February 26, 2021 • 38 mins
This process creates lightweight, flavorful preserved foods that keep for years and can be easily reconstituted – just add water. Anney and Lauren explore the cool science and history of freeze drying.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Saber Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren's oc OBAM and today we're
talking about freeze drying. Yes, and this was you suggestion, Lauren,
Is there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Was it a me suggestion? It was? I believe you.
I feel like it was in a list that you
(00:29):
had sent me of listener mail suggestions. But but it's
possible that I ran across something and was like, what's
up with that? I don't know, as Annie and I
were discussing right before we hit record. This is a
long and wacky day for both of us. So yes,
I have had four cups of coffee, lots of caffee.
(00:50):
I'm a normally a two cup gall everybody two cups
before noon, but now four. Wow. Yeah, if this episode
gets weird, if you blame the calf been, it's not
either of us. We We normally are not weird or
awkward at all. Oh no, it's certainly not like to
the point that that's part of our brand. Um. Yeah, yeah,
(01:14):
free freeze drying. I've never done it myself. I guess
I appreciate freeze dried. I don't know, like the the
texture of unreconstituted freeze dried foods always kind of wigs
me out, unless it's astronaut ice cream, in which case
I'm a thousand percent in Oh really, Yeah, I still
(01:35):
have deep nostalgia for Like that was like the thing,
like if I was allowed to get something from the
gift shop of the Science Museum that I went to
when I was a kid, it was either going to
be a rock or syn astronautscream. Rocks were cool. Rocks
are still cool. I still my mom before the pandemic.
(01:57):
She just said, out of the blue, I went to
my rock guy, and I was like, wait, hold up,
rock guy. You don't have a whole guy for rocks. Okay, yes,
well that's interesting. What was it the just because you
wanted kind of a food thing or was it the
astronaut angle or both? It was it was both, It
was both. It was you know, I've always been very
(02:18):
food motivated. Um. And also it's just novel because the
the texture and the temperature is so not what you
expect from ice cream. Um, but it's still good and
it's still tastes like ice cream. Ah. I don't think
(02:38):
I've ever had it. I really, that's right. I've been
meaning to get you a packet for like heck in
four years. Jeez, okay, oh, we can fix this. But
I I did really love dipping dots and not that
they've seen, but kind of in that same vein. But
it's it was cracking me up the other day because
somehow I was talking to some a friend of mine
(03:00):
into the subject of space Camp came up and I
went when I was in sixth grade. In my the
souvenir I got, which to this day blows my mind
of all the things I could have chosen. At Space
Camp gift shop, I bought an alligator key chain. I
un sure why they were selling that there. But did
(03:22):
you get to the one in Cape Canaveral, Florida. I
went to the one in Huntsville. See that makes even
less sense, I would. Well, I mean, actually, I don't know.
I don't know about Huntsville and alligators and its connection
to swamp lands. Maybe it is equally adjacent to alligator
containing swamps as Cape Canaveral. Yeah, possibly, I couldn't tell you. Possibly,
(03:48):
I know there is a lot of wildlife. It's like
a really bio diverse area in Alabama. Yeah, yeah, but
that that's a that's a whole different show. That's I
don't think that's our show. I still have the key chain.
I still have the toy that I got at my
space camp, which is this weird little like two headed
(04:09):
alien dude who kind of looks like a rock and
kind of looks like a troll doll. It's sort of
I'll post a picture please because I'm having trouble visualizing
this as well. You should. Oh and it's got like
a duck bill. Each head has a duck bill. Anyway. Yeah,
it's a lot. It's very the nineties. Yeah, that explains
(04:31):
the nineties. Helps get an image in my head. So
related to this episode, we do have a Frozen Food
episode that's one of our earlier ones, and we do
have a Space Food episode that as one of my favorite.
I'm most proud of that title. That was one of
my because I came up with that. That was any original.
Oh yeah, yeah, well you come up with most of
(04:53):
the titles, but share Yeah, I do. But sometimes, you know,
I feel like it's been done before that one came
to me. I was like ground control, a major numb Yeah.
We have a T shirt about that too. Yeah, we do, yes,
public I like that T shirt. I think it's pretty cool. Yeah.
(05:13):
And then we also have mri E episode which is
very closely related to a lot of what we're gonna
talk about. Absolutely. Um but so with with that varied introduction, um,
I suppose it brings us to our question. It does. Yes,
(05:34):
freeze drying. What is it? Well, freeze drying is a
method of drying foods by freezing them in order to
preserve them. Um that there are like a few other
steps or or conditions in there. But but heck, I
love it when like the base explanation for something is
(05:55):
so straightforward. Yeah, it feels like it's been happening more
off and lately, but generally it never is. Yeah. Yeah,
huh huh, I say, I'm I'm sorry. I just went
on a brief mental uh dig about like what that
says psychologically about like the topics were choosing or maybe
(06:18):
just the concepts anyway. Um, so freeze drying. The science
words for freeze drying our liophilization and cryo desiccation. Yeah. Bad.
That sounds like I'm going along in a in a
video game and I somehow it get freeze raid and
(06:38):
just shrivel and die. Yeah, that's approximately what cryo desiccation is.
That's you've you've you've you've got it right, Um, I
don't know part but but but yeah, the liophilization. We're
gonna get into the anomalogy of that one a little
bit later on. But but freeze drying works whatever you
(06:59):
want to call it, um by sublimating water out of substances.
And uh, sublimation is this really interesting physical process because
typically we think of substances going through three distinct stages
of being physical. Um in a particular order. If you
have a solid thing, you expect it to become a
(07:21):
liquid before it becomes a vapor, right, and vice versa.
If you've got a vapor, it condenses into a liquid
and then further condenses into a solid. And and these
are energy states that under normal Earth circumstances correlate to
how warm a substances. You know that the molecules and
(07:42):
a frozen substance have very little energy. If you add
some energy, they might loosen up and start kind of
slashing around as a liquid. And when you add enough energy,
those molecules will break free of each other entirely and
become gaseous, and that's the process of evaporation. But in
sub elimation, solid water crystals skip the liquid state entirely
(08:05):
and go straight to being a water vapor. And in
order for this to happen that the solid water molecules
need to have enough energy to escape as a vapor.
But the circumstances have to be wrong for a liquid
to happen. Yeah, the stars are wrong for liquids. Um
and enter here not like Cthulhu and you're here pressure
(08:29):
because at extremely low pressures, adding energy to a solid
can force it to go straight to a gas like
it it doesn't have the chance to cohere as a
liquid in the middle. So in order to make this occur, um,
you're you're gonna you're gonna take the food that you
want to freeze dry and place it in an air
(08:50):
tight chamber in a in a machine that can get
really cold, uh say, like negative fifty degrees celsius, which
is negative fifty eight fahrenheit. Though at that stay age,
I don't think that the difference really, It just means cold,
quite cold, not warm. Yeah. Yeah. You then you then
vacuum the air out of the chamber. That's lowering the
(09:11):
pressure in there, and you want to get that pressure
all the way down to like zero point zero six
atmospheres UM. And remember one atmosphere is what we experience
just hanging out outside at sea level, So zero point
zero six atmospheres is less pressure than we typically experience. Yeah,
(09:34):
mm hmm. Okay, then so you got this, You got
this cold stuff at a at a very low pressure.
At that point you use heating coils to apply just
enough heat to make those water molecules start to sublimate.
And this tends to be a low and slow kind
of process. It can take hours or even days to
(09:57):
UM to slowly apply this low heat to get most
of the water out of the food um that the
machine thus clearly also has to be able to suck
the water vapor away in some form or another, and
then to get even more water out you often employ
another stage of drying. Some of the water molecules are
going to be ionically bound up to some of the
(10:18):
food materials, so heating it a little bit higher for
a short period will break those bonds and get more
water out. But at that point you gotta dry food
UM and you just seal it in an air tight
package and it's freeze dride. There you go. They're just
just like that simple. So sublimation. If it's not a
(10:40):
horror movie, Oh, it's a good title. Is it's a
good word. Mm hmm. It's kind of. I'm nervous because
because it reminds you of sublime but also subliminal. Lots
of things, lots of things going on here, yes, at
any rate, in food, not in horror movies. This is
(11:01):
useful for a number of reasons. Um. First, drying foods
out in general preserves them um, which is cool because
many of the microbes that cause food to spoil, which
is really like a grosser way of saying that those
microbes have eaten the food before a person had a
chance to um. Microbes need water to survive most of
(11:24):
the time. UM, So if you remove the water, those
microbes are way less likely to eat and spoil the food. Second,
the albeit way easier process of heating foods until the
water just evaporates out of them um will also affect
a lot of the volatile compounds within those foods, and
(11:44):
volatile compounds tend to be the ones that give food
their flavor. They're they're scent part of their taste, maybe
some of their color, and many of them are sensitive
to heat. This is why like a like a cup
of coffee never tastes the same if you microwave it
to rewarm it, because some of the flavor compounds that
you you know created in it in the first place
(12:05):
by heating it once are sensitive to further heating, so
they'll escape or break down or recombine into more other
less red flavor compounds upon a second heating. Similarly, when
you heat dry foods UH, some of the volatile compounds
and them will either escape the food entirely along with
the water vapor, or they'll change into some other different compound.
(12:28):
Freeze drying disturbs fewer of those flavor compounds. UM. Also
related to cold versus heat. Most microbes need heat to
live too, so keeping the food cold while you're drying
it is like a double action against spoilage. And Furthermore,
drying via heat evaporation doesn't tend to get all the
liquid out of a substance, only like of of the
(12:52):
liquid with with the freeze drying process. Of those that
that two stage freeze drying process that I that I explained, UM,
you can get out like nine of the moisture m
M always always oh you know, you know it's never
never perfect, never perfect. Um. Freeze drying also disturbs fewer
(13:15):
other compounds in a food. I'm allowing those foods to
retain more of their nutritional properties, which is also why
conventionally frozen foods are typically more nutritious than canned foods,
because the canning process involves heat, which destroys some nutrients.
Freeze drying also doesn't disturb the texture of a product
(13:36):
so much as heating. Um. You know, heating is going
to uh change and constrict some compounds like proteins, leaving
thus dried foods tough when they're dried, and it can
be difficult to impossible to to reconstitute them to an
approximation of the original texture because you have to really
(13:56):
work to get the moisture back in there. And freeze
drying is perfect. Um. It does require you know, ice
crystals to form in a food, and ice crystals are
you know, expanding and pokey and so you know they
can really they can really like like bust up cell
walls and wreck a texture if you're not careful. Um.
But but but when those ice crystals do sublimate, it
(14:20):
at least leaves a more like three dimensional structure around
where the crystals used to be, which makes rehydration easier.
It gives the water places to go, so you don't
have to do as much work to get the water
in there. And that that right there is the appeal
of freeze dried ice cream because it just melts in
your mouth when the moisture in your saliva hit sit.
(14:42):
The same goes for freeze dried baby foods like a
little like yogurt drops. Yeah, okay, okay, and if you
are careful you can avoid large ice crystals forming and
preserve the original texture of the food pretty well. Um
involves rapid freezing, and there are all kinds of tricks
(15:04):
to achieve that, which I'm not going to go into today.
This is already a long enough science section, not today. Um.
So the result of all of this is foods that
are shelf stable for years, like a like three plus
years in bags, twenty five plus years in cans without
(15:26):
losing um, their their desirable traits, and can be eaten
either as is or yes, we constituted with a bit
of water. Applications for this include everything from like the
freeze dried berry slices that you find in your box
of dry cereal um to us snacks like veggie sticks,
(15:47):
to ingredients like a cottage cheese or milk, or beverages
like coffee. To instant foods like miso souper, mashed potatoes
or scrambled eggs, to full meals that are preserved for
like extreme situations like that they'd be useful if you
took them on a hike, or if you put them
in a bomb shelter, or if you were going to
(16:09):
go to space, which I think I've said before, but
that is on my to do list, no joke. It's
like all these like get published, run a marathon. There
you go. Yeah, good, No, Hey, it's important to have goals.
(16:31):
Be I'm glad, I feel like I'm helping. Yes, you are.
Many tips I'm getting from you u UM. And of course,
of course, a freeze drying is used in other industries
than food uh for for the same reasons that it
works in food preservation. It can work for preserving um
drugs like antibiotics biological samples. It's also been used to
(16:55):
help restore water damaged objects, like like if a rare
manuscript or something gets wet, they can try to freeze
dry it to get the moisture out without damaging the manuscript.
That is so cool National Treasure. Three. Oh, here's the idea. Yeah,
(17:15):
Nick Cage, call us, call us. We know you're a
big fan. So what about the nutrition. Okay, if you're
eating the process of mechanical sublimation, um, your your god level.
And I am honored and or concerned that you're listening
(17:37):
to our podcast. So Nick Cage, So Nick Cage, Uh,
still call us, But I have more questions. Yeah, we've
got some follow up questions here. We do have some
numbers for you. We do. Um. I mean, all of
(18:00):
this technology might sound like completely wacky because it kind
of is. Um, but you can buy a home freeze
dryer for like a couple of thousand bucks these days.
It is more expensive than other machinery or um, you know,
stuff that you would buy for dehydrating or canning or freezing,
(18:20):
partially because it requires more energy. Partially because it's just
a kind of fancier process, right. Um. And the hilariously
named ward or Intelligence, which I believe we've mentioned before
every time, it cracks me up every time I'm like,
I know, is this some purpose? I hope so. I
hope so too. Uh. They recently reported that the freeze
(18:43):
drying market was growing at a rate of seven point
five percent a year and that this very year it
would be worth sixty six point five billion dollars. North
America is the largest player in this market, holding the
market share. Uh. Yeah, I saw numbers projected from like
a year or two ago out further and it seems
(19:04):
like we're right on track for for that projection. UM.
The biggest segment of the freeze ride market is fruit um,
accounting for about a third of the market, probably because
that stuff can go into a large number of shelf
stable snacks. UM. Growing segments include outdoor activity foods for
like for like explorer adventurers you know who are getting
out there and doing the thing. Um, and pet foods.
(19:28):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah. That was one area
I forgot as someone who once upon time, about a
year ago, was a very active outdoors person, that, yeah,
that is a big part of the market of these
kind of like sustaining snacks for the wilds. But you know,
(19:53):
I thought the history of freeze drying was going to
be relatively recent, but that's not necessarily the case, right,
It goes back way further than I thought. And we're
going to get into that after we get back from
a quick break forward from our sponsor. We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(20:17):
thank you. So humans, especially those that lived in cold
areas are near mountains, perhaps I've been performing a simple
form of freeze drying for thousands of years, whether we're
talking about the Peruvian Incas storing foods like potatoes and
the cold mountains for convenient and safe way to preserve foods,
(20:37):
or travel with foods, and you know, especially when we're
talking about the altitude and the pressure involved there, or
indigenous peoples in places like Canada using the cold, dry
atmosphere to preserve crops and or fish. Um. And we did,
we did talk about this in our Frozen Food episode two. Yeah, yeah,
a little bit. Yeah um. Jumping away ahead to Richard
(21:01):
Altman became the first known person to freeze drain something
in a laboratory setting when he froze to biological samples.
He envisioned using this process primarily for medical reasons, but
it really didn't cause much of a stir at the time,
and kind of would ignored for many years. The technology
just wasn't there to make it worth the while. Yeah,
(21:24):
remember that the first modern refrigeration technologies were only invented
starting around like the eighteen forties and fifties again in
like laboratory settings and economically scalable technologies for for just
like making ice or keeping a thing cold. Um didn't
(21:44):
hit the scene until around yeah, like the eighteen eighties
or nineties UM and cr Ice episode for more on that.
So many episodes to this, and before I get to
the next part, I do want to have I want
to share a beef as a podcast researcher. Um. Okay one,
(22:04):
this one gets kind of wild into how many people
are credited with inventing freeze drying. But also I had
to work real hard and sometimes didn't succeed on just
finding the first names of people. Kind of an assumption
that and I kind of love that that in this
like freeze dried research world's just assumption that you know
(22:27):
who these people they're talking about are. But I don't.
I I think I think it's more this this presumption
that like the uh yeah, like well okay, yeah, like
like like on on the one hand, it was probably
a pretty small community of scientists who were probably fairly interconnected. UM.
But be certainly when you cite someone in in in
(22:47):
work in your in your own work, that's that's extrapolating
off of their work. You're you're not going to give
their full name, that's unprofessional. You just give maybe the
first initial in the last name, but just the last
name and a date citation and yeah, yeah, this this
is definitely a like scientific paper issue that I don't know,
(23:11):
like I think it's also trying to like to like
decrease the importance of a single humans impact on a
field just a little bit um and and promote the
overall intellectual content of the research. But I'm not I'm
not positive. If anyone out there has any feelings about that,
(23:33):
I would love to hear them. That's the concept I
kind of got working in UM copy editing for medical publishing.
So okay, well, it's a very minor beef, but it
is a beef that they have. I understand. This is
not my world and I am an interloper, so it's
it's all right. If that's the way you'll give it
to them, I absolutely will. So Okay, Freeze drying was
(23:58):
invented in quote oats in the more modern sense, in
nineteen o six by one Jacques Arson Darson of Ball
at the College of Paris. Or that's one version of
how this story goes. Other histories of freeze drying don't
even mention him at all, so um and the history
of the freeze dryer itself. The machine is a bit
(24:20):
murky too. Historians speculate that evolved from lab equipment. This
equipment called a chemical pump that was mentioned in a
scientific context in nineteen o five. L. F. Shackle took
this design and modified it in nineteen nine or nineteen ten,
replacing the previous method of vacuuming with an electric vacuum pump.
(24:41):
And he also figured out that prior to the whole process,
the item in question needed to be frozen freeze dryer.
The name of the first person to call it that
is lost to time mysteries history. Others built office design,
and two patents for improvements to the freeze ring process
were filed in and ninety four. The first commercial freeze
(25:05):
dryer came out the following year, making way for mass production.
I Gersh created a vacuum plant specifically for freeze drying
blood and organs, and this technique of freeze drying is
sometimes referred to as the gersh Altman method. During World
War Two, freeze drying became much more common since it
(25:27):
was used to preserve blood, which was very important because
there was a shortage in Europe due to the war,
and also penicillin um and that was important too that
that both of these things could be used on the
battlefield without refrigeration. The US was sending blood in penicilla
to Europe. Earl W. Flosstorff gets a lot of credit
(25:48):
for this whole thing. Industrial freeze drying began taking place
during the nineteen fifties, and in particular in the world
of food, which we are a food show, so much
experimentation refining took place. Um the technology advanced, which we
also discussed in our Frozen Food episode. And not just
(26:09):
in the world of food, but definitely the pharmaceutical industry
is a big part of this story. The U s
Military started developing freeze dried rations around this time as well,
or are experimenting with them for sure. Stepping back a bit,
freeze dried coffee came onto the scene in Night Or
Like to me, it sounded more dehydrated coffee, but people
(26:33):
put it in this story. Um. I think I think
it's the that the type of dehydration that was going
on is it is a freeze drying, not just a dehydration, okay,
terrefect um. And this sparked all kinds of experiments with
powdered food products. Allegedly, Nestley was trying to figure out
(26:55):
what to do with a coffee surplus in Brazil, and
they were also experimenting due to wartime requirements. So here
they go. The launched nest Cafe UH and instant coffee
was something they were constantly tinkering with and improving upon.
Because of that, Nestly figured out a more successful efficient
way to freeze dry instant coffee in nineteen and soon
(27:19):
many other companies followed suit. The term liophilization, which I
promised we'd come back to now, is that time. UM
was coined, I believe in the nineteen sixties UM by
one Louis rene Ray, who was working in methods and
industrial applications of freeze drying. UM and liophil is like
(27:40):
a loose ancient Greek inspired word meaning literally solvent loving
um and He meant this word to evoke the idea
that the dried products, UM, that this process produces love
being reconstituted. They they're really excited about the solvent in question,
which is water, and so yeah, liotilization. It reminds me
(28:05):
of those old movie like cinema ads where it's like
the popcorn singing, UM, feeling so excited about water. Yeah. Uh.
Since the sixties, over four under different types of freeze
dried foods have been produced on the commercial level. UM.
(28:26):
James Mercer, who served as the chief development engineer for
Hills Brother Coffee Incorporated from nineteen six and nineteen ended
up receiving forty seven patents, both from the US and
abroad for his work around continuous freeze drying capability and
of course space. You have to say it that way,
(28:49):
and you have to make the gesture you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
very important. I was also making the gesture. You can't
see either of our gestures because this is an audio podcast. Yes,
but I bet you know exactly what it is. When
humans started going into space in the sixties, scientists had
to figure out the best ways to send food products
with them to keep them sustained and these items needed
(29:13):
to be convenient, long lasting, nutritive, lightweight, compact, and at
least somewhat tasty, somewhat somewhat a little bit yeah yeah,
which is where an area that has seen much improvement
over the years. Um freeze dried foods checked all those boxes.
No refrigeration required. Beginning with Project Gemini, when the first
(29:35):
freeze dried food products were sent to space, freeze dried
foods have been a staple for space flight. Whirlpool Corporation
made in package to these first freeze dried foods with
the help of NASA and the U. S Army a
laboratory to prepare these meals. Astronaut to use these water
guns to your inject cold water into the package. The
package is then cut with scissors. Later a hot water
(29:57):
gun allowed for a choice of hot cold water, warm foods,
warm food yeah uh. And then once eaten, a small
tablet was inserted inside the package to prevent any bacteria
from growing. But of note, not all free dried foods
have to be rehydrated before eating. Especially in this context,
(30:19):
companies quickly realized that they could capitalize on this marketing.
Two kids who wanted to quote eat like an astronaut. Yes,
Action Snacks is the first to sell freeze dried astronaut food,
and ice cream was their first product and they still
sell millions of dollars worth of these products a year.
(30:41):
The Goddard Air and Space Museum commissioned the founder of
American outdoor products, Ron Smith, for commercial freeze dried ice
cream that they could sell in their gift shop, and
you know, it just went from there. In Stephen Colbert said,
astronaut ice cream is a froud So I hope you
(31:03):
had a good childhood because it's over now. He was
referring to the fact that astronaut ice cream only went
to space once apparently like even maybe not even that, Like, yeah,
it definitely wasn't It was not a popular food item.
It never really it was. It's really more for kids
(31:25):
on Earth, uh than astronauts and astronauts space. Yeah. Yes,
well we never settled my beef with Stephen Colbert. We're
still open, Lawrence my second. Yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready,
absolutely yeah. Yeah. Colbert also call us we're ready and
(31:45):
waiting for all these very important phone calls. Um and yeah,
that that brings us a pretty much up to today.
In the in the early two thousands, UM food service
companies serving Mormon communities started marketing freeze dried products. They're uh.
One of the kind of tenants UM that many Mormons
(32:06):
follow is to to keep a year's supply of emergency
food on hand. There's also a bit of a craze
for freeze dried and freeze drying foods in the twenty teens,
driven by survivalists and preppers. Yeah. I forgot about that
because when I was researching this that was a lot
(32:27):
of the first page results were about about that kind
of took me aback. It makes sense, but I just
hadn't put that together. This wasn't thinking about it. Yeah, yeah,
well there we go. There you go. Well that is
what we have to say about freeze drying for now.
It is. We do have some listener mail for you.
We do, but first we have a one more cup
(32:48):
break for word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank
you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with listener.
It's supposed to be space, but that was kind of
(33:10):
more of a ghost thing that happens. It was. It was,
it was both. There was a ghost in space space
ghost space ghost. That's a different thing uh Anonymous wrote,
not anonymous, but wanted to be anonymous. I just listened
to your classic brunch episode and wanted to share some
(33:31):
international insights, specifically German ones. I was kind of surprised
by your notion that brunch is considered to be the
epitome of gentrification and lavish wealth, because to me, brunches
the opposite of that. For a start, we rarely say
brunch except for all you can eat buffet's drinks always excluded.
We say frush stuck in having breakfast that is also
(33:53):
still possible well into the afternoon. Fruit stuck in can
be anything from a coffee and a croissant a to
a full meal of several breakfast platters and the soup
of the day. Next up, who goes brunching? And I
have to say everyone, it is quicker, cheaper, and overall
less of a commitment than dinner, or drinks or even lunch.
(34:14):
I used to work in a cafe pre COVID, and
we had regulars that came in multiple times a week
for their mid morning meal, saving time and money on
breakfast and lunch. So many first dates and countless parents
with children who want to enjoy the luxury of eating
out without the risk of a child throwing a tantrum
because bedtime is nearing and because dinner is long. Also,
(34:34):
who doesn't like a croissant? Everyone can eat something that
is really interesting. Because that is very different than how
I interpret brunch. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and um gosh, I mean,
like like maybe maybe there are pockets of American communities
that would like go on like a brunch date for
(34:56):
like a first date or something like that, but I
cannot say that I've ever considered that. Yeah, I feel
I've been on brunch dates, but it was never a
first date because to me, brunches a long. Yeah. Yeah,
you're gonna be there a couple hours at least, exactly
(35:19):
at least, and you probably do spend in that two hours.
You get more food than perhaps you normally would and
also yes, the drinks. So it does feel like this
very luxurious long meal in my experience. Yeah. Yeah, although right,
you know that there's definitely huh yeah, yeah, I mean
(35:41):
there is definitely a culture of like of like going
out to grab like a like a coffee and a pastry, right,
But I would not define that as brunch. That's like
a coffee and a pastry, right, that's like a coffee
break exactly. Huh yeah, uh, Sarah wrote, I was listening
(36:02):
to the Campbell Soup episode, and when you were listening
the Campbell super Varieties, you were surprised the cream of
shrimp soup exists. My mother in law has a recipe
for broccoli puff and my husband wanted it for thanksgetting.
Apparently her secret ingredient is cream of shrimp soup. When
I told her that I would substitute cream of mushroom
because I couldn't find it and can't stand seafood, she
(36:23):
pretty much refused to give me the recipe, so I
told her that if she sent me the cans for it,
I would use it. She did, and that one time
I used the cream of shrimp soup, which, in case
you're wondering, has a weird pink color to it. I
took a small bite, it was fine, but I couldn't
get past the shrimp. So every other year it's been
either cream of mushroom or cream of chicken because it's
(36:45):
my kitchen and I can, but don't tell her. If
you are interested. Here's the recipe. Um melt together one
can of cream of shrimp soup, one stick of butter,
eight ounces of cream cheese, one half cup of milk,
and pour her two six bags of broccoli florets and
nan then mix a stick of butter and a cup
(37:06):
of this quick into a crumb mixture. Put that on top.
Take a three fifty fahrenheit until hot and bubbily. I've
never heard of a broccoli puff, but yeah, and this
sounds delicious. It really does. And I'm sorry that we
read this and maybe uh your secret buh. Hopefully she
(37:32):
doesn't listen to the podcast hopefully not um. But also
I love so much people do get really protective of
their recipes, and that she was pretty much like, you're
you're either doing it this way or not or not. Yea,
this is the only way. No substitutions please. That's great.
(37:56):
Thanks so much to both of those listeners for writing.
If you would like to write to as, you can,
Our email is Hello at favorite pod dot com. We're
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you. 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
(38:17):
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers
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 Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Any and I'm Lauren's oc OBAM and today we're
talking about freeze drying. Yes, and this was you suggestion, Lauren,
Is there any particular reason this was on your mind?
Was it a me suggestion? It was? I believe you.
I feel like it was in a list that you
(00:29):
had sent me of listener mail suggestions. But but it's
possible that I ran across something and was like, what's
up with that? I don't know, as Annie and I
were discussing right before we hit record. This is a
long and wacky day for both of us. So yes,
I have had four cups of coffee, lots of caffee.
(00:50):
I'm a normally a two cup gall everybody two cups
before noon, but now four. Wow. Yeah, if this episode
gets weird, if you blame the calf been, it's not
either of us. We We normally are not weird or
awkward at all. Oh no, it's certainly not like to
the point that that's part of our brand. Um. Yeah, yeah,
(01:14):
free freeze drying. I've never done it myself. I guess
I appreciate freeze dried. I don't know, like the the
texture of unreconstituted freeze dried foods always kind of wigs
me out, unless it's astronaut ice cream, in which case
I'm a thousand percent in Oh really, Yeah, I still
(01:35):
have deep nostalgia for Like that was like the thing,
like if I was allowed to get something from the
gift shop of the Science Museum that I went to
when I was a kid, it was either going to
be a rock or syn astronautscream. Rocks were cool. Rocks
are still cool. I still my mom before the pandemic.
(01:57):
She just said, out of the blue, I went to
my rock guy, and I was like, wait, hold up,
rock guy. You don't have a whole guy for rocks. Okay, yes,
well that's interesting. What was it the just because you
wanted kind of a food thing or was it the
astronaut angle or both? It was it was both, It
was both. It was you know, I've always been very
(02:18):
food motivated. Um. And also it's just novel because the
the texture and the temperature is so not what you
expect from ice cream. Um, but it's still good and
it's still tastes like ice cream. Ah. I don't think
(02:38):
I've ever had it. I really, that's right. I've been
meaning to get you a packet for like heck in
four years. Jeez, okay, oh, we can fix this. But
I I did really love dipping dots and not that
they've seen, but kind of in that same vein. But
it's it was cracking me up the other day because
somehow I was talking to some a friend of mine
(03:00):
into the subject of space Camp came up and I
went when I was in sixth grade. In my the
souvenir I got, which to this day blows my mind
of all the things I could have chosen. At Space
Camp gift shop, I bought an alligator key chain. I
un sure why they were selling that there. But did
(03:22):
you get to the one in Cape Canaveral, Florida. I
went to the one in Huntsville. See that makes even
less sense, I would. Well, I mean, actually, I don't know.
I don't know about Huntsville and alligators and its connection
to swamp lands. Maybe it is equally adjacent to alligator
containing swamps as Cape Canaveral. Yeah, possibly, I couldn't tell you. Possibly,
(03:48):
I know there is a lot of wildlife. It's like
a really bio diverse area in Alabama. Yeah, yeah, but
that that's a that's a whole different show. That's I
don't think that's our show. I still have the key chain.
I still have the toy that I got at my
space camp, which is this weird little like two headed
(04:09):
alien dude who kind of looks like a rock and
kind of looks like a troll doll. It's sort of
I'll post a picture please because I'm having trouble visualizing
this as well. You should. Oh and it's got like
a duck bill. Each head has a duck bill. Anyway. Yeah,
it's a lot. It's very the nineties. Yeah, that explains
(04:31):
the nineties. Helps get an image in my head. So
related to this episode, we do have a Frozen Food
episode that's one of our earlier ones, and we do
have a Space Food episode that as one of my favorite.
I'm most proud of that title. That was one of
my because I came up with that. That was any original.
Oh yeah, yeah, well you come up with most of
(04:53):
the titles, but share Yeah, I do. But sometimes, you know,
I feel like it's been done before that one came
to me. I was like ground control, a major numb Yeah.
We have a T shirt about that too. Yeah, we do, yes,
public I like that T shirt. I think it's pretty cool. Yeah.
(05:13):
And then we also have mri E episode which is
very closely related to a lot of what we're gonna
talk about. Absolutely. Um but so with with that varied introduction, um,
I suppose it brings us to our question. It does. Yes,
(05:34):
freeze drying. What is it? Well, freeze drying is a
method of drying foods by freezing them in order to
preserve them. Um that there are like a few other
steps or or conditions in there. But but heck, I
love it when like the base explanation for something is
(05:55):
so straightforward. Yeah, it feels like it's been happening more
off and lately, but generally it never is. Yeah. Yeah,
huh huh, I say, I'm I'm sorry. I just went
on a brief mental uh dig about like what that
says psychologically about like the topics were choosing or maybe
(06:18):
just the concepts anyway. Um, so freeze drying. The science
words for freeze drying our liophilization and cryo desiccation. Yeah. Bad.
That sounds like I'm going along in a in a
video game and I somehow it get freeze raid and
(06:38):
just shrivel and die. Yeah, that's approximately what cryo desiccation is.
That's you've you've you've you've got it right, Um, I
don't know part but but but yeah, the liophilization. We're
gonna get into the anomalogy of that one a little
bit later on. But but freeze drying works whatever you
(06:59):
want to call it, um by sublimating water out of substances.
And uh, sublimation is this really interesting physical process because
typically we think of substances going through three distinct stages
of being physical. Um in a particular order. If you
have a solid thing, you expect it to become a
(07:21):
liquid before it becomes a vapor, right, and vice versa.
If you've got a vapor, it condenses into a liquid
and then further condenses into a solid. And and these
are energy states that under normal Earth circumstances correlate to
how warm a substances. You know that the molecules and
(07:42):
a frozen substance have very little energy. If you add
some energy, they might loosen up and start kind of
slashing around as a liquid. And when you add enough energy,
those molecules will break free of each other entirely and
become gaseous, and that's the process of evaporation. But in
sub elimation, solid water crystals skip the liquid state entirely
(08:05):
and go straight to being a water vapor. And in
order for this to happen that the solid water molecules
need to have enough energy to escape as a vapor.
But the circumstances have to be wrong for a liquid
to happen. Yeah, the stars are wrong for liquids. Um
and enter here not like Cthulhu and you're here pressure
(08:29):
because at extremely low pressures, adding energy to a solid
can force it to go straight to a gas like
it it doesn't have the chance to cohere as a
liquid in the middle. So in order to make this occur, um,
you're you're gonna you're gonna take the food that you
want to freeze dry and place it in an air
(08:50):
tight chamber in a in a machine that can get
really cold, uh say, like negative fifty degrees celsius, which
is negative fifty eight fahrenheit. Though at that stay age,
I don't think that the difference really, It just means cold,
quite cold, not warm. Yeah. Yeah. You then you then
vacuum the air out of the chamber. That's lowering the
(09:11):
pressure in there, and you want to get that pressure
all the way down to like zero point zero six
atmospheres UM. And remember one atmosphere is what we experience
just hanging out outside at sea level, So zero point
zero six atmospheres is less pressure than we typically experience. Yeah,
(09:34):
mm hmm. Okay, then so you got this, You got
this cold stuff at a at a very low pressure.
At that point you use heating coils to apply just
enough heat to make those water molecules start to sublimate.
And this tends to be a low and slow kind
of process. It can take hours or even days to
(09:57):
UM to slowly apply this low heat to get most
of the water out of the food um that the
machine thus clearly also has to be able to suck
the water vapor away in some form or another, and
then to get even more water out you often employ
another stage of drying. Some of the water molecules are
going to be ionically bound up to some of the
(10:18):
food materials, so heating it a little bit higher for
a short period will break those bonds and get more
water out. But at that point you gotta dry food
UM and you just seal it in an air tight
package and it's freeze dride. There you go. They're just
just like that simple. So sublimation. If it's not a
(10:40):
horror movie, Oh, it's a good title. Is it's a
good word. Mm hmm. It's kind of. I'm nervous because
because it reminds you of sublime but also subliminal. Lots
of things, lots of things going on here, yes, at
any rate, in food, not in horror movies. This is
(11:01):
useful for a number of reasons. Um. First, drying foods
out in general preserves them um, which is cool because
many of the microbes that cause food to spoil, which
is really like a grosser way of saying that those
microbes have eaten the food before a person had a
chance to um. Microbes need water to survive most of
(11:24):
the time. UM, So if you remove the water, those
microbes are way less likely to eat and spoil the food. Second,
the albeit way easier process of heating foods until the
water just evaporates out of them um will also affect
a lot of the volatile compounds within those foods, and
(11:44):
volatile compounds tend to be the ones that give food
their flavor. They're they're scent part of their taste, maybe
some of their color, and many of them are sensitive
to heat. This is why like a like a cup
of coffee never tastes the same if you microwave it
to rewarm it, because some of the flavor compounds that
you you know created in it in the first place
(12:05):
by heating it once are sensitive to further heating, so
they'll escape or break down or recombine into more other
less red flavor compounds upon a second heating. Similarly, when
you heat dry foods UH, some of the volatile compounds
and them will either escape the food entirely along with
the water vapor, or they'll change into some other different compound.
(12:28):
Freeze drying disturbs fewer of those flavor compounds. UM. Also
related to cold versus heat. Most microbes need heat to
live too, so keeping the food cold while you're drying
it is like a double action against spoilage. And Furthermore,
drying via heat evaporation doesn't tend to get all the
liquid out of a substance, only like of of the
(12:52):
liquid with with the freeze drying process. Of those that
that two stage freeze drying process that I that I explained, UM,
you can get out like nine of the moisture m
M always always oh you know, you know it's never
never perfect, never perfect. Um. Freeze drying also disturbs fewer
(13:15):
other compounds in a food. I'm allowing those foods to
retain more of their nutritional properties, which is also why
conventionally frozen foods are typically more nutritious than canned foods,
because the canning process involves heat, which destroys some nutrients.
Freeze drying also doesn't disturb the texture of a product
(13:36):
so much as heating. Um. You know, heating is going
to uh change and constrict some compounds like proteins, leaving
thus dried foods tough when they're dried, and it can
be difficult to impossible to to reconstitute them to an
approximation of the original texture because you have to really
(13:56):
work to get the moisture back in there. And freeze
drying is perfect. Um. It does require you know, ice
crystals to form in a food, and ice crystals are
you know, expanding and pokey and so you know they
can really they can really like like bust up cell
walls and wreck a texture if you're not careful. Um.
But but but when those ice crystals do sublimate, it
(14:20):
at least leaves a more like three dimensional structure around
where the crystals used to be, which makes rehydration easier.
It gives the water places to go, so you don't
have to do as much work to get the water
in there. And that that right there is the appeal
of freeze dried ice cream because it just melts in
your mouth when the moisture in your saliva hit sit.
(14:42):
The same goes for freeze dried baby foods like a
little like yogurt drops. Yeah, okay, okay, and if you
are careful you can avoid large ice crystals forming and
preserve the original texture of the food pretty well. Um
involves rapid freezing, and there are all kinds of tricks
(15:04):
to achieve that, which I'm not going to go into today.
This is already a long enough science section, not today. Um.
So the result of all of this is foods that
are shelf stable for years, like a like three plus
years in bags, twenty five plus years in cans without
(15:26):
losing um, their their desirable traits, and can be eaten
either as is or yes, we constituted with a bit
of water. Applications for this include everything from like the
freeze dried berry slices that you find in your box
of dry cereal um to us snacks like veggie sticks,
(15:47):
to ingredients like a cottage cheese or milk, or beverages
like coffee. To instant foods like miso souper, mashed potatoes
or scrambled eggs, to full meals that are preserved for
like extreme situations like that they'd be useful if you
took them on a hike, or if you put them
in a bomb shelter, or if you were going to
(16:09):
go to space, which I think I've said before, but
that is on my to do list, no joke. It's
like all these like get published, run a marathon. There
you go. Yeah, good, No, Hey, it's important to have goals.
(16:31):
Be I'm glad, I feel like I'm helping. Yes, you are.
Many tips I'm getting from you u UM. And of course,
of course, a freeze drying is used in other industries
than food uh for for the same reasons that it
works in food preservation. It can work for preserving um
drugs like antibiotics biological samples. It's also been used to
(16:55):
help restore water damaged objects, like like if a rare
manuscript or something gets wet, they can try to freeze
dry it to get the moisture out without damaging the manuscript.
That is so cool National Treasure. Three. Oh, here's the idea. Yeah,
(17:15):
Nick Cage, call us, call us. We know you're a
big fan. So what about the nutrition. Okay, if you're
eating the process of mechanical sublimation, um, your your god level.
And I am honored and or concerned that you're listening
(17:37):
to our podcast. So Nick Cage, So Nick Cage, Uh,
still call us, But I have more questions. Yeah, we've
got some follow up questions here. We do have some
numbers for you. We do. Um. I mean, all of
(18:00):
this technology might sound like completely wacky because it kind
of is. Um, but you can buy a home freeze
dryer for like a couple of thousand bucks these days.
It is more expensive than other machinery or um, you know,
stuff that you would buy for dehydrating or canning or freezing,
(18:20):
partially because it requires more energy. Partially because it's just
a kind of fancier process, right. Um. And the hilariously
named ward or Intelligence, which I believe we've mentioned before
every time, it cracks me up every time I'm like,
I know, is this some purpose? I hope so. I
hope so too. Uh. They recently reported that the freeze
(18:43):
drying market was growing at a rate of seven point
five percent a year and that this very year it
would be worth sixty six point five billion dollars. North
America is the largest player in this market, holding the
market share. Uh. Yeah, I saw numbers projected from like
a year or two ago out further and it seems
(19:04):
like we're right on track for for that projection. UM.
The biggest segment of the freeze ride market is fruit um,
accounting for about a third of the market, probably because
that stuff can go into a large number of shelf
stable snacks. UM. Growing segments include outdoor activity foods for
like for like explorer adventurers you know who are getting
out there and doing the thing. Um, and pet foods.
(19:28):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah. That was one area
I forgot as someone who once upon time, about a
year ago, was a very active outdoors person, that, yeah,
that is a big part of the market of these
kind of like sustaining snacks for the wilds. But you know,
(19:53):
I thought the history of freeze drying was going to
be relatively recent, but that's not necessarily the case, right,
It goes back way further than I thought. And we're
going to get into that after we get back from
a quick break forward from our sponsor. We're back, Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(20:17):
thank you. So humans, especially those that lived in cold
areas are near mountains, perhaps I've been performing a simple
form of freeze drying for thousands of years, whether we're
talking about the Peruvian Incas storing foods like potatoes and
the cold mountains for convenient and safe way to preserve foods,
(20:37):
or travel with foods, and you know, especially when we're
talking about the altitude and the pressure involved there, or
indigenous peoples in places like Canada using the cold, dry
atmosphere to preserve crops and or fish. Um. And we did,
we did talk about this in our Frozen Food episode two. Yeah, yeah,
a little bit. Yeah um. Jumping away ahead to Richard
(21:01):
Altman became the first known person to freeze drain something
in a laboratory setting when he froze to biological samples.
He envisioned using this process primarily for medical reasons, but
it really didn't cause much of a stir at the time,
and kind of would ignored for many years. The technology
just wasn't there to make it worth the while. Yeah,
(21:24):
remember that the first modern refrigeration technologies were only invented
starting around like the eighteen forties and fifties again in
like laboratory settings and economically scalable technologies for for just
like making ice or keeping a thing cold. Um didn't
(21:44):
hit the scene until around yeah, like the eighteen eighties
or nineties UM and cr Ice episode for more on that.
So many episodes to this, and before I get to
the next part, I do want to have I want
to share a beef as a podcast researcher. Um. Okay one,
(22:04):
this one gets kind of wild into how many people
are credited with inventing freeze drying. But also I had
to work real hard and sometimes didn't succeed on just
finding the first names of people. Kind of an assumption
that and I kind of love that that in this
like freeze dried research world's just assumption that you know
(22:27):
who these people they're talking about are. But I don't.
I I think I think it's more this this presumption
that like the uh yeah, like well okay, yeah, like
like like on on the one hand, it was probably
a pretty small community of scientists who were probably fairly interconnected. UM.
But be certainly when you cite someone in in in
(22:47):
work in your in your own work, that's that's extrapolating
off of their work. You're you're not going to give
their full name, that's unprofessional. You just give maybe the
first initial in the last name, but just the last
name and a date citation and yeah, yeah, this this
is definitely a like scientific paper issue that I don't know,
(23:11):
like I think it's also trying to like to like
decrease the importance of a single humans impact on a
field just a little bit um and and promote the
overall intellectual content of the research. But I'm not I'm
not positive. If anyone out there has any feelings about that,
(23:33):
I would love to hear them. That's the concept I
kind of got working in UM copy editing for medical publishing.
So okay, well, it's a very minor beef, but it
is a beef that they have. I understand. This is
not my world and I am an interloper, so it's
it's all right. If that's the way you'll give it
to them, I absolutely will. So Okay, Freeze drying was
(23:58):
invented in quote oats in the more modern sense, in
nineteen o six by one Jacques Arson Darson of Ball
at the College of Paris. Or that's one version of
how this story goes. Other histories of freeze drying don't
even mention him at all, so um and the history
of the freeze dryer itself. The machine is a bit
(24:20):
murky too. Historians speculate that evolved from lab equipment. This
equipment called a chemical pump that was mentioned in a
scientific context in nineteen o five. L. F. Shackle took
this design and modified it in nineteen nine or nineteen ten,
replacing the previous method of vacuuming with an electric vacuum pump.
(24:41):
And he also figured out that prior to the whole process,
the item in question needed to be frozen freeze dryer.
The name of the first person to call it that
is lost to time mysteries history. Others built office design,
and two patents for improvements to the freeze ring process
were filed in and ninety four. The first commercial freeze
(25:05):
dryer came out the following year, making way for mass production.
I Gersh created a vacuum plant specifically for freeze drying
blood and organs, and this technique of freeze drying is
sometimes referred to as the gersh Altman method. During World
War Two, freeze drying became much more common since it
(25:27):
was used to preserve blood, which was very important because
there was a shortage in Europe due to the war,
and also penicillin um and that was important too that
that both of these things could be used on the
battlefield without refrigeration. The US was sending blood in penicilla
to Europe. Earl W. Flosstorff gets a lot of credit
(25:48):
for this whole thing. Industrial freeze drying began taking place
during the nineteen fifties, and in particular in the world
of food, which we are a food show, so much
experimentation refining took place. Um the technology advanced, which we
also discussed in our Frozen Food episode. And not just
(26:09):
in the world of food, but definitely the pharmaceutical industry
is a big part of this story. The U s
Military started developing freeze dried rations around this time as well,
or are experimenting with them for sure. Stepping back a bit,
freeze dried coffee came onto the scene in Night Or
Like to me, it sounded more dehydrated coffee, but people
(26:33):
put it in this story. Um. I think I think
it's the that the type of dehydration that was going
on is it is a freeze drying, not just a dehydration, okay,
terrefect um. And this sparked all kinds of experiments with
powdered food products. Allegedly, Nestley was trying to figure out
(26:55):
what to do with a coffee surplus in Brazil, and
they were also experimenting due to wartime requirements. So here
they go. The launched nest Cafe UH and instant coffee
was something they were constantly tinkering with and improving upon.
Because of that, Nestly figured out a more successful efficient
way to freeze dry instant coffee in nineteen and soon
(27:19):
many other companies followed suit. The term liophilization, which I
promised we'd come back to now, is that time. UM
was coined, I believe in the nineteen sixties UM by
one Louis rene Ray, who was working in methods and
industrial applications of freeze drying. UM and liophil is like
(27:40):
a loose ancient Greek inspired word meaning literally solvent loving
um and He meant this word to evoke the idea
that the dried products, UM, that this process produces love
being reconstituted. They they're really excited about the solvent in question,
which is water, and so yeah, liotilization. It reminds me
(28:05):
of those old movie like cinema ads where it's like
the popcorn singing, UM, feeling so excited about water. Yeah. Uh.
Since the sixties, over four under different types of freeze
dried foods have been produced on the commercial level. UM.
(28:26):
James Mercer, who served as the chief development engineer for
Hills Brother Coffee Incorporated from nineteen six and nineteen ended
up receiving forty seven patents, both from the US and
abroad for his work around continuous freeze drying capability and
of course space. You have to say it that way,
(28:49):
and you have to make the gesture you do. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
very important. I was also making the gesture. You can't
see either of our gestures because this is an audio podcast. Yes,
but I bet you know exactly what it is. When
humans started going into space in the sixties, scientists had
to figure out the best ways to send food products
with them to keep them sustained and these items needed
(29:13):
to be convenient, long lasting, nutritive, lightweight, compact, and at
least somewhat tasty, somewhat somewhat a little bit yeah yeah,
which is where an area that has seen much improvement
over the years. Um freeze dried foods checked all those boxes.
No refrigeration required. Beginning with Project Gemini, when the first
(29:35):
freeze dried food products were sent to space, freeze dried
foods have been a staple for space flight. Whirlpool Corporation
made in package to these first freeze dried foods with
the help of NASA and the U. S Army a
laboratory to prepare these meals. Astronaut to use these water
guns to your inject cold water into the package. The
package is then cut with scissors. Later a hot water
(29:57):
gun allowed for a choice of hot cold water, warm foods,
warm food yeah uh. And then once eaten, a small
tablet was inserted inside the package to prevent any bacteria
from growing. But of note, not all free dried foods
have to be rehydrated before eating. Especially in this context,
(30:19):
companies quickly realized that they could capitalize on this marketing.
Two kids who wanted to quote eat like an astronaut. Yes,
Action Snacks is the first to sell freeze dried astronaut food,
and ice cream was their first product and they still
sell millions of dollars worth of these products a year.
(30:41):
The Goddard Air and Space Museum commissioned the founder of
American outdoor products, Ron Smith, for commercial freeze dried ice
cream that they could sell in their gift shop, and
you know, it just went from there. In Stephen Colbert said,
astronaut ice cream is a froud So I hope you
(31:03):
had a good childhood because it's over now. He was
referring to the fact that astronaut ice cream only went
to space once apparently like even maybe not even that, Like, yeah,
it definitely wasn't It was not a popular food item.
It never really it was. It's really more for kids
(31:25):
on Earth, uh than astronauts and astronauts space. Yeah. Yes,
well we never settled my beef with Stephen Colbert. We're
still open, Lawrence my second. Yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready,
absolutely yeah. Yeah. Colbert also call us we're ready and
(31:45):
waiting for all these very important phone calls. Um and yeah,
that that brings us a pretty much up to today.
In the in the early two thousands, UM food service
companies serving Mormon communities started marketing freeze dried products. They're uh.
One of the kind of tenants UM that many Mormons
(32:06):
follow is to to keep a year's supply of emergency
food on hand. There's also a bit of a craze
for freeze dried and freeze drying foods in the twenty teens,
driven by survivalists and preppers. Yeah. I forgot about that
because when I was researching this that was a lot
(32:27):
of the first page results were about about that kind
of took me aback. It makes sense, but I just
hadn't put that together. This wasn't thinking about it. Yeah, yeah,
well there we go. There you go. Well that is
what we have to say about freeze drying for now.
It is. We do have some listener mail for you.
We do, but first we have a one more cup
(32:48):
break for word from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank
you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back with listener.
It's supposed to be space, but that was kind of
(33:10):
more of a ghost thing that happens. It was. It was,
it was both. There was a ghost in space space
ghost space ghost. That's a different thing uh Anonymous wrote,
not anonymous, but wanted to be anonymous. I just listened
to your classic brunch episode and wanted to share some
(33:31):
international insights, specifically German ones. I was kind of surprised
by your notion that brunch is considered to be the
epitome of gentrification and lavish wealth, because to me, brunches
the opposite of that. For a start, we rarely say
brunch except for all you can eat buffet's drinks always excluded.
We say frush stuck in having breakfast that is also
(33:53):
still possible well into the afternoon. Fruit stuck in can
be anything from a coffee and a croissant a to
a full meal of several breakfast platters and the soup
of the day. Next up, who goes brunching? And I
have to say everyone, it is quicker, cheaper, and overall
less of a commitment than dinner, or drinks or even lunch.
(34:14):
I used to work in a cafe pre COVID, and
we had regulars that came in multiple times a week
for their mid morning meal, saving time and money on
breakfast and lunch. So many first dates and countless parents
with children who want to enjoy the luxury of eating
out without the risk of a child throwing a tantrum
because bedtime is nearing and because dinner is long. Also,
(34:34):
who doesn't like a croissant? Everyone can eat something that
is really interesting. Because that is very different than how
I interpret brunch. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and um gosh, I mean,
like like maybe maybe there are pockets of American communities
that would like go on like a brunch date for
(34:56):
like a first date or something like that, but I
cannot say that I've ever considered that. Yeah, I feel
I've been on brunch dates, but it was never a
first date because to me, brunches a long. Yeah. Yeah,
you're gonna be there a couple hours at least, exactly
(35:19):
at least, and you probably do spend in that two hours.
You get more food than perhaps you normally would and
also yes, the drinks. So it does feel like this
very luxurious long meal in my experience. Yeah. Yeah, although right,
you know that there's definitely huh yeah, yeah, I mean
(35:41):
there is definitely a culture of like of like going
out to grab like a like a coffee and a pastry, right,
But I would not define that as brunch. That's like
a coffee and a pastry, right, that's like a coffee
break exactly. Huh yeah, uh, Sarah wrote, I was listening
(36:02):
to the Campbell Soup episode, and when you were listening
the Campbell super Varieties, you were surprised the cream of
shrimp soup exists. My mother in law has a recipe
for broccoli puff and my husband wanted it for thanksgetting.
Apparently her secret ingredient is cream of shrimp soup. When
I told her that I would substitute cream of mushroom
because I couldn't find it and can't stand seafood, she
(36:23):
pretty much refused to give me the recipe, so I
told her that if she sent me the cans for it,
I would use it. She did, and that one time
I used the cream of shrimp soup, which, in case
you're wondering, has a weird pink color to it. I
took a small bite, it was fine, but I couldn't
get past the shrimp. So every other year it's been
either cream of mushroom or cream of chicken because it's
(36:45):
my kitchen and I can, but don't tell her. If
you are interested. Here's the recipe. Um melt together one
can of cream of shrimp soup, one stick of butter,
eight ounces of cream cheese, one half cup of milk,
and pour her two six bags of broccoli florets and
nan then mix a stick of butter and a cup
(37:06):
of this quick into a crumb mixture. Put that on top.
Take a three fifty fahrenheit until hot and bubbily. I've
never heard of a broccoli puff, but yeah, and this
sounds delicious. It really does. And I'm sorry that we
read this and maybe uh your secret buh. Hopefully she
(37:32):
doesn't listen to the podcast hopefully not um. But also
I love so much people do get really protective of
their recipes, and that she was pretty much like, you're
you're either doing it this way or not or not. Yea,
this is the only way. No substitutions please. That's great.
(37:56):
Thanks so much to both of those listeners for writing.
If you would like to write to as, you can,
Our email is Hello at favorite pod dot com. We're
also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at savor pod and we do hope to
hear from you. 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
(38:17):
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers
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
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.