Behind the Scenes Minis: French Fear and Frozen Food

Tracy discusses the challenge of parsing all the nuance of the French Revolution. Holly talks about how little Clarence Birdseye shared of his interior thoughts.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. This week we talked about the
Great Fear of seventeen eighty nine. Yeah. So when I

(00:23):
saw this paper when I was working on stuff for OnEarth,
I was like, Oh, I don't think we've ever talked
about this particular thing. It sounds really interesting and I
think it would be good to talk about it. And
so instead of putting this paper in Unearthed, I will
do a whole episode about it. And then when I started,
like when I went to actually put it on the calendar,

(00:43):
I kind of went, Tracy, you know, this means you're
going to need to talk about the beginnings of the
French Revolution, which always turns out to be harder than
I think it's gonna be. It's complex. It's one of
the most complex parts of history for us. Yeah, it's
really and it's deceptively simple sounding if what you are

(01:07):
thinking about is the things that come up as highlights
a lot of the time, like the tennis court oath
and the you know, eventual overthrowing of the monarchy and
eventually their executions. Like that kinds of stuff is sort
of easy to visualize. But like, in addition to all
the stuff involving the common people, the nobility and the

(01:27):
clergy also had their own issues going on. We didn't
touch on any of that really at all. Yeah, and
that would have been a whole other episode than the
Great Fear episode. Every time I write something where I'm
going to have to detail the beginnings of the French Revolution,
I'm like this every time. It's difficult. Yeah, yeah, I've

(01:51):
done it enough times one would think it might get easier. No, No,
every time it could be a completely different episode depending
on which parts of it were focusing on. This is
one of those pieces of history that makes me think
of men in Black. Oh yeah, yeah, because there's that
great quote that Tommy Lee Jones gives at the end
of it. A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky,
dangerous animals, and you know it. Yeah, It's like, I

(02:15):
understand how these people would have gotten panicked and freaked
out to the point that they would see a cloud
of dust from a herd of animals and be like, oh, moldieu,
we're being attacked. Like I understand because you're just trying
to protect what you have, and if you have very little,
it becomes very very important to protect it. Yeah, I
get how that panic happens. Yeah. I had a quote

(02:38):
by a historian called Henry Bertram Hill. This is from
a paper that I think was published back in the
nineteen fifties or sixties, and he described this the Great
Fear as a phenomenon as quote, a spontaneous and organized
movement fanned by rumor, hunger, uncertainty, and what was at

(02:59):
least can see as oppression. And I was like, yeah,
that does sum it up sort of the atmosphere that
was leading to all of this. One of the things
that was challenging about this is the writing that's specifically
focused on it. It's kind of limited in how much
of it there is. I did get the English language

(03:21):
translation of George Lefebre's book on the Great Fear that
was translated into English in nineteen seventy three. I know
of one other book length treatment just of this which
I did not get. It was focused mostly on I
think a specific region of France. But a lot of
the other stuff that I read, whether it was journal

(03:42):
articles or I mean journal articles specifically for a lot
of it. A lot of it is just like really
detailed and in the weeds and is looking at like
like the reports of peasant uprising in like one specific
region and looking at them in hyper hyper scrutiny based

(04:07):
on the information that we have available today. And I
was like, that's this is not really helping me talk
about this like as a phenomenon in a way that's
going to be understandable to our predominantly English speaking audience,
who the incredibly large majority of does not live in France,
and I would say has never been to France and

(04:30):
has no frame of reference for all of these different
villages and towns that are being named. Like this is
like a lot of detail about a tiny little piece
of it that is not translating into what I can
make into an episode, which made it kind of difficult
to work on. And then also the parallels to things

(04:53):
that we still experienced today made it frustrating to work on. Yeah,
some of this really reminded me of how a random
person can say something on social media, totally random person.
Probably it could be a bot, but like, let's just

(05:13):
assume that it is an actual person. Random person with
sixty seven followers says a wild thing on social media,
and then it gets picked up as an example of
something in the traditional media, and now the talking point
has become that this weird, fringe thing that a person

(05:34):
said on X or something is like a widely held view,
and then that gets reinforced as the view that really
is the predominant thing based on something a random person
said that got picked up in a news article. Yeah,
and it self replicates because then people will read it
and be like, yeah, that sounds reasonable, I agree with that,

(05:55):
and then it becomes a thing that more than more
people believe. Yeah. And that is how I felt about
a lot of the way that the Great Fear was
spreading around a panicked person saying the brigands are coming,
and then somebody writing to their delegate at the National
Constituent Assembly saying we need help, and then that letter

(06:16):
getting read in front of the National Constituent Assembly, and
now this is a serious issue. It has been read
before the National Constituent Assembly. Yea. And living with that
kind of rapid information misinformation spreading really is exhausting, Frankly.
In addition to the random social media comments becoming supposedly

(06:39):
a representative view of what large numbers of people think.
We're now seeing this with AI videos. Oh man, the
recent launch of tools for making AI videos has just
led to so many videos that, if you are not
paying attention, might seem like a real thing, but if

(07:00):
you look closely as obviously not a real thing. But
they are being circulated incredibly widely before somebody is able
to like film a response video going that horse's leg
clips through the car right right or whatever. And all
of this is like at us point when we are

(07:22):
all as a as a mass, highly susceptible to it
because everyone is on edge already. Yeah, yeah, which makes
it worse and worse. And I'm not to start my
own conspiracy theory, but I believe there are people that
are trading on that knowledge that people are on edge
and scared, and it is easy to get their attention

(07:43):
and get them to buy into something that either confirms
that their fear is legitimate or yeah, you know anyway. Yeah,
one of the things that I kept thinking about as
I was writing this wasn't actually one of the things
from the very immediate past or like what's going on
right in this moment, but it was from a few
years ago when suddenly on social media a lot of

(08:06):
people were complaining about how many people in their neighborhoods
were setting off fireworks. Uh huh, and a lot of
people seem to genuinely believe that the CIA was distributing
fireworks to people in order to disrupt everybody's sleep and
keep them on edge. Oh I missed this one entirely. Yeah,
I feel like this was This might have been in

(08:27):
the stay at Home Order era of COVID if I'm
remembering correctly. I mean, my memory is a sieve at
this point, so I could be conflating multiple different things.
But it was like or other people were then like
or or It's June and Independence Day is coming up,
and people are getting a jump on that because we're

(08:48):
all bored and tired of you know, so many people
being stuck in their houses and so many other people
still working every day because they're considered essential, and like
not having outlets for any of the stresses that are happening. Yeah. Yeah, Listen,
our neighborhood is always a high firework arena. So I'm like, right,

(09:10):
that's just Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I'm glad we
got to talk about this. I hope to not revisit
the beginning of the French Revolution for a while because
it makes him tired. It's a lot. I don't know
if we have ever done an episode that was specifically
focused on, like what the aristocracy's issues were, No, not

(09:34):
really going into the French Revolution, I don't like. I
think a lot of the episodes have been focused mostly
on the common people and the lack of bread and
the bread prices and all of that stuff. Yeah, we've
definitely touched on stuff that touches the aristocracy, but it's
in a secondary way, like great, Like I'll talk about
Leonard Berutier, Marie Antoinette's hairdresser all day long, but oh right,

(09:56):
and his how it affected him, but it's not really
talking about what was going on. Yeah, more broadly within
the aristocracy. Yeah, what were the grievances of the nobility? Yeah,

(10:17):
we talked about Clarence Bird's Eye this week. Yep. He
is fascinating to me. I feel like he and I
could not be buddies. No. I know that's a weird
metric to use when studying people in history, but you
kind of can't help it right to be like, yeah,
this is a person I would like to hang out with.
He was often very funny, and by all accounts people
loved him. He was very personable. But yeah, he just

(10:41):
he seemed like an odd, strange person. The animal thing
is the problem for me, but I do feel some
kinships with him. One of the cute things that came
up in that ker Lanscape biography is that when he
was in high school, I think it was he got
the nickname bugs because he likes to look at bugs. Okay,

(11:02):
I don't know why. I find that very funny. Hey, bugs,
and it's not bugs, bunny, it's literally insects. That's great.
We mentioned in the episode that he was not a
particularly big sharer of emotions. There are not really any

(11:23):
indicators about his feelings on politics. He was not it
doesn't sound like religious, but he was often worked, like
with missionary groups and stuff like. He had no problem
with that. So he clearly didn't have any big feelings
in terms of anything being okay or not. He was

(11:44):
not very emotive. Even in letters where he's writing to
his family about things like his relationship with Eleanor, he's
very low key about it, like they got married on
the quick. He didn't really tell a lot of people
ahead of time. It was just like, yesterday I was
a bachelor and today I am a husband, and this
is just what it is, so okay, let's keep going. Yeah,
and of course we talked about him, not really talking

(12:05):
a lot about his work on Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
other than being like, man, I got to hunt all
the time. Yeah. I his name had come up in
the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever research and I had sort
of put him on my tentative list because I was like, oh,
that's an interesting and unusual, unexpected connection to go from
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever to all of this frozen food stuff.

(12:26):
So then I was glad that you snagged it for yours. Yeah,
he's been on my list for a minute, and I
didn't even think about it possibly being on yours. So
I'm sorry I did not check in with you on
that one. Usually we do. It had only been on
mine for literal a minute, not a figurative. That being said,
he did say some very funny things once when he
was living in Labrador and he was encountering huskies the

(12:49):
dog for the first time. His description of them howling
was that it sounded like a large crowd on election night, okay,
which is kind of a great way to describe there woooing. Yeah, yeah,
you've ever been around huskies, that's no joke. They are
talkative and it's loud. He was so interested in so
many things, and that part of him I identify with

(13:11):
and like, like, while his home was being built in Gloucester,
when he had money to build a huge house, he
took up photography and he took photographs of a lot
of things, but he took like ongoing black and white
photos of the house as it was being built, so
he had this beautiful record of it going from the

(13:32):
ground to this immense mansion, which just kind of cool.
He also was very fascinated with this thing that he
witnessed when he was in Labrador, which was fish being
frozen alive and then defrosted and swimming again. Oh okay,
And I didn't put it in the episode because I
already was like, we're already in whaling and killing things

(13:54):
and I don't need to add more. But he did
a lot of experiments in this space, which I just
find weird, Right, I'm not comfortable with it. Yeah, people are,
I know sh what other kookie things when he and
Eleanor were in Labrador. This one's weird to me. She

(14:15):
hit at one point because we mentioned she'd like fell
right into that lifestyle, got really good at hunting. At
one point she had shot a moose that they dressed
and frozen. They ate off of it for a really
long time, and the last piece that was left, which
they apparently moved around with and kept it frozen, was

(14:36):
the moose neck, which birds I said he had not
wanted to eat because he did not like it when
he had had moose neck in Labrador when he was
living there. But as he was thinking about frosted foods
and frozen foods, he thought, I wonder what's up with
that moose neck, and he defrosted it and cooked it
and said it was delicious and very tender after four years. Okay,

(14:58):
to which I say, not one of this information discusses freezerberg.
But that's a difference, right right. I also love the
fact and identify with the fact that he, unlike many people,
loved change, which I do too, you know, whereas a
lot of people would be like, hey, our industry is fine,
we know how we're doing this and he's like, yeah,

(15:19):
but you could update your equipment and everything could be
easier and better. He had this quote that he apparently
said all the time, which is that there is always
a better way of doing almost everything, which I kind
of love, but also sometimes people don't want change, and
I don't know, right, I feel like he was a
little dogged in not ever giving up on ideas of
like changing things. But my other point of identification is

(15:42):
that when he and Eleanor lived in Peru, they had
zero boundaries about what animals they would take in his pets,
so no, no. They adopted two baby foxes, which kind
of harkened back to when they lived in Labrador. One
of them didn't live past its very early stage because
they had been found kind of abandoned as two kids,

(16:02):
but the other one lived with them a long time.
They had caught a penguin while out fishing, and he
took the penguin home and made it a pet. They
had a deer that lived in the house, which I
may or may not have experience with. They had a parrot,
like they just adopted a Kajulian animals and I'm like,
I get it, But then I mean, there's a weird
dichotomy in behavior because he loved nature but had no

(16:29):
It seems like he did not have the level of
emotional attachment that like I would have to it certainly right, yeah,
you know, like I can't imagine nursing baby foxes back
to health and loving them and then being like, you're
gonna make a great pelt, like I can't, oh, which
he would be fine with and which is, like, to

(16:50):
be clear, not an uncommon approach to animal care, you know.
Having talked to like members of my family that grew
up on farms in the you know, forties and fifties,
they similarly would be like, oh, we had to sit
with that cow overnight because it was so sick, And
I was like, oh, were you bonded forever? No, we

(17:10):
took it to market. Like I just can't. I can't
imagine it, just not to dog on anybody that lives
in a way in which you have to care for
animals and they are part of your livelihood and food.
I mean, I eat meat. I'm always working on it,
but I just can't imagine being like I love this
penguin in, this deer that we've adopted. Time to go
back to New York. Like, I don't know what happened

(17:31):
to those animals, right, I can't remember if I've told
this story before, But when I was a kid, my
brother was allergic to cow's milk, and so we were
getting our we were getting goat milk from a goat
farmer who was friends with my parents. And they had
the problem of like the first year that they had
the goats. I mean, they had goats that were they

(17:53):
were getting milk from, but they also had goats that
were being raised for slaughter, and when it was time
to do that, it was awful. And so after that experience,
they started naming them things that would like remind them
that this was what was going to happen, so that
they had names like Amos freezer meat. And another thing

(18:26):
is a lot of wild animals that are really cute
don't make good pets. Yeah, and like there is a
real problem with people getting wild like animals today that
and then being like, oh this is this is it
is not working to have a raccoon inside of my

(18:48):
house with me. Yeah. I mean there are people that
are like wildlife rehabbers who can handle it and understand
the job, but the average person is not prepared for it. Yeah,
and a lot of the rehabbers that are rehabbing these
animals are rehabbing them because they were inappropriately taken into
like a pet situation. Yeah. Yeah, so please don't do that. Listen,

(19:14):
it's tempting. Do I love my deck raccoons? Yes? Do
they get to come in the house? No? Do they
If they interact? If they are become too aware of us,
we stop feeding them because you don't want them to
become dependent. Right, I'm just happy to help a single
mom out now and again with a little little dish
of boiled eggs. It's hard. I understand the impulse. I
deeply understand the impulse to want to be snow white

(19:37):
and collect all the animals to you. Uh huh. I
can't imagine all of those animals did. Okay, yeah, yeah,
I think I might have said this previously on the show,
but I recently blocked an account on TikTok that had
these videos of someone feeding a bear on their deck.

(19:57):
It turned out that it was an AI video. Anything
you see that says Sora that has Sora branding, that
is AI. That's not a real thing. So this was
not a real person. Or a real bear. Still very
dangerous to feed bears and to promote the idea of
feeding bears. But I was like, yeah, I'm just I'm
not having this in my life block. No, No, bears

(20:21):
are legitimately dangerous. Yeah, and they don't understand that the
next door neighbor who was not feeding the bears is
a different person whose deck they should not go get
on expecting food. Yeah, anyway, I have feelings about these
things animals. I sure eat a lot of frozen foods.

(20:42):
I have feelings about that, do I also, yeah, I
was not kidding when I said just yesterday I bought
some frozen food I brought. I bought frozen bees and
frozen at amamise and little ice cream. Yeah, I too bought.
I think I bought some yummy keenwe kale mixes for
quick and easy lunches. Throw a piece of grilled chicken

(21:02):
in there. I'm fed and it's fairly healthy. Great, I
love it. I love a little frozen food. I feel
like somebody might be upset that I put an s
on at a mammy. I was being silly. I think
I also bought some partially probably subconsciously inspired by this
episode some beyond beef forma. Yeah, I am ever trying

(21:26):
to get off of the animal proteins thing I think
we've talked about on the show before. Every time I
go completely off of them, I get a weird rash.
And I have done all of the nutritionist advice of
supplemental things, like usually they're like, oh, that's a vitamin
E deficiency, you can get it through these sources, and
they never work quite the same way. Yeah, So I'm
always always on the hunt for whatever I can that

(21:48):
will yeah, substitute and leave me not rash. Yeah, our household,
at least for my part, Like, there is some meat
in our food rotation, but there's also a lot of
tofu and a lot of beans and a lot of lentils.
And I recently had a doctor's appointment where it was

(22:11):
recommended that I add some more fatty fish into my diet,
which I did, and that seems to have made like
a measurable difference in multiple aspects of my health. So
as much as I try, I've like been trying to
reduce the animal protein, Like I feel like the fatty
fish is helping me. Yeah, I mean that's the trick, right,

(22:35):
especially as we get older. There are some nutrients that, yeah,
are just really hard for your body to get, yeah,
or to produce. Yeah, you know through other means. It's tricky.
It's a very tricky dance. I feel like every time
we talk about eating meat, people get irritated and say,
how can you say you love animals and you eat meat,

(22:57):
And I well, to tell you, the struggle is real.
We are also eating plant foods that are being farmed
and cared for by people who are horribly exploited. Yeah. Yeah,
it's never as clean a decision as anybody would like
it to be. Yea, unless you are growing all of
your own stuff, and I guess keeping chickens for eggs. Yeah,

(23:22):
it's hard. It's very hard. I do try to grow
most of our all of our lettuce at this point,
and quite a few veggies. But you know, the food
pipeline in the US is very complicated, yeah, and is wild.
I am certainly grateful that Clarence Bart's Eye lobbied for

(23:43):
more stringent laws regarding frozen food for sure and food safety.
He was doing it in part for marketability, because prior
to that there was a lot of gross stuff getting
frozen and packaged for sale that when people thought it
out were like, what is this and he was trying
to rehab the image. But also that did benefit a

(24:03):
lot of people. So anyway, anyway, that's clearance bird's eye
as you know, foods and pets and the wailing problem.
We hope if this is your weekend coming up and
you have time off, that you spend it eating whatever

(24:25):
delights you the most and is nutritious for your body
and hopefully puts a smile on your face. If it's
not your weekend, I still hope you eat nutritious and
delicious things. I hope also that everybody is kind to
one another. We are in very stressful times and I
feel like everybody is on an anxiety hair trigger. So

(24:47):
anything we can do to help ourselves and others is
probably going to be a benefit. We will be right
back here tomorrow with a classic episode and then on
Monday with something brand new. Stuff you missed in History
Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

(25:07):
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