March 14, 2024 • 38 mins
These mid-sized, milk-producing mammals have been part of human cuisine and culture for millennia. Anney and Lauren are not kidding around about the biology and history of goats.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Save for Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie and I'm more on google bum and today
we have an episode for you about goat.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, whoof what an episode it is? It is?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, I probably should have specified more than goats, but
here we are back to This is going to be
one of those where we have like a few offshoot
episodes about you know, like every dish in creation that
uses any kind of goat product. We're probably gonna have
to start an entire like fiber and fashion podcast in
(00:40):
order to talk about goat hair and yeah, the then
do all the episodes about every different different type of
goat milk cheese on the planet. It's going to be
a whole thing, I think. You know, wow, a new podcast. Yeah, yeah,
I know nothing about fiber or fashion, so.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
It's gonna be great. Then it's exciting. We're all going
to be learning together. Well, was there any reason a
goat was on your mind as a food topic?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
You know? I don't. I think I think it had
kind of been on the list for a while. And
because I enjoy eating goat meat, I like goat milk products,
so I was like, huh, they've got those weird pupils.
You know, let's read about them for a few days.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It is true that the goat has a lot of
cultural stuff going for it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh my heck it does.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah. Yeah. I when I was just at the top
putting notes here, which I usually do for like banter
purposes or just cultural notes that I have, there's so
many about goats. I wrote the goat You're on your own, kid,
which I think was a tidal idea that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I, oh, yeah, I like that evil.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Goats, which black Fellow and and I yeah, we were
like we could talk about evil goats. But then again
remembered food podcasts the Bazar, like the thing in the
goat's stomach that is supposedly going to heal you, which
(02:26):
we've talked about before in another podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Or tell you the future. Yeah yeah, stuff right, yes,
which I guess is technically related to ambergree oh, because
goats and whales are both for stomached ruminants. And uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,
Annie and I recently went on Stuff to Blow your
(02:48):
Mind Sister podcast and uh hung out with Jim McCormick
and uh yeah, talked about ambergris, which is whale gut
secretion that the perfume industry decided is the best thing.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was a fascinating episode. I highly recommend it. It
goes blas.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I had too much fun.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
It was a great time. It was a great time.
Friend of the show Joe McCormick, Yes, one of our
D and D group members. Yeah, yeah, it was really fun. Also,
I was thinking about Jurassic Park the goat.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah yeah, the goat park Shure.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Fainting goats have had their moment. There's a fainting goat
wiring in North Georgia. They have fainting goats. Screaming goats
also have had their moment. Many a music video you
couldn't watch. My mom had a goat that was named
appropriately Billy. Oh and every time she tells me about Billy,
(03:55):
it sounds like he was an angry goat, but he
ate everything and was useful. Oh, which I have heard.
This is a new thing for me. But another of
the show and friend in real life, Samantha from Stuff
I've Never told you. She recently ish bought a house
and she looked into hiring goats for lawn services.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had neighbors that would
do that sometimes. In one of my houses I was
renting a while back.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I'd never heard of that, but I guess it's a thing.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah. It was pretty cool because like the goat would
just be hanging out in their yard, you know, doing
goat stuff for a few days, a couple times a year,
and it would definitely like scream at us when we
went to our cars, and so I would just kind
of scream back.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Speaking the language of the goat, right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I did it often enough that I was like, it's
clearly communicating like I might. It's rude if I don't say.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Something, Oh, yeah, you don't want to be rumed to
the goat, my goodness. But I mean that's kind of
if I had to put like a through line of
this whole episode, it would be goats are very useful.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
They are a lot of stuff. Yes, yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I guess that goats. What are they? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Goats are a category of ruminant mammal that humans raise
primarily for their meat, milk, and or hair and hide,
depending on the type. They're also sometimes hunted in the wild.
They are small to medium in size, so they're less
like immediately resource intensive than other milk and meat animals
like cattle and tend to be a little bit more
adaptable to different environments. Goat meat is a red meat.
(05:56):
It's a rich and a little bit funky gamey. The
milk has a little bit of a art funk to
it as well. The meat tends to be a little
bit tough, so it's often used in dishes like stews
where it has a chance to soften up. The milk
is used fresh and also preserved in all kinds of
tangy cheeses and like yogurt type situations. Goats. Goats are
like a like a more opinionated sheep. They're like a
(06:19):
They're like a small, punk rock curious cow. Yeah yeah.
Goat milk and meat both are both so like rich
and kind of satiny, but also have something just so
like fresh and bright about them. They take whatever meal
or snack you're eating, and they make it feel like
(06:41):
you're you're dining outside on on the kind of like
bright spring day where you can just feel like the
grass growing around you.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, they're like a little picnic Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Bloodies, delicious buddies.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Okay, So there are a lot of breeds of goat,
like somewhere from over five hundred to over one thousand
depending on who you ask. We're going to get into
a few ish of those breeds in the history section.
But like, the thing is is that humans have been
keeping goats for a long time and for different purposes.
(07:22):
You know, meat, milk, fiber, leather being the main three there,
and so you know, so we've bred for those for
those purposes, and there are also a lot of points
at which populations of goats have gone feral and done
their own thing. So so different goats are different, but
very basically, goats are mammals that grow up to about
one hundred and twenty pounds that's about fifty five kilos,
(07:43):
though they're often about half that size. Depending on the breed,
some will reproduce throughout the year instead of just in
single season. A single dough will often have two kids
young goats a year, and you can maintain a pretty
good sized herd with like dozens of doughs and only
a couple bucks. They're a bit more prolific than sheep,
which have a similar body size, so they are more
(08:05):
commonly raised for meat than sheep are, perhaps especially in
subsistence farming and in developing parts of the world. They
also tend to be better at handling like heat and
also low water conditions than sheep or cattle. And they're weird.
Peoples are because they're prey animals, not predators. Predators tend
(08:26):
to have rounded people's prey. Animals that are trying to
look out for more stuff on their periphery tend to
have differently shaped peoples.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I guess we should mention also because I think sometimes
I forget people do not watch as much horror as
we do. At the beginning, when we mentioned evil goats,
we were, as you said, black Philip from the VICH,
which Lauren and I were on an episode of the podcast,
(08:58):
may be crush to talk about. Oh yeah, if you
want to check it out. But yeah, they've got eyes
that are very striking. Yeah, I can see why people
were like, hmmm, let's make him represent the devil.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
There is a again, this is a food show, y'all,
like like, but there is a really interesting history of
goat symbolism in art and culture, and and I tried
to read enough about it in a short enough period
of time that I didn't feel like I was wasting
an entire day of food podcast reading reading about this stuff.
(09:41):
I couldn't I couldn't. It's it's more complicated than all that.
But but I think that we have that there's like
a couple places in the Bible where goats are used
as a metaphor of like a strong willed creature and
in a negative sense, And so that's where we get
the like evil goat thing.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I did the same thing. We both desperately wanted to
talk about it. But yeah, it was more complicated because
it was like, now you have to research this ancient
demon name. Yeah, well I really can't relate this peck
to food, and I can tell it's going to take
(10:23):
a lot of my time. But if you're interested listeners.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Oh yeah, it's out there. I feel like Robert and
Joe over and stuff to blow your mind have probably
talked about it at some point.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Oh I bet they have.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
If they haven't, then I will tell them to do
that post take.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well, we have a lot of sway absolutely yeah, okay, okay,
so goat goat food food show here we are all right.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Although goats do not eat as much over all as
cattle because they're just not as big, they do eat
more like per volume of milk produced as much as
three to four times more per quart of milk is
compared to dairy cows. Or that's what I read from
a paper from the early nineteen hundreds. There might have
been breeding initiatives and to other technologies that have created
(11:20):
milky or goats. I'm not sure, but yeah and yeah.
Goats also like need a little bit more of a
controlled diet than pop culture would tell you. But they
can be successfully fed with plant matter that would otherwise
be considered like a waste product or a byproduct, or
like OG's, how did that patch over there get so overgrown?
Get the goats over here? They're capable of eating a
(11:42):
wide variety of vegetation, partially because they are ruminants, meaning
that they have four stomachs which they use to really
break down their food in multiple stages, getting a lot
more nutrition out of it than like certainly we could.
And they do chew their cud like cows. The younger
animals do tend to have more tender meat, though breeding
and like the slaughter and harvest of the meat can
(12:04):
have a large impact. Science is still investigating this to
help develop best recommendations for farmers. Animal stress matters. Super cool,
super cool stuff being done around all of this but
again sort of Basically, there are two sort of grades
of goat meat, cabrito or capretto, which is meat from
(12:25):
goats that are just a few months old, and then chevron,
which is meat from goats that are over a year old.
Cabrito is paler and has a finer texture. You might
use it in like roasts or chops like you would lamb.
Chevron is typically stewed, and because chevron can be more
more strongly flavored than other red meats like, for example, beef,
it can stand up to like heavy seasonings and dishes
(12:47):
like curries. And goats are just a super interesting livestock
animal because it's considered so multifunctional. You know, goats might
be raised primarily for a non food function and clearing
or their hair or hide, with their milk and or
meat being harvested essentially as a byproduct. Or they can
be raised specifically for the milk or for the meat.
(13:09):
I don't think that I know of another land animal
that is so like multipurpose.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, when I was reading this, I couldn't think of
one either. I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're
up to stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Man, Okay, but you're curious about fainting goats, because of
course you're curious about fainting goats, So yeah, fainting is
a little bit of a misnomer. The goats are not
losing consciousness, they're just falling over. This is caused by
what's basically a delay and relaxation of muscles the tense
involuntarily during surprise or other excitement. Like think about when
(13:47):
you startle, you tense up briefly. So what's happening in
these goats is that they lock into that tension for
several seconds, and if they were on uneven footing when
they tensed up, they're likely to tip over. It's a
genetic mutation that popped up in this population in the
United States in Tennessee back in the eighteen hundreds. The
(14:07):
condition is known as my atonia, and the goats are
more properly called my tonic than fainting because this is
ostensibly a food show. A strain of these goats has
been bred for their meat, and they're actually known for
having like really copious and tender meat production in their
hind legs due to that like frequent, prolonged tensing of
(14:28):
those muscles. Yeah, I worked real hard to have a
food fact to tie that one in.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Excellent and yeah, so right right. The dairies used to
make all kinds of cheeses. In some cultures, goat meat
is more of like a special occasion food to be
eaten at, like Christmas or Easter or i'd a ladha,
the feast of sacrifice. It's also a popular red meat
and cultures that don't eat beef.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I feel like most of the times I've had it
has been in Jamaican curry. That's oh yeah, oh yeah,
it's so good. It is so good. But it is
used in all kinds of things. Well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well, goat meat tends to be leaner than other red meats,
and it has a higher rate of poly unsaturated fats,
which are like the good fats. Also has a good
spread of micro nutrients. Eat a vegetable, drink of water,
do what you want. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I had a strange dream recently, Lauren, okay, where somebody
confronted us and was like, when you say eat a vegetable,
what do you mean does a tomato cow? Oh my gosh,
dang stress dreams. Yeah, eat a fruit or vegetable, Yeah, yeah,
(15:58):
we have some numb for you.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We do. As of twenty twenty, the global goat population
was estimated to be a little bit over a billion.
Some ninety percent of that was in Asia and Africa,
with nearly forty percent of the world's goats living in
China alone.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
According to some sources that I found, goat milk is
the most consumed annimal milk around the world, somewhere around
sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, I meaning it's consumed by about sixty percent of
people around the world. By volume. More cow milk is consumed,
even though fewer people drink it. Yeah, But about nineteen
million metric tons of goat milk was produced as of
twenty seventeen. As of twenty sixteen, global goat meat production
(16:47):
totaled some five point six million metric tons, about two
percent of the world's meat.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Australia is the largest exporter of goat meat at forty
four percent.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And about ninety one percent of that is harvested wild,
not farmed. It's not a super popular meat there. Only
some ten percent of what they produce is consumed in Australia.
Ethiopia is also a major exporter, about twenty two percent
of global exports, and the United States and the United
Arab Emirates import the most, about thirty and twenty percent, respectively.
(17:21):
Sudan consumes the most per capita, about eight point six
pounds of goat meat per person per year, and apparently,
according to Huffington Post anyway, only twenty three percent of
Americans have eaten goat meat. That was based on a
survey that they were reporting on. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I saw similar numbers where people were sort of perplexed
why goat meat hasn't taken off in the United States,
But it did seem most things I read indicated Yeah,
it was pretty low. Yeah, how many people had had it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I'm in such a such a cultural bubble. Y'all have
to have to write in and let us know your
experience and write And I see this is part of
why I wanted to look into this whole like like
leg goats or evil thing, because I was like, is
it because we have these like Puritan ideas of goats
being evil so we don't want to eat them?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Is that what's going on in America with goat meat?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I thought that was gonna come up too.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I don't know, man, I humans also get up to
a lot of stuff. We're very like.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Goats in that way. That's true. Wow, what an accurate ohow,
all right, well we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Okay. So, well, the con ancestor of the goat originated
in parts of Asia and or the Mediterranean. Oh, I've
been million years ago, so long time. Goat remains have
been found in Asia tracing back to at least seven
thousand BCE, and cave art as old as ten to
(19:27):
twenty thousand years depicts goats.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay, yeah, so they've been around for a minute. We've
been interacting with them for a minute exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Though. Once again, mysteries history on this one, but as
of now, historians speculate the goat was domesticated about ten
thousand years ago in the Middle East and is believed
to be the second animal humans domesticated.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Right behind dogs.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
The idea is that wild goats were attracted to the
crops like grains that early farmers were growing, and so
people started hurting the goats right.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And some speculate that there were multiple domestication events in
various areas, but genetic evidence suggest that there was one
major domestication event. And when I tell you, I was
reading a very dense scientifical, scientifical scientific article about this. Whoa,
but that was the consensus, Like I think there's only
(20:29):
ten percent of goats that don't have the genes from
this one believed. Yeah, but yeah, goats were pretty easy
to tame and feed, so they were somewhat prized. The
mutation that allowed humans to drink goat milk occurred about
seven five hundred years ago somewhere in Europe and the Balkans,
(20:52):
which only increased their usefulness. I also found a whole
paper about that, which I found fascinating.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
That was a good one.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yes, people in this area used goats or meat. They
used their skins and their pelts, their milk, their sinew
for sewing, amongst other things, their horns, their bones, their
hides were used to make bottles or containers or for parchment.
And the first believed proof of soap soap making excuse.
(21:22):
It goes back to ancient Rome and indicates that they
used goat tallow amongst other things in this okay, so yeah,
once again useful animal. French goat cheese making traditions are
thought to go back to seven hundred and thirty two
CE when retreating enemy forces left behind the goats that
they had been using for milk in France after losing
(21:45):
a battle, and then they were like, let's start making cheese.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
These are pretty cool. Yeah, we'll hang on to them.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Thanks, thank you. Because of their usefulness, goats were frequently
transported on long journeys by Europeans so that they could
set up goat populations wherever they were going and drink
fresh milk on the journey. So they were useful on
the journey and.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Once you got there.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah. Goats arrived in Australia in seventeen eighty eight. They
were used for milk, meat and for their fiber, and
later for weed management. However, the goats escaped and eventually
led to the development of a feral goat population, a
population that has only grown and in fact, when we're
talking about those numbers at the top about Australian exporting
(22:31):
goat meat, a lot of it has been feral goats.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The Spanish are believed to have been the ones that
introduced goats to California and the North American Southwest at
large in the seventeenth century, where the animal flourished to
the point some populations were relocated for destroying indigenous plant populations.
Oh wow, Yeah, I read it was because they didn't
have a natural predator, but I was like, really in California,
(23:00):
I don't know, it didn't really make sense to me,
But anyway, they did well there. Later, when Europeans settled
in North America, they brought goats with them.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Perhaps especially the English, who brought dairy breeds specifically, and
speaking of the fiber portion, Europeans had developed an interest
in mohair as a fiber by the eighteen hundreds. Yeah,
and this was after like thousands of years of textile
work with mohair, which is hair from Angora goats, specifically
(23:33):
in Western Asia which is where those goats are from.
Cashmere wool from Southwest Asia and northern India also gained
wider popularity around that time. There was just a lot
of interest in goat wool. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
There was also the US Navy has a long history
of transporting livestock like goats for their milk and meat.
But goats had sea legs and would eat pretty pretty
much anything as opposed to livestock like cows. Goats can
swim too, which was good for sea travel. Sure uh huh.
(24:09):
I also read that goat meat was seen as a
nice alternative to salted pork. Sure.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah. Here's an account given in eighteen seventy three by
Rear Admiral Robbleie d Evans about his experience trying to
get milk from an agitated goat a coat. I found
her in a very excited state of mind, apparently having
butted out the Captain Stewart and a marine orderly who
(24:36):
had attempted to relieve her of her milk. One of
them had tried to hold her while the other went
for the milk. Procuring some warm water and exercising a
little patience in the premises, we soon relieved her of
the milk, which was evidently giving her pain. I thought
this was funny because so many of the other things
I had read previously were like, they're great to travel with,
(24:56):
and then immediately I found this, which sounds like it
was just a goat that needed some help.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But yeah, yeah, and we're all a little bit cranky
when we're uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Sure, but traveling can get rough, you get tired. Yeah,
but it was just funny that, like I'm pretty sure
it was from the same article, was like, they're so
easy to travel with.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, they're really same. They get along with everybody. It
butted out the captain Stewart.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Gosh, and there's not much place to run on a boat. No, no,
but okay. As time went on, goats became mascots for
the US Navy. During the twentieth century. The Navy's first
registered goat mascot was named El Sid and he was
viewed as good luck. Okay, yeah, yes. Moving away from
(25:50):
the Navy, the American Milk Goat Record Association or am
GRA I'm gonna go with AMRA and g R A
an organization of American oat milk producers formed in nineteen
oh three.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you know, I didn't look up the pronunciation for
this that the word is spelled milch. It's a term
for goats and other animals kept for milking. And I
think that the idea of organizing this organization was tied
to the Saint Louis World's Fair that was going to
be happening in nineteen oh four and the milk goat
(26:24):
show that was planned for the fair. It turned out
that angora goats bread for their coats were way more
popular with showers that year, so the association didn't really
have a lot to do, I guess, but at any rate, yes.
Also in the early nineteen hundreds, Dutch colonists in South
Africa were working on developing bore goats from local goats
(26:46):
kept by indigenous peoples. This breed is known for growing
fast and big in a variety of environments and being
tasty to boot. They're now reared around the world and
used to improve meat quality in other breeds of goats.
There was an increased interest in goat dairy in both
Europe and America between World War One and World War Two,
(27:08):
as economic troubles and food shortages had people looking for
cow dairy alternatives. A scientific paper from the time also
noted that goats and their milk are quote remarkably free
from tuberculosis, which is not entirely true, but I wanted
to mention it because I'm always fascinated by the concerns
surrounding the dairy industry at that time, especially because we
(27:31):
did not have human made breast milk alternatives at the time.
So if you couldn't feed an infant with breast milk,
then what were you going to do about it? Pretty big?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, it comes up a lot and a lot of
our episodes, it does.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah. From nineteen fifty four through nineteen ninety five, there
were US government and incentives to produce wool and mohair,
which increased the breeding of sheep and of angora goats
for that purpose. Kind of fallen off since then, but
with it, especially with a greater interest in goat milk
(28:04):
and meat.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, but with various waves of immigration to the US
from communities that consume more goat meat, the demand for
goat meat and better goat meat grew in this country.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah. That led to the importation of bore and other
meat breeds like the New Zealand kiko during the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yes, and speaking of but we're a food show, I
went on a whole thing about goat fiber and mohair
and the rise and fall of it. And in the
nineties in the US it was like less popular, and
that was one of the reasons that these other goats
(28:47):
were kind of introduced yeah, yeah, yeah, fascinating. I mean again,
I had to go through and like stop using the
word useful at a certain point because I was just
using it so much. But they really impacted so many
different sectors.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you've never seen an angora goat,
they're real pretty. They're they're just beautiful goats. I want
you to go look up some pictures of angory goats
right now. They have they have this really long pretty hair,
like a kind of like a like a sheep dog,
sort of like a like a curly like like a
(29:28):
just a it's just a buddy.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It's like, clearly a buddy, not a buddy that will
go evil. Not a buddy that is hearing whispers from
the devil.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Surely not surely not never never, no, no, not are
our good friend? No no, that was not the kind
of goat that Black.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Philip was clearly no, definitely not. Well, listeners, if you
have any recipes, any thoughts about goats, any knowledge about
evil goats or just goats in our culture, I don't know,
because though we are a food show, we love that stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yes, yeah yeah, we would. We
would love love to hear it in the Meanwhile, we
do already have some listener mail prepared 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.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Are back, Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with there's a goat coming for you. My mom
said her, go billy, if he got his eyes set
on you, you better move out of the way.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Ah. Yeah. Yeah. They are known for being very curious
and in a little bit stubborn.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
So yeah, yeah, that's what Billy sounds like. Oh Billy,
Oh Billy. Our croat baklava is such a wonderful dessert
and it is always interesting to see the different varieties
out there. My favorite spot around here is the Bods
in the Strip District. When the weather is nicer, they'll
(31:26):
have a table set up out front selling it. It
is probably my favorite baklava in Pittsburgh. I would be
curious to try one with hazelnuts sometime, as that seems
like it would be a pretty interesting combination. The Greek
Orthodox Church near Us always does a small food festival
in June and it has wonderful baclava as well. But
I still give the bods the edge. I remember the
(31:48):
fish fries. Our church, a Roman Catholic one had growing up,
huge gatherings every Friday during lynt and some of the
best fried fish around. They also had them once a
month out there. Side of flint always came with your
choice of two sides coal saw potato salad fries or
mac and cheese. Just one of those childhood things you remember.
(32:10):
Add to that the monthly spaghetti dinners and you can
see how food can gather people together. The whole Catholic
thing that you mentioned pretty much covers what we were taught.
Love the classics as well. The my tie is a
great drink, and a true one really does pack a punch.
Reminds me of many a winter vacation away from the cold.
(32:31):
I can't believe at the time Annie had not seen
someone us a cocktail umbrella. How's a toothpick? I've seen
it before. I'm still learning and growing.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, yeah, have you still not? Is this still on
your bucket list?
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, we'll put it on the bucket list. Lauren and
I have been discussing a Savor anniversary episode.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
We've been pondering what that might be. And I was
thinking maybe we could just do one that's kind of
a a look back and what has stuck with you
and all that. And I was thinking about all of
the things I have learned this show. Oh yeah, and
some of them are simple, quote simple things. Oh I
(33:27):
didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Oh sure, No, we are all. We are all learning
and growing all the time. That's a wonderful thing about
being a human person.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
It is true and as we've said so many times
on the show, as we've seen exemplified by so many
of you listeners, also depends on the region you're in.
Oh deeply yep, and how you grew up. I do
love this. I have been inundated with fish fry headlines
(33:59):
because as part of this job, when you look up
something for work, all of a sudden, the data powers
that be believe that this is how they can sell
something to you. And I have gotten so many stories
about fish fries, and I'm actually really enjoying it. They're
just fun, like people getting together every Friday and having
(34:21):
these fish fries. And I like looking at the menus
because I'm also kind of that.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Weirdo who is absolutely never get to eat this, but
I want to know exactly what I could eat if
I were there.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I want to feel some kind of jealousy of like
what I could have.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, I want to see the pictures of the mac
and cheese. I want to know what's going on with it,
you know.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Like exactly exactly. And this also brought back recently. I
drove through my college campus for the first time and forever,
and they used to have Lasagnia dinners and I could
see them and I was like, oh wow, I remember
doing this Lasania dinner and they're still doing it. So
you're right, people do they come together? I mean that
(35:02):
was also in part free food.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Oh sure, yeah, free food. Now we're still You're right?
Speaker 1 (35:10):
What am I saying? But also, yeah, this baklava sounds great.
I like that you have a favorite.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah yeah, mmm mm hmmmmm. I need to get a
favorite baklava around here. Okay, duram still still still learning
new stuff to learn about baklavah. Yes, love it okay,
Heather wrote, thank you for continuing such an enjoyable and
informative podcast. I'm slightly behind an episode, so I only
(35:40):
recently listened to your episode. On Apple butter, I made
and canned apple butter for the first time this year,
using the apples from a couple of trees in our yard.
I followed a method using a slow cooker and the
results were great and way less labor intensive. Ten hours
on low was stirring every two hours plus using an
immersion blender as the final step resulted in some wonderfully
smooth and tasty apple butter. One thing I was waiting
(36:03):
for while listening to the episode was the habit of
eating apple butter with cottage cheese. This is known as
a schmier casse or a smear casse in areas of
Pennsylvania where there's a large Amish population. Note this schmer
casse should not be confused with the version in Baltimore
that's a type of cheesecake. Schmier casse is so popular
(36:23):
in southwest Pennsylvania that the local Eaton Park also included
cottage cheese apple butter on the salad bar. I can
vouch for how tasty this is, and it's something my
spouse loves to eat for a snack. This is so great,
This is amazing. I have never put apple butter on
my cottage cheese, but my grandmother would serve me like
like canned fruit and cottage cheese a lot growing up,
(36:45):
and I still have like a deep kind of nostalgic
fondness for that. I will absolutely put some apple butter
on some cottage cheese, like right now.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, that's not something I would have thought of, but
we did talk about in that episode Apple but are
going well with cheese? Yeah, I just ever thought of
cottage cheese. But yes, totally, I.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Like, why not?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Why not? That's delicious. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I'm positive that there's a listener out there who's going
cottage cheese is the worst thing on the planet, and
I'm sorry that we're grossing you out right now, but.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I have that friend too. Oh yeah, yeah, but most
of my friends love cottage cheese and I think it's great.
So yeah, oh yeah. My household just got an immersion
blender and I'm really excited about it. I know that
as an grown adult, I could have bought one for
myself at any time, but I just never have.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Uh and yeah, so thank you to my roommate's dad, Scottie,
for bringing the joy of blended soups into our life,
or more easily blended soups.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I should say, wow, that is a joy. Yeah, I
can't wait to hear the spoils of your immersion blender.
It's gonna be so delicious. Oh wow, Well, before we
can get the total details of your journey, we thank
these listeners for writing in so much. If you would
(38:16):
like to write into us, you can. Our email is
hello at savirpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Oh, we're also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
(38:41):
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Save for Protection of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie and I'm more on google bum and today
we have an episode for you about goat.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, whoof what an episode it is? It is?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, I probably should have specified more than goats, but
here we are back to This is going to be
one of those where we have like a few offshoot
episodes about you know, like every dish in creation that
uses any kind of goat product. We're probably gonna have
to start an entire like fiber and fashion podcast in
(00:40):
order to talk about goat hair and yeah, the then
do all the episodes about every different different type of
goat milk cheese on the planet. It's going to be
a whole thing, I think. You know, wow, a new podcast. Yeah, yeah,
I know nothing about fiber or fashion, so.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
It's gonna be great. Then it's exciting. We're all going
to be learning together. Well, was there any reason a
goat was on your mind as a food topic?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
You know? I don't. I think I think it had
kind of been on the list for a while. And
because I enjoy eating goat meat, I like goat milk products,
so I was like, huh, they've got those weird pupils.
You know, let's read about them for a few days.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It is true that the goat has a lot of
cultural stuff going for it.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh my heck it does.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah. Yeah. I when I was just at the top
putting notes here, which I usually do for like banter
purposes or just cultural notes that I have, there's so
many about goats. I wrote the goat You're on your own, kid,
which I think was a tidal idea that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
I, oh, yeah, I like that evil.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Goats, which black Fellow and and I yeah, we were
like we could talk about evil goats. But then again
remembered food podcasts the Bazar, like the thing in the
goat's stomach that is supposedly going to heal you, which
(02:26):
we've talked about before in another podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Or tell you the future. Yeah yeah, stuff right, yes,
which I guess is technically related to ambergree oh, because
goats and whales are both for stomached ruminants. And uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,
Annie and I recently went on Stuff to Blow your
(02:48):
Mind Sister podcast and uh hung out with Jim McCormick
and uh yeah, talked about ambergris, which is whale gut
secretion that the perfume industry decided is the best thing.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was a fascinating episode. I highly recommend it. It
goes blas.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
I had too much fun.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
It was a great time. It was a great time.
Friend of the show Joe McCormick, Yes, one of our
D and D group members. Yeah, yeah, it was really fun. Also,
I was thinking about Jurassic Park the goat.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah yeah, the goat park Shure.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Fainting goats have had their moment. There's a fainting goat
wiring in North Georgia. They have fainting goats. Screaming goats
also have had their moment. Many a music video you
couldn't watch. My mom had a goat that was named
appropriately Billy. Oh and every time she tells me about Billy,
(03:55):
it sounds like he was an angry goat, but he
ate everything and was useful. Oh, which I have heard.
This is a new thing for me. But another of
the show and friend in real life, Samantha from Stuff
I've Never told you. She recently ish bought a house
and she looked into hiring goats for lawn services.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had neighbors that would
do that sometimes. In one of my houses I was
renting a while back.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
I'd never heard of that, but I guess it's a thing.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah. It was pretty cool because like the goat would
just be hanging out in their yard, you know, doing
goat stuff for a few days, a couple times a year,
and it would definitely like scream at us when we
went to our cars, and so I would just kind
of scream back.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Speaking the language of the goat, right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I did it often enough that I was like, it's
clearly communicating like I might. It's rude if I don't say.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Something, Oh, yeah, you don't want to be rumed to
the goat, my goodness. But I mean that's kind of
if I had to put like a through line of
this whole episode, it would be goats are very useful.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
They are a lot of stuff. Yes, yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I guess that goats. What are they? Well?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Goats are a category of ruminant mammal that humans raise
primarily for their meat, milk, and or hair and hide,
depending on the type. They're also sometimes hunted in the wild.
They are small to medium in size, so they're less
like immediately resource intensive than other milk and meat animals
like cattle and tend to be a little bit more
adaptable to different environments. Goat meat is a red meat.
(05:56):
It's a rich and a little bit funky gamey. The
milk has a little bit of a art funk to
it as well. The meat tends to be a little
bit tough, so it's often used in dishes like stews
where it has a chance to soften up. The milk
is used fresh and also preserved in all kinds of
tangy cheeses and like yogurt type situations. Goats. Goats are
like a like a more opinionated sheep. They're like a
(06:19):
They're like a small, punk rock curious cow. Yeah yeah.
Goat milk and meat both are both so like rich
and kind of satiny, but also have something just so
like fresh and bright about them. They take whatever meal
or snack you're eating, and they make it feel like
(06:41):
you're you're dining outside on on the kind of like
bright spring day where you can just feel like the
grass growing around you.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, they're like a little picnic Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Bloodies, delicious buddies.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Okay, So there are a lot of breeds of goat,
like somewhere from over five hundred to over one thousand
depending on who you ask. We're going to get into
a few ish of those breeds in the history section.
But like, the thing is is that humans have been
keeping goats for a long time and for different purposes.
(07:22):
You know, meat, milk, fiber, leather being the main three there,
and so you know, so we've bred for those for
those purposes, and there are also a lot of points
at which populations of goats have gone feral and done
their own thing. So so different goats are different, but
very basically, goats are mammals that grow up to about
one hundred and twenty pounds that's about fifty five kilos,
(07:43):
though they're often about half that size. Depending on the breed,
some will reproduce throughout the year instead of just in
single season. A single dough will often have two kids
young goats a year, and you can maintain a pretty
good sized herd with like dozens of doughs and only
a couple bucks. They're a bit more prolific than sheep,
which have a similar body size, so they are more
(08:05):
commonly raised for meat than sheep are, perhaps especially in
subsistence farming and in developing parts of the world. They
also tend to be better at handling like heat and
also low water conditions than sheep or cattle. And they're weird.
Peoples are because they're prey animals, not predators. Predators tend
(08:26):
to have rounded people's prey. Animals that are trying to
look out for more stuff on their periphery tend to
have differently shaped peoples.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I guess we should mention also because I think sometimes
I forget people do not watch as much horror as
we do. At the beginning, when we mentioned evil goats,
we were, as you said, black Philip from the VICH,
which Lauren and I were on an episode of the podcast,
(08:58):
may be crush to talk about. Oh yeah, if you
want to check it out. But yeah, they've got eyes
that are very striking. Yeah, I can see why people
were like, hmmm, let's make him represent the devil.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
There is a again, this is a food show, y'all,
like like, but there is a really interesting history of
goat symbolism in art and culture, and and I tried
to read enough about it in a short enough period
of time that I didn't feel like I was wasting
an entire day of food podcast reading reading about this stuff.
(09:41):
I couldn't I couldn't. It's it's more complicated than all that.
But but I think that we have that there's like
a couple places in the Bible where goats are used
as a metaphor of like a strong willed creature and
in a negative sense, And so that's where we get
the like evil goat thing.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
I did the same thing. We both desperately wanted to
talk about it. But yeah, it was more complicated because
it was like, now you have to research this ancient
demon name. Yeah, well I really can't relate this peck
to food, and I can tell it's going to take
(10:23):
a lot of my time. But if you're interested listeners.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Oh yeah, it's out there. I feel like Robert and
Joe over and stuff to blow your mind have probably
talked about it at some point.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Oh I bet they have.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
If they haven't, then I will tell them to do
that post take.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Well, we have a lot of sway absolutely yeah, okay, okay,
so goat goat food food show here we are all right.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Although goats do not eat as much over all as
cattle because they're just not as big, they do eat
more like per volume of milk produced as much as
three to four times more per quart of milk is
compared to dairy cows. Or that's what I read from
a paper from the early nineteen hundreds. There might have
been breeding initiatives and to other technologies that have created
(11:20):
milky or goats. I'm not sure, but yeah and yeah.
Goats also like need a little bit more of a
controlled diet than pop culture would tell you. But they
can be successfully fed with plant matter that would otherwise
be considered like a waste product or a byproduct, or
like OG's, how did that patch over there get so overgrown?
Get the goats over here? They're capable of eating a
(11:42):
wide variety of vegetation, partially because they are ruminants, meaning
that they have four stomachs which they use to really
break down their food in multiple stages, getting a lot
more nutrition out of it than like certainly we could.
And they do chew their cud like cows. The younger
animals do tend to have more tender meat, though breeding
and like the slaughter and harvest of the meat can
(12:04):
have a large impact. Science is still investigating this to
help develop best recommendations for farmers. Animal stress matters. Super cool,
super cool stuff being done around all of this but
again sort of Basically, there are two sort of grades
of goat meat, cabrito or capretto, which is meat from
(12:25):
goats that are just a few months old, and then chevron,
which is meat from goats that are over a year old.
Cabrito is paler and has a finer texture. You might
use it in like roasts or chops like you would lamb.
Chevron is typically stewed, and because chevron can be more
more strongly flavored than other red meats like, for example, beef,
it can stand up to like heavy seasonings and dishes
(12:47):
like curries. And goats are just a super interesting livestock
animal because it's considered so multifunctional. You know, goats might
be raised primarily for a non food function and clearing
or their hair or hide, with their milk and or
meat being harvested essentially as a byproduct. Or they can
be raised specifically for the milk or for the meat.
(13:09):
I don't think that I know of another land animal
that is so like multipurpose.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, when I was reading this, I couldn't think of
one either. I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're
up to stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Man, Okay, but you're curious about fainting goats, because of
course you're curious about fainting goats, So yeah, fainting is
a little bit of a misnomer. The goats are not
losing consciousness, they're just falling over. This is caused by
what's basically a delay and relaxation of muscles the tense
involuntarily during surprise or other excitement. Like think about when
(13:47):
you startle, you tense up briefly. So what's happening in
these goats is that they lock into that tension for
several seconds, and if they were on uneven footing when
they tensed up, they're likely to tip over. It's a
genetic mutation that popped up in this population in the
United States in Tennessee back in the eighteen hundreds. The
(14:07):
condition is known as my atonia, and the goats are
more properly called my tonic than fainting because this is
ostensibly a food show. A strain of these goats has
been bred for their meat, and they're actually known for
having like really copious and tender meat production in their
hind legs due to that like frequent, prolonged tensing of
(14:28):
those muscles. Yeah, I worked real hard to have a
food fact to tie that one in.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Here we go.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Excellent and yeah, so right right. The dairies used to
make all kinds of cheeses. In some cultures, goat meat
is more of like a special occasion food to be
eaten at, like Christmas or Easter or i'd a ladha,
the feast of sacrifice. It's also a popular red meat
and cultures that don't eat beef.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I feel like most of the times I've had it
has been in Jamaican curry. That's oh yeah, oh yeah,
it's so good. It is so good. But it is
used in all kinds of things. Well, what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well, goat meat tends to be leaner than other red meats,
and it has a higher rate of poly unsaturated fats,
which are like the good fats. Also has a good
spread of micro nutrients. Eat a vegetable, drink of water,
do what you want. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
I had a strange dream recently, Lauren, okay, where somebody
confronted us and was like, when you say eat a vegetable,
what do you mean does a tomato cow? Oh my gosh,
dang stress dreams. Yeah, eat a fruit or vegetable, Yeah, yeah,
(15:58):
we have some numb for you.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We do. As of twenty twenty, the global goat population
was estimated to be a little bit over a billion.
Some ninety percent of that was in Asia and Africa,
with nearly forty percent of the world's goats living in
China alone.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
According to some sources that I found, goat milk is
the most consumed annimal milk around the world, somewhere around
sixty percent.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, I meaning it's consumed by about sixty percent of
people around the world. By volume. More cow milk is consumed,
even though fewer people drink it. Yeah, But about nineteen
million metric tons of goat milk was produced as of
twenty seventeen. As of twenty sixteen, global goat meat production
(16:47):
totaled some five point six million metric tons, about two
percent of the world's meat.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Australia is the largest exporter of goat meat at forty
four percent.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
And about ninety one percent of that is harvested wild,
not farmed. It's not a super popular meat there. Only
some ten percent of what they produce is consumed in Australia.
Ethiopia is also a major exporter, about twenty two percent
of global exports, and the United States and the United
Arab Emirates import the most, about thirty and twenty percent, respectively.
(17:21):
Sudan consumes the most per capita, about eight point six
pounds of goat meat per person per year, and apparently,
according to Huffington Post anyway, only twenty three percent of
Americans have eaten goat meat. That was based on a
survey that they were reporting on. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
I saw similar numbers where people were sort of perplexed
why goat meat hasn't taken off in the United States,
But it did seem most things I read indicated Yeah,
it was pretty low. Yeah, how many people had had it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
I'm in such a such a cultural bubble. Y'all have
to have to write in and let us know your
experience and write And I see this is part of
why I wanted to look into this whole like like
leg goats or evil thing, because I was like, is
it because we have these like Puritan ideas of goats
being evil so we don't want to eat them?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Is that what's going on in America with goat meat?
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I thought that was gonna come up too.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I don't know, man, I humans also get up to
a lot of stuff. We're very like.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Goats in that way. That's true. Wow, what an accurate ohow,
all right, well we do have quite a history for you.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Okay. So, well, the con ancestor of the goat originated
in parts of Asia and or the Mediterranean. Oh, I've
been million years ago, so long time. Goat remains have
been found in Asia tracing back to at least seven
thousand BCE, and cave art as old as ten to
(19:27):
twenty thousand years depicts goats.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Okay, yeah, so they've been around for a minute. We've
been interacting with them for a minute exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Though. Once again, mysteries history on this one, but as
of now, historians speculate the goat was domesticated about ten
thousand years ago in the Middle East and is believed
to be the second animal humans domesticated.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Right behind dogs.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
The idea is that wild goats were attracted to the
crops like grains that early farmers were growing, and so
people started hurting the goats right.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
And some speculate that there were multiple domestication events in
various areas, but genetic evidence suggest that there was one
major domestication event. And when I tell you, I was
reading a very dense scientifical, scientifical scientific article about this. Whoa,
but that was the consensus, Like I think there's only
(20:29):
ten percent of goats that don't have the genes from
this one believed. Yeah, but yeah, goats were pretty easy
to tame and feed, so they were somewhat prized. The
mutation that allowed humans to drink goat milk occurred about
seven five hundred years ago somewhere in Europe and the Balkans,
(20:52):
which only increased their usefulness. I also found a whole
paper about that, which I found fascinating.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
That was a good one.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yes, people in this area used goats or meat. They
used their skins and their pelts, their milk, their sinew
for sewing, amongst other things, their horns, their bones, their
hides were used to make bottles or containers or for parchment.
And the first believed proof of soap soap making excuse.
(21:22):
It goes back to ancient Rome and indicates that they
used goat tallow amongst other things in this okay, so yeah,
once again useful animal. French goat cheese making traditions are
thought to go back to seven hundred and thirty two
CE when retreating enemy forces left behind the goats that
they had been using for milk in France after losing
(21:45):
a battle, and then they were like, let's start making cheese.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
These are pretty cool. Yeah, we'll hang on to them.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Thanks, thank you. Because of their usefulness, goats were frequently
transported on long journeys by Europeans so that they could
set up goat populations wherever they were going and drink
fresh milk on the journey. So they were useful on
the journey and.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Once you got there.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah. Goats arrived in Australia in seventeen eighty eight. They
were used for milk, meat and for their fiber, and
later for weed management. However, the goats escaped and eventually
led to the development of a feral goat population, a
population that has only grown and in fact, when we're
talking about those numbers at the top about Australian exporting
(22:31):
goat meat, a lot of it has been feral goats.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The Spanish are believed to have been the ones that
introduced goats to California and the North American Southwest at
large in the seventeenth century, where the animal flourished to
the point some populations were relocated for destroying indigenous plant populations.
Oh wow, Yeah, I read it was because they didn't
have a natural predator, but I was like, really in California,
(23:00):
I don't know, it didn't really make sense to me,
But anyway, they did well there. Later, when Europeans settled
in North America, they brought goats with them.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Perhaps especially the English, who brought dairy breeds specifically, and
speaking of the fiber portion, Europeans had developed an interest
in mohair as a fiber by the eighteen hundreds. Yeah,
and this was after like thousands of years of textile
work with mohair, which is hair from Angora goats, specifically
(23:33):
in Western Asia which is where those goats are from.
Cashmere wool from Southwest Asia and northern India also gained
wider popularity around that time. There was just a lot
of interest in goat wool. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
There was also the US Navy has a long history
of transporting livestock like goats for their milk and meat.
But goats had sea legs and would eat pretty pretty
much anything as opposed to livestock like cows. Goats can
swim too, which was good for sea travel. Sure uh huh.
(24:09):
I also read that goat meat was seen as a
nice alternative to salted pork. Sure.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yeah. Here's an account given in eighteen seventy three by
Rear Admiral Robbleie d Evans about his experience trying to
get milk from an agitated goat a coat. I found
her in a very excited state of mind, apparently having
butted out the Captain Stewart and a marine orderly who
(24:36):
had attempted to relieve her of her milk. One of
them had tried to hold her while the other went
for the milk. Procuring some warm water and exercising a
little patience in the premises, we soon relieved her of
the milk, which was evidently giving her pain. I thought
this was funny because so many of the other things
I had read previously were like, they're great to travel with,
(24:56):
and then immediately I found this, which sounds like it
was just a goat that needed some help.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But yeah, yeah, and we're all a little bit cranky
when we're uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Sure, but traveling can get rough, you get tired. Yeah,
but it was just funny that, like I'm pretty sure
it was from the same article, was like, they're so
easy to travel with.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, they're really same. They get along with everybody. It
butted out the captain Stewart.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Gosh, and there's not much place to run on a boat. No, no,
but okay. As time went on, goats became mascots for
the US Navy. During the twentieth century. The Navy's first
registered goat mascot was named El Sid and he was
viewed as good luck. Okay, yeah, yes. Moving away from
(25:50):
the Navy, the American Milk Goat Record Association or am
GRA I'm gonna go with AMRA and g R A
an organization of American oat milk producers formed in nineteen
oh three.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Yeah, you know, I didn't look up the pronunciation for
this that the word is spelled milch. It's a term
for goats and other animals kept for milking. And I
think that the idea of organizing this organization was tied
to the Saint Louis World's Fair that was going to
be happening in nineteen oh four and the milk goat
(26:24):
show that was planned for the fair. It turned out
that angora goats bread for their coats were way more
popular with showers that year, so the association didn't really
have a lot to do, I guess, but at any rate, yes.
Also in the early nineteen hundreds, Dutch colonists in South
Africa were working on developing bore goats from local goats
(26:46):
kept by indigenous peoples. This breed is known for growing
fast and big in a variety of environments and being
tasty to boot. They're now reared around the world and
used to improve meat quality in other breeds of goats.
There was an increased interest in goat dairy in both
Europe and America between World War One and World War Two,
(27:08):
as economic troubles and food shortages had people looking for
cow dairy alternatives. A scientific paper from the time also
noted that goats and their milk are quote remarkably free
from tuberculosis, which is not entirely true, but I wanted
to mention it because I'm always fascinated by the concerns
surrounding the dairy industry at that time, especially because we
(27:31):
did not have human made breast milk alternatives at the time.
So if you couldn't feed an infant with breast milk,
then what were you going to do about it? Pretty big?
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, it comes up a lot and a lot of
our episodes, it does.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah. From nineteen fifty four through nineteen ninety five, there
were US government and incentives to produce wool and mohair,
which increased the breeding of sheep and of angora goats
for that purpose. Kind of fallen off since then, but
with it, especially with a greater interest in goat milk
(28:04):
and meat.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, but with various waves of immigration to the US
from communities that consume more goat meat, the demand for
goat meat and better goat meat grew in this country.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah. That led to the importation of bore and other
meat breeds like the New Zealand kiko during the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yes, and speaking of but we're a food show, I
went on a whole thing about goat fiber and mohair
and the rise and fall of it. And in the
nineties in the US it was like less popular, and
that was one of the reasons that these other goats
(28:47):
were kind of introduced yeah, yeah, yeah, fascinating. I mean again,
I had to go through and like stop using the
word useful at a certain point because I was just
using it so much. But they really impacted so many
different sectors.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yeah. Yeah. Also, if you've never seen an angora goat,
they're real pretty. They're they're just beautiful goats. I want
you to go look up some pictures of angory goats
right now. They have they have this really long pretty hair,
like a kind of like a like a sheep dog,
sort of like a like a curly like like a
(29:28):
just a it's just a buddy.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
It's like, clearly a buddy, not a buddy that will
go evil. Not a buddy that is hearing whispers from
the devil.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Surely not surely not never never, no, no, not are
our good friend? No no, that was not the kind
of goat that Black.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Philip was clearly no, definitely not. Well, listeners, if you
have any recipes, any thoughts about goats, any knowledge about
evil goats or just goats in our culture, I don't know,
because though we are a food show, we love that stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yes, yeah yeah, we would. We
would love love to hear it in the Meanwhile, we
do already have some listener mail prepared 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.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Are back, Thank you, sponsors, Yes, thank you, and we're
back with there's a goat coming for you. My mom
said her, go billy, if he got his eyes set
on you, you better move out of the way.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Ah. Yeah. Yeah. They are known for being very curious
and in a little bit stubborn.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
So yeah, yeah, that's what Billy sounds like. Oh Billy,
Oh Billy. Our croat baklava is such a wonderful dessert
and it is always interesting to see the different varieties
out there. My favorite spot around here is the Bods
in the Strip District. When the weather is nicer, they'll
(31:26):
have a table set up out front selling it. It
is probably my favorite baklava in Pittsburgh. I would be
curious to try one with hazelnuts sometime, as that seems
like it would be a pretty interesting combination. The Greek
Orthodox Church near Us always does a small food festival
in June and it has wonderful baclava as well. But
I still give the bods the edge. I remember the
(31:48):
fish fries. Our church, a Roman Catholic one had growing up,
huge gatherings every Friday during lynt and some of the
best fried fish around. They also had them once a
month out there. Side of flint always came with your
choice of two sides coal saw potato salad fries or
mac and cheese. Just one of those childhood things you remember.
(32:10):
Add to that the monthly spaghetti dinners and you can
see how food can gather people together. The whole Catholic
thing that you mentioned pretty much covers what we were taught.
Love the classics as well. The my tie is a
great drink, and a true one really does pack a punch.
Reminds me of many a winter vacation away from the cold.
(32:31):
I can't believe at the time Annie had not seen
someone us a cocktail umbrella. How's a toothpick? I've seen
it before. I'm still learning and growing.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, yeah, have you still not? Is this still on
your bucket list?
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, we'll put it on the bucket list. Lauren and
I have been discussing a Savor anniversary episode.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
We've been pondering what that might be. And I was
thinking maybe we could just do one that's kind of
a a look back and what has stuck with you
and all that. And I was thinking about all of
the things I have learned this show. Oh yeah, and
some of them are simple, quote simple things. Oh I
(33:27):
didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Oh sure, No, we are all. We are all learning
and growing all the time. That's a wonderful thing about
being a human person.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
It is true and as we've said so many times
on the show, as we've seen exemplified by so many
of you listeners, also depends on the region you're in.
Oh deeply yep, and how you grew up. I do
love this. I have been inundated with fish fry headlines
(33:59):
because as part of this job, when you look up
something for work, all of a sudden, the data powers
that be believe that this is how they can sell
something to you. And I have gotten so many stories
about fish fries, and I'm actually really enjoying it. They're
just fun, like people getting together every Friday and having
(34:21):
these fish fries. And I like looking at the menus
because I'm also kind of that.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Weirdo who is absolutely never get to eat this, but
I want to know exactly what I could eat if
I were there.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I want to feel some kind of jealousy of like
what I could have.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, I want to see the pictures of the mac
and cheese. I want to know what's going on with it,
you know.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Like exactly exactly. And this also brought back recently. I
drove through my college campus for the first time and forever,
and they used to have Lasagnia dinners and I could
see them and I was like, oh wow, I remember
doing this Lasania dinner and they're still doing it. So
you're right, people do they come together? I mean that
(35:02):
was also in part free food.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Oh sure, yeah, free food. Now we're still You're right?
Speaker 1 (35:10):
What am I saying? But also, yeah, this baklava sounds great.
I like that you have a favorite.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah yeah, mmm mm hmmmmm. I need to get a
favorite baklava around here. Okay, duram still still still learning
new stuff to learn about baklavah. Yes, love it okay,
Heather wrote, thank you for continuing such an enjoyable and
informative podcast. I'm slightly behind an episode, so I only
(35:40):
recently listened to your episode. On Apple butter, I made
and canned apple butter for the first time this year,
using the apples from a couple of trees in our yard.
I followed a method using a slow cooker and the
results were great and way less labor intensive. Ten hours
on low was stirring every two hours plus using an
immersion blender as the final step resulted in some wonderfully
smooth and tasty apple butter. One thing I was waiting
(36:03):
for while listening to the episode was the habit of
eating apple butter with cottage cheese. This is known as
a schmier casse or a smear casse in areas of
Pennsylvania where there's a large Amish population. Note this schmer
casse should not be confused with the version in Baltimore
that's a type of cheesecake. Schmier casse is so popular
(36:23):
in southwest Pennsylvania that the local Eaton Park also included
cottage cheese apple butter on the salad bar. I can
vouch for how tasty this is, and it's something my
spouse loves to eat for a snack. This is so great,
This is amazing. I have never put apple butter on
my cottage cheese, but my grandmother would serve me like
like canned fruit and cottage cheese a lot growing up,
(36:45):
and I still have like a deep kind of nostalgic
fondness for that. I will absolutely put some apple butter
on some cottage cheese, like right now.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yeah, that's not something I would have thought of, but
we did talk about in that episode Apple but are
going well with cheese? Yeah, I just ever thought of
cottage cheese. But yes, totally, I.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Like, why not?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Why not? That's delicious. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
I'm positive that there's a listener out there who's going
cottage cheese is the worst thing on the planet, and
I'm sorry that we're grossing you out right now, but.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I have that friend too. Oh yeah, yeah, but most
of my friends love cottage cheese and I think it's great.
So yeah, oh yeah. My household just got an immersion
blender and I'm really excited about it. I know that
as an grown adult, I could have bought one for
myself at any time, but I just never have.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Uh and yeah, so thank you to my roommate's dad, Scottie,
for bringing the joy of blended soups into our life,
or more easily blended soups.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I should say, wow, that is a joy. Yeah, I
can't wait to hear the spoils of your immersion blender.
It's gonna be so delicious. Oh wow, Well, before we
can get the total details of your journey, we thank
these listeners for writing in so much. If you would
(38:16):
like to write into us, you can. Our email is
hello at savirpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Oh, we're also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
(38:41):
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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