May 22, 2020 • 34 mins
This plant is used to make highly popular (and highly caffeinated) drinks around South America and the world. Anney and Lauren dip into the history and science of yerba mate.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren voc Obaum, and today
we're talking about your mate, yes, which is another listener suggestion,
So thanks Jonathan. Yeah. Um, so, I actually don't have
a lot of experience with your BA mate. My old
roommate loved it. She loved it. She was always trying
(00:29):
to convert me. Um. But I yeah, I think I've
only had it like a handful of times. Uh. Me
me as well. Um. And I'm I'm pretty caffeine sensitive,
so I'm really wary of um, of anything that lists
your BA mate as an ingredient, especially in like kind
(00:49):
of marketing me way, because I'm like, oh, man, I
do not know if you put in some kind of
extract that's going to make me real wild. I do
not need to vibrate through time and space most days.
So but um, it is one of the one of
the many health foods, health and scare quotes here that
(01:10):
I was introduced to at our Thomas Deluxe grill Um,
which is an Atlanta institution if you are unaware. This
is a four hour diner near downtown that has like
a lot of like like raw cultured veg and like
cash you cheese and kinwa and free range eggs and
all these menu items that explain why they're good for you.
(01:32):
But it's a twenty four hour diner and like also
has caged parrots lining the walkway into the patio. Um,
it's one of the very few places I've ever had
a complete and lovely breakfast. Um, still in my like
goth clubbing gear, alongside a bunch of ladies in like
(01:54):
lovely church hats. So that does pretty much capture our amas. Yeah, um,
but yeah, it's it's one of the foods that are
Thomas introduced me to, like full of like of like
probably like soy milk and apple juice and much much deluded. Um,
I've never had it just straight, So I don't think
(02:16):
I've ever had it properly straight. Now that we've done
this episode, oh me, neither. Yeah, And then I learned
how you're supposed to drink it. I don't think I've
ever done that. Um, I've done the like americanized tea
bag version. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go get some
because this it was strange. Like it's one of those
things where I'm like, I've never really had this food,
but now I'm experiencing a craving for it after reading
(02:38):
about it all day. Yeah, well I understand. But in
the meantime, that's get to our question. What is it? Well,
your mate is a plant out of which teas and
other infusions are made. Um, it's an evergreen tree. Your
(03:00):
shrub botanical name. Um, I think it's Illik paraguarensis. Yes,
I'm gonna go with ilk paraguarrians is Um. Yes, ilick
being the holly genus um and Yeah, this plant similarly
has these shiny green leaves and little red berries. Um.
The leaves are are broad and smooth edged, unlike the
(03:22):
prickly European holly that we're used to seeing in like
like Christmas decorations and stuff. Yeah. Uh. Your ramante is
uh subtropical native to South America, hence the species name,
and usually grows some well, it can grow some like
twenty to thirty ft sixty tall. It's more shrub shaped
than being tree shaped anyway. You you pick the leaves
(03:43):
um and and the stems. The leaves are called yerba,
which means herb um in Yerba, by the way, is
a super American pronunciation. Um. In Spanish it's closer to
like zerba, and in Portuguese it's closer to erva. So
I'm going to keep using the American pronunciation because it's
pretty ingrained at this juncture. Apologies to anyone who's like
(04:06):
just linguistically offended. Um, But so yeah, you take the
leaves and you dry them up, chop them or grind
him age them, and then from this product finally make
an infusion um first by soaking them in cold or
slightly warm water, and then by adding hot water, not boiling,
never boiling, never never. And and that drink that you
(04:27):
get is called matte. And yeah, yeah, that that drink
is a strong, bitter kind of herbal vegetal tea that
has a lot of tannin to it. And again I've
never had it straight, so I can't speak really like
specifically and personally to the flavor, but this is what
I read. You can also serve it iced, and you
can brew matte with any number of other herbs or
(04:49):
add sweeteners or milk or juice or fruit. Um. Though
the straight up version either hotter iced, is probably the
most common around South America, you're are likely to find
it sweetened or flavored in the US and other places
where it's kind of spread out, or sometimes I read
in very fancy households they will have like one year
beset for swedened and one for unsweetened. Whoa all done
(05:15):
up in silver and like and like gold filigree and anyway. Um,
but yeah, as any said, it can even come in
like tea bags or in like instant powdered form. And
there is this whole kit and and etiquette to the
traditional preparation that this is a drink that's generally meant
to be shared around a circle of friends. And this
(05:37):
is a big social thing around Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and
surrounding areas. And again I have not experienced this, but
from what I understand that the host or the server
does all the preparation. Don't anyone else must with the preparation. UM.
The serving vessel um was originally hollowed and dried gorge
sort sort of smallish like apple sized and a little
bit oblong, although metal and wood and ceramic cups of
(06:01):
varying fanciness are available to um. This container is also
called a mate and so okay, so the so the
server carefully adds the year Bau soaks it and then
adds the hot water and UH and adds a specialized
straw called a bombia that has a sort of a
filter pod on the end that you put into the
cup that keeps the grinds of of of yurba out
(06:24):
of the straw as you sip UM. The bombia can
be made of metal or bamboo, and it looks a
little bit like like an in cup tea infuser, except
you know, the the yearbo will be on the outside
of it rather than the inside. Anyway, the server then
drinks the first cup UH and then refills the hot
water and passes it on to a guest And in
(06:45):
that way it's passed around to everyone with a fresh
infusion for every guest UM. And there are whole kinds
of specifics about how to add the yuruba and the water,
how to pass the cup around the group, all that
kind of stuff. I love this and it makes me anxious,
like like kind of anxiously, like in a nice way,
like I like, I really hope that sometime in the
(07:05):
future I get to like go muck this up and
some kind humans will forgive me and we'll all laugh
about it. Yeah, I really loved reading about this whole
social aspects of having I was totally unaware of that,
and very much I wanted to to take part in
one one day. Yeah, I am. I had heard a
(07:28):
little bit. I have a friend whose family is from
Argentina and so so I had heard a tiny bit
about it from him. But I was always just like,
that's a weird straw cool like I like, I never
got that deep into it, um uh. To be to
be fair, he he never like showed me the ceremony
or anything like that anyway anyway, um, and you can
it does not have to be an entire ceremonial thing.
(07:50):
You can just make a craft for yourself to go
um or you know, get one ice from a street vendor,
especially out in hot beachy areas, or do it however
you like. Yeah, options mm hmmm hmmmm. Well what about
the nutrition, Well, um uh, your bamat contains a lot
of compounds that do stuff in our bodies, um, including uh,
(08:14):
caffeol compounds, um, xanthines, flavonoids, tannins, smattering of vitamins and minerals.
Of course, how much of any of that that you
actually get is going to depend on how you brew it. Um.
But in terms of caffeine alone, like a single serving
has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup
of black tea. Yeah, it's a relatively small serving, though
(08:38):
you get a you can if you're drinking a whole
lot of it, you can you can really amp up. Um. And,
as I implied at the top, your mate is considered
a healthy drink by a lot of folks. Um. It's
been considered medicinal or at least like constitutional for pretty
much ever um. And there are a lot of studies
(08:59):
in the way that all of those compounds in yerba
mate affect human bodies. Um. And it's been found to
have effects from antioxidant to anti obesity, to anti diabetic,
to pro cardiovascular, to anti cancer to anti microbial. But
as with any food, our bodies are complicated. More research
needs to be done. Um. You know, like, if you
(09:21):
like it, drink it, um, but consulted doctor before adding
a medicinal dose of any food to your diet, especially
where extracts are concerned. Yeah, always, always, mm hmmm. But
we have some numbers for you. We do. Millions of
South Americans drink over a leader of yerba mate a day.
(09:42):
Argentina is the largest producer and an estimated annual two
d and fifty thousand tons of yerba mate is consumed
every year in Argentina and in it was named a
national infusion there. Yeah. Um it is more popular there
um and in Paraguay and Uruguay than to your coffee.
(10:03):
As of fifteen, South America was consuming about seven percent
of the global production of your bamt some uh some
three D twenty eight thousand metric tons per year, and
Argentina is the biggest exporter to sending out some thirty
thousand metric tons per year. And it's a growing market
around the world as a as more major producers export
(10:25):
it and as more people learn about it. A recent
report from a tech Navo as of a I don't
know as of April of twenty UM, they estimated that
the market growth will accelerate in the next few years,
growing by almost two dred and twenty five million dollars
between now and UM. And a report from April of
(10:46):
nineteen from three sixty research reports estimated that the total
value of the market will reach about UM one point
eight billion dollars by wow. Yeah, lots of yikes. Um
yerba mate is also really popular in the Middle East,
(11:06):
particularly in Syria and Lebanon, and we'll have more on
that in our history section. And speaking of that history section,
we're going to get into that, but first we're going
to take a quick break for a word from our
sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you.
(11:32):
So before we get into this one, I just want
to say there's kind of a weirdness in the research. Also,
it gets a little grim, so just heads up on that. Yeah, colonization,
it sucked. Yeah, not good. Normally, when I'm like looking
up the history of something, maybe I can't get a
specific date, but at least there's like kind of a
(11:52):
range like a time sure. Yeah, yeah, like like over
the period of like a couple of centuries or maybe
a millennia or something like that. Yeah, And I have
I have a whole method, because this might be news
to some listeners. I have a whole thing with numbers.
So I'll do I do like if I can find
in the first eight pages of Google Search, those are
(12:15):
all my tabs, and then I'll try eight more pages
after that with different search terms. Normally, within the first
eight pages, I'm going to find this information. I never
found this information at all, not so I can tell
you that your bat the plant originated in South American
rainforest when m hm, I feel like it's probably pretty old. Yes,
(12:42):
I I everything similarly that I read, uh not not
quite by the same process of information finding. But yeah,
it was just like, well, it was there before uh
any colonists got there, so no one knows. Yeah, I
don't know if it's a thing because sometimes when we
research and um uh something from not an English speaking
(13:05):
country that I feel like maybe that's the thing is
I'm not finding the results because they don't really exist
in English. That's yeah. Yeah. But anyway, almost everything I
found just started when people were drinking it, so alright,
disclaimer side, Going back at least to the sixteenth century,
(13:28):
the Guarani people of northern Argentina and the Two Pie
people of southern Brazil traditionally drank your Mate medicinally, believing
it granted vitality, longevity, and energy. They viewed the tree
itself as sacred, a gift from the gods, and used
the drink in rituals. Some people even chewed on the leaves.
(13:49):
That's a stimulant during long marches. Stimulation energy was a
big part of this whole Drinking it and chewing the leaves.
Um and matte was typically kept in clay pots and
hollow reads are bulbs were used as the bombay is.
The Guarany people had many many lessons about mate. One
(14:12):
tied mate preparation and drinking to the Moon goddess. The
story goes that the Moon desperately wanted to see all
of the beauties of the jungle, that the Sun would
tell her about things that she couldn't see when it
was dark. Oh yeah, So one day she visited Earth
in the form of a human woman and was almost
(14:33):
immediately attacked by a jaguar because you know, I don't know, yes,
But a Guarany warrior intervened and saved her. In gratitude,
she bestowed the Guarany people with urva mate. So that's one.
Then there's the legend of the Guarany, which also told
(14:53):
the tale of Yurva mate. In this story, that god
Paishu ma Um couldn't find the pronunciation for that, gave
it my best attempt. Introduced the Guarany to toasting and
drinking your ramante. After a shaman gave an aging guaranty
man the plants, along with the method of properly preparing it,
(15:13):
harvesting the leaves, drawing them over fire, grinding them up,
and combining with water in a nice gourd um. Once
the aging man drinks that, he is instantly revitalized and
gains all these new strengths. He then convinces his daughter
to accompany him on a quest to find their nomadic ancestors,
(15:34):
and then there's at least one more the Tupi brothers
legend um. Through a series of feuds and fights, the
Tuppi brothers parted ways, each going on to form their
own tribe, the Tuppie tribe and the Guarani tribe. The
two Pie tribe became nomadic and generally more intense. The
god fearing Guarany tribe, on the other hand, focused on
(15:56):
farming and craft person ship um. That same god I
mentioned earlier gifted them with the knowledge of plants and
herbs and the medicinal uses of those plants and herbs,
and they the Guarany people viewed this as a reward
for their values in their sort of god fearing community nature,
so lots of stories and legends the Guarany traded urba
(16:20):
mate for other goods from neighboring tribes, and the popularity
of the drink spread through South America fairly rapidly as
we moved into the seventeenth century. R Bramte was the
Guarany people's primary export commodity, suppressing other popular products like tobacco, sugar, cocoa,
and wine. Yeah While exploring South America in Italian voyagers,
(16:45):
Sebastian Cabot encountered the evergreen plant behind your bramat. As
the first Spanish missionaries and colonists began arriving, they were
disappointed that they couldn't find any valuable minerals. Many of
them aft, but some stayed and settled alongside the guaranty.
The colonist observed the Gorney people drinking yerba mate and
(17:07):
believed that this drink was behind their good health, which
was a belief that was also shared by the guaranty.
Eager for these health benefits, the colonists adopted the practice
of drinking the beverage and claimed that doing so raised
their spirits and improved their general health. The Jesuit missionaries
in South America, who began arriving in fifteen forty nine,
(17:28):
were suspicious of the drink and its popularity and the
ritualistic consumption and legends behind its origin. Yeah, they believe
the drink got in the way of their spreading Christianity,
so in sixteen sixteen they banned what they called the
demonic drink within Jesuit territories. They viewed it as a vice.
(17:49):
One Jesuit priest wrote, all Spaniards, men and women in
all Indians drink these dust and hot water, and when
they don't have with what to buy it, they give
away their underpants and their tankets. When they stopped drinking it,
they fade away and say they cannot live. Huh. Yeah,
violators were excommunicated. Dominican priest took it even further, declaring
(18:12):
the drink was an aphrodisiac, which was bad. Oh no, exactly.
Despite that, people didn't stop consuming it, and this whole
thing backfired when it came to converting folks to Christianity.
This led to the Jesuits getting rid of the band.
They also came around to the idea that it was
a good substitute for alcohol and the alcohol was worse.
(18:33):
Um and repurposing the legend. All these legends to conform
with Christianity, replacing the Guarny Holy Spirit with the Spanish St. Thomas.
This shifting of the story is sometimes referred to as
Jerba mission era. When the Jesuits accepted Yerba mate consumption
only continued to increase yeah hut trend, which only kept
(18:57):
going after Spanish royalty agreed to allow all the Jesuits
to grow and export the product, largely relying on the
indigenous population to harvest it. Mm hmm. Seeing the commercial
potential of Rva Monte, the Jesuits pushed for large scale
farming on plantations. To do that, they had to domesticate it,
(19:18):
which was easier said than done the Jesuits and some
other people who kind of kept the secret to themselves,
But the Jesuits figured that out that in order for
the seeds to germinate, they first had to pass through
the digestive tracks of birds or some similar environment like that.
This discovery made possible the domestication of the plant between
(19:41):
the sixteen fifties and the six seventies, and this led
to a marked increase and exportation of commercial markets, along
with the horrific treatment of the indigenous people, forcing them
to harvest the crops from start to finish, making them
destroy the farmers their forest as demand increased, and this
is one of the most brutal periods of forced labor
(20:03):
in history. Many people died under these harsh conditions. Further,
the Jesuits rebranded the product as Jesuit tea. Oh yeah,
from demon tea to Jesuit two. That's that's once that
money comes in. It was their most profitable business. They
(20:24):
used the crop as a currency in a way to
cover taxes and essentials. It became a staple drink throughout
sixteen fifty to seventeen sixty seven in South America. While
the product did not enter the European market at the time,
it was accepted among wealthy Europeans living on the continent.
(20:45):
In seventeen sixty seven, mate plantations were left untended after
Cholorus the Third banished the Jesuits and the locals returned
to the old ways of harvesting mate from the wild.
Free trade reforms like the the Bourbon Reform of seventeen
seventy eight and the nineteen eighty tax reforms much later
opened the world market of mate, particularly um in Europe.
(21:08):
At first, other countries joined in on your Vmonte production
and exportation Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay until the Paraguay in War,
the War of the Triple Alliance in eighteen sixty four
to eighteen seventy, and Uruguay stepping back a bit. The
scientific name for your Vermonte was determined by French naturalist
(21:29):
Augustine Saint Hilaire in eighteen nineteen. In Charles Darwin's eighteen
thirty nine The Voyage of the Beagle, he wrote, when
it was dark, we made a fire beneath a little
arbor of bamboos, fight our charqui, our dried slips of beef,
took our mate, and we're quite comfortable. Mm hmm. A
Spanish musician named Santiago Ramos wrote Toma matte che drank
(21:54):
mate Che in eighteen fifty seven, making it one of
the first tango like songs. Some of the lyrics went
a girl said, when she saw me, this porteno kills me.
Drink matte, drink mate here on the river plate. We
don't do chocolate. I love that we don't. Oh, that's
(22:14):
that's probably really cute in in the in the Spanish,
because it's probably the river platte. We don't do chucko lette.
Oh yeah, oh I love it. I do too. As
far as your vamte. In the Middle East, that history
goes back to the first Arab immigrants to South America
in eighteen sixty, which happened to be at the same
time the then Emperor of Brazil paid Lebanon a visit.
(22:38):
As a result, the rate of immigration between the Middle
East and South America went up. On top of that,
there was a wave of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants fleeing
persecution arriving to South America. There was another wave in
nineteen forty when those same groups were drafted to fight
for their colonizer of France in World War Two. Meanwhile,
(22:58):
consumption of your mate was still mostly local and not
bounced back to um Too Jesuit era levels quite yet.
Um Argentina's harvest in nineteen fourteen was just a thousand tons,
but it would jump in the coming decades. Yes, despite
some serious ups and downs, Argentina was the biggest producer
and exporter in nineteen nine. Around this time has also
(23:20):
when a lot of immigrants from economically struggling East Europe
arrived in the country. And through that the Eastern European
market for yerba mate open, particularly in Poland and Ukraine,
a legacy that remains to this day. Once profitable oil
was discovered in the Middle East in the nineteen seventies,
many of the Middle Eastern immigrants who had arrived to
South America made the journey back and they brought your
(23:44):
ramte with them. Syria was the top importer of Argentine
r ramte until the Syrian Civil War. Uh. Yeah, Argentina's
exports quadrupled from nineteen seventy six to ninety eight to
UM twelve thousand tons a year just exports alone, um
and uh that brings us more more or less to today.
(24:06):
Although I wanted to, I wanted to kind of end
on this quote from the l A Times um who
who in turn is quoting um A Matte scholar apparently
by the name of Frederico Alberte, who wrote in a
book about mate quote. Matte is a powerful bond without sinews.
(24:29):
It is a tender love without kisses or caresses, a
warmth without flames, a friendly offering. Matte always unites and
equalizes those who drink it, inculcating calm and Pacific inclinations.
Oh that's lovely, right about kisses or caresses bond without sinews.
(24:53):
I'm like, what, okay, sch nicee, I need to drink this,
I know. Wow. Yeah. Just a lot of the a
lot of the accounts, like personal accounts that I was reading,
we're just about family traditions of you know, if you're
sitting around with your family, you're just kind of like
constantly drinking this stuff, and that it's sort of a
sort of an underpinning for the rest of your social
(25:16):
activities and your day and it just kind of gives
you that pep and makes you feel nice and yeah
yeah yeah, um, definitely looking forward to experiencing that one day.
M I do feel like in the US there was
a pretty recent i don't know, discovery or all the
(25:39):
explosion of Yeah, like I was hearing about it all
the time. Yeah, like all of a sudden, all these
energy drinks are like now with your bat and I'm like, what, okay,
that's true, Um, okay, Yeah. I made the unfortunate mistake
when my my roommate, she's my college roommate that loved it.
(26:00):
She would just have like the leaves loose in a
bag I thought it was like a regane or something.
Oh friend, oh boy, he wasn't happy. I wasn't happy.
Did you make some like really bitter caffeinated like pasta
or something like chicken? I used it in like a
coding This is why I need you, Laura. This is
(26:21):
why I send you chext like what is this thing?
Because I've been burned before. Oh fair enough, I you know,
any time I can help you out, I sincerely appreciate it.
I have made many errors my day. We we all have.
We all have. It's okay, it's okay. That's the that's
(26:41):
the human condition. We we we we we learned, and
we continue. Yes, we must move forward. I can't let
my yerba mat day mistakes hold me back for the
rest of my life. Never never, never. Well, that's about
what we have to say about ramat H. We do
(27:02):
have a little bit more for you, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with listen. Listener. It's like fun caffeine times. Yeah,
(27:29):
caffeine party yeah, oh gosh, not like one of those
bad caffeine parties. Like one of those good cats, one
of those kind of like slow, relaxing, chill caffeine. Yeah, yeah,
we're it just it just really vibes with your A
d h D and makes you get more stuff done. Yeah,
that's that's what we want. That's my favorite. Kit wrote
(27:52):
about our Sarakraut episode. The Sarakraut festival made me both
laugh and grown as. I was born and raised in Cincinnati,
and a day trip to the sar Kraut Festival is
among my least favorite childhood memories. I was about six
at the time, and my older sister would have been thirteen.
How my mom managed to drag us and my dad
to the festival, given that we all decidedly loathe Sarakraut
(28:14):
with the burning passion of a thousand sons, I will
never know, but drag she did. It was October, but
I remember the day being fairly warmed. It was obvious
when we got close to the festival site, not from
the throngs of people, but from the smell. It was horrible.
Usually my parents didn't let us complain much, but since
my dad was complaining too, there wasn't much my mom
(28:37):
could do about my sisters. In my whining. Mom was
so happy going from booth to booth pasting items, though
she did tend to get miffed that she had no
one to share larger items with. My sister and I
just kept dreading the moment when our mom would finally
enforce the one rule she'd made and our dad was
helpless to save us from. We had to try one thing.
(28:58):
Don't get me wrong, we grew up eating plenty of
things we didn't like, but sauer kraut is something that
to this day you couldn't pay my sister my dad
army to eat. No ten dollar bill would come close
to persuading me to eat even a small bite. And
I'm thirty six and have a mortgage. Finally, that dreaded
moment came. Mom found a food she didn't think could
(29:20):
be that bad. Sauerkraut donut holes. Let me clear up
any misconceptions right now. They were worse than they sound.
Despite the oil and powdered sugar, the vinegar was still
incredibly identifiable and tasted particularly putrid when mixed with the
powdered sugar and frying oil. Not only that, but the
(29:43):
donut holes were essentially filled with sauerkraut rather than mixed with,
so just inside the thin crust was the extremely slimy,
shredded cabbage that had essentially managed to just hold onto
a whole bunch of that frying oil. Mom thought we
were exaggerating and made us eat the whole donut hole
and swallow it. There wasn't enough pop in the world
(30:05):
to wash those two bites from hill down with. Never
will I ever voluntarily eat sour cout and never will
I ever again go to the sour Cut Festival in Waynesville,
Ohio or anywhere else for that matter. Oh my gosh,
that's amazing. I mean, I'm sorry about this traumatic memory,
(30:25):
but I love it so strong. And you know, Sara
cout donut holes is a very bold choice, I have
to say, right, Like, I mean, I again, like I
feel like she meant well, like she was thinking, oh, man,
like sour kraut cake can be just okay, so probably
(30:45):
this will be similar And it wasn't. And she was
very wrong, and you were the one who suffered for it. Yeah,
I can see being a parent like, well, it's donuts
like donuts, I mean, and I have definitely had donuts
that have vinegar in them, but I've never had donuts
(31:06):
that had cabbage in them. Yeah, but me neither. I
had to think about it. I don't think I have. Gosh,
I've eaten a lot of food. It's possible. I I'm
pretty firm. I have had cabbage in jello, but I've
not had it in donuts. Fair enough, there you go.
(31:29):
I did have Sara kraut for the first time last night,
knowingly first time. Yeah, was it like with a dish
or did you just like buy a bag of Sara
kraut and then kind of dig in. I bought a
bag like right before all this started quarantine, and then
I was like, oh wow, that was perfect timing because
I'm just gonna if I ever run out of food,
(31:50):
I'll have the saraka and I ate it with um
beyond burger. Oh that's it. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah,
it kind of cuts the fat the salt. That's nice. Yeah,
come on, m m dug it. Uh. Also, I um
my my family. Half of my family is from Ohio
and they say pop and so I it makes me
(32:11):
really happy when people use that term for for soda.
Pop Anyway, um Rob wrote, I love the podcast. You
are recent cast about sauer kraut reminded me of a
time long ago when I was visiting with my grandmother.
She was of German descent, her parents having come here
at the end of the nineteenth century, and during this
(32:32):
visit she made a dish which I had never had
before or since. It was kilbassa with a side of
sauerkraut with caraway seeds. As a very young boy, I
was amazed at the confluence of flavors and aromas. I
don't know whether she made the crowd herself or just
to use some store bought version and added the caraway,
but it was magnificent. I had had suer kraut before
(32:52):
this and many times after, but this is one of
the rare times in my life that I remember eating
a specific thing. I want to thank you for taking
me down memory lane, both of the meal and my grandmother.
She was one of the sweetest people I ever met,
and I miss her dearly. Keep up the great work,
Stay well, and stay silly. It's my favorite part of
the podcast. Oh you don't want to worry about that.
(33:12):
Oh yeah, I don't think we could stop if we
tried to, But you're welcome. I think we're getting sillier
by the day. We are like, what's that show about
a food or just species and mimic like, well that's
hard to ye really only quarantine can tell us. And
but I do love this. I love the power of
(33:33):
food to have these memories and have these really specific
food moments which I've definitely strong scent and flavor memories,
right yeah. And I also thought it was great counterbalance
where you can see someone's strong dislove of something and
someone's strong love of something. Yes, thank you. Curation as
(33:56):
always good curation of of listener mail any thank you well.
The amazing listeners make it easy. Um no, that's true,
and we would love to hear from you. Thanks to
both of them for writing it. If you would like
to write to us, you can. Our email is hello
at savor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram
(34:17):
at savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
my heart Radio, you can visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you, as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagin and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren voc Obaum, and today
we're talking about your mate, yes, which is another listener suggestion,
So thanks Jonathan. Yeah. Um, so, I actually don't have
a lot of experience with your BA mate. My old
roommate loved it. She loved it. She was always trying
(00:29):
to convert me. Um. But I yeah, I think I've
only had it like a handful of times. Uh. Me
me as well. Um. And I'm I'm pretty caffeine sensitive,
so I'm really wary of um, of anything that lists
your BA mate as an ingredient, especially in like kind
(00:49):
of marketing me way, because I'm like, oh, man, I
do not know if you put in some kind of
extract that's going to make me real wild. I do
not need to vibrate through time and space most days.
So but um, it is one of the one of
the many health foods, health and scare quotes here that
(01:10):
I was introduced to at our Thomas Deluxe grill Um,
which is an Atlanta institution if you are unaware. This
is a four hour diner near downtown that has like
a lot of like like raw cultured veg and like
cash you cheese and kinwa and free range eggs and
all these menu items that explain why they're good for you.
(01:32):
But it's a twenty four hour diner and like also
has caged parrots lining the walkway into the patio. Um,
it's one of the very few places I've ever had
a complete and lovely breakfast. Um, still in my like
goth clubbing gear, alongside a bunch of ladies in like
(01:54):
lovely church hats. So that does pretty much capture our amas. Yeah, um,
but yeah, it's it's one of the foods that are
Thomas introduced me to, like full of like of like
probably like soy milk and apple juice and much much deluded. Um,
I've never had it just straight, So I don't think
(02:16):
I've ever had it properly straight. Now that we've done
this episode, oh me, neither. Yeah, And then I learned
how you're supposed to drink it. I don't think I've
ever done that. Um, I've done the like americanized tea
bag version. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go get some
because this it was strange. Like it's one of those
things where I'm like, I've never really had this food,
but now I'm experiencing a craving for it after reading
(02:38):
about it all day. Yeah, well I understand. But in
the meantime, that's get to our question. What is it? Well,
your mate is a plant out of which teas and
other infusions are made. Um, it's an evergreen tree. Your
(03:00):
shrub botanical name. Um, I think it's Illik paraguarensis. Yes,
I'm gonna go with ilk paraguarrians is Um. Yes, ilick
being the holly genus um and Yeah, this plant similarly
has these shiny green leaves and little red berries. Um.
The leaves are are broad and smooth edged, unlike the
(03:22):
prickly European holly that we're used to seeing in like
like Christmas decorations and stuff. Yeah. Uh. Your ramante is
uh subtropical native to South America, hence the species name,
and usually grows some well, it can grow some like
twenty to thirty ft sixty tall. It's more shrub shaped
than being tree shaped anyway. You you pick the leaves
(03:43):
um and and the stems. The leaves are called yerba,
which means herb um in Yerba, by the way, is
a super American pronunciation. Um. In Spanish it's closer to
like zerba, and in Portuguese it's closer to erva. So
I'm going to keep using the American pronunciation because it's
pretty ingrained at this juncture. Apologies to anyone who's like
(04:06):
just linguistically offended. Um, But so yeah, you take the
leaves and you dry them up, chop them or grind
him age them, and then from this product finally make
an infusion um first by soaking them in cold or
slightly warm water, and then by adding hot water, not boiling,
never boiling, never never. And and that drink that you
(04:27):
get is called matte. And yeah, yeah, that that drink
is a strong, bitter kind of herbal vegetal tea that
has a lot of tannin to it. And again I've
never had it straight, so I can't speak really like
specifically and personally to the flavor, but this is what
I read. You can also serve it iced, and you
can brew matte with any number of other herbs or
(04:49):
add sweeteners or milk or juice or fruit. Um. Though
the straight up version either hotter iced, is probably the
most common around South America, you're are likely to find
it sweetened or flavored in the US and other places
where it's kind of spread out, or sometimes I read
in very fancy households they will have like one year
beset for swedened and one for unsweetened. Whoa all done
(05:15):
up in silver and like and like gold filigree and anyway. Um,
but yeah, as any said, it can even come in
like tea bags or in like instant powdered form. And
there is this whole kit and and etiquette to the
traditional preparation that this is a drink that's generally meant
to be shared around a circle of friends. And this
(05:37):
is a big social thing around Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and
surrounding areas. And again I have not experienced this, but
from what I understand that the host or the server
does all the preparation. Don't anyone else must with the preparation. UM.
The serving vessel um was originally hollowed and dried gorge
sort sort of smallish like apple sized and a little
bit oblong, although metal and wood and ceramic cups of
(06:01):
varying fanciness are available to um. This container is also
called a mate and so okay, so the so the
server carefully adds the year Bau soaks it and then
adds the hot water and UH and adds a specialized
straw called a bombia that has a sort of a
filter pod on the end that you put into the
cup that keeps the grinds of of of yurba out
(06:24):
of the straw as you sip UM. The bombia can
be made of metal or bamboo, and it looks a
little bit like like an in cup tea infuser, except
you know, the the yearbo will be on the outside
of it rather than the inside. Anyway, the server then
drinks the first cup UH and then refills the hot
water and passes it on to a guest And in
(06:45):
that way it's passed around to everyone with a fresh
infusion for every guest UM. And there are whole kinds
of specifics about how to add the yuruba and the water,
how to pass the cup around the group, all that
kind of stuff. I love this and it makes me anxious,
like like kind of anxiously, like in a nice way,
like I like, I really hope that sometime in the
(07:05):
future I get to like go muck this up and
some kind humans will forgive me and we'll all laugh
about it. Yeah, I really loved reading about this whole
social aspects of having I was totally unaware of that,
and very much I wanted to to take part in
one one day. Yeah, I am. I had heard a
(07:28):
little bit. I have a friend whose family is from
Argentina and so so I had heard a tiny bit
about it from him. But I was always just like,
that's a weird straw cool like I like, I never
got that deep into it, um uh. To be to
be fair, he he never like showed me the ceremony
or anything like that anyway anyway, um, and you can
it does not have to be an entire ceremonial thing.
(07:50):
You can just make a craft for yourself to go
um or you know, get one ice from a street vendor,
especially out in hot beachy areas, or do it however
you like. Yeah, options mm hmmm hmmmm. Well what about
the nutrition, Well, um uh, your bamat contains a lot
of compounds that do stuff in our bodies, um, including uh,
(08:14):
caffeol compounds, um, xanthines, flavonoids, tannins, smattering of vitamins and minerals.
Of course, how much of any of that that you
actually get is going to depend on how you brew it. Um.
But in terms of caffeine alone, like a single serving
has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup
of black tea. Yeah, it's a relatively small serving, though
(08:38):
you get a you can if you're drinking a whole
lot of it, you can you can really amp up. Um. And,
as I implied at the top, your mate is considered
a healthy drink by a lot of folks. Um. It's
been considered medicinal or at least like constitutional for pretty
much ever um. And there are a lot of studies
(08:59):
in the way that all of those compounds in yerba
mate affect human bodies. Um. And it's been found to
have effects from antioxidant to anti obesity, to anti diabetic,
to pro cardiovascular, to anti cancer to anti microbial. But
as with any food, our bodies are complicated. More research
needs to be done. Um. You know, like, if you
(09:21):
like it, drink it, um, but consulted doctor before adding
a medicinal dose of any food to your diet, especially
where extracts are concerned. Yeah, always, always, mm hmmm. But
we have some numbers for you. We do. Millions of
South Americans drink over a leader of yerba mate a day.
(09:42):
Argentina is the largest producer and an estimated annual two
d and fifty thousand tons of yerba mate is consumed
every year in Argentina and in it was named a
national infusion there. Yeah. Um it is more popular there
um and in Paraguay and Uruguay than to your coffee.
(10:03):
As of fifteen, South America was consuming about seven percent
of the global production of your bamt some uh some
three D twenty eight thousand metric tons per year, and
Argentina is the biggest exporter to sending out some thirty
thousand metric tons per year. And it's a growing market
around the world as a as more major producers export
(10:25):
it and as more people learn about it. A recent
report from a tech Navo as of a I don't
know as of April of twenty UM, they estimated that
the market growth will accelerate in the next few years,
growing by almost two dred and twenty five million dollars
between now and UM. And a report from April of
(10:46):
nineteen from three sixty research reports estimated that the total
value of the market will reach about UM one point
eight billion dollars by wow. Yeah, lots of yikes. Um
yerba mate is also really popular in the Middle East,
(11:06):
particularly in Syria and Lebanon, and we'll have more on
that in our history section. And speaking of that history section,
we're going to get into that, but first we're going
to take a quick break for a word from our
sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you.
(11:32):
So before we get into this one, I just want
to say there's kind of a weirdness in the research. Also,
it gets a little grim, so just heads up on that. Yeah, colonization,
it sucked. Yeah, not good. Normally, when I'm like looking
up the history of something, maybe I can't get a
specific date, but at least there's like kind of a
(11:52):
range like a time sure. Yeah, yeah, like like over
the period of like a couple of centuries or maybe
a millennia or something like that. Yeah, And I have
I have a whole method, because this might be news
to some listeners. I have a whole thing with numbers.
So I'll do I do like if I can find
in the first eight pages of Google Search, those are
(12:15):
all my tabs, and then I'll try eight more pages
after that with different search terms. Normally, within the first
eight pages, I'm going to find this information. I never
found this information at all, not so I can tell
you that your bat the plant originated in South American
rainforest when m hm, I feel like it's probably pretty old. Yes,
(12:42):
I I everything similarly that I read, uh not not
quite by the same process of information finding. But yeah,
it was just like, well, it was there before uh
any colonists got there, so no one knows. Yeah, I
don't know if it's a thing because sometimes when we
research and um uh something from not an English speaking
(13:05):
country that I feel like maybe that's the thing is
I'm not finding the results because they don't really exist
in English. That's yeah. Yeah. But anyway, almost everything I
found just started when people were drinking it, so alright,
disclaimer side, Going back at least to the sixteenth century,
(13:28):
the Guarani people of northern Argentina and the Two Pie
people of southern Brazil traditionally drank your Mate medicinally, believing
it granted vitality, longevity, and energy. They viewed the tree
itself as sacred, a gift from the gods, and used
the drink in rituals. Some people even chewed on the leaves.
(13:49):
That's a stimulant during long marches. Stimulation energy was a
big part of this whole Drinking it and chewing the leaves.
Um and matte was typically kept in clay pots and
hollow reads are bulbs were used as the bombay is.
The Guarany people had many many lessons about mate. One
(14:12):
tied mate preparation and drinking to the Moon goddess. The
story goes that the Moon desperately wanted to see all
of the beauties of the jungle, that the Sun would
tell her about things that she couldn't see when it
was dark. Oh yeah, So one day she visited Earth
in the form of a human woman and was almost
(14:33):
immediately attacked by a jaguar because you know, I don't know, yes,
But a Guarany warrior intervened and saved her. In gratitude,
she bestowed the Guarany people with urva mate. So that's one.
Then there's the legend of the Guarany, which also told
(14:53):
the tale of Yurva mate. In this story, that god
Paishu ma Um couldn't find the pronunciation for that, gave
it my best attempt. Introduced the Guarany to toasting and
drinking your ramante. After a shaman gave an aging guaranty
man the plants, along with the method of properly preparing it,
(15:13):
harvesting the leaves, drawing them over fire, grinding them up,
and combining with water in a nice gourd um. Once
the aging man drinks that, he is instantly revitalized and
gains all these new strengths. He then convinces his daughter
to accompany him on a quest to find their nomadic ancestors,
(15:34):
and then there's at least one more the Tupi brothers
legend um. Through a series of feuds and fights, the
Tuppi brothers parted ways, each going on to form their
own tribe, the Tuppie tribe and the Guarani tribe. The
two Pie tribe became nomadic and generally more intense. The
god fearing Guarany tribe, on the other hand, focused on
(15:56):
farming and craft person ship um. That same god I
mentioned earlier gifted them with the knowledge of plants and
herbs and the medicinal uses of those plants and herbs,
and they the Guarany people viewed this as a reward
for their values in their sort of god fearing community nature,
so lots of stories and legends the Guarany traded urba
(16:20):
mate for other goods from neighboring tribes, and the popularity
of the drink spread through South America fairly rapidly as
we moved into the seventeenth century. R Bramte was the
Guarany people's primary export commodity, suppressing other popular products like tobacco, sugar, cocoa,
and wine. Yeah While exploring South America in Italian voyagers,
(16:45):
Sebastian Cabot encountered the evergreen plant behind your bramat. As
the first Spanish missionaries and colonists began arriving, they were
disappointed that they couldn't find any valuable minerals. Many of
them aft, but some stayed and settled alongside the guaranty.
The colonist observed the Gorney people drinking yerba mate and
(17:07):
believed that this drink was behind their good health, which
was a belief that was also shared by the guaranty.
Eager for these health benefits, the colonists adopted the practice
of drinking the beverage and claimed that doing so raised
their spirits and improved their general health. The Jesuit missionaries
in South America, who began arriving in fifteen forty nine,
(17:28):
were suspicious of the drink and its popularity and the
ritualistic consumption and legends behind its origin. Yeah, they believe
the drink got in the way of their spreading Christianity,
so in sixteen sixteen they banned what they called the
demonic drink within Jesuit territories. They viewed it as a vice.
(17:49):
One Jesuit priest wrote, all Spaniards, men and women in
all Indians drink these dust and hot water, and when
they don't have with what to buy it, they give
away their underpants and their tankets. When they stopped drinking it,
they fade away and say they cannot live. Huh. Yeah,
violators were excommunicated. Dominican priest took it even further, declaring
(18:12):
the drink was an aphrodisiac, which was bad. Oh no, exactly.
Despite that, people didn't stop consuming it, and this whole
thing backfired when it came to converting folks to Christianity.
This led to the Jesuits getting rid of the band.
They also came around to the idea that it was
a good substitute for alcohol and the alcohol was worse.
(18:33):
Um and repurposing the legend. All these legends to conform
with Christianity, replacing the Guarny Holy Spirit with the Spanish St. Thomas.
This shifting of the story is sometimes referred to as
Jerba mission era. When the Jesuits accepted Yerba mate consumption
only continued to increase yeah hut trend, which only kept
(18:57):
going after Spanish royalty agreed to allow all the Jesuits
to grow and export the product, largely relying on the
indigenous population to harvest it. Mm hmm. Seeing the commercial
potential of Rva Monte, the Jesuits pushed for large scale
farming on plantations. To do that, they had to domesticate it,
(19:18):
which was easier said than done the Jesuits and some
other people who kind of kept the secret to themselves,
But the Jesuits figured that out that in order for
the seeds to germinate, they first had to pass through
the digestive tracks of birds or some similar environment like that.
This discovery made possible the domestication of the plant between
(19:41):
the sixteen fifties and the six seventies, and this led
to a marked increase and exportation of commercial markets, along
with the horrific treatment of the indigenous people, forcing them
to harvest the crops from start to finish, making them
destroy the farmers their forest as demand increased, and this
is one of the most brutal periods of forced labor
(20:03):
in history. Many people died under these harsh conditions. Further,
the Jesuits rebranded the product as Jesuit tea. Oh yeah,
from demon tea to Jesuit two. That's that's once that
money comes in. It was their most profitable business. They
(20:24):
used the crop as a currency in a way to
cover taxes and essentials. It became a staple drink throughout
sixteen fifty to seventeen sixty seven in South America. While
the product did not enter the European market at the time,
it was accepted among wealthy Europeans living on the continent.
(20:45):
In seventeen sixty seven, mate plantations were left untended after
Cholorus the Third banished the Jesuits and the locals returned
to the old ways of harvesting mate from the wild.
Free trade reforms like the the Bourbon Reform of seventeen
seventy eight and the nineteen eighty tax reforms much later
opened the world market of mate, particularly um in Europe.
(21:08):
At first, other countries joined in on your Vmonte production
and exportation Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay until the Paraguay in War,
the War of the Triple Alliance in eighteen sixty four
to eighteen seventy, and Uruguay stepping back a bit. The
scientific name for your Vermonte was determined by French naturalist
(21:29):
Augustine Saint Hilaire in eighteen nineteen. In Charles Darwin's eighteen
thirty nine The Voyage of the Beagle, he wrote, when
it was dark, we made a fire beneath a little
arbor of bamboos, fight our charqui, our dried slips of beef,
took our mate, and we're quite comfortable. Mm hmm. A
Spanish musician named Santiago Ramos wrote Toma matte che drank
(21:54):
mate Che in eighteen fifty seven, making it one of
the first tango like songs. Some of the lyrics went
a girl said, when she saw me, this porteno kills me.
Drink matte, drink mate here on the river plate. We
don't do chocolate. I love that we don't. Oh, that's
(22:14):
that's probably really cute in in the in the Spanish,
because it's probably the river platte. We don't do chucko lette.
Oh yeah, oh I love it. I do too. As
far as your vamte. In the Middle East, that history
goes back to the first Arab immigrants to South America
in eighteen sixty, which happened to be at the same
time the then Emperor of Brazil paid Lebanon a visit.
(22:38):
As a result, the rate of immigration between the Middle
East and South America went up. On top of that,
there was a wave of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants fleeing
persecution arriving to South America. There was another wave in
nineteen forty when those same groups were drafted to fight
for their colonizer of France in World War Two. Meanwhile,
(22:58):
consumption of your mate was still mostly local and not
bounced back to um Too Jesuit era levels quite yet.
Um Argentina's harvest in nineteen fourteen was just a thousand tons,
but it would jump in the coming decades. Yes, despite
some serious ups and downs, Argentina was the biggest producer
and exporter in nineteen nine. Around this time has also
(23:20):
when a lot of immigrants from economically struggling East Europe
arrived in the country. And through that the Eastern European
market for yerba mate open, particularly in Poland and Ukraine,
a legacy that remains to this day. Once profitable oil
was discovered in the Middle East in the nineteen seventies,
many of the Middle Eastern immigrants who had arrived to
South America made the journey back and they brought your
(23:44):
ramte with them. Syria was the top importer of Argentine
r ramte until the Syrian Civil War. Uh. Yeah, Argentina's
exports quadrupled from nineteen seventy six to ninety eight to
UM twelve thousand tons a year just exports alone, um
and uh that brings us more more or less to today.
(24:06):
Although I wanted to, I wanted to kind of end
on this quote from the l A Times um who
who in turn is quoting um A Matte scholar apparently
by the name of Frederico Alberte, who wrote in a
book about mate quote. Matte is a powerful bond without sinews.
(24:29):
It is a tender love without kisses or caresses, a
warmth without flames, a friendly offering. Matte always unites and
equalizes those who drink it, inculcating calm and Pacific inclinations.
Oh that's lovely, right about kisses or caresses bond without sinews.
(24:53):
I'm like, what, okay, sch nicee, I need to drink this,
I know. Wow. Yeah. Just a lot of the a
lot of the accounts, like personal accounts that I was reading,
we're just about family traditions of you know, if you're
sitting around with your family, you're just kind of like
constantly drinking this stuff, and that it's sort of a
sort of an underpinning for the rest of your social
(25:16):
activities and your day and it just kind of gives
you that pep and makes you feel nice and yeah
yeah yeah, um, definitely looking forward to experiencing that one day.
M I do feel like in the US there was
a pretty recent i don't know, discovery or all the
(25:39):
explosion of Yeah, like I was hearing about it all
the time. Yeah, like all of a sudden, all these
energy drinks are like now with your bat and I'm like, what, okay,
that's true, Um, okay, Yeah. I made the unfortunate mistake
when my my roommate, she's my college roommate that loved it.
(26:00):
She would just have like the leaves loose in a
bag I thought it was like a regane or something.
Oh friend, oh boy, he wasn't happy. I wasn't happy.
Did you make some like really bitter caffeinated like pasta
or something like chicken? I used it in like a
coding This is why I need you, Laura. This is
(26:21):
why I send you chext like what is this thing?
Because I've been burned before. Oh fair enough, I you know,
any time I can help you out, I sincerely appreciate it.
I have made many errors my day. We we all have.
We all have. It's okay, it's okay. That's the that's
(26:41):
the human condition. We we we we we learned, and
we continue. Yes, we must move forward. I can't let
my yerba mat day mistakes hold me back for the
rest of my life. Never never, never. Well, that's about
what we have to say about ramat H. We do
(27:02):
have a little bit more for you, but first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, And
we're back with listen. Listener. It's like fun caffeine times. Yeah,
(27:29):
caffeine party yeah, oh gosh, not like one of those
bad caffeine parties. Like one of those good cats, one
of those kind of like slow, relaxing, chill caffeine. Yeah, yeah,
we're it just it just really vibes with your A
d h D and makes you get more stuff done. Yeah,
that's that's what we want. That's my favorite. Kit wrote
(27:52):
about our Sarakraut episode. The Sarakraut festival made me both
laugh and grown as. I was born and raised in Cincinnati,
and a day trip to the sar Kraut Festival is
among my least favorite childhood memories. I was about six
at the time, and my older sister would have been thirteen.
How my mom managed to drag us and my dad
to the festival, given that we all decidedly loathe Sarakraut
(28:14):
with the burning passion of a thousand sons, I will
never know, but drag she did. It was October, but
I remember the day being fairly warmed. It was obvious
when we got close to the festival site, not from
the throngs of people, but from the smell. It was horrible.
Usually my parents didn't let us complain much, but since
my dad was complaining too, there wasn't much my mom
(28:37):
could do about my sisters. In my whining. Mom was
so happy going from booth to booth pasting items, though
she did tend to get miffed that she had no
one to share larger items with. My sister and I
just kept dreading the moment when our mom would finally
enforce the one rule she'd made and our dad was
helpless to save us from. We had to try one thing.
(28:58):
Don't get me wrong, we grew up eating plenty of
things we didn't like, but sauer kraut is something that
to this day you couldn't pay my sister my dad
army to eat. No ten dollar bill would come close
to persuading me to eat even a small bite. And
I'm thirty six and have a mortgage. Finally, that dreaded
moment came. Mom found a food she didn't think could
(29:20):
be that bad. Sauerkraut donut holes. Let me clear up
any misconceptions right now. They were worse than they sound.
Despite the oil and powdered sugar, the vinegar was still
incredibly identifiable and tasted particularly putrid when mixed with the
powdered sugar and frying oil. Not only that, but the
(29:43):
donut holes were essentially filled with sauerkraut rather than mixed with,
so just inside the thin crust was the extremely slimy,
shredded cabbage that had essentially managed to just hold onto
a whole bunch of that frying oil. Mom thought we
were exaggerating and made us eat the whole donut hole
and swallow it. There wasn't enough pop in the world
(30:05):
to wash those two bites from hill down with. Never
will I ever voluntarily eat sour cout and never will
I ever again go to the sour Cut Festival in Waynesville,
Ohio or anywhere else for that matter. Oh my gosh,
that's amazing. I mean, I'm sorry about this traumatic memory,
(30:25):
but I love it so strong. And you know, Sara
cout donut holes is a very bold choice, I have
to say, right, Like, I mean, I again, like I
feel like she meant well, like she was thinking, oh, man,
like sour kraut cake can be just okay, so probably
(30:45):
this will be similar And it wasn't. And she was
very wrong, and you were the one who suffered for it. Yeah,
I can see being a parent like, well, it's donuts
like donuts, I mean, and I have definitely had donuts
that have vinegar in them, but I've never had donuts
(31:06):
that had cabbage in them. Yeah, but me neither. I
had to think about it. I don't think I have. Gosh,
I've eaten a lot of food. It's possible. I I'm
pretty firm. I have had cabbage in jello, but I've
not had it in donuts. Fair enough, there you go.
(31:29):
I did have Sara kraut for the first time last night,
knowingly first time. Yeah, was it like with a dish
or did you just like buy a bag of Sara
kraut and then kind of dig in. I bought a
bag like right before all this started quarantine, and then
I was like, oh wow, that was perfect timing because
I'm just gonna if I ever run out of food,
(31:50):
I'll have the saraka and I ate it with um
beyond burger. Oh that's it. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah,
it kind of cuts the fat the salt. That's nice. Yeah,
come on, m m dug it. Uh. Also, I um
my my family. Half of my family is from Ohio
and they say pop and so I it makes me
(32:11):
really happy when people use that term for for soda.
Pop Anyway, um Rob wrote, I love the podcast. You
are recent cast about sauer kraut reminded me of a
time long ago when I was visiting with my grandmother.
She was of German descent, her parents having come here
at the end of the nineteenth century, and during this
(32:32):
visit she made a dish which I had never had
before or since. It was kilbassa with a side of
sauerkraut with caraway seeds. As a very young boy, I
was amazed at the confluence of flavors and aromas. I
don't know whether she made the crowd herself or just
to use some store bought version and added the caraway,
but it was magnificent. I had had suer kraut before
(32:52):
this and many times after, but this is one of
the rare times in my life that I remember eating
a specific thing. I want to thank you for taking
me down memory lane, both of the meal and my grandmother.
She was one of the sweetest people I ever met,
and I miss her dearly. Keep up the great work,
Stay well, and stay silly. It's my favorite part of
the podcast. Oh you don't want to worry about that.
(33:12):
Oh yeah, I don't think we could stop if we
tried to, But you're welcome. I think we're getting sillier
by the day. We are like, what's that show about
a food or just species and mimic like, well that's
hard to ye really only quarantine can tell us. And
but I do love this. I love the power of
(33:33):
food to have these memories and have these really specific
food moments which I've definitely strong scent and flavor memories,
right yeah. And I also thought it was great counterbalance
where you can see someone's strong dislove of something and
someone's strong love of something. Yes, thank you. Curation as
(33:56):
always good curation of of listener mail any thank you well.
The amazing listeners make it easy. Um no, that's true,
and we would love to hear from you. Thanks to
both of them for writing it. If you would like
to write to us, you can. Our email is hello
at savor pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram
(34:17):
at savor pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
my heart Radio, you can visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you, as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagin and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope
that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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