February 6, 2023 • 39 mins
This classic cookbook, revered today, was originally self-published by an admittedly bad cook. Anney and Lauren flip through the history of ‘The Joy of Cooking’ and author Irma S. Rombauer’s family legacy.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hell though. Welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about the Joy of Cooking. Yes,
like the book. I mean, it is about the joy
of cooking. It is. It is, Yeah, and it was.
It was a very joyous one to do. I was
telling Lauren before this, I don't own this book, but
(00:31):
my mom did, and I there's such a wonderful documentation
of every edition and every cover that I believe she
has the much coveted nineteen seventy five version with the jacket.
But it was one of those things where I would
just see her, like as a kid, kind of flipping
(00:52):
through it as if it's a book, like not like
looking through to get a certain recipe, but just kind
of reading started reading it. Yeah. Yeah. But then every
now and then she had certain recipes would be like tonight,
I gotta get out joy of cooking. Like, so she
did have her go to recipes in it, but sometimes
I would just see her kind of just flipping through it.
So you bought back all these were memories from me
for me, even though I don't have one, I don't
(01:15):
know that's wonderful. I. Um yeah, I I think my
mom and dad, both individually, like before they got together,
had their own copies and uh and I've I have
at least one of those. I'm not my books are
all in storage right now. Um, so I'm in this
this really continual in between housing kind of situation, you guys,
(01:40):
And so I and I was like, I really missed
my books right now. Like I was like, oh, I
need to like like I can't put my hand on
that book. And it's so confounding because it's the first
time I think in basically my entire life, Like I'm
pretty sure my dad sent me to college with a
copy of The Joy of Cooking, um, and so like
(02:01):
I can't put a hand on it right now, and
that's very strange. Yeah. Yeah, it was nice to read
so many accounts of something similar to that that it's
a very kind of comforting thing people would reach for,
and that we this was kind of a last minute topic.
I'm glad you suggested it because it was fun to research. Uh,
(02:22):
but you know, we were looking for like Valentine's Day things.
There's all these tent poles happening. Um. But I think
and you can tell me if I'm completely reading this wrong.
But I feel like this is a good, you know,
reminder of the of this story you can find in cooking,
of this connection you can find in it, yeah, and
and right and like family connections and whatever that means
(02:46):
to you, and um and and yeah and and the
the joy of unreliable narrators. As we were, we were
also talking about a lot of a lot of this
outline is based on various writings that various people who
have worked on these editions of this book in the
(03:07):
Rombauer family, UM, over the years, their recollections, and I
don't I don't think that their recollections are correct because
none of them match up. None of them match up. UM,
everything reported everything a little bit differently. And I'm like, well,
that's part of the charm. That's okay, that's fine. So
where does we're just rolling with it? I so with
the caveat that I have no idea of anything that
(03:28):
follows is accurate. Fun caveat. I feel like that's before
you know, like you're watching a horror movie. It's like
based on true events inspired by Yeah, and you're like, okay, yeah,
based on the Gale Weathers book yeah, yeah, Gale Weathers
the screen movie is coming out soon. Are not a
(03:51):
sponsor just a fan? Um yeah, well, it has been
a long time since we've done what we were calling
pro files and deliciousness. We've done James Beard, Isabella Beaten,
Julia Child, Edna Lewis, and I think we did Betty Crocker, right, yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean she wasn't a real person, but all right, yeah,
falls in this kind of realm though. Sure, sure, Um,
(04:15):
we we've we've interviewed a couple of people who have
written books, Um Howa Hassan and h and Julia Skinner. Yeah,
so you can see all of those for for a
little bit more about that, I think also, um gosh,
some of our other like like more um history of
(04:36):
cuisine heavy episodes like the one about French cuisine and
stuff might kind of kind of dovetail. Yeah. Yeah, And
this one's really cool because it's been published so many times,
which we're going to talk about that. It is a
it's a neat kind of cycle of seeing oh at
this time, this is what was important and anyway, it's
(04:57):
it is a really it's I really enjoyed you sure
this one same, Yeah, in a frustrating way. But same. Yeah, well,
I guess that brings us too rare question. Yeah yeah.
The joy of cooking, well, joy of cooking or the
(05:19):
joy of cooking, depending on which edition you're looking at.
UM is a cookbook originally written Um and We're Collected
by one Irma s Rombauer and self published in self
published wild Um. It has since become a bestseller and
like a staple of American household cooking. And Irma was
not a professional writer nor a professional cook. She was
(05:43):
a homemaker. She wasn't even a particularly good home cook. Um. Supposedly,
one of her husband's family members, upon hearing about this project,
was like, Irma's a terrible cook. This is the worst
idea ever. But um, she she was. She was known
for for being, um, a charming socialite, like an active
(06:06):
member of her community organizations. Uh, and a great hostess.
And it's kind of those things, like her practicality and
her organization and her dedication and her charm that made
her a great cookbook writer. Uh. Joy of cooking is
just this like if you if you've never paged through
(06:29):
a copy like Annie's mom does sometimes, Um, it's just
endlessly practical and charming. Uh. One of one of her
friends apparently recommended that she write it as though and
I quote everyone were a fool in the kitchen. Um.
That's that's a quote from her, her daughter Marian. But yeah,
it's it's sort of like it's sort of like, explain
(06:51):
it to me, like I'm five. The cookbook, Um, Like
it doesn't talk down to you though, It just it
just doesn't make assumptions, like it wants you to succeed
and it is taking you from a base level to
hypothetical success. Yeah. I love it. It It doesn't make assumptions.
It's like, yeah, you know, I've been there, Yeah, and
in a higher place than me. But let's we'll start
(07:12):
from a place of kinship. Yeah m hm. And and
part of that is the way that the recipes are written,
because they're they're talking you through the process the way
that like a particularly clear friend might explain it to you.
Like it's not separated into ingredients and then method. Um,
the ingredients are put in bold face in the middle
(07:34):
of the method, like someone's just talking you through it. Yeah. Um. Furthermore,
every like subsection starts with a quick or not so
quick about paragraph that describes real simply what you're dealing with,
like just a little bit about how gin is made
before you get into the cocktail recipes, or an explainer
(07:55):
on different types of pastry dough before the Philo based apps. Uh.
There are cross references to other sections in the book
if you want to explore other aspects of the ingredient
or the method of cooking or whatever it is that
you're dealing with. And uh. And it is so personalble
and like really dryly funny and kind of corny and
(08:16):
like sort of old fashioned, but in a sweet, in
a really sweet way. Um. As I was paging through
the twenty nineteen addition online, I ran across what I
considered to be an excellent example of the writing. Um.
It's in the middle of this otherwise very straightforward section
about tea. Uh. And there's an entry on iced tea
(08:37):
and it starts out this beverage originated in our family's
date of town St. Louis. The inventor was actually an
Englishman who arrived at the concoction as an act of
desperation when the general public showed indifference to his hot
tea offerings in the sweltering Midwestern heat. Yeah, that's pretty solid,
(08:58):
and it just gives you a really all the recipe
for iced tea, and I'm like, what happened? It is
kind of like fun stream of consciousness, a lot of it. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's delightful. Um. There was also this gem at
the beginning of the section on cocktails, wine and beer.
In our experience, food is inseparable from alcohol, or at
(09:22):
least the latter should be cautiously consumed without the former
wi sage sage advice. Well, speaking of what about the nutrition,
read responsibly, we actually do have something kind of related
to the nutrition in this but that will be in
(09:43):
the history section. It will be Yeah, don't don't eat books.
I guess that's that's all I got. Yeah, mm hmm. Well,
we do have some numbers for you. The Joy of
Cooking or Joy of Cooking is one of the best
selling cookbooks ever, over eighteen million copies since it was
published during the Great Depression, UM, and it has undergone
(10:06):
what I read, eight significant revisions, significant revisions. And it
really is, as I was saying, this fascinating look at
all kinds of factors throughout America's history, UM, wartime, rationing, fluctuating,
prices and tastes. The nineteen fifty one version had twenty
three recipes for stuffed tomatoes. That's amazing. That's beautiful. Yes,
(10:33):
like new technologies like the blender, like whole chapters about that,
shifting priorities, especially around like health, um, And it was
very I will also say it was something that was
very cognizant of like price of your time and you're
what you could afford. Oh yeah, something that was very
(10:55):
I feel would be very comforting. And I think a
lot of people did feel that, like it wasn't shaming
in that it was just kind of like just straightforward
about it, like yeah, like I did find a whole
article about kind of this I want to say underground.
It's not underground, but kind of this whole world of
um getting hunting down copies of the joy of cooking
(11:18):
and how some copies can go for fift and there's
also dollars, American dollars, and there's so much fun shade
in my opinion about what they think is like these
collectors like oh that one doesn't count or it doesn't
have this in it. So therefore very strong opinions about
(11:42):
all right, Yeah, I always love a strong opinion, that's
beautiful and no cookbook collection. I feel like we've got
into this a little bit in the past, maybe in
that Betty Crocer episode, but it can be a violent sport.
They had opinion it was great. Um, so look into
(12:04):
that if you if you're interested. But in the meantime,
we do have quite a history for you. We do,
and we're going to get into that as soon as
we get back from a quick break. For a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes,
thank you, alright. So The Joy of Cooking a collection
(12:28):
of reliable recipes with a casual culinary chat. As was
the full title. Original title was first published in As
You Said. It was self published by Irma Rombauer and
Irma Rombauer was a recently widowed mother of two. She
was this great hostess and homemaker out of St. Louis
(12:49):
and this was the first year of the Great Depression,
and Rombauer's husband, who had grappled with mental health issues,
had just taken his own life. UM. Stepping back a
bit it. Rumbauer was born in St. Louis in seven
Her parents were well off German immigrants, and she did
some traveling to Germany growing up. I suspect I read
some of those stories we can't really verify about her
(13:12):
early life, about who she dated and everything. Yeah, it
seems very exciting. Yeah, got a little bit, got a
little bit saucy. I read that, Um, she met her husband, Edgar.
He was a lawyer and and she was just like
a socialite. But they met doing amateur theater. Oh. Oh,
(13:37):
she did have an artist mindset. I read that in
a lot of places at least, and she she did
like to take on these creative projects. And after her
husband's death, she wanted to uplift her spirits and the
spirits of those struggling during the Great Depression. Again, this
is kind of what we're reading through, you know, the
backwards the end of the tale. But yeah, she seems
like she seems like somebody who did enjoy way hosting. Yes,
(14:03):
definitely hosting. Yes, because she was notably not a chef,
as you said, Um, yep. So when this book first
came out, the cookbook contained four and fifty recipes that
she had collected and organized from family and friends. Yeah,
and she might have started doing a bit of this
years earlier as part of her like society involvements. But
(14:26):
that's one of the facts that I couldn't I couldn't
quite right verify. Yeah. I do love that idea though,
because again, and I'm gonna talk about this more in
a second, this was before the internet, so I can
just envision people kind of exchanging recipes and trying to
help each other out at these events, um which I love.
(14:46):
I love yes and and this cookbook was sprinkled throughout
with Yes tips on entertaining, on menu planning, those head notes,
as you said, kind of those things at the beginning
where rum Our would share thoughts and stories, some of
them longer than others. The original cover was a paper
(15:08):
cutout that was done by her daughter Marian, and it
depicted the patron state of cooks um st Martha Bethany
slaying a dragon that was supposed to symbolize kitchen drudgery.
It's really cute. Yeah. Yeah. She's holding like like a
mop in one hand and like a cauldron in the
other and she's right slaying this. It's honestly really striking.
(15:30):
It's great. I think it was reproduced in a whole
maybe a nineteen eighties version of the book. It's really cool.
I did find a timeline of like all the covers.
This is how I kind of figured out which one
my mom had. Yeah, and it's it's neat to look at.
Marian also helped test the recipes, and it was one
of the first cookbooks to remove the ingredients from the
(15:53):
direction section and list them instead chronologically, which I think
we talked about in um our episode on Isabella Beaten.
But it is fascinating kind of the because you kind
of got it. You gotta get in the mindset of
people who are using this as instructions. Yeah, I don't know.
I just find it a really fascinating look into the
(16:13):
human brain. Yeah. Yeah, both both methods are certainly valid.
I'm more used to having them separated, but I think
it's useful both ways. It's useful both ways. It is
it is. Rumbauer spent half of her savings to publish
this book, and she got a lot of positive feedback. Um,
so she started pitching it to major publishers in in
(16:35):
nineteen thirty six. She succeeded in getting a national distribution deal. Yeah,
Bob's Merrill out of Indianapolis was the publisher who picked
it up. Supposedly, the president of the company met Irma
while they were playing bridge at Erma's cousins house, and
that's how it happened. Like she had submitted it a
few times, but it was the bridge conversation that sealed
(16:57):
the deal. But it went on to sell some like
fifty copies, which is a pretty decent success, although Irma
didn't really make much money from it, which was her
other motivation in publishing this book, because you know, she
was she was in her fifties when her husband died
and she was a widow, and it was the Great
Depression and the family needed money. Apparently, she had, against
(17:21):
the advice of her lawyers, being sort of an experience,
signed away her rights to Bob's Merrill and the publisher
was pretty unchill about it from from what I understand,
and both Irma and later her daughter Marian had to
fight them like a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I
did want to put this note in here. As I
(17:42):
mentioned earlier, we did talk about this a lot in
the Betty Crocker episode especially, but before the Internet, these
cookbooks were a way to not only share recipes and
offer advice, but also to feel a connection for home cooks,
who were largely women at this time, um, who were
putting together these meals, often by themselves, for their families
and friends. It made the experience less lonely. Um. And
(18:08):
one thing that said this cookbook apart was Rombauer's voice.
And Frank admit it's that she wasn't a great cook.
She's very open about it. There wasn't a pretentiousness to it.
There wasn't any shaming like I said about needing to
save time or money. And many families passed these copies
down continue to over generations. Oh yeah. Also note you
(18:33):
know this was right. This was published during the Great Depression,
during a time of a lot of social upheaval. Um.
More people were doing more cooking for themselves, you know,
like whereas upper class families had had servants do that
in the past, that was becoming way less common and
everyone had to stretch their budgets. Prohibition was still on
(18:54):
when she self published. Um, although I can't I couldn't
track down whether it was in the original one self
published version or the nineteen thirty six version which was
after prohibition it lifted. But like first page, she's got
a gin and juice like first page. Yeah, um, either way, Uh,
(19:23):
the ninety three edition would become America's most popular cookbook.
It sold some six hundred thousand copies. Wow yeah um,
and over the years, those four and fifty recipes flourished
in two thousands of recipes UM. Sections like wartime rations
(19:43):
were dropped and replaced with entirely new sections like frozen
desserts UM. In the sixties, the from the Joy of
Cooking was dropped from the title. I still don't know
what that was about. Uh, but ye have different revisions
throughout this whole sort of mid century period. We're kind
of ahead of their time, you know, where we're more serious.
(20:03):
Recipes were being written with these fancy ingredients and like
lengthy preparations. Irma kept things affordable in terms of, as
you were saying, any both both money and time. She
encouraged the use of prepackaged ingredients as they came out.
A later marian added an emphasis on a return to
fresh vegetables like right on the cusp of the novelle
(20:26):
cuisine movement, so super interesting. Through the late forties and fifties,
Irma did enjoy a certain amount of celebrity and travel.
Julie Child wrote about being really inspired by her and
her book The two met actually in Paris over lunch
sometime in the early nineteen fifties and talked about writing
(20:47):
and publishing so cool um Irma Rombauer died in and
Marian co wrote new editions with Irma up until Irma's death,
though Irma did stop sometime in the in the nineteen fifties.
(21:07):
That next edition, after Irma passed away, that was published
in nineteen sixty three, was entirely done by Marian, and
the family tradition would continue. By the edition. Marian's son
Ethan was co writer. Yes, and one of the things
I loved about this, which I'm sure is very frustrating,
(21:27):
don't get me wrong, but it was kind of funny
to read about, like like comic book level. Oh this
is this edition is not all the kind of like
behind the scenes. Yes. So one of the big ones,
the seven edition that sparked a lot of consternation from
(21:47):
fans of Joy of Cooking because they had the addition
of recipes from celebrity chefs and food writers, which many
felt strayed from the heart of of joy of cooking.
The pulling of joy of cooking perhaps the thing that
made it what it was. An article out of the
Times labeled it the new Coke of cookbooks. Oh my,
(22:13):
that is the harshest most discs I can pass place,
and that's beautiful. Uh yeah. Uh. Ethan was in charge
of that one, and and you know, I think that
that he and everyone involved really meant well. It was
like a nod to modernization. You know. They were making
(22:34):
use of professional test kitchens and professional writers. They had
cut some some seemingly really retro recipes on I don't know,
like weird ice creams, and chapters about preservation because it
seemed like no one was into that. The shrimp wiggle
was right out. I don't know what the heck that is,
but you can imagine, you can imagine aspects and what
(22:55):
a shrimp wiggle could possibly be. It seemed like a
good thing, and it just it just wash. Yeah, because
they are there's so much nostalgia involved. Like people were
mad the shrimp wiggle was taking. Yeah, they were like,
where my shrimp wiggle? Even they're not even making it,
but they want to know about it. Uh. So the
two thousand six edition was viewed as a return to form. Yes, uh,
(23:20):
and that run did include because it was anniversary. Um
so it included a leather bound anniversary edition with gilded edges.
Uh yeah, yeah. Ethan was also in charge of that one,
and I think I think he was kind of um
humbled and apologetic but um. But right after, after two
(23:41):
thousands six, his son John took over so four fourth
generation of of cookbook writers. Mm hmm. But stepping back
just a second. Also, Ann Mendelssohn published a biography of
Irma and Marian called Stand Facing the Stove, The Story
(24:03):
of the Women who gave America the Joy of Cooking.
Mm hmm. What a fandom around this. I gotta say, oh, oh, yeah, yeah,
I have. I have not read that biography, but I'm
I really want to now. I usually do that kind
of thing before these episodes, but it was a little
bit last minute at any rate. Um Erma was inducted
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, which is a thing.
(24:25):
Um she she has. She has a star and a
plaque set into a sidewalk and everything. Yeah. Nice, Okay,
this brings us to kind of a complicated nutrition note
that I was alluding to earlier that I think should
be its own episode in the future. But yeah, yes,
all right, in the context of this. A two thousand
nine study out of the Animals of Internal Medicine called
(24:46):
the Joy of Cooking too Much Ye claimed that the
calorie counts of recipes and the joy of cooking. I
say the joy of cooking. I know people get mad
at me, but I say the joy of cooking. These
recipes had increased by an average since the nineteen thirty
(25:07):
six edition in terms of calori account right right, yeah,
right right right um and they advised classic recipes need
to be downsized to counteract growing waistlines. Yep. The study authors,
especially Brian wa Zinc when Zinc, who's head of Cornell
University's Food and Brand Lab, were known for sort of
(25:29):
controversial studies around eating habits that grabbed a lot of headlines,
very headline friendly studies. Um and. One of the authors
explained that they were looking into sources of obesity other
than things like past foods, so they decided to look
into the joy of cooking. Now, this study ruffled a
(25:51):
lot of feathers, yes, including those of the keeper of
the Joy of cooking, Legacy Brombar's great grandson Seoan Becker
m hmm. With the help of Ron Bauer's biographer They
posted a response to the study on the Joy of
Cooking website criticizing some of the studies methods um And
one of the big things was the sample size. So
(26:14):
this study only sampled about eighteen recipes out of thousands. Yeah,
very small, it's less than one um. Still, they didn't
reject the findings out right. Uh, John seemed in interviews
I read with him, he seemed very aware, like, well,
I'm not a scientist, but something doesn't feel right to
me kind of thing. Um. Joy of cooking became almost
(26:38):
a symbol of the perceived quote sad American diet um,
which really really rankled to the point Becker decided to
conduct his own research and was elated that he was
not only not getting the same results, but he was
getting vastly different results in this study m M. So.
Becker sent his findings to several academics in the field,
(27:00):
including a behavioral scientist named James Heathers, who had made
a name for himself for critiquing studies like this and
publishing his results. And I think he did this in
his spare time. It wasn't his job. He just was like, really,
it was a very passionate thing for him where he's like,
I won't stand for this. Um, Heather's explained the issue
with the study. The issue with this study was that
(27:22):
there was no way to add it upright. And that's
a quote. Um. He basically said, it's not that it
added up incorrectly, it just there was no way to
add it up right. So one example he gave is
that several of the included recipes don't have specific serving sizes,
so would be Yeah. He also agreed the sample size
(27:43):
was the problem. Um, And one Sink had insisted in
the study on comparing recipes that had the same names
over editions, even if they had involved into a totally
different recipes. So like the example Heathers gave was gumbo,
where like the original resid be I'm sure we defend
a lot of people, but the read recipe was like
chicken broth and celery, and like in the new one
(28:05):
it had like a rue and sausage and all that stuff,
like it was the same name. It was the same recipe. Also,
around this time, which was ish, an article was published
in BuzzFeed that detailed that the author of this study
had less than ethical research methods because basically, instead of
(28:25):
testing a hypothesis. He would decide the conclusion he wanted
and then manipulate the data to support that conclusion. And
there's like listeners, there's email records of this. It was
a whole expose. It was a whole thing. But basically
you'd be like, just massage the data, find a way
(28:47):
to frame the data so it looks like what we
wanted to look like. Because they did catch headlines a
lot of the things that came out of this this guy.
I mean, we're talking about it now so fascinating. But
I do want to come back and do a whole
thing about about like food studies like this. Oh absolutely, yeah.
(29:09):
We We've been avoiding talking too much about right like
nutrition um as a whole episode topic because it is
so complicated. Like I mean, basically, just like that saver
motto that I give every time we talked about nutrition
studies would just be the whole episode. Um. But but
right now some of the some of the drama about
(29:31):
it gets really fascinating. Well, I know that the Joy
of Cooking team felt very vindicated after this whole night,
but um, stepping back a little bit, in twelve, the
Library of Congress included the Joy of Cooking among eight
eight other books that changed America. And yeah, John Becker
(29:56):
and his wife Megan Scott took over for the addition
that would come out in twenty nine, and John writes
in the intro to the book about this deep dedication
that they both had to not only the history of
the book, but also its usefulness to the modern reader,
Like they dug into every recipe and tested them themselves
(30:19):
in their own kitchen as their great grandmother had. Um
Marian wrote in the nineteen sixty three edition that the
book is quote a family affair as well as an
enterprise in which the authors own no obligation to anyone
but themselves. And you, oh yeah, honestly, it was really
(30:42):
really cool and fascinating to read into it. Should read
about the changes in the additions and why they made
those changes, and just the shifting cultural landscape very heartwarming
as well. Yeah, yeah, especially I mean I don't know,
like like maybe Annie you felt this too, but especially
being a amen who talks about food um and does
(31:04):
not claim to have any special expertise, like right, like
reading the story about these people who were just normal people,
um figuring out how to create something that has meant
so much to so many people, really really lovely. It was.
It was, oh, listeners, if you have a copy, I know, yeah,
(31:27):
oh goodness, right right, Like tell us tell us about
like which pages are stayed about the version, tell us
your favorite recipe. I need to once I get my
books out of storage at the hypothetical end of this
never ending in between houses situation, um, I will dig
(31:47):
into mine. Yes, yes, And that was one thing we
didn't really touch on. But some of those like collectors editions,
have like misspellings in them, and that's how you know.
It's like the original yes and the squirrel the squirrel logo,
some of you know what I mean. Yeah, it's like
(32:11):
that's how you know it's like an earlier version is
because there was a pretty graphic drawing because it has
illustrations in it of how to like cooco squirrel right,
the squirrel recipe? Okay, yea yeah. Anyway, we got to
know all the facts, we got to know all the details,
all their stories. But in the meantime, that's what we
have to say for now. It is it is. We
(32:32):
do have some listener mail for you already, 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 sponsoring, Yes, thank you,
and we're back with listen joyous on this very rainy day.
(33:03):
But it is so gray out. Yes it's a very
dark near But anyway, Christine wrote, I thought i'd follow
up regarding hot cross buns in Australia. Technically they are
regarded as a traditional Easter food, and when I was younger,
they would go on sale perhaps a week before Easter.
I'm not sure when it started, but gradually they started
(33:25):
appearing earlier and earlier, to the point where they can
now be spotted on Boxing Day and stay on sale
for a while after Easter. This really upsets traditionalist. Most
are the traditional spice slash fruit buns. However, chocolate chip
buns are gaining in popularity. Some of the supermarket and
bakery chains that try out different gourmet editions. One Chaine
(33:49):
has a quote decadent assalted caramel hot cross bun on
offer this year. There are even savory offerings. Being Australia,
there is a vegemite one. Last year I tried a
jalapino and cheese variety. It was bad. I did some
asking on the socials and New Zealand also sells hot
(34:09):
cross buns before Easter, though apparently not afterwards. Whether this
is yet another pathetic attempt by New Zealand to steal
an Australian food tradition and then claim they invented it,
I can't say. It might just be that several of
our major food companies operate in New Zealand. But that's
a very boring explanation. I also finished listening to the
(34:30):
classic bagel episode if you Lovely Ladies, get any hate
directed at you over this? Tell everyone to remember that
Australia has mass produced of vegamite bagels. Yes, we Australians do,
indeed put vegemite on anything and everything. Let the bagel
purist think on that. Wow, that is something to think on.
(34:52):
There's a lot of contentious this. This is a very
contentious listener. Mail, I love it is um really came
from New Zealand? Yeah yeah, um that for one thing? Um? Okay,
So I need I need point of clarification. Uh is
their vegemite in the dough of the bagels? Is there
(35:13):
like a ribbon of vegemite baked in? I'm trying to
imagine this. I could just google it, but um no, yeah, heck,
we need that firsthand account. Absolutely, And I vegemite hot
cross bun. There's a lot of things my brain is
struggling to like, I mean, it's just like a good
(35:35):
yeast bun, and I mean it's a vegemite. I'm not
very familiar with hot cross buns in the first place,
but now you're introducing all these other things, so I'm
just I'm just trying to keep up, that's all. Yeah, yeah,
I'm imagining that the cross that's that's the vegemite, is
(35:56):
a vegemite cross on top of the butt. That's what
I'm picturing. But again, these are just the imaginings of
a very sleep deprived Lauren, So so who knows. Who
knows what reality could be. It's impossible to google it
at this point. Definitely, Well, thank you. We asked the
question about hot cross bones and when they come out,
(36:19):
because in my experience, it is mostly around Easter. This
is funny that it upsets traditionalists. I'm sure it does. Sure, Well,
it's just that mission creep of all holidays, you know,
like you're over with Christmas and all of a sudden
there's Valentine and stay stuff out and I'm like, could
we give it? Could we hold on a breathing room? Yeah,
little breathing room at any rate. Um Sheldon wrote about bagels.
(36:43):
First of all, I have to state that my feelings
toward bagels are similar to those of Lauren. However, there
is a reason for toasting a bagel. If you're traveling
and can only get a second rate bagel, toasting improves it.
It can also help what they hopelessly stale. One other
than that, my choice is to eat a plane outside
of Montreal. Montreal bagels are hard to find throughout Canada.
(37:05):
But when I get to see you guys, when you
come up here for the Curd Festival, I'll bring Laurena
Montreal bagel baked no more than two to three hours before,
and one for Annie two. But that's just to be polite,
because she's not a real bagel or um. But you
have to realize that while they share the name bagels,
you cannot compare them to New York City bagels. It's
(37:26):
not even an apple to orange thing, more like comparing
a pizza to an apple pie. They both have a
similar shape. Good notes. Okay, alright, Also intrigued. Intrigued about
this as well. I am as well, and thank you
for your politeness and offering me a bagel. I agree
(37:49):
with you too. I feel like toasting can improve a
sadder situation. Yeah, I there's no qualms or beef coming
from me. I was just kind of, you know, messing
around because I know people got strong opinions, just being
a little incendiary. But no, no, I'm all for it.
(38:11):
I prefer it toasted bagel honestly. Yeah, yeah, no, same
same um. I will say that super producer Ramsey just
deemed me a video of someone like cry reacting to
someone else slicing a bagel lengthwise instead of cross wise
(38:34):
like to bottom. Oh interesting. You know, it's a whole
world out there. It's a whole world of incorrect things
to do to babels. Yes, yes, it is. Well, I
look forward even more strong opinions. I love when we
(38:54):
rerun a classic and it got strong opinions the first time,
and then we rerun it and it gets even more.
I love it is so good. It's so good. I do.
I like it. Montreal bagel as well. I have one
that's good. Okay, all right, Well, see you at the
current festival one day, well we will in the meantime.
Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in. If
(39:15):
you would like to write to us, that you can
or emails Hello at favorite pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you with all of your strong takes. Uh.
Savor is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(39:36):
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 your way.
Hell though. Welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any Rees and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have an episode for you about the Joy of Cooking. Yes,
like the book. I mean, it is about the joy
of cooking. It is. It is, Yeah, and it was.
It was a very joyous one to do. I was
telling Lauren before this, I don't own this book, but
(00:31):
my mom did, and I there's such a wonderful documentation
of every edition and every cover that I believe she
has the much coveted nineteen seventy five version with the jacket.
But it was one of those things where I would
just see her, like as a kid, kind of flipping
(00:52):
through it as if it's a book, like not like
looking through to get a certain recipe, but just kind
of reading started reading it. Yeah. Yeah. But then every
now and then she had certain recipes would be like tonight,
I gotta get out joy of cooking. Like, so she
did have her go to recipes in it, but sometimes
I would just see her kind of just flipping through it.
So you bought back all these were memories from me
for me, even though I don't have one, I don't
(01:15):
know that's wonderful. I. Um yeah, I I think my
mom and dad, both individually, like before they got together,
had their own copies and uh and I've I have
at least one of those. I'm not my books are
all in storage right now. Um, so I'm in this
this really continual in between housing kind of situation, you guys,
(01:40):
And so I and I was like, I really missed
my books right now. Like I was like, oh, I
need to like like I can't put my hand on
that book. And it's so confounding because it's the first
time I think in basically my entire life, Like I'm
pretty sure my dad sent me to college with a
copy of The Joy of Cooking, um, and so like
(02:01):
I can't put a hand on it right now, and
that's very strange. Yeah. Yeah, it was nice to read
so many accounts of something similar to that that it's
a very kind of comforting thing people would reach for,
and that we this was kind of a last minute topic.
I'm glad you suggested it because it was fun to research. Uh,
(02:22):
but you know, we were looking for like Valentine's Day things.
There's all these tent poles happening. Um. But I think
and you can tell me if I'm completely reading this wrong.
But I feel like this is a good, you know,
reminder of the of this story you can find in cooking,
of this connection you can find in it, yeah, and
and right and like family connections and whatever that means
(02:46):
to you, and um and and yeah and and the
the joy of unreliable narrators. As we were, we were
also talking about a lot of a lot of this
outline is based on various writings that various people who
have worked on these editions of this book in the
(03:07):
Rombauer family, UM, over the years, their recollections, and I
don't I don't think that their recollections are correct because
none of them match up. None of them match up. UM,
everything reported everything a little bit differently. And I'm like, well,
that's part of the charm. That's okay, that's fine. So
where does we're just rolling with it? I so with
the caveat that I have no idea of anything that
(03:28):
follows is accurate. Fun caveat. I feel like that's before
you know, like you're watching a horror movie. It's like
based on true events inspired by Yeah, and you're like, okay, yeah,
based on the Gale Weathers book yeah, yeah, Gale Weathers
the screen movie is coming out soon. Are not a
(03:51):
sponsor just a fan? Um yeah, well, it has been
a long time since we've done what we were calling
pro files and deliciousness. We've done James Beard, Isabella Beaten,
Julia Child, Edna Lewis, and I think we did Betty Crocker, right, yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean she wasn't a real person, but all right, yeah,
falls in this kind of realm though. Sure, sure, Um,
(04:15):
we we've we've interviewed a couple of people who have
written books, Um Howa Hassan and h and Julia Skinner. Yeah,
so you can see all of those for for a
little bit more about that, I think also, um gosh,
some of our other like like more um history of
(04:36):
cuisine heavy episodes like the one about French cuisine and
stuff might kind of kind of dovetail. Yeah. Yeah, And
this one's really cool because it's been published so many times,
which we're going to talk about that. It is a
it's a neat kind of cycle of seeing oh at
this time, this is what was important and anyway, it's
(04:57):
it is a really it's I really enjoyed you sure
this one same, Yeah, in a frustrating way. But same. Yeah, well,
I guess that brings us too rare question. Yeah yeah.
The joy of cooking, well, joy of cooking or the
(05:19):
joy of cooking, depending on which edition you're looking at.
UM is a cookbook originally written Um and We're Collected
by one Irma s Rombauer and self published in self
published wild Um. It has since become a bestseller and
like a staple of American household cooking. And Irma was
not a professional writer nor a professional cook. She was
(05:43):
a homemaker. She wasn't even a particularly good home cook. Um. Supposedly,
one of her husband's family members, upon hearing about this project,
was like, Irma's a terrible cook. This is the worst
idea ever. But um, she she was. She was known
for for being, um, a charming socialite, like an active
(06:06):
member of her community organizations. Uh, and a great hostess.
And it's kind of those things, like her practicality and
her organization and her dedication and her charm that made
her a great cookbook writer. Uh. Joy of cooking is
just this like if you if you've never paged through
(06:29):
a copy like Annie's mom does sometimes, Um, it's just
endlessly practical and charming. Uh. One of one of her
friends apparently recommended that she write it as though and
I quote everyone were a fool in the kitchen. Um.
That's that's a quote from her, her daughter Marian. But yeah,
it's it's sort of like it's sort of like, explain
(06:51):
it to me, like I'm five. The cookbook, Um, Like
it doesn't talk down to you though, It just it
just doesn't make assumptions, like it wants you to succeed
and it is taking you from a base level to
hypothetical success. Yeah. I love it. It It doesn't make assumptions.
It's like, yeah, you know, I've been there, Yeah, and
in a higher place than me. But let's we'll start
(07:12):
from a place of kinship. Yeah m hm. And and
part of that is the way that the recipes are written,
because they're they're talking you through the process the way
that like a particularly clear friend might explain it to you.
Like it's not separated into ingredients and then method. Um,
the ingredients are put in bold face in the middle
(07:34):
of the method, like someone's just talking you through it. Yeah. Um. Furthermore,
every like subsection starts with a quick or not so
quick about paragraph that describes real simply what you're dealing with,
like just a little bit about how gin is made
before you get into the cocktail recipes, or an explainer
(07:55):
on different types of pastry dough before the Philo based apps. Uh.
There are cross references to other sections in the book
if you want to explore other aspects of the ingredient
or the method of cooking or whatever it is that
you're dealing with. And uh. And it is so personalble
and like really dryly funny and kind of corny and
(08:16):
like sort of old fashioned, but in a sweet, in
a really sweet way. Um. As I was paging through
the twenty nineteen addition online, I ran across what I
considered to be an excellent example of the writing. Um.
It's in the middle of this otherwise very straightforward section
about tea. Uh. And there's an entry on iced tea
(08:37):
and it starts out this beverage originated in our family's
date of town St. Louis. The inventor was actually an
Englishman who arrived at the concoction as an act of
desperation when the general public showed indifference to his hot
tea offerings in the sweltering Midwestern heat. Yeah, that's pretty solid,
(08:58):
and it just gives you a really all the recipe
for iced tea, and I'm like, what happened? It is
kind of like fun stream of consciousness, a lot of it. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's delightful. Um. There was also this gem at
the beginning of the section on cocktails, wine and beer.
In our experience, food is inseparable from alcohol, or at
(09:22):
least the latter should be cautiously consumed without the former
wi sage sage advice. Well, speaking of what about the nutrition,
read responsibly, we actually do have something kind of related
to the nutrition in this but that will be in
(09:43):
the history section. It will be Yeah, don't don't eat books.
I guess that's that's all I got. Yeah, mm hmm. Well,
we do have some numbers for you. The Joy of
Cooking or Joy of Cooking is one of the best
selling cookbooks ever, over eighteen million copies since it was
published during the Great Depression, UM, and it has undergone
(10:06):
what I read, eight significant revisions, significant revisions. And it
really is, as I was saying, this fascinating look at
all kinds of factors throughout America's history, UM, wartime, rationing, fluctuating,
prices and tastes. The nineteen fifty one version had twenty
three recipes for stuffed tomatoes. That's amazing. That's beautiful. Yes,
(10:33):
like new technologies like the blender, like whole chapters about that,
shifting priorities, especially around like health, um, And it was
very I will also say it was something that was
very cognizant of like price of your time and you're
what you could afford. Oh yeah, something that was very
(10:55):
I feel would be very comforting. And I think a
lot of people did feel that, like it wasn't shaming
in that it was just kind of like just straightforward
about it, like yeah, like I did find a whole
article about kind of this I want to say underground.
It's not underground, but kind of this whole world of
um getting hunting down copies of the joy of cooking
(11:18):
and how some copies can go for fift and there's
also dollars, American dollars, and there's so much fun shade
in my opinion about what they think is like these
collectors like oh that one doesn't count or it doesn't
have this in it. So therefore very strong opinions about
(11:42):
all right, Yeah, I always love a strong opinion, that's
beautiful and no cookbook collection. I feel like we've got
into this a little bit in the past, maybe in
that Betty Crocer episode, but it can be a violent sport.
They had opinion it was great. Um, so look into
(12:04):
that if you if you're interested. But in the meantime,
we do have quite a history for you. We do,
and we're going to get into that as soon as
we get back from a quick break. For a word
from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsoring, Yes,
thank you, alright. So The Joy of Cooking a collection
(12:28):
of reliable recipes with a casual culinary chat. As was
the full title. Original title was first published in As
You Said. It was self published by Irma Rombauer and
Irma Rombauer was a recently widowed mother of two. She
was this great hostess and homemaker out of St. Louis
(12:49):
and this was the first year of the Great Depression,
and Rombauer's husband, who had grappled with mental health issues,
had just taken his own life. UM. Stepping back a
bit it. Rumbauer was born in St. Louis in seven
Her parents were well off German immigrants, and she did
some traveling to Germany growing up. I suspect I read
some of those stories we can't really verify about her
(13:12):
early life, about who she dated and everything. Yeah, it
seems very exciting. Yeah, got a little bit, got a
little bit saucy. I read that, Um, she met her husband, Edgar.
He was a lawyer and and she was just like
a socialite. But they met doing amateur theater. Oh. Oh,
(13:37):
she did have an artist mindset. I read that in
a lot of places at least, and she she did
like to take on these creative projects. And after her
husband's death, she wanted to uplift her spirits and the
spirits of those struggling during the Great Depression. Again, this
is kind of what we're reading through, you know, the
backwards the end of the tale. But yeah, she seems
like she seems like somebody who did enjoy way hosting. Yes,
(14:03):
definitely hosting. Yes, because she was notably not a chef,
as you said, Um, yep. So when this book first
came out, the cookbook contained four and fifty recipes that
she had collected and organized from family and friends. Yeah,
and she might have started doing a bit of this
years earlier as part of her like society involvements. But
(14:26):
that's one of the facts that I couldn't I couldn't
quite right verify. Yeah. I do love that idea though,
because again, and I'm gonna talk about this more in
a second, this was before the internet, so I can
just envision people kind of exchanging recipes and trying to
help each other out at these events, um which I love.
(14:46):
I love yes and and this cookbook was sprinkled throughout
with Yes tips on entertaining, on menu planning, those head notes,
as you said, kind of those things at the beginning
where rum Our would share thoughts and stories, some of
them longer than others. The original cover was a paper
(15:08):
cutout that was done by her daughter Marian, and it
depicted the patron state of cooks um st Martha Bethany
slaying a dragon that was supposed to symbolize kitchen drudgery.
It's really cute. Yeah. Yeah. She's holding like like a
mop in one hand and like a cauldron in the
other and she's right slaying this. It's honestly really striking.
(15:30):
It's great. I think it was reproduced in a whole
maybe a nineteen eighties version of the book. It's really cool.
I did find a timeline of like all the covers.
This is how I kind of figured out which one
my mom had. Yeah, and it's it's neat to look at.
Marian also helped test the recipes, and it was one
of the first cookbooks to remove the ingredients from the
(15:53):
direction section and list them instead chronologically, which I think
we talked about in um our episode on Isabella Beaten.
But it is fascinating kind of the because you kind
of got it. You gotta get in the mindset of
people who are using this as instructions. Yeah, I don't know.
I just find it a really fascinating look into the
(16:13):
human brain. Yeah. Yeah, both both methods are certainly valid.
I'm more used to having them separated, but I think
it's useful both ways. It's useful both ways. It is
it is. Rumbauer spent half of her savings to publish
this book, and she got a lot of positive feedback. Um,
so she started pitching it to major publishers in in
(16:35):
nineteen thirty six. She succeeded in getting a national distribution deal. Yeah,
Bob's Merrill out of Indianapolis was the publisher who picked
it up. Supposedly, the president of the company met Irma
while they were playing bridge at Erma's cousins house, and
that's how it happened. Like she had submitted it a
few times, but it was the bridge conversation that sealed
(16:57):
the deal. But it went on to sell some like
fifty copies, which is a pretty decent success, although Irma
didn't really make much money from it, which was her
other motivation in publishing this book, because you know, she
was she was in her fifties when her husband died
and she was a widow, and it was the Great
Depression and the family needed money. Apparently, she had, against
(17:21):
the advice of her lawyers, being sort of an experience,
signed away her rights to Bob's Merrill and the publisher
was pretty unchill about it from from what I understand,
and both Irma and later her daughter Marian had to
fight them like a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I
did want to put this note in here. As I
(17:42):
mentioned earlier, we did talk about this a lot in
the Betty Crocker episode especially, but before the Internet, these
cookbooks were a way to not only share recipes and
offer advice, but also to feel a connection for home cooks,
who were largely women at this time, um, who were
putting together these meals, often by themselves, for their families
and friends. It made the experience less lonely. Um. And
(18:08):
one thing that said this cookbook apart was Rombauer's voice.
And Frank admit it's that she wasn't a great cook.
She's very open about it. There wasn't a pretentiousness to it.
There wasn't any shaming like I said about needing to
save time or money. And many families passed these copies
down continue to over generations. Oh yeah. Also note you
(18:33):
know this was right. This was published during the Great Depression,
during a time of a lot of social upheaval. Um.
More people were doing more cooking for themselves, you know,
like whereas upper class families had had servants do that
in the past, that was becoming way less common and
everyone had to stretch their budgets. Prohibition was still on
(18:54):
when she self published. Um, although I can't I couldn't
track down whether it was in the original one self
published version or the nineteen thirty six version which was
after prohibition it lifted. But like first page, she's got
a gin and juice like first page. Yeah, um, either way, Uh,
(19:23):
the ninety three edition would become America's most popular cookbook.
It sold some six hundred thousand copies. Wow yeah um,
and over the years, those four and fifty recipes flourished
in two thousands of recipes UM. Sections like wartime rations
(19:43):
were dropped and replaced with entirely new sections like frozen
desserts UM. In the sixties, the from the Joy of
Cooking was dropped from the title. I still don't know
what that was about. Uh, but ye have different revisions
throughout this whole sort of mid century period. We're kind
of ahead of their time, you know, where we're more serious.
(20:03):
Recipes were being written with these fancy ingredients and like
lengthy preparations. Irma kept things affordable in terms of, as
you were saying, any both both money and time. She
encouraged the use of prepackaged ingredients as they came out.
A later marian added an emphasis on a return to
fresh vegetables like right on the cusp of the novelle
(20:26):
cuisine movement, so super interesting. Through the late forties and fifties,
Irma did enjoy a certain amount of celebrity and travel.
Julie Child wrote about being really inspired by her and
her book The two met actually in Paris over lunch
sometime in the early nineteen fifties and talked about writing
(20:47):
and publishing so cool um Irma Rombauer died in and
Marian co wrote new editions with Irma up until Irma's death,
though Irma did stop sometime in the in the nineteen fifties.
(21:07):
That next edition, after Irma passed away, that was published
in nineteen sixty three, was entirely done by Marian, and
the family tradition would continue. By the edition. Marian's son
Ethan was co writer. Yes, and one of the things
I loved about this, which I'm sure is very frustrating,
(21:27):
don't get me wrong, but it was kind of funny
to read about, like like comic book level. Oh this
is this edition is not all the kind of like
behind the scenes. Yes. So one of the big ones,
the seven edition that sparked a lot of consternation from
(21:47):
fans of Joy of Cooking because they had the addition
of recipes from celebrity chefs and food writers, which many
felt strayed from the heart of of joy of cooking.
The pulling of joy of cooking perhaps the thing that
made it what it was. An article out of the
Times labeled it the new Coke of cookbooks. Oh my,
(22:13):
that is the harshest most discs I can pass place,
and that's beautiful. Uh yeah. Uh. Ethan was in charge
of that one, and and you know, I think that
that he and everyone involved really meant well. It was
like a nod to modernization. You know. They were making
(22:34):
use of professional test kitchens and professional writers. They had
cut some some seemingly really retro recipes on I don't know,
like weird ice creams, and chapters about preservation because it
seemed like no one was into that. The shrimp wiggle
was right out. I don't know what the heck that is,
but you can imagine, you can imagine aspects and what
(22:55):
a shrimp wiggle could possibly be. It seemed like a
good thing, and it just it just wash. Yeah, because
they are there's so much nostalgia involved. Like people were
mad the shrimp wiggle was taking. Yeah, they were like,
where my shrimp wiggle? Even they're not even making it,
but they want to know about it. Uh. So the
two thousand six edition was viewed as a return to form. Yes, uh,
(23:20):
and that run did include because it was anniversary. Um
so it included a leather bound anniversary edition with gilded edges.
Uh yeah, yeah. Ethan was also in charge of that one,
and I think I think he was kind of um
humbled and apologetic but um. But right after, after two
(23:41):
thousands six, his son John took over so four fourth
generation of of cookbook writers. Mm hmm. But stepping back
just a second. Also, Ann Mendelssohn published a biography of
Irma and Marian called Stand Facing the Stove, The Story
(24:03):
of the Women who gave America the Joy of Cooking.
Mm hmm. What a fandom around this. I gotta say, oh, oh, yeah, yeah,
I have. I have not read that biography, but I'm
I really want to now. I usually do that kind
of thing before these episodes, but it was a little
bit last minute at any rate. Um Erma was inducted
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, which is a thing.
(24:25):
Um she she has. She has a star and a
plaque set into a sidewalk and everything. Yeah. Nice, Okay,
this brings us to kind of a complicated nutrition note
that I was alluding to earlier that I think should
be its own episode in the future. But yeah, yes,
all right, in the context of this. A two thousand
nine study out of the Animals of Internal Medicine called
(24:46):
the Joy of Cooking too Much Ye claimed that the
calorie counts of recipes and the joy of cooking. I
say the joy of cooking. I know people get mad
at me, but I say the joy of cooking. These
recipes had increased by an average since the nineteen thirty
(25:07):
six edition in terms of calori account right right, yeah,
right right right um and they advised classic recipes need
to be downsized to counteract growing waistlines. Yep. The study authors,
especially Brian wa Zinc when Zinc, who's head of Cornell
University's Food and Brand Lab, were known for sort of
(25:29):
controversial studies around eating habits that grabbed a lot of headlines,
very headline friendly studies. Um and. One of the authors
explained that they were looking into sources of obesity other
than things like past foods, so they decided to look
into the joy of cooking. Now, this study ruffled a
(25:51):
lot of feathers, yes, including those of the keeper of
the Joy of cooking, Legacy Brombar's great grandson Seoan Becker
m hmm. With the help of Ron Bauer's biographer They
posted a response to the study on the Joy of
Cooking website criticizing some of the studies methods um And
one of the big things was the sample size. So
(26:14):
this study only sampled about eighteen recipes out of thousands. Yeah,
very small, it's less than one um. Still, they didn't
reject the findings out right. Uh, John seemed in interviews
I read with him, he seemed very aware, like, well,
I'm not a scientist, but something doesn't feel right to
me kind of thing. Um. Joy of cooking became almost
(26:38):
a symbol of the perceived quote sad American diet um,
which really really rankled to the point Becker decided to
conduct his own research and was elated that he was
not only not getting the same results, but he was
getting vastly different results in this study m M. So.
Becker sent his findings to several academics in the field,
(27:00):
including a behavioral scientist named James Heathers, who had made
a name for himself for critiquing studies like this and
publishing his results. And I think he did this in
his spare time. It wasn't his job. He just was like, really,
it was a very passionate thing for him where he's like,
I won't stand for this. Um, Heather's explained the issue
with the study. The issue with this study was that
(27:22):
there was no way to add it upright. And that's
a quote. Um. He basically said, it's not that it
added up incorrectly, it just there was no way to
add it up right. So one example he gave is
that several of the included recipes don't have specific serving sizes,
so would be Yeah. He also agreed the sample size
(27:43):
was the problem. Um, And one Sink had insisted in
the study on comparing recipes that had the same names
over editions, even if they had involved into a totally
different recipes. So like the example Heathers gave was gumbo,
where like the original resid be I'm sure we defend
a lot of people, but the read recipe was like
chicken broth and celery, and like in the new one
(28:05):
it had like a rue and sausage and all that stuff,
like it was the same name. It was the same recipe. Also,
around this time, which was ish, an article was published
in BuzzFeed that detailed that the author of this study
had less than ethical research methods because basically, instead of
(28:25):
testing a hypothesis. He would decide the conclusion he wanted
and then manipulate the data to support that conclusion. And
there's like listeners, there's email records of this. It was
a whole expose. It was a whole thing. But basically
you'd be like, just massage the data, find a way
(28:47):
to frame the data so it looks like what we
wanted to look like. Because they did catch headlines a
lot of the things that came out of this this guy.
I mean, we're talking about it now so fascinating. But
I do want to come back and do a whole
thing about about like food studies like this. Oh absolutely, yeah.
(29:09):
We We've been avoiding talking too much about right like
nutrition um as a whole episode topic because it is
so complicated. Like I mean, basically, just like that saver
motto that I give every time we talked about nutrition
studies would just be the whole episode. Um. But but
right now some of the some of the drama about
(29:31):
it gets really fascinating. Well, I know that the Joy
of Cooking team felt very vindicated after this whole night,
but um, stepping back a little bit, in twelve, the
Library of Congress included the Joy of Cooking among eight
eight other books that changed America. And yeah, John Becker
(29:56):
and his wife Megan Scott took over for the addition
that would come out in twenty nine, and John writes
in the intro to the book about this deep dedication
that they both had to not only the history of
the book, but also its usefulness to the modern reader,
Like they dug into every recipe and tested them themselves
(30:19):
in their own kitchen as their great grandmother had. Um
Marian wrote in the nineteen sixty three edition that the
book is quote a family affair as well as an
enterprise in which the authors own no obligation to anyone
but themselves. And you, oh yeah, honestly, it was really
(30:42):
really cool and fascinating to read into it. Should read
about the changes in the additions and why they made
those changes, and just the shifting cultural landscape very heartwarming
as well. Yeah, yeah, especially I mean I don't know,
like like maybe Annie you felt this too, but especially
being a amen who talks about food um and does
(31:04):
not claim to have any special expertise, like right, like
reading the story about these people who were just normal people,
um figuring out how to create something that has meant
so much to so many people, really really lovely. It was.
It was, oh, listeners, if you have a copy, I know, yeah,
(31:27):
oh goodness, right right, Like tell us tell us about
like which pages are stayed about the version, tell us
your favorite recipe. I need to once I get my
books out of storage at the hypothetical end of this
never ending in between houses situation, um, I will dig
(31:47):
into mine. Yes, yes, And that was one thing we
didn't really touch on. But some of those like collectors editions,
have like misspellings in them, and that's how you know.
It's like the original yes and the squirrel the squirrel logo,
some of you know what I mean. Yeah, it's like
(32:11):
that's how you know it's like an earlier version is
because there was a pretty graphic drawing because it has
illustrations in it of how to like cooco squirrel right,
the squirrel recipe? Okay, yea yeah. Anyway, we got to
know all the facts, we got to know all the details,
all their stories. But in the meantime, that's what we
have to say for now. It is it is. We
(32:32):
do have some listener mail for you already, 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 sponsoring, Yes, thank you,
and we're back with listen joyous on this very rainy day.
(33:03):
But it is so gray out. Yes it's a very
dark near But anyway, Christine wrote, I thought i'd follow
up regarding hot cross buns in Australia. Technically they are
regarded as a traditional Easter food, and when I was younger,
they would go on sale perhaps a week before Easter.
I'm not sure when it started, but gradually they started
(33:25):
appearing earlier and earlier, to the point where they can
now be spotted on Boxing Day and stay on sale
for a while after Easter. This really upsets traditionalist. Most
are the traditional spice slash fruit buns. However, chocolate chip
buns are gaining in popularity. Some of the supermarket and
bakery chains that try out different gourmet editions. One Chaine
(33:49):
has a quote decadent assalted caramel hot cross bun on
offer this year. There are even savory offerings. Being Australia,
there is a vegemite one. Last year I tried a
jalapino and cheese variety. It was bad. I did some
asking on the socials and New Zealand also sells hot
(34:09):
cross buns before Easter, though apparently not afterwards. Whether this
is yet another pathetic attempt by New Zealand to steal
an Australian food tradition and then claim they invented it,
I can't say. It might just be that several of
our major food companies operate in New Zealand. But that's
a very boring explanation. I also finished listening to the
(34:30):
classic bagel episode if you Lovely Ladies, get any hate
directed at you over this? Tell everyone to remember that
Australia has mass produced of vegamite bagels. Yes, we Australians do,
indeed put vegemite on anything and everything. Let the bagel
purist think on that. Wow, that is something to think on.
(34:52):
There's a lot of contentious this. This is a very
contentious listener. Mail, I love it is um really came
from New Zealand? Yeah yeah, um that for one thing? Um? Okay,
So I need I need point of clarification. Uh is
their vegemite in the dough of the bagels? Is there
(35:13):
like a ribbon of vegemite baked in? I'm trying to
imagine this. I could just google it, but um no, yeah, heck,
we need that firsthand account. Absolutely, And I vegemite hot
cross bun. There's a lot of things my brain is
struggling to like, I mean, it's just like a good
(35:35):
yeast bun, and I mean it's a vegemite. I'm not
very familiar with hot cross buns in the first place,
but now you're introducing all these other things, so I'm
just I'm just trying to keep up, that's all. Yeah, yeah,
I'm imagining that the cross that's that's the vegemite, is
(35:56):
a vegemite cross on top of the butt. That's what
I'm picturing. But again, these are just the imaginings of
a very sleep deprived Lauren, So so who knows. Who
knows what reality could be. It's impossible to google it
at this point. Definitely, Well, thank you. We asked the
question about hot cross bones and when they come out,
(36:19):
because in my experience, it is mostly around Easter. This
is funny that it upsets traditionalists. I'm sure it does. Sure, Well,
it's just that mission creep of all holidays, you know,
like you're over with Christmas and all of a sudden
there's Valentine and stay stuff out and I'm like, could
we give it? Could we hold on a breathing room? Yeah,
little breathing room at any rate. Um Sheldon wrote about bagels.
(36:43):
First of all, I have to state that my feelings
toward bagels are similar to those of Lauren. However, there
is a reason for toasting a bagel. If you're traveling
and can only get a second rate bagel, toasting improves it.
It can also help what they hopelessly stale. One other
than that, my choice is to eat a plane outside
of Montreal. Montreal bagels are hard to find throughout Canada.
(37:05):
But when I get to see you guys, when you
come up here for the Curd Festival, I'll bring Laurena
Montreal bagel baked no more than two to three hours before,
and one for Annie two. But that's just to be polite,
because she's not a real bagel or um. But you
have to realize that while they share the name bagels,
you cannot compare them to New York City bagels. It's
(37:26):
not even an apple to orange thing, more like comparing
a pizza to an apple pie. They both have a
similar shape. Good notes. Okay, alright, Also intrigued. Intrigued about
this as well. I am as well, and thank you
for your politeness and offering me a bagel. I agree
(37:49):
with you too. I feel like toasting can improve a
sadder situation. Yeah, I there's no qualms or beef coming
from me. I was just kind of, you know, messing
around because I know people got strong opinions, just being
a little incendiary. But no, no, I'm all for it.
(38:11):
I prefer it toasted bagel honestly. Yeah, yeah, no, same
same um. I will say that super producer Ramsey just
deemed me a video of someone like cry reacting to
someone else slicing a bagel lengthwise instead of cross wise
(38:34):
like to bottom. Oh interesting. You know, it's a whole
world out there. It's a whole world of incorrect things
to do to babels. Yes, yes, it is. Well, I
look forward even more strong opinions. I love when we
(38:54):
rerun a classic and it got strong opinions the first time,
and then we rerun it and it gets even more.
I love it is so good. It's so good. I do.
I like it. Montreal bagel as well. I have one
that's good. Okay, all right, Well, see you at the
current festival one day, well we will in the meantime.
Thanks to both of these listeners for writing in. If
(39:15):
you would like to write to us, that you can
or emails Hello at favorite pod dot com. We are
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you with all of your strong takes. Uh.
Savor is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts my heart Radio, you can visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(39:36):
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 your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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