,
well thanks to both of those listeners to writing. If
you would like to write to us that you can
our emails Hello at savor pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter,

(38:23):
Facebook and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope
to hear from you. Savor is Productions by Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way