September 2, 2023 • 38 mins
This often brown, often fuzzy fruit got its name thanks to a marketing campaign in the 1950s. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and botany of kiwifruit.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm more in Vocal Bam, and today we have
an episode for you about Kiwi fruit.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yes, this is a This is one of those
that I was not expecting. A lot of the history
that I encountered.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, I don't think I knew anything about this fruit,
and it actually took me longer than I expected to
figure out a number of things about it.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yes, yep. Was there any particular reason this was on
your mind? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh, I don't know anymore. I was thinking about plants,
and then I guess maybe I was looking for something
that's vaguely seasonal and I was thinking about I mean, key,
we aren't really seasonal right now.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
But mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
But I do associate them with summer because they're so
bright and lovely.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah. I actually have very specific memories of Kiwi And
funnily enough, the next episode we're doing full episode not
a classic, it's related to it, even though it shouldn't
be one. It's really funny. It brought back memories that
are from the same time. Uh, I didn't have much
(01:35):
Kiwi growing up at all. Oh, really, like, I'm not sure,
oh wow.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think my I think
I had them because my my dad was super familiar
with them from being restaurant industry and using them more
as a garnish than anything else. But what was also like,
this garnish is really delicious. He introduced starfruit to me
the same way, and and I love both of those things.
So yeah, okay, but so yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yes, So I did a summer abroad what is it called?
Oh my gosh, what is that called? But you live
with the family. I basically lived with family in Europe,
and the mom of the family was very health conscious,
(02:25):
and so the dessert we would have would be half
of a kiwi and you would get a spoon and
spoon it out from the skin and you would eat
it that way, and it was actually delightful, like I
had never done that. I hadn't experienced it that way.
I was coming in expecting ice cream or whatever, but
it was such like a really refreshing, nice thing. So
(02:50):
I grew to love this tradition of like, here comes
the nightly kiwi that I could just scoop out with
my spoon. So every time I think of kiwi food,
I think of that I did have it in Australia,
but the memories aren't strong. However, I did have it
in I had it in like smoothies a lot or
(03:13):
some kind of like drink concoction. But it's just funny
to me that the memory, the strongest memory I have
of kiwied is from.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Europe, not where from they're from. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And I actually had a very funny conversation with we
were having technical difficulties, as still happens even though we've
been doing this from our home for several years. When
friend of the show Eves was on the other show,
I'm on Sminty and I was just, you know, trying
to take up time while we were trying to fix things,
(03:47):
and I was telling her this story and she was
like really so surprised. And I was like, so I
shouldn't buy a kiwi anymore if it's only from these places.
And I was like, well, hold on, I don't know
there's more to it than that, but it was just
it was funny, like when we get to share these
stories with people and they're like, what what.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yep yep, yep, yep, yep. This one does have some
twist and turns it does it does? And they are
not only from New Zealand, so that yes.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No, they are definitely not only no. But all right,
I guess that brings you.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Question, It brings us to a number of questions. I
believe it certainly does.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Kiwi fruit what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, Kiwi fruit are a type of smallish, slightly oblong
fruit that have a thin ish edible ish skin. Sometimes
it's fuzzy, sometimes it's smooth. The fuzz is sometimes more
than you want to eat, but anyway, Yeah, and in flavor,
they're they're kind of sweet, tart and juicy and have
(04:57):
this like semi firm flesh. They're about the size shape
of an extra large chicken egg if chicken eggs were
not tapered at one end, So just a little oval.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Their skin is usually brown, but their flesh comes in
a range of sort of just translucent colors, from green
to golden to crimson. They'll all have this white core
running lengthwise through the center of the oval, off of
which you get this radial structure supporting the rest of
the flesh and these many tiny black seeds and it's
(05:30):
just really pretty in cross section, like geometric stained glass.
The flavor is bright and a little bit like puckery,
like almost tannic, but gets sweeter as the fruit ripens,
and it's kind of tropical fruity. Yeah. They're eaten mostly
fresh with or without their skin, or used as garnish,
but can also be blended into a juice for various
(05:52):
drinks or dried. It's like it's like a little hand
grenade of flavor. At the same time, it can be
so delicate looking and decorative. It's like it's like a
piece of art in a museum that seems at first
glance kind kind of small or simple, or like merely pretty,
(06:12):
but then it just really hits. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, you have that moment where you're moved.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, you're like, oh yeah, heck yeah, Okay. The term
kiwi fruit applies to the fruit of a bunch of
different species in the genus Actinita actin media. Let's call
it that. Sure, it's like seventy plus species. I've seen
(06:39):
numbers ranging from like fifty to seventy four. At any rate,
there's also a whole bunch of varieties within those species,
And I'm pretty sure people argue about which are actual
species in themselves, but sure, the plants that grow. Kiwi
fruit are climbing woody vines or maybe climbing woody shrubs
that can reach about thirty feet or nine meters long.
(07:03):
They're usually grown on trellises a little bit like wine
grapes are. And the plants will lose their leaves every
year but keep growing back, I mean, assuming you don't
kill it. They grow these wide, vady leaves and bloom
with these really pretty, sometimes roughly white to yellow flowers.
The plants are either male or female, and you need
at least one of each to pollinate, because that's how
(07:23):
that works. And if that happens, the female flowers will
develop a fruit. And what's to me the super interesting
way that I like, we've talked about a bunch of
fruits before, and I don't think I'd ever encountered one
exactly like this. This is this is where it took
me some extra time to figure stuff out. But okay,
so let's talk let's talk basic flower botany. Yeah, so
(07:50):
you know, at the center of a flower's petals, the
petals are sort of like funneling down to a base
where there might be one or like a couple different
kinds of threads coming up from the center. Yeah, these
are going to be that those threads are going to
be the flowers reproductive organs. If a plant has male parts,
some of those threads grow pollen. If the plant has
(08:13):
female parts, at least one of those threads is meant
to collect pollen and draw it down into the oval
at the base and pollinate it. Yeah. That that female structure,
the collector bit and the two bit and the oval
bit is called a carpal. Female kiwi flowers have dozens,
(08:33):
maybe hundreds of carpals that are all fused together at
their base, and each one can be pollinated and grow seeds.
But since they're all fused, they grow protective and nourishing
and tasty flesh around those developing seeds all together. And
that's the that's the green stuff in your typical kiwi.
(08:55):
The white core is placental material and the carpals alrady
out from it. The structure of the many carpals and
the connective tissue around them is what gives kiwi fruit.
That that's sort of starburst pattern in a cross section.
And if you've ever gotten a kiwi that had a
little like a little like like clump of thick hairs
(09:17):
at one end like looking like a little sea anatomy. Yeah,
that's the very outer edges of a bunch of those carpels.
If you've noticed at the other end a stiff, kind
of leafy bits, that that's the base where the flower
and fruit attached to the stem. So okay, so that's
how that works. But meanwhile, why are some kiwis fuzzy?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Typically no one knows. That's boiler alert. This is still yeah,
we can't just ask them. We have to kind of
sus it out, and it's sort of difficult. But okay,
some kiwis do have so much and such stiff fuzz
on their skin that the skin is considered inedible, And
basically no one knows why for sure, but researchers think,
(10:08):
based on research with peaches, which are originally from the
same region, researchers think that the little hairs on the
skin help physically shelter that the main body of the
fruit from hot sunlight and from dry wind, therefore letting
the fruit retain the moisture that it needs in order
(10:29):
to mature. Yeah. Also, other animals might find those fuzzy
skins as unpleasant as we do, and therefore avoid eating them.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So yeah, well in a funny twist of your oh
humans like that. One of the reasons my host mother
at the place hosting in Europe liked it was that
it was kind of like a a bowl a little cups.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, it just comes to its own little serving cup. Sure,
so you know, you win some you loose them. Oh yeah,
that's that's how I grew up eating them too. Yeah,
as an adult, I prefer appeeling them. But anyway, okay,
so yeah, kiwi are very hard and tart when they're unripe,
(11:19):
but they do soften and sweetened as they ripen. That
inner white bit will have a slightly different flavor and
a firmer texture than the rest of the fruit. The
seeds are very small, like poppy seed sized kind of
and like really pleasantly crunchy to me. Anyway. There are
specialized smaller varieties of kiwi fruit called kiwi berries, that
are about the size of table grapes and have like
(11:42):
a bright green or red purple skin. When they're ripe,
their skin is smooth and fine to eat. They're apparently
frost hardier, and I've read that they're tastier. I have
never had these I don't know, you write in yes, yeah,
need to know about them. I love it whenever I
(12:05):
find articles talking about the exact flavor compounds that make
a fruit taste like what it is, so okay. Some
of the flavor compounds that make up kiwi flavor include
ethyl butyrate, which is sort of like pineapply orangey, methyl
bends weight, which is a sort of fruity floral sharp flavor,
(12:26):
and e to hexanal, which is sort of fruity green.
Makes sense, it does, I don't know if it's yeah,
I don't know if I pronounce those correctly. I'm not
going to go back right now. And so yeah, you
can eat them fresh, or incorporate them into as a garnish,
(12:49):
or incorporate them into any number of dishes. But of note,
rack KYW contains an enzyme that's fairly good at dissolving
proteins of certain types, So like if you put slices
or chunks or juice of kiwi into something that contains
dairy or gelatin, they'll kind of start melting, or like
(13:09):
the gelatin will never gel in the first place. And
the enzyme in particular is named after that KWE genus.
Oh well, what about the nutrition by themselves? A kiwi
fruit are pretty good for you, high in fiber and
with a bunch of micronutrients, including just a lot of
(13:31):
vitamin C whole bunch. And they're relatively low and sugar
compared with a lot of other fruit, so they will
help fill you up. But to keep you going, you know,
eat a protein in a fat Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, we do have some numbers for you, we do.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Uh Okay. So, in the first decade of the twenty
first century, global production of kiwifruit increased by over fifty percent,
But even given that it was still only zero point
two two percent of total fruit production around the world.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Still a big business though, Oh yeah yeah. In twenty fifteen,
kiwifruit dumed up and estimated one point zero five billion
dollars in exports for New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Woo hoofta yep. However, just a year previous to that,
in twenty fourteen, China had become the top producer of kiwifruit.
So and yeah, they produce a little over half the
global supply. Today they're also the top consumer. Other large
(14:43):
producers include Italy, Iran, and Chile. As of twenty twenty, three,
the global market for kiwifruit was estimated at one point
eight billion dollars and growing a tiny bit earlier. As
of twenty twenty, that amounted to some four point four
a million tons of kiwifruit.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Furthermore, I was reading that apparently as much as thirty
percent of kiwifruits that are harvested wind up getting rejected.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Oh oh no, like.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
On the dating scene I relate to, and can they
can still be used for for you know, blending or
other extras? Oh body, okay, all right, let's bring it back.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Let's bring it back. Let's let's do a Guinness record.
All right.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
There are world records on file for both time to
peel and eat one kiwifruit and three kiwifruit. Both are
held by the same person, and both were achieved in
New York, but not at the same time. The record
for one is five point three five seconds that that
(16:08):
was set in two thousand and eight. The record for
three is twenty one point one seconds, and that was
set in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I would love to read the strategy, you know, the
thought process. I'm terrible appealing things.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Oh yeah, I'm the worst ad pealing things.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I have a scar. Oh that's good. I even bought
a peeler to try to help, and that was where
I got the scar from. Because I don't know how
to use peeler.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I was about to say, that usually makes it worse.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I sure did.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
If you can just use the edge of a spoon,
that's honestly the best. Okay in most cases, Okay, I
usually just ignore it, says the peal, and then I
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I'm sure everyone. It's so funny because because we're both
kind of not in the chef like cooking world. Oh yeah, no,
So a lot of times people were like listening to
a food show and they hear us talk about how
we don't know how to heal something terrifying. I understand,
but it's fine.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's not our specialty. Look, I we never we never
claimed to be experts that.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
No, we remind you all the time that we're not.
We're we bring you the geeky science and history. We're
speaking of the history of this one.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, it goes in some places, it does,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break forward from
our sponsors and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And we are back with so much controversy, oh yep,
oh dear and twists. I think this will probably not
be surprising for a lot of people, but for me,
it really was. It was. The kiwi fruit is believed
to have originated in China, where it has been around
for thousands of years. One of the first mentions of
(18:15):
it came out of South China, and first millennium BCE
poetry and records indicate that it was being domesticated there
in eighth century BCE. I get so confused with these dates,
but yeah, it was there early on, I will say, great, yeah, yes,
(18:38):
and it was called the macaque fruit. I believe that's
how you pronounce it, the monkey the macaque due to
how these monkeys loved it. And that's according to a
sixteenth century medicinal encyclopedia out of China. But the English,
to cause confusion, called it the Chinese gooseberry, which stuck,
(19:02):
especially in a lot of our western records. The kiwi
fruit arrived in France by the seventeen forties ish, but
it didn't really catch much attention, especially culinarrowly. I feel
like a lot of people are like oh this is pretty,
but didn't do anything outside of that, which speaking of.
(19:23):
By the nineteenth century, kiwi fruit was introduced in Europe
at large, and then soon after to the US, but
many botanists viewed it as something interesting esthetically, especially, but
that was pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
They were just kind of like, oh, look at this, yeah,
and there were there were probably a few reasons for that.
There hadn't been a whole lot of attention paid to
developing different varieties of kiwi fruit yet at that point,
and so like, maybe it wasn't that tasty. Maybe it
was mostly aesthetic, but also certainly if you did have
(19:56):
a really tasty one, it's sort of finicky to harvest
and to pack and transport, so it wouldn't have gotten
that far, right.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
There were a lot of factors that went into that.
But it was interesting to me because they were trying,
maybe perhaps not giving it the full effort it served,
but they were trying. For instance, in eighteen forty seven,
the Royal Horticultural Society planted kiwi fruit seeds, and then
(20:30):
in nineteen oh four, the principal of an all girls
school named Mary Isabel Fraser came back to New Zealand
from China with Chinese gooseberry seeds. She gave the seeds
to a farmer named Alexander Allison, who went on to
plant them in a riverside town and a couple of
years later, in nineteen ten, they fruited.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That is a pretty average turnaround for planting to actually
fruiting from seeds to fruit. Yeah, it takes a couple
of years for the to get going anyway. Yeah, it's
thought that up through the nineteen seventies at least all
commercially grown kiwi fruit varieties in New Zealand were from
this one original seedstock.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But a lot of selection went into kiwi production in
New Zealand at this time, especially with the goal of
producing larger fruits, and one of the most successful was
the Hayward variety, which was a green fleshed fruit named
after its inventor.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, and that is probably the kind that you're thinking
of when you think of a kiwi, Yes, unless you
think of a gold kind, and then it's not.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yes, which we'll talk about in a minute. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Also around this time, folks in the US and UK
continued to experiment with making the kiwi fruit to commercial crop.
But neither attempts really worked out on a large scale.
There were some successes, but most of them didn't really Yeah, yeah, yes,
But the kiwi fruit. It was a popular crop in
(22:01):
New Zealand by nineteen forty and Americans and British people
stationed in New Zealand during World War two really got
a taste for them, and that led to growing exports
to those countries. And then on June fifteenth and nineteen
fifty nine, agricultural exporters, turners, and growers dubbed the kiwi
(22:26):
which was then still being called the Chinese gooseberry. Yes
by especially Western folks. They dubbed this crop that they
were sending to the US the Kiwi fruit for a
couple of reasons. They thought that they needed to lose
the gooseberry since gooseberries weren't popular. They debated several names,
(22:51):
including melanet Okay, until they decided on Kiwi fruit after
the national flightless bird, which is this small, furry brown
creature kind of looks like a kiwi.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Friend, about the size of a chicken. You have feathers
are kind of fuzzy.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, yep, And through all of this, over time, kiwi
became a term for New Zealanders. But also I wanted
to point out because this always fascinates me. Uh. This
name change was in part due to the fact that berries,
like gooseberries, were subject to massive tariffs, so perhaps trying
(23:34):
to like to avoid Yeah, I wouldn't say like skirt
any terms the kind of skirts.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, and I will say kiwi fruit are botanically a berry.
And furthermore, etmology wise, or I guess, vocabulary wise, linguistics wise,
you do not hear people say just the word kiwi
to refer to this fruit, certainly in New Zealand, right, yes,
(24:08):
which is why I have been referring to them as
kiwi fruit this whole time. Here in the States, you
definitely just called them kiwi's right, yeah, yeah, that's true. Right,
And then let us know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yes, but slowly but surely demand for this product grew
and the marketing really took root. By the nineteen seventies,
the term kiwi had really taken hold and really cemented
it as a New Zealand product.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
In the minds of Americans. Yeah, yeah, yes, definitely.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
And this was during the Cultural Revolution in China, which
was a time of turmoil. So that's where a lot
of kiwi fruit was coming from, and Kiwi Fruit was
officially chosen as the trade name in nineteen seventy four. Yeah.
Another marketing campaign launched from New Zealand companies in nineteen
(25:03):
seventy four marketed the fruit in Europe pretty strongly in
mini markets. It was expensive up until the nineteen eighties,
but by the nineteen nineties it was pretty well known
and available ish. It was also somewhat viewed and marketed
as a super food.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah. And this was also around when production in other
countries had started to take hold. Exports from New Zealand
had started back in the nineteen sixties, and by the
nineteen eighties a number of commercial ventures were reaching fruition
And I am not sorry about that pun not at all.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Where.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
One of those countries where commercial production took hold for
the first time during all of this was China. One
source said that the first commercial crop was not planted
there until nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Oh well, this is where a turn a turn. Oh yes, okay, okay.
So in twenty ten, one of New Zealand's most popular
kiwi varieties, a yellow flesh variety called sun Gold, was
cultivated after the rest of the kiwi crop had been
ravaged by a disease called PSA. It costs the country's
(26:22):
kiwi industry about nine hundred million New Zealand dollars. Whoa, Yeah,
and this led to funding and research into other varieties
of these. Gold three or sun Gold, was the biggest success.
It had all the hallmarks of what people looked for
in a kiwi, but was also resistant to PSA. Zespri,
(26:46):
the company behind all of this, moved quickly to get
exclusive rights for this variety. Soon the popularity of gold
kiwifruits surpassed out of green and it helped the country
rebuild their kiwifruit industry.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, Zespri studied over fifty thousand varieties in order to
arrive at the sun Gold. I think it was like
fifty thousand down to like forty that they really tested
with down to like two or three that they finally
arrived at, Sun Gold being one of them. Like, farmers
have to pay Zespri for the license to plant these,
(27:24):
which is like half over half a million bucks per hector,
which is about two and a half acres, So it's
a hefty it's a hefty license fee. But yeah, the
fruit was super popular, and the business grew to the
point that Zespri controls about a third of the global
market for kiwifruit period.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
H But in twenty sixteen, the company got wind that
sun gold had been spotted growing in China. They hired
private investigators to look into the claim. They eventually traced
the source to a smuggler who had stuck in sun
gold sprouts to China and sold them for a hefty
(28:08):
pinia a good amount.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I read that the perpetrator was a Chinese New Zealander
who had been working as a kiwi farmer for several years,
and that he didn't really intend to smuggle the fruit.
He just wanted to share it and share some of
his farming knowledge about it. He claimed that he never
actually made any money on it, but I don't know.
(28:31):
I wasn't there. No, yeah, I wasn't either.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Well. New Zealand's High Court eventually ruled against him and
he was heavily fined for about twelve million New Zealand dollars. However,
in many ways it was too late for Zestpree. Sun
gold was in China and it was spreading, And isn't
it ironic, don't you think? In the great words of
(29:02):
a lot of skins.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Oh yeah, but you know, you know that that plucky
little corporate entity just kept going as Zesprie co founded
the Kiwi Fruit Breeding Center in twenty twenty one to
continue research.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Wow, I mean I didn't know. I didn't know any
of this.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, no, zero percent, no idea.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I don't think I've ever had a gold flesh Kiwi fruit.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I've seen them, but they've been a little expensive, so
I've never never sprung for him. But now I guess
I'll have to and if I can, if I can
find some Kiwi berries, this is what I'm really interested in.
I'm like, I'm like, wait, they're smaller, you can eat
the skin, and they're tastier.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, that's rude. How dare you? Okay? Well, I feel
like there's a lot of quiquestions you listeners could answer
about this one. But in the meantime, I think that's
what we have to say about the Kiwi fruit for now.
It is.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that after we
take one more quick break for a word from our sponsors,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Trying to fly sometimes, you know. Yeah, Oh my gosh,
which is a good segue into this one, kind of
into the sexon one. And Lauren, if you haven't looked
at the link that I've included, you must, okay, clicking.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
On it right now?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You must, all right, Susan wrote, Oh Annie, bless your soul. Martha,
the last Passenger Pigeon doesn't just have a memorial plaque
at the Cincinnati Zoo. She has a memorial pagoda, one
of the last remaining Avery's from bygone years. The last
time I was at the zoo last year, I tried
going in, but the lights were off, and even though
(31:21):
it's basically a gore fled closet, I couldn't see anything
and had to leave pretty much right away. I haven't
taken any pictures of the pagoda since having a digital
camera or cell phone, but here's a link to the
blog post about the renovated pagoda in twenty fourteen, that
one hundredth anniversary of Martha's death. Listeners, Oh, it is
(31:45):
a site. It is a site.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
There's a beautiful statue.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yes, oh my gosh, it is more epic than I
could have imagined. But the letter goes on. Besides the
glory that is Jungle Gyms. Cincinnati boast a zoo that
is world famous for its exhibits and conservation efforts. If
you're ever in town, hit it up. It's a fun
place to visit. Oh my, like this Jungle Gym has
(32:13):
come up several times.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, yeah, but I love his. I love a zoo.
I love a.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Zoo too, and I just can't stress enough. Look up this.
Look up Martha's pagoda.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, it's a good pagoda.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It looks real solid, you know it does. And it's
a It's a statement, is what I'll say. And I'm
sorry I misspoke. Martha. Much more, much more than a plaque,
much more.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Oh yes, yes, so very very noble statue.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Thank you. This is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Seamus wrote, Hello, I listened to a lot of your
episodes on a recent long drive. When you did your
Quaker Oats episode, I was not prepared for how big
the company would get. It's like how the Special Yarns
company ended up making Bell helicopters. I like to get
old newspaper recipes from online archives and found this ad
in the Fort Worth Texas Star Telegram from May of
(33:18):
nineteen thirty three. The depression was on and the company
has official looking charts to show you why you should
spend what's left of your grocery money on Quaker oats.
I also couldn't help snipping and sharing that other clipping
that was on the same page. Your pigeon episode made
me think of how the Dallas Convention Center has a
large population of pigeons that lived on the site before
(33:38):
they built the convention center on it. The city wanted
to get rid of the pigeons, so they spent a
lot of money having them relocated. As far as I
can tell, this meant putting the pigeons in a truck,
driving out to the countryside, and then releasing them. No
one involved in this realized that pigeons are homing birds.
As you probably already guessed, the birds came right back
and their progeny are still at the convention Center today. Lastly,
(34:05):
your caesar salad episode made me think of chicken caesar
salad raps, which were one of my go to snacks
when I lived in Pennsylvania in the early twenty teens.
A restaurant a few doors down from where I lived
sold them cheap. Calling it a rap may not be correct,
as they loaded so much salad and chicken onto the
flat bread that you couldn't have rolled it up if
you tried. It barely fit into a takeout container. I
(34:25):
remember a lot of people making fun of them as
being food for girls, which always confused me. It's nothing
but chicken and lettuce on bread, but I guess anything
can be gendered anyway. A few years after I ended
up in Texas, I was with some friends. We were
all kind of hungry, and I noticed they had all
the makings of chicken caesar salad wraps. It's not like
any of the ingredients are supermarket rarities, and so I
(34:47):
made them for everyone. They were bamboozled. I got questions like,
what is this? What are you doing? How am I
supposed to eat this? I did not think chicken caesar
salad wraps were some weird FOURIGN cuisine and tech, but
apparently they were. At the time, I was both relieved
to not get any snipes about girl food. If you've
never heard of something, you have no idea that it's
(35:08):
supposed to be gendered, but very confused about how a
salad on top of flatbread could be so bizarre when
one leaves the northeast and goes south.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Oh okay, well, a couple things. One we mentioned in
this letter. Sheemus mentioned a newspaper clipping.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, yeah, so there's so there's a there was a
recipe clipping, and then there was another clipping from the
same page.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And I just I have to read a bit of it.
The title is so smoke Phil's house but only hat
burns hat hat? Okay, hat and the hat and then
at the bottom the hat they were told had been
washed and gasoline and placed in an oven to dry.
(35:56):
Heat from the oven had ignited the headgear. The only
law was the hat.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Well that would do it, though, wouldn't it? That would
do it?
Speaker 1 (36:08):
The remains of a hat were found by fireman. Oh
the poor hat. Uh?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
I mean the poor house being filled with smoke like
that was not intended day but.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
No, no, oh jeez, this is a lot of a
Sidefeld episode.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Wow, washedon gasoline. I'm sure someone had an idea about
yet something.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, well, I'm glad it was only the hat.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yes, Oh goodness, that's actually such a The only loss
was the hat? Is I think the best possible ending
to that story.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So you know, you have to mourn the loss of
a good hat. I can say that we can mournich
in context. Yes, yes, I also love I love the
story of the pigeons coming back. Yeah. Yeah, it's very silly.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, well we drove them a good distance away. How
could they poss you guys? You guys, I have some
things to tell you about pigeons.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
They just got a fun trip to the country and
then came back. Like, hey, okay, and Caesar salad raps.
That sounds delicious. Yeah, I've never had one, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I've had one that you do it. I've had one
that you could wrap, that was fully wrapped. But this
sounds good too. I mean, put flat broad under something
and I'm into that. You know, it's bread is tasty?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Oh yes, yes, yes, And as always, it's so fascinating
these kind of localized taste understandings of things. Yeah, but yeah, thanks.
It's always to vote of those listeners for writing in uh.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or emails hello at saberpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter,
face Book, and Instagram at saver pod and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio. 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 your way.
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm more in Vocal Bam, and today we have
an episode for you about Kiwi fruit.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yes, yes, this is a This is one of those
that I was not expecting. A lot of the history
that I encountered.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, I don't think I knew anything about this fruit,
and it actually took me longer than I expected to
figure out a number of things about it.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yes, yep. Was there any particular reason this was on
your mind? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Oh, I don't know anymore. I was thinking about plants,
and then I guess maybe I was looking for something
that's vaguely seasonal and I was thinking about I mean, key,
we aren't really seasonal right now.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
But mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
But I do associate them with summer because they're so
bright and lovely.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Yeah. I actually have very specific memories of Kiwi And
funnily enough, the next episode we're doing full episode not
a classic, it's related to it, even though it shouldn't
be one. It's really funny. It brought back memories that
are from the same time. Uh, I didn't have much
(01:35):
Kiwi growing up at all. Oh, really, like, I'm not sure,
oh wow.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think my I think
I had them because my my dad was super familiar
with them from being restaurant industry and using them more
as a garnish than anything else. But what was also like,
this garnish is really delicious. He introduced starfruit to me
the same way, and and I love both of those things.
So yeah, okay, but so yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yes, So I did a summer abroad what is it called?
Oh my gosh, what is that called? But you live
with the family. I basically lived with family in Europe,
and the mom of the family was very health conscious,
(02:25):
and so the dessert we would have would be half
of a kiwi and you would get a spoon and
spoon it out from the skin and you would eat
it that way, and it was actually delightful, like I
had never done that. I hadn't experienced it that way.
I was coming in expecting ice cream or whatever, but
it was such like a really refreshing, nice thing. So
(02:50):
I grew to love this tradition of like, here comes
the nightly kiwi that I could just scoop out with
my spoon. So every time I think of kiwi food,
I think of that I did have it in Australia,
but the memories aren't strong. However, I did have it
in I had it in like smoothies a lot or
(03:13):
some kind of like drink concoction. But it's just funny
to me that the memory, the strongest memory I have
of kiwied is from.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Europe, not where from they're from. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
And I actually had a very funny conversation with we
were having technical difficulties, as still happens even though we've
been doing this from our home for several years. When
friend of the show Eves was on the other show,
I'm on Sminty and I was just, you know, trying
to take up time while we were trying to fix things,
(03:47):
and I was telling her this story and she was
like really so surprised. And I was like, so I
shouldn't buy a kiwi anymore if it's only from these places.
And I was like, well, hold on, I don't know
there's more to it than that, but it was just
it was funny, like when we get to share these
stories with people and they're like, what what.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yep yep, yep, yep, yep. This one does have some
twist and turns it does it does? And they are
not only from New Zealand, so that yes.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
No, they are definitely not only no. But all right,
I guess that brings you.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Question, It brings us to a number of questions. I
believe it certainly does.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Kiwi fruit what is it?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, Kiwi fruit are a type of smallish, slightly oblong
fruit that have a thin ish edible ish skin. Sometimes
it's fuzzy, sometimes it's smooth. The fuzz is sometimes more
than you want to eat, but anyway, Yeah, and in flavor,
they're they're kind of sweet, tart and juicy and have
(04:57):
this like semi firm flesh. They're about the size shape
of an extra large chicken egg if chicken eggs were
not tapered at one end, So just a little oval.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Their skin is usually brown, but their flesh comes in
a range of sort of just translucent colors, from green
to golden to crimson. They'll all have this white core
running lengthwise through the center of the oval, off of
which you get this radial structure supporting the rest of
the flesh and these many tiny black seeds and it's
(05:30):
just really pretty in cross section, like geometric stained glass.
The flavor is bright and a little bit like puckery,
like almost tannic, but gets sweeter as the fruit ripens,
and it's kind of tropical fruity. Yeah. They're eaten mostly
fresh with or without their skin, or used as garnish,
but can also be blended into a juice for various
(05:52):
drinks or dried. It's like it's like a little hand
grenade of flavor. At the same time, it can be
so delicate looking and decorative. It's like it's like a
piece of art in a museum that seems at first
glance kind kind of small or simple, or like merely pretty,
(06:12):
but then it just really hits. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, you have that moment where you're moved.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, you're like, oh yeah, heck yeah, Okay. The term
kiwi fruit applies to the fruit of a bunch of
different species in the genus Actinita actin media. Let's call
it that. Sure, it's like seventy plus species. I've seen
(06:39):
numbers ranging from like fifty to seventy four. At any rate,
there's also a whole bunch of varieties within those species,
And I'm pretty sure people argue about which are actual
species in themselves, but sure, the plants that grow. Kiwi
fruit are climbing woody vines or maybe climbing woody shrubs
that can reach about thirty feet or nine meters long.
(07:03):
They're usually grown on trellises a little bit like wine
grapes are. And the plants will lose their leaves every
year but keep growing back, I mean, assuming you don't
kill it. They grow these wide, vady leaves and bloom
with these really pretty, sometimes roughly white to yellow flowers.
The plants are either male or female, and you need
at least one of each to pollinate, because that's how
(07:23):
that works. And if that happens, the female flowers will
develop a fruit. And what's to me the super interesting
way that I like, we've talked about a bunch of
fruits before, and I don't think I'd ever encountered one
exactly like this. This is this is where it took
me some extra time to figure stuff out. But okay,
so let's talk let's talk basic flower botany. Yeah, so
(07:50):
you know, at the center of a flower's petals, the
petals are sort of like funneling down to a base
where there might be one or like a couple different
kinds of threads coming up from the center. Yeah, these
are going to be that those threads are going to
be the flowers reproductive organs. If a plant has male parts,
some of those threads grow pollen. If the plant has
(08:13):
female parts, at least one of those threads is meant
to collect pollen and draw it down into the oval
at the base and pollinate it. Yeah. That that female structure,
the collector bit and the two bit and the oval
bit is called a carpal. Female kiwi flowers have dozens,
(08:33):
maybe hundreds of carpals that are all fused together at
their base, and each one can be pollinated and grow seeds.
But since they're all fused, they grow protective and nourishing
and tasty flesh around those developing seeds all together. And
that's the that's the green stuff in your typical kiwi.
(08:55):
The white core is placental material and the carpals alrady
out from it. The structure of the many carpals and
the connective tissue around them is what gives kiwi fruit.
That that's sort of starburst pattern in a cross section.
And if you've ever gotten a kiwi that had a
little like a little like like clump of thick hairs
(09:17):
at one end like looking like a little sea anatomy. Yeah,
that's the very outer edges of a bunch of those carpels.
If you've noticed at the other end a stiff, kind
of leafy bits, that that's the base where the flower
and fruit attached to the stem. So okay, so that's
how that works. But meanwhile, why are some kiwis fuzzy?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Typically no one knows. That's boiler alert. This is still yeah,
we can't just ask them. We have to kind of
sus it out, and it's sort of difficult. But okay,
some kiwis do have so much and such stiff fuzz
on their skin that the skin is considered inedible, And
basically no one knows why for sure, but researchers think,
(10:08):
based on research with peaches, which are originally from the
same region, researchers think that the little hairs on the
skin help physically shelter that the main body of the
fruit from hot sunlight and from dry wind, therefore letting
the fruit retain the moisture that it needs in order
(10:29):
to mature. Yeah. Also, other animals might find those fuzzy
skins as unpleasant as we do, and therefore avoid eating them.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
So yeah, well in a funny twist of your oh
humans like that. One of the reasons my host mother
at the place hosting in Europe liked it was that
it was kind of like a a bowl a little cups.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, it just comes to its own little serving cup. Sure,
so you know, you win some you loose them. Oh yeah,
that's that's how I grew up eating them too. Yeah,
as an adult, I prefer appeeling them. But anyway, okay,
so yeah, kiwi are very hard and tart when they're unripe,
(11:19):
but they do soften and sweetened as they ripen. That
inner white bit will have a slightly different flavor and
a firmer texture than the rest of the fruit. The
seeds are very small, like poppy seed sized kind of
and like really pleasantly crunchy to me. Anyway. There are
specialized smaller varieties of kiwi fruit called kiwi berries, that
are about the size of table grapes and have like
(11:42):
a bright green or red purple skin. When they're ripe,
their skin is smooth and fine to eat. They're apparently
frost hardier, and I've read that they're tastier. I have
never had these I don't know, you write in yes, yeah,
need to know about them. I love it whenever I
(12:05):
find articles talking about the exact flavor compounds that make
a fruit taste like what it is, so okay. Some
of the flavor compounds that make up kiwi flavor include
ethyl butyrate, which is sort of like pineapply orangey, methyl
bends weight, which is a sort of fruity floral sharp flavor,
(12:26):
and e to hexanal, which is sort of fruity green.
Makes sense, it does, I don't know if it's yeah,
I don't know if I pronounce those correctly. I'm not
going to go back right now. And so yeah, you
can eat them fresh, or incorporate them into as a garnish,
(12:49):
or incorporate them into any number of dishes. But of note,
rack KYW contains an enzyme that's fairly good at dissolving
proteins of certain types, So like if you put slices
or chunks or juice of kiwi into something that contains
dairy or gelatin, they'll kind of start melting, or like
(13:09):
the gelatin will never gel in the first place. And
the enzyme in particular is named after that KWE genus.
Oh well, what about the nutrition by themselves? A kiwi
fruit are pretty good for you, high in fiber and
with a bunch of micronutrients, including just a lot of
(13:31):
vitamin C whole bunch. And they're relatively low and sugar
compared with a lot of other fruit, so they will
help fill you up. But to keep you going, you know,
eat a protein in a fat Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, we do have some numbers for you, we do.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Uh Okay. So, in the first decade of the twenty
first century, global production of kiwifruit increased by over fifty percent,
But even given that it was still only zero point
two two percent of total fruit production around the world.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Still a big business though, Oh yeah yeah. In twenty fifteen,
kiwifruit dumed up and estimated one point zero five billion
dollars in exports for New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Woo hoofta yep. However, just a year previous to that,
in twenty fourteen, China had become the top producer of kiwifruit.
So and yeah, they produce a little over half the
global supply. Today they're also the top consumer. Other large
(14:43):
producers include Italy, Iran, and Chile. As of twenty twenty, three,
the global market for kiwifruit was estimated at one point
eight billion dollars and growing a tiny bit earlier. As
of twenty twenty, that amounted to some four point four
a million tons of kiwifruit.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Furthermore, I was reading that apparently as much as thirty
percent of kiwifruits that are harvested wind up getting rejected.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Oh oh no, like.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
On the dating scene I relate to, and can they
can still be used for for you know, blending or
other extras? Oh body, okay, all right, let's bring it back.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Let's bring it back. Let's let's do a Guinness record.
All right.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
There are world records on file for both time to
peel and eat one kiwifruit and three kiwifruit. Both are
held by the same person, and both were achieved in
New York, but not at the same time. The record
for one is five point three five seconds that that
(16:08):
was set in two thousand and eight. The record for
three is twenty one point one seconds, and that was
set in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
I would love to read the strategy, you know, the
thought process. I'm terrible appealing things.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Oh yeah, I'm the worst ad pealing things.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
I have a scar. Oh that's good. I even bought
a peeler to try to help, and that was where
I got the scar from. Because I don't know how
to use peeler.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
I was about to say, that usually makes it worse.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I sure did.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
If you can just use the edge of a spoon,
that's honestly the best. Okay in most cases, Okay, I
usually just ignore it, says the peal, and then I
deal with it.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
I'm sure everyone. It's so funny because because we're both
kind of not in the chef like cooking world. Oh yeah, no,
So a lot of times people were like listening to
a food show and they hear us talk about how
we don't know how to heal something terrifying. I understand,
but it's fine.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It's not our specialty. Look, I we never we never
claimed to be experts that.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
No, we remind you all the time that we're not.
We're we bring you the geeky science and history. We're
speaking of the history of this one.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, it goes in some places, it does,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break forward from
our sponsors and we're back. Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And we are back with so much controversy, oh yep,
oh dear and twists. I think this will probably not
be surprising for a lot of people, but for me,
it really was. It was. The kiwi fruit is believed
to have originated in China, where it has been around
for thousands of years. One of the first mentions of
(18:15):
it came out of South China, and first millennium BCE
poetry and records indicate that it was being domesticated there
in eighth century BCE. I get so confused with these dates,
but yeah, it was there early on, I will say, great, yeah, yes,
(18:38):
and it was called the macaque fruit. I believe that's
how you pronounce it, the monkey the macaque due to
how these monkeys loved it. And that's according to a
sixteenth century medicinal encyclopedia out of China. But the English,
to cause confusion, called it the Chinese gooseberry, which stuck,
(19:02):
especially in a lot of our western records. The kiwi
fruit arrived in France by the seventeen forties ish, but
it didn't really catch much attention, especially culinarrowly. I feel
like a lot of people are like oh this is pretty,
but didn't do anything outside of that, which speaking of.
(19:23):
By the nineteenth century, kiwi fruit was introduced in Europe
at large, and then soon after to the US, but
many botanists viewed it as something interesting esthetically, especially, but
that was pretty much it.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
They were just kind of like, oh, look at this, yeah,
and there were there were probably a few reasons for that.
There hadn't been a whole lot of attention paid to
developing different varieties of kiwi fruit yet at that point,
and so like, maybe it wasn't that tasty. Maybe it
was mostly aesthetic, but also certainly if you did have
(19:56):
a really tasty one, it's sort of finicky to harvest
and to pack and transport, so it wouldn't have gotten
that far, right.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
There were a lot of factors that went into that.
But it was interesting to me because they were trying,
maybe perhaps not giving it the full effort it served,
but they were trying. For instance, in eighteen forty seven,
the Royal Horticultural Society planted kiwi fruit seeds, and then
(20:30):
in nineteen oh four, the principal of an all girls
school named Mary Isabel Fraser came back to New Zealand
from China with Chinese gooseberry seeds. She gave the seeds
to a farmer named Alexander Allison, who went on to
plant them in a riverside town and a couple of
years later, in nineteen ten, they fruited.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
That is a pretty average turnaround for planting to actually
fruiting from seeds to fruit. Yeah, it takes a couple
of years for the to get going anyway. Yeah, it's
thought that up through the nineteen seventies at least all
commercially grown kiwi fruit varieties in New Zealand were from
this one original seedstock.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But a lot of selection went into kiwi production in
New Zealand at this time, especially with the goal of
producing larger fruits, and one of the most successful was
the Hayward variety, which was a green fleshed fruit named
after its inventor.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, and that is probably the kind that you're thinking
of when you think of a kiwi, Yes, unless you
think of a gold kind, and then it's not.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yes, which we'll talk about in a minute. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Also around this time, folks in the US and UK
continued to experiment with making the kiwi fruit to commercial crop.
But neither attempts really worked out on a large scale.
There were some successes, but most of them didn't really Yeah, yeah, yes,
But the kiwi fruit. It was a popular crop in
(22:01):
New Zealand by nineteen forty and Americans and British people
stationed in New Zealand during World War two really got
a taste for them, and that led to growing exports
to those countries. And then on June fifteenth and nineteen
fifty nine, agricultural exporters, turners, and growers dubbed the kiwi
(22:26):
which was then still being called the Chinese gooseberry. Yes
by especially Western folks. They dubbed this crop that they
were sending to the US the Kiwi fruit for a
couple of reasons. They thought that they needed to lose
the gooseberry since gooseberries weren't popular. They debated several names,
(22:51):
including melanet Okay, until they decided on Kiwi fruit after
the national flightless bird, which is this small, furry brown
creature kind of looks like a kiwi.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Friend, about the size of a chicken. You have feathers
are kind of fuzzy.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, yep, And through all of this, over time, kiwi
became a term for New Zealanders. But also I wanted
to point out because this always fascinates me. Uh. This
name change was in part due to the fact that berries,
like gooseberries, were subject to massive tariffs, so perhaps trying
(23:34):
to like to avoid Yeah, I wouldn't say like skirt
any terms the kind of skirts.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, and I will say kiwi fruit are botanically a berry.
And furthermore, etmology wise, or I guess, vocabulary wise, linguistics wise,
you do not hear people say just the word kiwi
to refer to this fruit, certainly in New Zealand, right, yes,
(24:08):
which is why I have been referring to them as
kiwi fruit this whole time. Here in the States, you
definitely just called them kiwi's right, yeah, yeah, that's true. Right,
And then let us know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yes, but slowly but surely demand for this product grew
and the marketing really took root. By the nineteen seventies,
the term kiwi had really taken hold and really cemented
it as a New Zealand product.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
In the minds of Americans. Yeah, yeah, yes, definitely.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
And this was during the Cultural Revolution in China, which
was a time of turmoil. So that's where a lot
of kiwi fruit was coming from, and Kiwi Fruit was
officially chosen as the trade name in nineteen seventy four. Yeah.
Another marketing campaign launched from New Zealand companies in nineteen
(25:03):
seventy four marketed the fruit in Europe pretty strongly in
mini markets. It was expensive up until the nineteen eighties,
but by the nineteen nineties it was pretty well known
and available ish. It was also somewhat viewed and marketed
as a super food.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah. And this was also around when production in other
countries had started to take hold. Exports from New Zealand
had started back in the nineteen sixties, and by the
nineteen eighties a number of commercial ventures were reaching fruition
And I am not sorry about that pun not at all.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Where.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
One of those countries where commercial production took hold for
the first time during all of this was China. One
source said that the first commercial crop was not planted
there until nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Oh well, this is where a turn a turn. Oh yes, okay, okay.
So in twenty ten, one of New Zealand's most popular
kiwi varieties, a yellow flesh variety called sun Gold, was
cultivated after the rest of the kiwi crop had been
ravaged by a disease called PSA. It costs the country's
(26:22):
kiwi industry about nine hundred million New Zealand dollars. Whoa, Yeah,
and this led to funding and research into other varieties
of these. Gold three or sun Gold, was the biggest success.
It had all the hallmarks of what people looked for
in a kiwi, but was also resistant to PSA. Zespri,
(26:46):
the company behind all of this, moved quickly to get
exclusive rights for this variety. Soon the popularity of gold
kiwifruits surpassed out of green and it helped the country
rebuild their kiwifruit industry.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, Zespri studied over fifty thousand varieties in order to
arrive at the sun Gold. I think it was like
fifty thousand down to like forty that they really tested
with down to like two or three that they finally
arrived at, Sun Gold being one of them. Like, farmers
have to pay Zespri for the license to plant these,
(27:24):
which is like half over half a million bucks per hector,
which is about two and a half acres, So it's
a hefty it's a hefty license fee. But yeah, the
fruit was super popular, and the business grew to the
point that Zespri controls about a third of the global
market for kiwifruit period.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
H But in twenty sixteen, the company got wind that
sun gold had been spotted growing in China. They hired
private investigators to look into the claim. They eventually traced
the source to a smuggler who had stuck in sun
gold sprouts to China and sold them for a hefty
(28:08):
pinia a good amount.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
I read that the perpetrator was a Chinese New Zealander
who had been working as a kiwi farmer for several years,
and that he didn't really intend to smuggle the fruit.
He just wanted to share it and share some of
his farming knowledge about it. He claimed that he never
actually made any money on it, but I don't know.
(28:31):
I wasn't there. No, yeah, I wasn't either.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Well. New Zealand's High Court eventually ruled against him and
he was heavily fined for about twelve million New Zealand dollars. However,
in many ways it was too late for Zestpree. Sun
gold was in China and it was spreading, And isn't
it ironic, don't you think? In the great words of
(29:02):
a lot of skins.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
Oh yeah, but you know, you know that that plucky
little corporate entity just kept going as Zesprie co founded
the Kiwi Fruit Breeding Center in twenty twenty one to
continue research.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Wow, I mean I didn't know. I didn't know any
of this.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, no, zero percent, no idea.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I don't think I've ever had a gold flesh Kiwi fruit.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I've seen them, but they've been a little expensive, so
I've never never sprung for him. But now I guess
I'll have to and if I can, if I can
find some Kiwi berries, this is what I'm really interested in.
I'm like, I'm like, wait, they're smaller, you can eat
the skin, and they're tastier.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, that's rude. How dare you? Okay? Well, I feel
like there's a lot of quiquestions you listeners could answer
about this one. But in the meantime, I think that's
what we have to say about the Kiwi fruit for now.
It is.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that after we
take one more quick break for a word from our sponsors,
and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Trying to fly sometimes, you know. Yeah, Oh my gosh,
which is a good segue into this one, kind of
into the sexon one. And Lauren, if you haven't looked
at the link that I've included, you must, okay, clicking.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
On it right now?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
You must, all right, Susan wrote, Oh Annie, bless your soul. Martha,
the last Passenger Pigeon doesn't just have a memorial plaque
at the Cincinnati Zoo. She has a memorial pagoda, one
of the last remaining Avery's from bygone years. The last
time I was at the zoo last year, I tried
going in, but the lights were off, and even though
(31:21):
it's basically a gore fled closet, I couldn't see anything
and had to leave pretty much right away. I haven't
taken any pictures of the pagoda since having a digital
camera or cell phone, but here's a link to the
blog post about the renovated pagoda in twenty fourteen, that
one hundredth anniversary of Martha's death. Listeners, Oh, it is
(31:45):
a site. It is a site.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
There's a beautiful statue.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
Yes, oh my gosh, it is more epic than I
could have imagined. But the letter goes on. Besides the
glory that is Jungle Gyms. Cincinnati boast a zoo that
is world famous for its exhibits and conservation efforts. If
you're ever in town, hit it up. It's a fun
place to visit. Oh my, like this Jungle Gym has
(32:13):
come up several times.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, yeah, but I love his. I love a zoo.
I love a.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Zoo too, and I just can't stress enough. Look up this.
Look up Martha's pagoda.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, it's a good pagoda.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
It looks real solid, you know it does. And it's
a It's a statement, is what I'll say. And I'm
sorry I misspoke. Martha. Much more, much more than a plaque,
much more.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Oh yes, yes, so very very noble statue.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Thank you. This is wonderful.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Seamus wrote, Hello, I listened to a lot of your
episodes on a recent long drive. When you did your
Quaker Oats episode, I was not prepared for how big
the company would get. It's like how the Special Yarns
company ended up making Bell helicopters. I like to get
old newspaper recipes from online archives and found this ad
in the Fort Worth Texas Star Telegram from May of
(33:18):
nineteen thirty three. The depression was on and the company
has official looking charts to show you why you should
spend what's left of your grocery money on Quaker oats.
I also couldn't help snipping and sharing that other clipping
that was on the same page. Your pigeon episode made
me think of how the Dallas Convention Center has a
large population of pigeons that lived on the site before
(33:38):
they built the convention center on it. The city wanted
to get rid of the pigeons, so they spent a
lot of money having them relocated. As far as I
can tell, this meant putting the pigeons in a truck,
driving out to the countryside, and then releasing them. No
one involved in this realized that pigeons are homing birds.
As you probably already guessed, the birds came right back
and their progeny are still at the convention Center today. Lastly,
(34:05):
your caesar salad episode made me think of chicken caesar
salad raps, which were one of my go to snacks
when I lived in Pennsylvania in the early twenty teens.
A restaurant a few doors down from where I lived
sold them cheap. Calling it a rap may not be correct,
as they loaded so much salad and chicken onto the
flat bread that you couldn't have rolled it up if
you tried. It barely fit into a takeout container. I
(34:25):
remember a lot of people making fun of them as
being food for girls, which always confused me. It's nothing
but chicken and lettuce on bread, but I guess anything
can be gendered anyway. A few years after I ended
up in Texas, I was with some friends. We were
all kind of hungry, and I noticed they had all
the makings of chicken caesar salad wraps. It's not like
any of the ingredients are supermarket rarities, and so I
(34:47):
made them for everyone. They were bamboozled. I got questions like,
what is this? What are you doing? How am I
supposed to eat this? I did not think chicken caesar
salad wraps were some weird FOURIGN cuisine and tech, but
apparently they were. At the time, I was both relieved
to not get any snipes about girl food. If you've
never heard of something, you have no idea that it's
(35:08):
supposed to be gendered, but very confused about how a
salad on top of flatbread could be so bizarre when
one leaves the northeast and goes south.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Oh okay, well, a couple things. One we mentioned in
this letter. Sheemus mentioned a newspaper clipping.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah, yeah, so there's so there's a there was a
recipe clipping, and then there was another clipping from the
same page.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
And I just I have to read a bit of it.
The title is so smoke Phil's house but only hat
burns hat hat? Okay, hat and the hat and then
at the bottom the hat they were told had been
washed and gasoline and placed in an oven to dry.
(35:56):
Heat from the oven had ignited the headgear. The only
law was the hat.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Well that would do it, though, wouldn't it? That would
do it?
Speaker 1 (36:08):
The remains of a hat were found by fireman. Oh
the poor hat. Uh?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
I mean the poor house being filled with smoke like
that was not intended day but.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
No, no, oh jeez, this is a lot of a
Sidefeld episode.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Wow, washedon gasoline. I'm sure someone had an idea about
yet something.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, well, I'm glad it was only the hat.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yes, Oh goodness, that's actually such a The only loss
was the hat? Is I think the best possible ending
to that story.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So you know, you have to mourn the loss of
a good hat. I can say that we can mournich
in context. Yes, yes, I also love I love the
story of the pigeons coming back. Yeah. Yeah, it's very silly.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, well we drove them a good distance away. How
could they poss you guys? You guys, I have some
things to tell you about pigeons.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
They just got a fun trip to the country and
then came back. Like, hey, okay, and Caesar salad raps.
That sounds delicious. Yeah, I've never had one, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
I've had one that you do it. I've had one
that you could wrap, that was fully wrapped. But this
sounds good too. I mean, put flat broad under something
and I'm into that. You know, it's bread is tasty?
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Oh yes, yes, yes, And as always, it's so fascinating
these kind of localized taste understandings of things. Yeah, but yeah, thanks.
It's always to vote of those listeners for writing in uh.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or emails hello at saberpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter,
face Book, and Instagram at saver pod and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio. 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 your way.
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