April 24, 2026 • 9 mins
What Did History . . Taste Like? Do You Ever Stop to Wonder Why We Eat Certain Foods? There Are Some Pretty Strange Bites Looking Back Over the Millennia. Not Just Unusual… Not Just Exotic… But Foods That Make You Stop, Tilt Your Head Like a Puppy, and Ask, Who on Earth Thought Eating That Was a Good Idea? It's All in the Marketing. We’re Talking Beaver Tails, Bird Tongues, and Whale Vomit . . to Name a Few.
Feel Free to DM Me if You Have a Story You’d Like Me to Cover . . on Facebook It’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay. One of the many things US history lovers are
fascinated by is how all those people, over all those hundreds,
thousands and millions of years, live their lives. Okay, take food.
Whose idea was it to eat an oyster or cheese
with live insect eggs, or more recently a peanut butter
(00:20):
stuffed baked onion. Yeah that's weird, but some of that
stuff we still eat today. I'm Patty Steele. Hey, can
I have seconds? On? That? Beavertail? That's next on the backstory?
The backstory is back in case you don't know it.
I love history. Sometimes as I read, I don't just
(00:43):
see it in my mind, I can almost taste it.
Thus this latest topic. Don't ask me why, but I
decided to start reading a book called The Big Oyster
by Michael Kurlansky. You know what, It's really fascinating. It's
all about the history of oyster eating in the region
around New York City, going back hundreds even thousands of years.
(01:04):
And it really got me to thinking about food, like
why do we eat what we eat? Who tried it first?
Why do some foreign cuisine seem so elegant in others
kind of hard to stomach. Think about it. Whose idea
was it to crack open a seashell and scoop out
a mucusy piece of slime and pop it in their
pie hole? I mean, really, a raw oyster at first
(01:27):
glance does not scream eat me, and yet we do
now we love them When it comes to oysters. New
York Harbor is what inspired folks to fall in love
with these things. Up until the early eighteen hundreds, the harbor,
where the Hudson River meets the ocean was basically a
pristine estuary filled with so many oyster reefs it was
(01:48):
actually hard to sail through it. It became an endless
food source for a while at least, and the arriving
Europeans did what the native tribes had been doing forever.
They ate them by the millions. Europeans actually planned trips
to New Amsterdam slash New York just to indulge in
the oysters. They ate so many that a good portion
(02:10):
of the landfill used to increase the size of Manhattan
was made out of discarded oyster shells. But eating what
seemed like odd food, at least as we see it now,
was actually inspired by one impulse hunger, and it became
a journey about survival, culture and desperation. Not to mention
(02:30):
pure curiosity. French cooking has been considered magnifique for centuries.
Their chefs used and still used what food was at hand.
Thus escargo, which are snails, another slimy animal, and they
delicately roast small birds called squab, otherwise known as pigeons.
No shortage of them in big cities. Guess what. When
(02:53):
France was under siege, they ate what they found all
over their cities, pigeons and snails. But they added a
lot of creativity and flare and marketing. This is something
that's been going on since human beings got hungry. You'll
look in the fridge when you haven't made it to
the grocery store and you think, whatever that is, I
(03:14):
could toss it into a salad or maybe a soup pot.
Several thousand years ago, the Romans were kind of overrun
with an animal called dormouse. It wasn't a cute little
garden mouse, but a big rat like rodent. They'd stuff
it with pork and a bunch of herbs, roast it
and chow down. Other Roman specialties included flamingo tongues and
(03:36):
the wombs of female pigs. Later on, in Turkey and
in much of Europe, folks loved embergris. It's basically edible
vomit from the sperm whale. They put it out into
the ocean. It floats and lets the sun sort of
bake it into a hard, waxy lump. It's not only
used in a lot of perfumes to make the scent
(03:57):
stay on your skin, but it's beloved in Turkish cooking,
and was used in small amounts on crackers by the
French and the Britz. It's still used in some Middle
Eastern cuisines, but it's pricey. The stuff currently sells for
as much as twenty thousand dollars a pound. There's a
creamy cheese still eaten in some places, Kasumarzu. It's a
(04:19):
Sardinian cheese that has live insect larvae in it. Yes,
live The larvae helps break down the fats, creating a soft,
very flavorful cheese, at least in some people's estimation. Another
yummy treat, how about fish bladder jam. For centuries it
was used in desserts, jams, and even in beer made
(04:39):
from fish swim bladders. It gave all that stuff a beautiful, clear,
glossy consistency. But those wacky medieval types had some other
odd dishes too. They served roasted peacock at big feasts.
They'd skin the bird but leave all those gorgeous feathers attached,
then roast it, then lay the skin in feathers over
(05:00):
the roast so it looked alive. Yuh. They'd even attach
a beak made out of gold. Also for royal types,
they created something they called a theatrical dish. Honestly, it
seems more like something from a horror movie. It was
called Colkin trees. The chef kills a small pig along
with a castrated rooster a a capon. They then cut
(05:22):
them in half sideways down the center and then before roasting,
so the back half of the pig to the front
half of the bird, and vice versa. Another dish you've
probably heard of but didn't know was real is the
four and twenty blackbird pie. Again, that was real. They'd
bake a pie crust, put the live birds inside through
(05:43):
a hole in the bottom, and somehow seal it so
the birds would fly out at the table. This one
was also more for the theatrics, and here's a snack.
Folks adored roasted beavertail. This delicacy was super popular not
just in North America during the eighteen hundreds, but also
going back in fifteenth century Europe and beyond. Why well,
(06:05):
in those days, the Church had enormous power over Europe's
god fearing population. On certain religious holidays, including Lent, Advent,
all Fridays, and Wednesdays, just to name a few, eating
animals was forbidden, but fish were aok so. Because beavers
lived mostly in the water rather than on land, people
(06:26):
classified them and got around the rule by munching on
beaver tails despite the fact that they are mammals. More recently,
during the Depression, when food was really scarce, a popular
dinner food was a baked onion stuffed with peanut butter. Okay,
you get your protein, you can get sort of your veggies.
Doesn't sound very good, but hey, don't knock it until
(06:48):
you've tried it and been hungry. Now here's the thing.
How much of what we consider normal food today would
seem bizarre to someone from another time, either in the
future or in the past. Let's go back to those
delicious piles of salty mucus oysters, once considered food for
the poor, now an expensive delicacy, or lobster, once fed
(07:10):
the prisoners just to get rid of them, now served
in fine dining restaurants. Food is never just about taste.
It's about context, culture, and mostly survival. And maybe that's
the thread that connects all of these foods. What seems strange,
even shocking to one person can be comfort, tradition, or
(07:31):
even luxury to somebody else, because food isn't just about
what's on the plate. It's about history, geography, culture, even entertainment.
It's about our instinct to adapt, to experiment, and sometimes
to push the envelope just to see what happens. So
the next time you're offered something that makes you hesitate,
(07:52):
something that feels a little too weird, remember this. At
some point somewhere, somebody looked at a fish bladder, or
a mucus shell or a tiny rodent and thought, maybe
I should take this for a spin. And you know what,
sometimes they were right. I hope you're finding the backstory
with Patty Steele delectable. Please leave a review and follow
(08:14):
or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically.
Also feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the
(08:36):
Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is
Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes
every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to
me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at
Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks
for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces
(08:58):
of history you didn't know it to know
Okay. One of the many things US history lovers are
fascinated by is how all those people, over all those hundreds,
thousands and millions of years, live their lives. Okay, take food.
Whose idea was it to eat an oyster or cheese
with live insect eggs, or more recently a peanut butter
(00:20):
stuffed baked onion. Yeah that's weird, but some of that
stuff we still eat today. I'm Patty Steele. Hey, can
I have seconds? On? That? Beavertail? That's next on the backstory?
The backstory is back in case you don't know it.
I love history. Sometimes as I read, I don't just
(00:43):
see it in my mind, I can almost taste it.
Thus this latest topic. Don't ask me why, but I
decided to start reading a book called The Big Oyster
by Michael Kurlansky. You know what, It's really fascinating. It's
all about the history of oyster eating in the region
around New York City, going back hundreds even thousands of years.
(01:04):
And it really got me to thinking about food, like
why do we eat what we eat? Who tried it first?
Why do some foreign cuisine seem so elegant in others
kind of hard to stomach. Think about it. Whose idea
was it to crack open a seashell and scoop out
a mucusy piece of slime and pop it in their
pie hole? I mean, really, a raw oyster at first
(01:27):
glance does not scream eat me, and yet we do
now we love them When it comes to oysters. New
York Harbor is what inspired folks to fall in love
with these things. Up until the early eighteen hundreds, the harbor,
where the Hudson River meets the ocean was basically a
pristine estuary filled with so many oyster reefs it was
(01:48):
actually hard to sail through it. It became an endless
food source for a while at least, and the arriving
Europeans did what the native tribes had been doing forever.
They ate them by the millions. Europeans actually planned trips
to New Amsterdam slash New York just to indulge in
the oysters. They ate so many that a good portion
(02:10):
of the landfill used to increase the size of Manhattan
was made out of discarded oyster shells. But eating what
seemed like odd food, at least as we see it now,
was actually inspired by one impulse hunger, and it became
a journey about survival, culture and desperation. Not to mention
(02:30):
pure curiosity. French cooking has been considered magnifique for centuries.
Their chefs used and still used what food was at hand.
Thus escargo, which are snails, another slimy animal, and they
delicately roast small birds called squab, otherwise known as pigeons.
No shortage of them in big cities. Guess what. When
(02:53):
France was under siege, they ate what they found all
over their cities, pigeons and snails. But they added a
lot of creativity and flare and marketing. This is something
that's been going on since human beings got hungry. You'll
look in the fridge when you haven't made it to
the grocery store and you think, whatever that is, I
(03:14):
could toss it into a salad or maybe a soup pot.
Several thousand years ago, the Romans were kind of overrun
with an animal called dormouse. It wasn't a cute little
garden mouse, but a big rat like rodent. They'd stuff
it with pork and a bunch of herbs, roast it
and chow down. Other Roman specialties included flamingo tongues and
(03:36):
the wombs of female pigs. Later on, in Turkey and
in much of Europe, folks loved embergris. It's basically edible
vomit from the sperm whale. They put it out into
the ocean. It floats and lets the sun sort of
bake it into a hard, waxy lump. It's not only
used in a lot of perfumes to make the scent
(03:57):
stay on your skin, but it's beloved in Turkish cooking,
and was used in small amounts on crackers by the
French and the Britz. It's still used in some Middle
Eastern cuisines, but it's pricey. The stuff currently sells for
as much as twenty thousand dollars a pound. There's a
creamy cheese still eaten in some places, Kasumarzu. It's a
(04:19):
Sardinian cheese that has live insect larvae in it. Yes,
live The larvae helps break down the fats, creating a soft,
very flavorful cheese, at least in some people's estimation. Another
yummy treat, how about fish bladder jam. For centuries it
was used in desserts, jams, and even in beer made
(04:39):
from fish swim bladders. It gave all that stuff a beautiful, clear,
glossy consistency. But those wacky medieval types had some other
odd dishes too. They served roasted peacock at big feasts.
They'd skin the bird but leave all those gorgeous feathers attached,
then roast it, then lay the skin in feathers over
(05:00):
the roast so it looked alive. Yuh. They'd even attach
a beak made out of gold. Also for royal types,
they created something they called a theatrical dish. Honestly, it
seems more like something from a horror movie. It was
called Colkin trees. The chef kills a small pig along
with a castrated rooster a a capon. They then cut
(05:22):
them in half sideways down the center and then before roasting,
so the back half of the pig to the front
half of the bird, and vice versa. Another dish you've
probably heard of but didn't know was real is the
four and twenty blackbird pie. Again, that was real. They'd
bake a pie crust, put the live birds inside through
(05:43):
a hole in the bottom, and somehow seal it so
the birds would fly out at the table. This one
was also more for the theatrics, and here's a snack.
Folks adored roasted beavertail. This delicacy was super popular not
just in North America during the eighteen hundreds, but also
going back in fifteenth century Europe and beyond. Why well,
(06:05):
in those days, the Church had enormous power over Europe's
god fearing population. On certain religious holidays, including Lent, Advent,
all Fridays, and Wednesdays, just to name a few, eating
animals was forbidden, but fish were aok so. Because beavers
lived mostly in the water rather than on land, people
(06:26):
classified them and got around the rule by munching on
beaver tails despite the fact that they are mammals. More recently,
during the Depression, when food was really scarce, a popular
dinner food was a baked onion stuffed with peanut butter. Okay,
you get your protein, you can get sort of your veggies.
Doesn't sound very good, but hey, don't knock it until
(06:48):
you've tried it and been hungry. Now here's the thing.
How much of what we consider normal food today would
seem bizarre to someone from another time, either in the
future or in the past. Let's go back to those
delicious piles of salty mucus oysters, once considered food for
the poor, now an expensive delicacy, or lobster, once fed
(07:10):
the prisoners just to get rid of them, now served
in fine dining restaurants. Food is never just about taste.
It's about context, culture, and mostly survival. And maybe that's
the thread that connects all of these foods. What seems strange,
even shocking to one person can be comfort, tradition, or
(07:31):
even luxury to somebody else, because food isn't just about
what's on the plate. It's about history, geography, culture, even entertainment.
It's about our instinct to adapt, to experiment, and sometimes
to push the envelope just to see what happens. So
the next time you're offered something that makes you hesitate,
(07:52):
something that feels a little too weird, remember this. At
some point somewhere, somebody looked at a fish bladder, or
a mucus shell or a tiny rodent and thought, maybe
I should take this for a spin. And you know what,
sometimes they were right. I hope you're finding the backstory
with Patty Steele delectable. Please leave a review and follow
(08:14):
or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically.
Also feel free to DM me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the
(08:36):
Elvis Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is
Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes
every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to
me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at
Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks
for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces
(08:58):
of history you didn't know it to know
Host
Patty Steele
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