September 19, 2025 • 53 mins
This week, we return to our series on national delicacies and discuss Rice-A-Roni, Pad Tai, and Oktoberfest beer.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to an hour of our time, the podcast where
we pick a topic, study it, and come back to
tell you what we've learned. We're back for another installment
of our National Delicacies episodes. In this episode, we're going
to pick some foods from here in the US and
a few other countries, and even come back with a
very timely beverage at the end. I'm Joe and I'm Dave.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
We're here to talk some National Delicacies, another one of
our anthology series that we've been doing for a while now,
in which we talk about delicacies sometimes from around the world.
I think last time we did it was all like Americana.
Today we're going to be doing kind of a mix.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, I missed the memo. And this stemmed from us,
to be honest, needing a topic that was a little
bit a little bit lighter on research, I think than like,
you know, like an obscure obscure European War of religion
or something like that. But also uh, and and this
was us needing a topic like this was precipitated by
(01:17):
the fact that I was in out of town until
like a couple of days ago for a work conference.
But the conference in San Francisco, and I did sample
uh the one of the the quintessential American delicacies. Then
I will talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So yeah, yeah you want to start with that, absolutely
hit me.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I'm going to talk about one of the finest American dishes.
You might even know it as the San Francisco treat.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Is this rice a Roni? Bro, Now you're gonna be
talking about jambalaya.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
No, No, I'm talking about Rice Ronni. Goddamn you you
were You are actually talking about racing. Okay, So okay,
I'm going to talk about it actual This is the
San Francisco and mention and I'm gonna but I believe
that I do think it is actually an interesting, like
a mishmash of like culture marketing things like that. I
am gonna in intimate talk about the uh mission burrito,
(02:22):
which is what I what I set out to talk about.
But yeah, we I was having a conversation with my
wife and I was like, when you think about like
foods from San Francisco, what do you think? I looked
at her, she looked at me and out I was like,
you give that jingle stuck in your head?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Do you show?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah? I will if you are old enough to remember this,
then it may be time for you to schedule your colnoscopy.
I don't actually know how long, like if these ads
are on the on TV or radio anymore, I sort
of doubt they are. They do still still sell this
product in stores anyway, It was.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, I feel like I have not seen these ads
since we were kids.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It's an effective jingle because it says the name of
the product, and that's like pretty simple. It just said rice,
oh roney, the San Francis go treat. And they had
a little street car ding ding ding and that.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Wasn't there also like a dude playing like a clarinet
or something.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I think you're thinking of Xanoran's, which is a different rule.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh my god, I am thinking of Zadaran's.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Boxed rice product.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
This is why I was thinking about Jumbalaya.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yes, so Jumbla is an actual Did I talk about
that in another episode? I like to make jumble a
Maybe I'll talk about that another time. But we're talking
about race Ronni. So what is rice Ronni? It is
a packaged rice and pasta product comes in a box
and you usually you the package directions. I think it
(03:48):
depends on like the variety. But normally in like that
I don't know the original version, you brown the rice
and pasta mix dry in butter, then you add water
in seasonings from a packet, and then you like simmer
it on the stove. I do remember eating this as
a kid, in enjoying it and what's not to like
(04:10):
about rice and pasta mixed together?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, I have lots of starch.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Man I actually make a a ramen fried rice that
fucking slaps. But I digress. So this is actually it
is like a history or a story of like you know,
marketing and things like that. But it's also one of
these fun food stories I like to talk about in
(04:35):
these episodes where it's kind of a mish mash of
different kinds of cultures coming to America. This company was
eventually bought by the Quacker Oats Company, which was then
later bought by Pepsi Co.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Pepsi Co owns so much stuff. We've talked about this,
and I think the Cola Wars episode.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yes, and this company is taking like a little bit
an interesting turn. But anyway, this actually goes all the
way back to eighteen ninety. Domenico di Domenico, which is
that he was an Italian born immigrant, moved to California
where he started like a produce shop. He married a woman,
(05:16):
Maria Freno from also from Italy, and her family in
Italy owned a pasta factory, so in nineteen twelve he
convinced her or she convinced him to start a similar business.
So they opened up a pasta factory in the Mission
District of San Francisco, which is a really interesting part
(05:38):
of town that has like a lot of different cultures
kind of like living very near one another. It was
called the Granando Products Incorporated, and they delivered pasta to
like Italian restaurants and stores. So eventually it was eventually
changed the name to the Golden Grain Macaroni Company, which
(06:00):
is it actually is still the Golden Grain Company today.
And then along with his Di Domenico's sons, his what
they you know, built a company his wife was inspired
by like a right, basically like a rice peeloff dish,
(06:24):
so like a combination of rice and pasta, and eventually
they invented in nineteen fifty eight rice Aroni by adding
a dry chicken soup mix to the rice pasta mix.
It actually went nationwide within three years and because and
(06:48):
I think partly its success was the like jingle that
they had, and then it seemed like exot quote unquote
exotic because they actually launched it in the northwestern, uh,
United States, but it spread all and I think it
kind of like I said, it seems like exotic to
people on like Ohio because it was from San Francisco,
right sure. He and then did a bunch of other
(07:13):
different products, like noodle Rony Parmesiano in nineteen sixty four,
which was like basically like bullshit fetishinie alfredo they had.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I feel like Fetccini Alfredo is one of those things
like a hot dog where it's like even a bad
hot dog is a good hot dog.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, even out of a box. We used to eat
a lot of these like packaged like boxed starches growing up.
I thin because they're like cheap and easy to make.
I don't tend to eat this kind of thing now,
but not because like I don't know how anything against them,
but like I don't know, just tend to not eat them.
It's easy to boil pasta, to be honest. But yeah,
(07:58):
but anyway, like I said, they have all kinds of
different other projects, like so many different other ones, like
even like chicken kariaki, fried rice, noo Roney, Pasta Roni.
In nineteen eighty six, Quaker Oats bought the Golden Grain
Company from the Di Domenico family, still still in the family,
and then in two thoy and one, Quicker Oats was
bought by PepsiCo, but the American Italian Pasta Company bought
(08:24):
the Golden Grain brand in two thousand and three, but
the Quaker Oats division of Pepsiico actually kept the Riis
Aronni trademark, so Riceronni is still available in stores, but
that pasta company is now I don't know, basically just
making pasta again. So that's kind of I think it's
(08:44):
really interesting. Also, there is an insect Riissa Ronny, which
is named after which is, like I said, an insect
named by this very eccentric entomologists named Neil Evenuus, who
(09:05):
works for the Bishop Museum in Hawaii. He's described over
eight hundred species of insects. It's nineteen seventy six, and
most of them are like weird ass names. Sure, when
you're naming that many insects, I guess like you got
to come up with weird names. But yeah, riiser RONI uh,
last thing about Rice Aroni. Around the like late nineties
(09:27):
early aughts, they actually dropped the San Francisco Treat tagline
and jingle really and it did not go well. So
after seven years they in two thousand and six they
(09:48):
brought it back.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh I wonder why they dropped it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I don't know, fucking like who knows, corporate hacks. I said,
that was the last thing. But so this was born
of like an Italian American family, but also the dish
was kind of inspired by a similar sort of Armenian dish.
So it is definitely like a like a missmash of
(10:17):
different cultures. I read like quite a long MPR article
about this, but I, like I said, I this wasn't
actually the thing that I wanted to cover. It was
mostly started off as a joke, but then I actually
found out to be really fascinating. I understand packaged products
are not exactly are not typically what we don't typically
(10:40):
fall under the purview of these episodes, but whatever, well.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You know, yeah, I don't think that they should be
excluded by any means. I mean, that would be like
saying you know, we haven't a chance to talk about this,
and maybe we're in a future episode. But spam. Maybe
we did talk about like the delicacy of spam in Hawaii.
That's canned me. Right, maybe we did talk about it, but.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
We talked about spam. But we should.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
But it's a good example, you know, something like that.
M hmm, all right, Joe, let me hit you with one.
One of my favorite dishes is pad Thai. I love
pad Thai. You know, how do you feel you made me?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You made me hungry when you were talking about pad thai,
and now I would like to seeks them out.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Absolutely, I have even pad thaipe for Well.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Do you know anything about the origins of pad Thai?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well, I know that it is Uh, it's as the
name suggests, it's Taiwanese. Correct, I'm not Taiwanese. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It's Thai.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, Thailand kind of. Well, but it's it's a it's
a product of French colonialism, right.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
No, oh, it's more or less a product of Chinese immigration.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Is I am thinking Thailand? The Bondmi? You're thinking me?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
The bond Me is my favorite sandwich that's Vietnamese liver.
Patae cilantro on French bread.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So all right, well, maybe a story for another one,
but tell me about tell me about pad Thai.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So there are different stories about the origins of pad Thai,
and that kind of is the case with a lot
of cuisines we talked about. So I tried to boil
it down and I found a really good article from
Smithsonian Magazine where they they interviewed a Thai chef and
she was talking about her upbringing and some things that
she learned, and then they talked to a historian from
(12:41):
I believe the University of Bangkok or a university in
Bangkok that was talking about this. And from what I
can kind of piece together based on the different things
that they were saying, other things I read is that
Chinese immigrants have been coming to Thailand for hundreds of years,
actually since the twelveth century, but the nineteenth and twentieth
(13:02):
century saw a great influx of Chinese immigrants and they
brought the idea of stir fried noodles. In fact, it's
to this influx. By the early nineteen hundreds, about one
seventh of Thailand's population was of Chinese descent. So when
(13:26):
I say an influx, I mean a major influx. So yeah,
they brought this this idea of cooking like stir frying
noodles in a walk. Then in the nineteen forties, due
to some of the things that were happening in the
(13:47):
world that was affecting economies and because of major flooding,
there was a massive rice shortage in Thailand, and so
the government mint essentially they wanted to promote the idea
of eating noodles because obviously, you know, there was a
(14:10):
right shortage, but they also wanted to promote nationalism, so
they sort of started to or at least this is
one story, their Prime minister kind of created this idea
of this national dish which is somewhat similar to what
we think of as pad Thai. Now. Although some people say, oh,
this is the origin of pad thaie, but apparently, although
(14:32):
that's when sturfrying noodles really became popular and became a
national identity for Thailand, it wasn't until the nineteen sixties
that the name pad Thai first appeared in a Thai cookbook.
And a lot of this was because after World War
Two there were more like American tourists coming to Thailand
and so they needed a way to like sell Thai
(14:56):
culture and thus the creation of formalization of something that
we now know as pad Thai. Okay, I think did
that makes sense that I explained that, well, because it's
it's a little convoluted.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Well, I think many of these food stories sometimes are
because it's you know, it's on How many times have
we found where it was like kind of unclear exactly, Yeah,
you know, who was the first to invent one of
these foods and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, the first Thai restaurant in the United States opened
in the sixties as well, in Denver, Colorado, surprisingly, and
then it became very popular cuisine in Los Angeles in
the seventies. But from one thing I read, it seems that,
like the the way that it was originally made is
(15:45):
you have stir frying. You're sturfrying thin flat rice noodles
in garlic. You use this Chinese sweet and salty radish
called chai pole. Okay, saying that right, dried shrimp toe
with a sauce made of fish sauce, tamar and paste
and palm sugar. What thing do you associate with pad
(16:07):
Thai that I did not say peanuts. Peanuts. Yeah, so
apparently it seems like peanuts became more popular as it
became more of like an Americanized dish. I read this
article where these people kind of travel around the eat
food from different countries, and they were talking about how
they were in Thailand they ate pad Thai, and what
(16:28):
struck them about it was that the peanuts were actually
served on the side. You could add them into your
own flavor. It wasn't a focus of the dish or
something that was mixed in. So I thought that was
kind of interesting as well. But yeah, that's, uh, that's
pad thaime. Man, if you're gonna put a protein in
pad thai, I know it's shrimp is normally in there.
What's your go to protein with pad Thaie?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Uh well, I mean I think the places that I've
gotten it's usually been shrimp or chicken. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, and I'm a shrimp guy when it comes to
pad thai.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah. I this is one of those dishes where, like,
I've tried to make it a couple of times, and
I the technique of stir frying the noodles without like
them all just like sticking together into a blob is
like take some some real skill. But I's something that
(17:19):
I ought to give another try soon because I actually
have like a real walk.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, and you actually gave me a walk at one point.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah yeah, and that's a perfectly fine walk. The one
I have is carbon steel. The thing that like Cleve
Stark fried foods is that the walk burners that they
have restaurants burn so much hotter than what you have
in your house. So it's sometimes it can can be
difficult to replicate some of stuff. You just have to
cook things in small batches. That's that's the trick, because
(17:53):
it doesn't like cool down the metal. Yeah, maybe I
might need to seek out some pat tie here soon.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I tell you where there's a really good pad tie.
There is a tie place in uptown Westerville. It's called
Ti Grill. It's on College Avenue. Their pad tie is awesome.
It's a little expensive, but it's it's very good worth it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well, all right, are you ready to hear about? So Denver, Denver, Colorado,
featured in your your last one. It's going to feature
in this story a little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
This is the Denver Colorado. This is not a food
that originated or is associated with Denver although it's will
come out later on the story Denver, Denver, Colorado is
partly the reason why you have eaten this before listeners,
almost certainly, even if you have never been to San Francisco,
where it originated. I'm talking about the mission burrito.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Okay, I don't don't know what a mission burrito is.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Have you ever been to a.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Uh yeah, not my favorite thing, but I have been
to one.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Any burrito restaurant I have.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I have been to a burrito restaurant.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yes, so you've eaten a mission burrito because it's spread
all over the country. In fact, like there are a
mission burrito restaurants in many other countries, especially in the UK.
It's starting to become quite popular there. Although imagine they
pronounce it brito.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, and all the beans are baked and everything tastes
like shit.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Oh man, we made fun of British cuisine last week two.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
We really have. We made fun of it quite a lot.
In fact, we talked, I think in our first episode
about national delicacies. We talked about yeah, they're national dish.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yep, chicken tika masala.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Chicken dika masala, which is just indicative of their colonialization.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So yeah, It's really funny because I'm actually like quite
quite an anglophile, so I hope everyone knows that this
is jest. Anyway, So the Mission Burrito, it's named after
the Mission District in San Francisco, and so, like, like
I said, if you've eaten in a Chipotle, which actually
(20:12):
the past few times have been in a Chipotle, that
it's been kind of disappointing experience. And the Mission Brito
that I just recently ate in Chicago made me remember
why Chipoli became so popular. I think now they've like
kind of given up on trying to like roll their burritos,
but like the one that I had in San Francisco
(20:32):
like reminded me of like when I first started going
to Chipotle and they like were like really expertly rolling
the burritos, because that's like really like a key to it.
But also the ingredients in this burrito I had in
San Francisco were like totally blew away any Chipotle that's
ever existed. So so, but it's a it's a steamed
(20:56):
or grilled large flower tortilla, so you have to heat
it up so that it like it's flexible for the
rolling part and then there's some kind of usually meat,
rice beans. Then you can usually get it for a
few dollars extra a super burrito which will usually have
(21:16):
salsa crema and avocado shit okay, And then you take
that and I don't know if you've ever like watched
how they roll them, but they take the burrito and
they fold the like the two ends like where your
mouth is gonna bite it, and they roll those in
(21:39):
and then tightly roll it and then wrap it into
aluminum foil. So all the ingredients kind of like meld
together and it holds together so you can eat it.
So it's it's kind of meant to be like handheld food,
and it does seem like one of the possible origin stories.
So this does originate in the Mission District around the
nineteen sixties. The Mission District is the most heavily Spanish
(22:06):
speaking portion of the city of San Francisco, and if
you're looking at like a map of San Francisco, it's
like kind of concentrated in like the south eastern part
of the city, okay, so, which is actually like where
my conference was. So it's the only reason that I
(22:29):
didn't eat just like fifteen burritos when I was there
is because I had to like be in this conference
building where they were a feeding us bad food. It
does seem like there has there is an origin in
farm workers in the Central Valley, though there's a quote
from from a story in San Francisco Weekly from nineteen
(22:52):
ninety three interviewing a former farm worker said, freezing cold
five am mornings the best time to pick lettuce. Owners
needed a very good cook to attract the best fast cruise.
We'd get webs rancheros at five, sweet strong hot coffee
with a shot of brandy at seven, then full spicy
killer burritos at around ten thirty, keep you going till afternoon.
(23:16):
I remember the texture of the shredded beef, the heat
of the green peppers, and the proper proportion of rice
and beans. They were so spicy you didn't need salsa,
but you needed that protein and fiber couldn't survive without it.
There is apparently some people that try to trace this
brito like back even further to like miners in like
(23:36):
the late eighteen hundreds, but the first printed references to
burritos are are not before the nineteen thirties. But it
does seem like one piece of evidence that the uh
(23:57):
mission burrito and it's like I don't know, and form
doesn't go back before the early sixties was because the
earliest restaurants serving it would take two six inch tortillas
and put them next to each other to like kind
of like slightly overlap them to roll them together. They
(24:18):
didn't actually have the larger burritos on hand at the time,
or the larger tortillas I should say, which kind of
like maybe indicates that that's not before that they were
like it was a new thing being invented at the time.
There are several places that claim that they're the first
takaria to sell this type of brito, like places like
(24:41):
Alfado and La Cumbre, but it's it's unclear. The owners
of La Cubre La Cumbre say that the it was
invented on September twenty ninth, nineteen sixty nine, so somewhere
around like the sixties is when it invented, Okay, but anyway, Yeah,
(25:02):
it's like a it's a it's a food that's like,
you know, easy to eat, but it is spread all
over the world because of Chipotle. Chipotle was started by
a guy who used to who was from San Francisco
used to eat Mission Burritos opened up the first chain
(25:25):
in Denver, and within like just a few months, they
were like building them as fast or they were like
opening them up as fast as they could build them,
like all around the country. I don't know if you
ever remember like when Chipotle first sort of like debuted
here in Ohio. I remember people couldn't pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I remember one. Yeah, I remember having one, having Chipotle
for the first time in Cincinnati and I'm gonna say
two thousand and five, mm hmm, yeah, And I remember
like specifically somebody being really excited taking me there at
me being like, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Oh man, see, I actually I still eat a Chipola burrino.
There's far better places even even in like this town
that you can get burritos. But I still like, especially
like when it first opened up, I thought, mm hmm,
you know, they were pretty good. But yeah, I remember
people where I grew up or went to high school,
they could not pronounce chipolte is what they how they
(26:27):
said it, which I found like to be deeply upsetting
because it occurred to me that it's because they had
never actually eaten a Chipotle pepper and I think I've
told this story several times, but but I was actually
born in New Mexico and I grew up eating like
text mex food. But it's interesting though, I never ate
(26:48):
a burrito like this growing up, and actually until like
around the time that Chipotle came to you know, the
white the wider world, I only ever ate like the
earlier form of brito, which is just basically like you know,
tortilla with like meat, beans and cheese, like wrapped up.
(27:10):
Later in the eighties, the Mission Burrito sort of may
have had something to do with spawning the often confused
for it burrito, the California burrito, which is from San Diego,
and it has always has steak or carne sada and
French fries.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Have you ever had a California Brianda Dave.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I can't. No.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I mean I've had I've had burgers with French fries
on them, but not a burrito.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I can't fucking get a good California brito in this
town and it's very very frustrating. Well it's not California, bro,
I know, I gotta take matters of my own hands. Okay,
So when you had it, and when you had it
in San Francisco, where did you have fries on it? No? No,
Mission burritos do not have fries on them.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay, sorry, that was so the California burrito is a
Mission burrito with fries.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It's a variation I think I would get might get
like I might get pilloried for like putting it that way,
but they definitely like have something to do with one another.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Sure, okay, I got you.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Uh yeah, the I think that the californ and Britos
like typically don't have rice, so the French fries and
it's more of like a junk food thing. Yeah, so
I should say the Mission brito that I had in
San Francisco had barbericola is usually what it's called, although
barbaricola is technically in Mexico that's smoked in banana leaves.
(28:46):
This is was what we usually get referred to as barberica.
It's actually also usually I think, like goat, this is
usually stewed. Although the stuff that I had was cooked
in banana, stewed in banana leaves and it was fucking delicious.
M So, if you're having to find yourself in San
(29:11):
Francisco going down to the Mission District and stop at
one of the like thousand tact areas there and have
a mission burrito.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Damn No, Well, now I want to try one of those.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You should? You can easily find one of those around here,
not at a chipoli and a like a taco truck
or a local place.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, do you have a recommendation, like you're your favorite
around here?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
There's so many taco trucks in this town.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, I do, Like I think those Harmanos is
good as far as taco trucks go.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Uh yeah, they're pretty good. Uh. I should I actually
should see if they haven't this style of burrito at
the place that we go to by my house. But
I usually only always order the same thing on the men,
which is coach, you need a pibil, which maybe I'll
talk about some other time.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Gotcha?
Speaker 1 (30:05):
All right, let's do let's maybe do a couple more
like a little a little more rampifier here.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, how about And I apologize, I don't know that
I'm saying this right, but Pepian this is a Guatemalan dish, okay,
p e p i a N with an accent over
the A pepian, Oh, pepon pepion.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So usually so, so where the where the accent is
that as you stress that syllable.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Well, yes, this is a Guatemalan dish whose origins go
back to Mayan culture. So that's interesting. So basically, pepion
is a it's a stew that is usually made with
(30:54):
chicken or pork and some sort of gourd seed. Traditionally
it's it's pumpkin seed.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Oh yeah, okay, so I'm understanding the the etymology here.
So pumpkin seeds are pepita's.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Pepita's Oh okay, there you go, yeah you So basically
it's a stew that has a mix of roasted pumpkin seeds,
sesame seeds, tomatoes, tamatios, and guahio chilies.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Oh man, that sounds good.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, I don't know. Guahio chilis like what makes them.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
In Latin American cuisine. With chilies, most peppers have the
fresh form in the dry form, they get different names.
Oh okay, so, uh so guahios are they're they're dried chili?
You did? Do you mind the store? They're they're like
a like a dark red color. Okay, And so you
(31:53):
usually will like they're like they're like dark red color
or dark I don't know, like purple. I guess they're
like like kind of flat wide peppers. It's interesting because
like these are usually you almost never see the fresh
(32:13):
version of these, which is called a mirasole. I've actually
never seen those in a store. I think all the
ones that we get here are the guacios that have
been dried. But the drying process makes them like gives
them like a really like earthy oh flavor. They're also
like not super spicy. You've certainly eaten stuff with guaccio
(32:38):
in it.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I'm sure I have. Yeah. But again, the roots of
this go back to Mayan civilization. Similar stew used in
ceremonial feasts and gatherings, and it evolved over time and
throughout Guatemala. There are regional variations of pepion. In some
regions they use turkey instead of chicken or pork. Some
(33:03):
regions will add corn dough to thicken the stew, and
it's usually served with rice or tortillas.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
So I realized I was confusing this for for pipion,
which is a.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Mexican Okay, So pepeon is is a is similar it's
a variation. It's sort of like another derivative of pepion.
So apparently they are very similar because it is a
it is a derivative derivative. Is that maybe not the
right word, it's but it's.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I think they're related. But pipeon is like a sauce
that is, as I encountered it, it has pumpkin seeds
in it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Huh So basically instead of a stew, it's a sauce
that's sort of flavored in a similar way.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, I think it's like, uh, I think it's like
a green sauce.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Well, a lot pepon has usually also has like cinnamon, peppercorns, allspice, oregano, coriander.
These are common things to have in it.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Those are extremely common spices in Latin American cuisine. We normally,
like I don't know European cuisine to think about cinnamon
being used for like desserts almost exclusively. But there's like
a ton of stuff like I keep cinnamon sticks in
(34:31):
my house and I almost actually never use them for desserts.
I use ground cinnamon for that. I throw cinnamon sticks
into and I make like my carnitas and things like that. Interesting,
now I want to eat cornita. Now I want to
eat carnitas. Yeah, all right, I'm gonna talk about that
really cool. I'm gonna talk about and Dave I have
(34:53):
one other quick one. So I'm gonna do these two
real quick, if that's okay.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, I don't know, hit me with those and then
we we'll finish with these two.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Okay. So I'm going to talk about the coolest fruit
that you may have never heard of, And depending on
where you live in the United States or elsewhere in
the world, you may have never seen this fruit before.
They very familiar with the paw paw.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I am familiar with the papa.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
So if people in other countries to get confused, because
a papa can sometimes refer to like like a papaya,
like yeah, fruit, this is not that. This is the
fruit asamina triloba.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah. In Asian countries of papa is like a time.
It's like a small spiked fruit. Yes, I had that
as well.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. This, So these are it's so interesting, Like you
can't really describe what they taste like because they do
not taste like any other fruit. But I would say
and also they're not an agricultural product. That's what really
interesting about them. So each the fruit of each tree
(36:04):
tastes a little bit different and also like their stage
of ripeness. I know some people like to eat them
when they're like just barely ripe, and some people like
to wait for them to be like like overripe, where
they get kind of like a funky flavor. That's not
for me, but maybe I had have worked my way
up to it. It's the largest edible fruit native of
(36:25):
the United States, but it is also it's never been
commercially domesticated. Now, I want to be really careful about
the way that I like talk about like domestication and
food use, because just because it's not been like commercially farmed,
doesn't mean that it hasn't in different times been an
(36:49):
important food source for indigenous peoples and as well as
very various communities around the United States still today, especially
where it grows. It's very common in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan,
this kind of area, and it doesn't it doesn't grow
(37:10):
other places. So so the pawpaws are ripening right now,
late August to October. I would say October is pretty late.
We've got they like it's starting to get pretty late,
So I've gotten my first poppaws off the trees yesterday,
and I got a couple more today. I was on
(37:30):
a run and I almost got hit in the head
by a couple of them. They The reason why you
can't like cultivate them or you can't like commercially grow
them is a few different reasons. One, they have an
extremely soft skin. They bruise so so easily. They have
(37:52):
usually four like kind of big seeds in them, so
it is a little bit hard to like figure out
how you're supposed to eat them. There are some myths
about them, like poisonous or whatever. Basically like you just
don't eat the seeds. There apparently are some people who
are sort of sensitive to the skin. I can give
(38:12):
you some some stomach upset, but just don't eat the skin.
Don't eat the seeds. Perfectly fine, but I like suck
the flesh off the seeds and spin out. It kind
of tastes like a mix between a banana and a
mango and maybe like a little apple, and it's super sweet.
They're delicious.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, I mean I feel like I have. I've had one.
I haven't had one in a while, but I'm now
I'm intrigued to have one again.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I will, I will get you a couple. So they
don't and they don't keep very long, like a few
days at room temp and then in maybe in like
a week or so in the fridge. So a lot
of people will like kind of like scoop out the
pulp and like kind of like process it and freeze it.
(38:57):
But the main reason why they can't be like ma
actually farmed is because they're an understory tree. So they're
grown a tree, and but they usually are like a
small tree that grows in a shadow of larger trees.
So you're realpful to have like like a farm, like
a farm of these, right, So they've just never been
(39:18):
commercially grown. If you want some, you got to go
find them yourself. And I think that's pretty neat. Yeah,
you'll know that they are ripe because they're you know
that they're ripe because they're falling off the tree. So
you're gonna look for them on the ground. Ones that
have just fallen because obviously they've been there for a while.
They probably can get like eat by bugs and stuff
(39:41):
like that. You can gently shake the tree and they
and they will fall off. But you gotta be careful
because if a land hard, they'll like you know, splat open.
The ones I found today we're kind of split open.
So I was running for like about two miles with
(40:02):
like pawpaw juice running on my hand. But worth it.
So yep, find a find a find some papause or
find someone who knows how to get them, and get
them some of them for you. I got you, all right,
you got time for a one? One more? Here? Yeah,
(40:22):
give you a little more? Did you have another one
or uh?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
The only one I have left doesn't have a ton
of information. I didn't have quite as thorough of research
on that one, so probably best to favor for next time.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
All right, Well, I it is tis the season. I
have been enjoying an Octoberfest beer, so we're gonna talk
about Octoberfest. And we could do an entire episode about Octoberfest.
Just gonna talk about the beer a little bit, so
for sure. First off, Dave, there are ah there are
(40:56):
six breweries in Germany that are like some of the
oldest ones, some of the oldest breweries in Germany, some
of them dating back to thirteen twenty eight. There are
only six breweries in Germany that meet their requirements to
serve beer at Munich Octoberfest. Really, these beers have to
(41:19):
adhere to the Ryan Hedziegerbalt, which is the German beer
purity law. They have to be brewed within the city
limits of Munich. They're only six.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
We have taught about that that purity law.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
In our beer episode.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Well that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
So these breweries are are They're six one. There's a
Schwatzen brow rye Hacker Shore, Paul Honor which you can
have here, haf Brow which you also have here, Augustiner,
and Lewen Brow which you might be able to find here.
So I told you the six. What is the largest
producer of Octoberfest beer in the world.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I'm gonna say half bro.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
This this is a dick move. It is a trick question.
It is not none of those. The largest brewer of
Octoberfest beer in the world is the Boston Boston Beer Company. Really, Boston, Massachusetts,
good Old Sam Adams Octoberfest is the most widely produced
(42:20):
Octoberfest beer in the world. Because while in Germany they
are restrictive about which beers can be called can be
served at Munich Octoberfest, in the United States, there is
no such regulation, and every craft brewery in the country,
i'm sure has at least one Octoberfest, and like I said,
(42:42):
Boston Beer Companies is the one that brews the most.
Now here's the thing. The beer that we drink here
in the United States from Octoberfest, which is a amber
colored Marson beer, is different from the Octoberfest that is
served in Germany because at about the nineteen seventies they
(43:03):
changed their formula, whereas here in the US we're sort
of brewing. Most of the brewers, I've had some that
brew the lighter style, we're still brewing a style that
harkened back to an older era of Octoberfest. I think
this is so fascinating and I'm at but for my end,
(43:25):
I'm actually glad that we serve this because I like
it better. But anyway, what is Octorerfests? Real quick? It's
the festival that's held Munich every fall. Originally it was
held in the first one was held in October eighteen ten.
The royal families of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Teres
(43:46):
of Saxony had gotten married, and the people liked the
party so much that they started having it every year
Germany was it's a new new country at this point, right, Well,
actually it was not even sure a country at that point. Yeah,
(44:07):
So it's usually they actually like sort of pushed back
the date over time, so it begins in September, but
it always ends on the first Sunday in October or
October third, whichever is later. Oh so we're in Octoberfest
right now.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Huh. But yeah, it just happened in Columbus here last week.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah. They moved it back to have like nicer weather
so it could be outside, right.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Originally the beer that was brewed for Octoberfest was actually
a darker beer, like more like a dunkel. Back then
they didn't have the data different technology to roast them all.
It was roasted over an open fire, so it was
like a dark chocolatey even like smoky style. Oh. But
(45:03):
later on, so that was like kind of like around
the sixteenth century is when duncle was first developed. Later on,
in eighteen forties, some German brewers actually visiting the UK
learned of a new technique to use hot air to
roast malt, and then they developed an amber lagger with
(45:28):
that wasn't as dark. So this was but it really
It was actually an Austrian Anton Dreer from Austria that
was the first one to kind of develop this style.
But Gabriel Settlemeyer of Germany popularized it from the Spatan
Brewery and he called his beer a Marsen beer. Now
(45:50):
what does what does a Marsen mean? This is just
a beer that was brewed in March because in fifteen
to fifty three the Duke of Bavaria made a law
that no brewing could take place in the summer because
I guess there was like people like were getting sick
from the like brewing, like the hot climate because they
didn't have refrigeration.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Well that makes sense, and like.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Bacteria getting into the beer making people sick. So everyone
had to brew all the beer that they were going
to brew by the end of March and then store
it in cool places like caves until it was ready
to drink in the fall. But they had to drink
all the beer to make room for the next batches.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Well, I mean got to have an excuse.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
So the style of mars And beer that we have
now is lighter than the one in the fifteen hundreds. Yeah,
but they but they so they were all called mars
and beers, but they like wouldn't have looked that similar.
So when someone tells you a beer is a marson like,
it kind of doesn't mean anything. I know some people
(46:59):
will get mad at me for saying that, but this
kind of beer because saying though, yeah, this actually became
the unofficial beer of Octoberfest until eighteen seventy two when
it became the official beer. So it's basically like an
amber colored lagger. But I think this is really really
interesting because if at the nineteen seventies Paulnner introduced a
(47:22):
lighter style of beer, which is basically responding to like
like consumer demands. They wanted to have a they wanted
to have a lighter beer. They called it the weissn
style or a fest beer, and within about twenty years
all the other five big breweries in Munich changed theirs
(47:42):
to this lighter golden lagger. So from like, but like
I said, in the US, we have like still held
onto this like older tradition and I just think that
that is like super fascinating.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Yeah, I do too, And to this day, ID expect
you to pull beer out both of this one.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
If you go to Hofra House, which is like the
kind of like chain restaurant that that he is actually
like based in Munich. They serve two different beers. They
serve in September their Marson Octoberfest, which is like like
(48:29):
this color of beer. But then in October they start
serving their fest Beer, which is that lighter beer that's
more like what they have in Germany. So you can
actually get both and a couple of times around my
birthday because it's my favorite beer style. I've had an
(48:49):
Octoberfest beer tasting, and I would say our friends at
the land Grand Brewing Company, I think they changed their formula,
but they the one that they used to have was
closer to that actual German style. This is from man
Tree and it is that darker, more traditional style. This
is my favorite kind of beer in the world, hands down.
(49:11):
Oh so there you go my beer.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
My beer is from Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
That is Octoberfest prost.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Well, damn you know. I think Joe for a culinary
episode the National Delicacies episodes that might be No, it's
not the first beverage. When did we talk about the
hot Toddy? Did we do one that was all about drinks?
Speaker 1 (49:37):
I ended up I did. I did some cocktails at
the last one.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Well, at some point I talked about a hot Toddy
and now I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
I think it was that same one too.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Well, shit, I'm gonna cut everything out that I just said.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I'm sorry, No, I that's my fault.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I don't remember what's going on.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Well, I think this is a pretty good episode. We
started at Rice Aroni, the the the San Francisco treat
and brought all the way around to you know, American
breweries carrying on the German brewing tradition. I don't know
(50:15):
if we I don't know if we have any listeners
in Germany, but I feel like that's like the most
controversial statement I could ever make.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Well, you know what, Joe, I'm pretty sure we do
have a couple of German listeners. So if that's true,
you know where to find, Joe.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Germany is the Disneyland of beer, and I I you
know they know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Damn man, Okay, you saved yourself there. But I and
that sounded like an insult to start.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Oh, it's not an insult. I do actually think it's
really interesting though. I would say I would put American
craft breweries up against any beer in the world. The
problem is there's so god to have many of them
that it's like a wide range of quality. Right. Yeah,
(51:09):
you have some that make beer that's as good or
better than any of the beer in the world, and
then some that are just suck good.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
But yeah, yeah, Well, when your thing is making beer,
you're gonna have a wide range, man.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
And I'm thinking I'm gonna combine these two interests when
I'm gonna I think I'm gonna free some pop Pop
pulp and trying to make a Pap Paul beer.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Oh, I'm guessing that's like something that you can find, right,
Like that's something people do, or are you inventing something new?
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I feel like I feel like I've done it before.
That's mostly a homebrew thing because it's really hard to
get that many poppaws. Well, I've heard of a few
commercial breweries doing it, but they have such a short
period where they're ripe. It's hard to do. But I'm
(52:07):
only bringing a five gallon batch, so it's easy enough.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, So yeah, yeah, all right, Well, I think another
successful National Delicacies episode. I love that we end up
learning about some new foods and I always want to
try all these things and then some of them are
pretty hard to find. You kind of these are around
here at to make them yourself?
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Mm hmm yep, what can you do?
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Ye?
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Also go go get practice your Brita rolling skills.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah. Well, on that note, if you know, I think
we say this every time we do a National Delicacies episode,
but if you've got some traditional food that you grew
up with or something regional you want to tell us
about or like us to look into more An Hour
of Our Time podcast at gmail dot com, and we
(53:05):
would look forward to doing these episodes. We do them
about twice a year, so hit us up.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Bye. I couldn't think of something clever.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Thank you for listening to An Hour of Our Time.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
If you like what you heard, explore our catalog of
over two hundred episodes and rate and review us on
your platform of choice.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
And if you'd like to support what we do, visit
patreon dot com slash an Hour of Our Time podcast
Welcome to an hour of our time, the podcast where
we pick a topic, study it, and come back to
tell you what we've learned. We're back for another installment
of our National Delicacies episodes. In this episode, we're going
to pick some foods from here in the US and
a few other countries, and even come back with a
very timely beverage at the end. I'm Joe and I'm Dave.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
We're here to talk some National Delicacies, another one of
our anthology series that we've been doing for a while now,
in which we talk about delicacies sometimes from around the world.
I think last time we did it was all like Americana.
Today we're going to be doing kind of a mix.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Yeah, I missed the memo. And this stemmed from us,
to be honest, needing a topic that was a little
bit a little bit lighter on research, I think than like,
you know, like an obscure obscure European War of religion
or something like that. But also uh, and and this
was us needing a topic like this was precipitated by
(01:17):
the fact that I was in out of town until
like a couple of days ago for a work conference.
But the conference in San Francisco, and I did sample
uh the one of the the quintessential American delicacies. Then
I will talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So yeah, yeah you want to start with that, absolutely
hit me.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I'm going to talk about one of the finest American dishes.
You might even know it as the San Francisco treat.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Is this rice a Roni? Bro, Now you're gonna be
talking about jambalaya.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
No, No, I'm talking about Rice Ronni. Goddamn you you
were You are actually talking about racing. Okay, So okay,
I'm going to talk about it actual This is the
San Francisco and mention and I'm gonna but I believe
that I do think it is actually an interesting, like
a mishmash of like culture marketing things like that. I
am gonna in intimate talk about the uh mission burrito,
(02:22):
which is what I what I set out to talk about.
But yeah, we I was having a conversation with my
wife and I was like, when you think about like
foods from San Francisco, what do you think? I looked
at her, she looked at me and out I was like,
you give that jingle stuck in your head?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Do you show?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yeah? I will if you are old enough to remember this,
then it may be time for you to schedule your colnoscopy.
I don't actually know how long, like if these ads
are on the on TV or radio anymore, I sort
of doubt they are. They do still still sell this
product in stores anyway, It was.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, I feel like I have not seen these ads
since we were kids.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
It's an effective jingle because it says the name of
the product, and that's like pretty simple. It just said rice,
oh roney, the San Francis go treat. And they had
a little street car ding ding ding and that.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Wasn't there also like a dude playing like a clarinet
or something.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I think you're thinking of Xanoran's, which is a different rule.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Oh my god, I am thinking of Zadaran's.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Boxed rice product.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
This is why I was thinking about Jumbalaya.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yes, so Jumbla is an actual Did I talk about
that in another episode? I like to make jumble a
Maybe I'll talk about that another time. But we're talking
about race Ronni. So what is rice Ronni? It is
a packaged rice and pasta product comes in a box
and you usually you the package directions. I think it
(03:48):
depends on like the variety. But normally in like that
I don't know the original version, you brown the rice
and pasta mix dry in butter, then you add water
in seasonings from a packet, and then you like simmer
it on the stove. I do remember eating this as
a kid, in enjoying it and what's not to like
(04:10):
about rice and pasta mixed together?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Yeah, I have lots of starch.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Man I actually make a a ramen fried rice that
fucking slaps. But I digress. So this is actually it
is like a history or a story of like you know,
marketing and things like that. But it's also one of
these fun food stories I like to talk about in
(04:35):
these episodes where it's kind of a mish mash of
different kinds of cultures coming to America. This company was
eventually bought by the Quacker Oats Company, which was then
later bought by Pepsi Co.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Pepsi Co owns so much stuff. We've talked about this,
and I think the Cola Wars episode.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yes, and this company is taking like a little bit
an interesting turn. But anyway, this actually goes all the
way back to eighteen ninety. Domenico di Domenico, which is
that he was an Italian born immigrant, moved to California
where he started like a produce shop. He married a woman,
(05:16):
Maria Freno from also from Italy, and her family in
Italy owned a pasta factory, so in nineteen twelve he
convinced her or she convinced him to start a similar business.
So they opened up a pasta factory in the Mission
District of San Francisco, which is a really interesting part
(05:38):
of town that has like a lot of different cultures
kind of like living very near one another. It was
called the Granando Products Incorporated, and they delivered pasta to
like Italian restaurants and stores. So eventually it was eventually
changed the name to the Golden Grain Macaroni Company, which
(06:00):
is it actually is still the Golden Grain Company today.
And then along with his Di Domenico's sons, his what
they you know, built a company his wife was inspired
by like a right, basically like a rice peeloff dish,
(06:24):
so like a combination of rice and pasta, and eventually
they invented in nineteen fifty eight rice Aroni by adding
a dry chicken soup mix to the rice pasta mix.
It actually went nationwide within three years and because and
(06:48):
I think partly its success was the like jingle that
they had, and then it seemed like exot quote unquote
exotic because they actually launched it in the northwestern, uh,
United States, but it spread all and I think it
kind of like I said, it seems like exotic to
people on like Ohio because it was from San Francisco,
right sure. He and then did a bunch of other
(07:13):
different products, like noodle Rony Parmesiano in nineteen sixty four,
which was like basically like bullshit fetishinie alfredo they had.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I feel like Fetccini Alfredo is one of those things
like a hot dog where it's like even a bad
hot dog is a good hot dog.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, even out of a box. We used to eat
a lot of these like packaged like boxed starches growing up.
I thin because they're like cheap and easy to make.
I don't tend to eat this kind of thing now,
but not because like I don't know how anything against them,
but like I don't know, just tend to not eat them.
It's easy to boil pasta, to be honest. But yeah,
(07:58):
but anyway, like I said, they have all kinds of
different other projects, like so many different other ones, like
even like chicken kariaki, fried rice, noo Roney, Pasta Roni.
In nineteen eighty six, Quaker Oats bought the Golden Grain
Company from the Di Domenico family, still still in the family,
and then in two thoy and one, Quicker Oats was
bought by PepsiCo, but the American Italian Pasta Company bought
(08:24):
the Golden Grain brand in two thousand and three, but
the Quaker Oats division of Pepsiico actually kept the Riis
Aronni trademark, so Riceronni is still available in stores, but
that pasta company is now I don't know, basically just
making pasta again. So that's kind of I think it's
(08:44):
really interesting. Also, there is an insect Riissa Ronny, which
is named after which is, like I said, an insect
named by this very eccentric entomologists named Neil Evenuus, who
(09:05):
works for the Bishop Museum in Hawaii. He's described over
eight hundred species of insects. It's nineteen seventy six, and
most of them are like weird ass names. Sure, when
you're naming that many insects, I guess like you got
to come up with weird names. But yeah, riiser RONI uh,
last thing about Rice Aroni. Around the like late nineties
(09:27):
early aughts, they actually dropped the San Francisco Treat tagline
and jingle really and it did not go well. So
after seven years they in two thousand and six they
(09:48):
brought it back.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Oh I wonder why they dropped it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I don't know, fucking like who knows, corporate hacks. I said,
that was the last thing. But so this was born
of like an Italian American family, but also the dish
was kind of inspired by a similar sort of Armenian dish.
So it is definitely like a like a missmash of
(10:17):
different cultures. I read like quite a long MPR article
about this, but I, like I said, I this wasn't
actually the thing that I wanted to cover. It was
mostly started off as a joke, but then I actually
found out to be really fascinating. I understand packaged products
are not exactly are not typically what we don't typically
(10:40):
fall under the purview of these episodes, but whatever, well.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You know, yeah, I don't think that they should be
excluded by any means. I mean, that would be like
saying you know, we haven't a chance to talk about this,
and maybe we're in a future episode. But spam. Maybe
we did talk about like the delicacy of spam in Hawaii.
That's canned me. Right, maybe we did talk about it, but.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
We talked about spam. But we should.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
But it's a good example, you know, something like that.
M hmm, all right, Joe, let me hit you with one.
One of my favorite dishes is pad Thai. I love
pad Thai. You know, how do you feel you made me?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
You made me hungry when you were talking about pad thai,
and now I would like to seeks them out.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Absolutely, I have even pad thaipe for Well.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Do you know anything about the origins of pad Thai?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well, I know that it is Uh, it's as the
name suggests, it's Taiwanese. Correct, I'm not Taiwanese. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It's Thai.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, Thailand kind of. Well, but it's it's a it's
a product of French colonialism, right.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
No, oh, it's more or less a product of Chinese immigration.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Is I am thinking Thailand? The Bondmi? You're thinking me?
Speaker 2 (12:05):
The bond Me is my favorite sandwich that's Vietnamese liver.
Patae cilantro on French bread.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So all right, well, maybe a story for another one,
but tell me about tell me about pad Thai.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
So there are different stories about the origins of pad Thai,
and that kind of is the case with a lot
of cuisines we talked about. So I tried to boil
it down and I found a really good article from
Smithsonian Magazine where they they interviewed a Thai chef and
she was talking about her upbringing and some things that
she learned, and then they talked to a historian from
(12:41):
I believe the University of Bangkok or a university in
Bangkok that was talking about this. And from what I
can kind of piece together based on the different things
that they were saying, other things I read is that
Chinese immigrants have been coming to Thailand for hundreds of years,
actually since the twelveth century, but the nineteenth and twentieth
(13:02):
century saw a great influx of Chinese immigrants and they
brought the idea of stir fried noodles. In fact, it's
to this influx. By the early nineteen hundreds, about one
seventh of Thailand's population was of Chinese descent. So when
(13:26):
I say an influx, I mean a major influx. So yeah,
they brought this this idea of cooking like stir frying
noodles in a walk. Then in the nineteen forties, due
to some of the things that were happening in the
(13:47):
world that was affecting economies and because of major flooding,
there was a massive rice shortage in Thailand, and so
the government mint essentially they wanted to promote the idea
of eating noodles because obviously, you know, there was a
(14:10):
right shortage, but they also wanted to promote nationalism, so
they sort of started to or at least this is
one story, their Prime minister kind of created this idea
of this national dish which is somewhat similar to what
we think of as pad Thai. Now. Although some people say, oh,
this is the origin of pad thaie, but apparently, although
(14:32):
that's when sturfrying noodles really became popular and became a
national identity for Thailand, it wasn't until the nineteen sixties
that the name pad Thai first appeared in a Thai cookbook.
And a lot of this was because after World War
Two there were more like American tourists coming to Thailand
and so they needed a way to like sell Thai
(14:56):
culture and thus the creation of formalization of something that
we now know as pad Thai. Okay, I think did
that makes sense that I explained that, well, because it's
it's a little convoluted.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Well, I think many of these food stories sometimes are
because it's you know, it's on How many times have
we found where it was like kind of unclear exactly, Yeah,
you know, who was the first to invent one of
these foods and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, the first Thai restaurant in the United States opened
in the sixties as well, in Denver, Colorado, surprisingly, and
then it became very popular cuisine in Los Angeles in
the seventies. But from one thing I read, it seems that,
like the the way that it was originally made is
(15:45):
you have stir frying. You're sturfrying thin flat rice noodles
in garlic. You use this Chinese sweet and salty radish
called chai pole. Okay, saying that right, dried shrimp toe
with a sauce made of fish sauce, tamar and paste
and palm sugar. What thing do you associate with pad
(16:07):
Thai that I did not say peanuts. Peanuts. Yeah, so
apparently it seems like peanuts became more popular as it
became more of like an Americanized dish. I read this
article where these people kind of travel around the eat
food from different countries, and they were talking about how
they were in Thailand they ate pad Thai, and what
(16:28):
struck them about it was that the peanuts were actually
served on the side. You could add them into your
own flavor. It wasn't a focus of the dish or
something that was mixed in. So I thought that was
kind of interesting as well. But yeah, that's, uh, that's
pad thaime. Man, if you're gonna put a protein in
pad thai, I know it's shrimp is normally in there.
What's your go to protein with pad Thaie?
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Uh well, I mean I think the places that I've
gotten it's usually been shrimp or chicken. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, and I'm a shrimp guy when it comes to
pad thai.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah. I this is one of those dishes where, like,
I've tried to make it a couple of times, and
I the technique of stir frying the noodles without like
them all just like sticking together into a blob is
like take some some real skill. But I's something that
(17:19):
I ought to give another try soon because I actually
have like a real walk.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, and you actually gave me a walk at one point.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah yeah, and that's a perfectly fine walk. The one
I have is carbon steel. The thing that like Cleve
Stark fried foods is that the walk burners that they
have restaurants burn so much hotter than what you have
in your house. So it's sometimes it can can be
difficult to replicate some of stuff. You just have to
cook things in small batches. That's that's the trick, because
(17:53):
it doesn't like cool down the metal. Yeah, maybe I
might need to seek out some pat tie here soon.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I tell you where there's a really good pad tie.
There is a tie place in uptown Westerville. It's called
Ti Grill. It's on College Avenue. Their pad tie is awesome.
It's a little expensive, but it's it's very good worth it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well, all right, are you ready to hear about? So Denver, Denver, Colorado,
featured in your your last one. It's going to feature
in this story a little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
This is the Denver Colorado. This is not a food
that originated or is associated with Denver although it's will
come out later on the story Denver, Denver, Colorado is
partly the reason why you have eaten this before listeners,
almost certainly, even if you have never been to San Francisco,
where it originated. I'm talking about the mission burrito.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Okay, I don't don't know what a mission burrito is.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Have you ever been to a.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Uh yeah, not my favorite thing, but I have been
to one.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Any burrito restaurant I have.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I have been to a burrito restaurant.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yes, so you've eaten a mission burrito because it's spread
all over the country. In fact, like there are a
mission burrito restaurants in many other countries, especially in the UK.
It's starting to become quite popular there. Although imagine they
pronounce it brito.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, and all the beans are baked and everything tastes
like shit.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Oh man, we made fun of British cuisine last week two.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
We really have. We made fun of it quite a lot.
In fact, we talked, I think in our first episode
about national delicacies. We talked about yeah, they're national dish.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yep, chicken tika masala.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Chicken dika masala, which is just indicative of their colonialization.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So yeah, It's really funny because I'm actually like quite
quite an anglophile, so I hope everyone knows that this
is jest. Anyway, So the Mission Burrito, it's named after
the Mission District in San Francisco, and so, like, like
I said, if you've eaten in a Chipotle, which actually
(20:12):
the past few times have been in a Chipotle, that
it's been kind of disappointing experience. And the Mission Brito
that I just recently ate in Chicago made me remember
why Chipoli became so popular. I think now they've like
kind of given up on trying to like roll their burritos,
but like the one that I had in San Francisco
(20:32):
like reminded me of like when I first started going
to Chipotle and they like were like really expertly rolling
the burritos, because that's like really like a key to it.
But also the ingredients in this burrito I had in
San Francisco were like totally blew away any Chipotle that's
ever existed. So so, but it's a it's a steamed
(20:56):
or grilled large flower tortilla, so you have to heat
it up so that it like it's flexible for the
rolling part and then there's some kind of usually meat,
rice beans. Then you can usually get it for a
few dollars extra a super burrito which will usually have
(21:16):
salsa crema and avocado shit okay, And then you take
that and I don't know if you've ever like watched
how they roll them, but they take the burrito and
they fold the like the two ends like where your
mouth is gonna bite it, and they roll those in
(21:39):
and then tightly roll it and then wrap it into
aluminum foil. So all the ingredients kind of like meld
together and it holds together so you can eat it.
So it's it's kind of meant to be like handheld food,
and it does seem like one of the possible origin stories.
So this does originate in the Mission District around the
nineteen sixties. The Mission District is the most heavily Spanish
(22:06):
speaking portion of the city of San Francisco, and if
you're looking at like a map of San Francisco, it's
like kind of concentrated in like the south eastern part
of the city, okay, so, which is actually like where
my conference was. So it's the only reason that I
(22:29):
didn't eat just like fifteen burritos when I was there
is because I had to like be in this conference
building where they were a feeding us bad food. It
does seem like there has there is an origin in
farm workers in the Central Valley, though there's a quote
from from a story in San Francisco Weekly from nineteen
(22:52):
ninety three interviewing a former farm worker said, freezing cold
five am mornings the best time to pick lettuce. Owners
needed a very good cook to attract the best fast cruise.
We'd get webs rancheros at five, sweet strong hot coffee
with a shot of brandy at seven, then full spicy
killer burritos at around ten thirty, keep you going till afternoon.
(23:16):
I remember the texture of the shredded beef, the heat
of the green peppers, and the proper proportion of rice
and beans. They were so spicy you didn't need salsa,
but you needed that protein and fiber couldn't survive without it.
There is apparently some people that try to trace this
brito like back even further to like miners in like
(23:36):
the late eighteen hundreds, but the first printed references to
burritos are are not before the nineteen thirties. But it
does seem like one piece of evidence that the uh
(23:57):
mission burrito and it's like I don't know, and form
doesn't go back before the early sixties was because the
earliest restaurants serving it would take two six inch tortillas
and put them next to each other to like kind
of like slightly overlap them to roll them together. They
(24:18):
didn't actually have the larger burritos on hand at the time,
or the larger tortillas I should say, which kind of
like maybe indicates that that's not before that they were
like it was a new thing being invented at the time.
There are several places that claim that they're the first
takaria to sell this type of brito, like places like
(24:41):
Alfado and La Cumbre, but it's it's unclear. The owners
of La Cubre La Cumbre say that the it was
invented on September twenty ninth, nineteen sixty nine, so somewhere
around like the sixties is when it invented, Okay, but anyway, Yeah,
(25:02):
it's like a it's a it's a food that's like,
you know, easy to eat, but it is spread all
over the world because of Chipotle. Chipotle was started by
a guy who used to who was from San Francisco
used to eat Mission Burritos opened up the first chain
(25:25):
in Denver, and within like just a few months, they
were like building them as fast or they were like
opening them up as fast as they could build them,
like all around the country. I don't know if you
ever remember like when Chipotle first sort of like debuted
here in Ohio. I remember people couldn't pronounce it.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I remember one. Yeah, I remember having one, having Chipotle
for the first time in Cincinnati and I'm gonna say
two thousand and five, mm hmm, yeah, And I remember
like specifically somebody being really excited taking me there at
me being like, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Oh man, see, I actually I still eat a Chipola burrino.
There's far better places even even in like this town
that you can get burritos. But I still like, especially
like when it first opened up, I thought, mm hmm,
you know, they were pretty good. But yeah, I remember
people where I grew up or went to high school,
they could not pronounce chipolte is what they how they
(26:27):
said it, which I found like to be deeply upsetting
because it occurred to me that it's because they had
never actually eaten a Chipotle pepper and I think I've
told this story several times, but but I was actually
born in New Mexico and I grew up eating like
text mex food. But it's interesting though, I never ate
(26:48):
a burrito like this growing up, and actually until like
around the time that Chipotle came to you know, the
white the wider world, I only ever ate like the
earlier form of brito, which is just basically like you know,
tortilla with like meat, beans and cheese, like wrapped up.
(27:10):
Later in the eighties, the Mission Burrito sort of may
have had something to do with spawning the often confused
for it burrito, the California burrito, which is from San Diego,
and it has always has steak or carne sada and
French fries.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Have you ever had a California Brianda Dave.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
I can't. No.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I mean I've had I've had burgers with French fries
on them, but not a burrito.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I can't fucking get a good California brito in this
town and it's very very frustrating. Well it's not California, bro,
I know, I gotta take matters of my own hands. Okay,
So when you had it, and when you had it
in San Francisco, where did you have fries on it? No? No,
Mission burritos do not have fries on them.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Okay, sorry, that was so the California burrito is a
Mission burrito with fries.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
It's a variation I think I would get might get
like I might get pilloried for like putting it that way,
but they definitely like have something to do with one another.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Sure, okay, I got you.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Uh yeah, the I think that the californ and Britos
like typically don't have rice, so the French fries and
it's more of like a junk food thing. Yeah, so
I should say the Mission brito that I had in
San Francisco had barbericola is usually what it's called, although
barbaricola is technically in Mexico that's smoked in banana leaves.
(28:46):
This is was what we usually get referred to as barberica.
It's actually also usually I think, like goat, this is
usually stewed. Although the stuff that I had was cooked
in banana, stewed in banana leaves and it was fucking delicious.
M So, if you're having to find yourself in San
(29:11):
Francisco going down to the Mission District and stop at
one of the like thousand tact areas there and have
a mission burrito.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Damn No, Well, now I want to try one of those.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You should? You can easily find one of those around here,
not at a chipoli and a like a taco truck
or a local place.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Yeah, do you have a recommendation, like you're your favorite
around here?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
There's so many taco trucks in this town.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Yeah, yeah, I do, Like I think those Harmanos is
good as far as taco trucks go.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Uh yeah, they're pretty good. Uh. I should I actually
should see if they haven't this style of burrito at
the place that we go to by my house. But
I usually only always order the same thing on the men,
which is coach, you need a pibil, which maybe I'll
talk about some other time.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Gotcha?
Speaker 1 (30:05):
All right, let's do let's maybe do a couple more
like a little a little more rampifier here.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Yeah, how about And I apologize, I don't know that
I'm saying this right, but Pepian this is a Guatemalan dish, okay,
p e p i a N with an accent over
the A pepian, Oh, pepon pepion.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So usually so, so where the where the accent is
that as you stress that syllable.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Well, yes, this is a Guatemalan dish whose origins go
back to Mayan culture. So that's interesting. So basically, pepion
is a it's a stew that is usually made with
(30:54):
chicken or pork and some sort of gourd seed. Traditionally
it's it's pumpkin seed.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Oh yeah, okay, so I'm understanding the the etymology here.
So pumpkin seeds are pepita's.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Pepita's Oh okay, there you go, yeah you So basically
it's a stew that has a mix of roasted pumpkin seeds,
sesame seeds, tomatoes, tamatios, and guahio chilies.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Oh man, that sounds good.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Well, I don't know. Guahio chilis like what makes them.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
In Latin American cuisine. With chilies, most peppers have the
fresh form in the dry form, they get different names.
Oh okay, so, uh so guahios are they're they're dried chili?
You did? Do you mind the store? They're they're like
a like a dark red color. Okay, And so you
(31:53):
usually will like they're like they're like dark red color
or dark I don't know, like purple. I guess they're
like like kind of flat wide peppers. It's interesting because
like these are usually you almost never see the fresh
(32:13):
version of these, which is called a mirasole. I've actually
never seen those in a store. I think all the
ones that we get here are the guacios that have
been dried. But the drying process makes them like gives
them like a really like earthy oh flavor. They're also
like not super spicy. You've certainly eaten stuff with guaccio
(32:38):
in it.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
I'm sure I have. Yeah. But again, the roots of
this go back to Mayan civilization. Similar stew used in
ceremonial feasts and gatherings, and it evolved over time and
throughout Guatemala. There are regional variations of pepion. In some
regions they use turkey instead of chicken or pork. Some
(33:03):
regions will add corn dough to thicken the stew, and
it's usually served with rice or tortillas.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
So I realized I was confusing this for for pipion,
which is a.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Mexican Okay, So pepeon is is a is similar it's
a variation. It's sort of like another derivative of pepion.
So apparently they are very similar because it is a
it is a derivative derivative. Is that maybe not the
right word, it's but it's.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
I think they're related. But pipeon is like a sauce
that is, as I encountered it, it has pumpkin seeds
in it.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Huh So basically instead of a stew, it's a sauce
that's sort of flavored in a similar way.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, I think it's like, uh, I think it's like
a green sauce.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Well, a lot pepon has usually also has like cinnamon, peppercorns, allspice, oregano, coriander.
These are common things to have in it.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Those are extremely common spices in Latin American cuisine. We normally,
like I don't know European cuisine to think about cinnamon
being used for like desserts almost exclusively. But there's like
a ton of stuff like I keep cinnamon sticks in
(34:31):
my house and I almost actually never use them for desserts.
I use ground cinnamon for that. I throw cinnamon sticks
into and I make like my carnitas and things like that. Interesting,
now I want to eat cornita. Now I want to
eat carnitas. Yeah, all right, I'm gonna talk about that
really cool. I'm gonna talk about and Dave I have
(34:53):
one other quick one. So I'm gonna do these two
real quick, if that's okay.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yeah, I don't know, hit me with those and then
we we'll finish with these two.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Okay. So I'm going to talk about the coolest fruit
that you may have never heard of, And depending on
where you live in the United States or elsewhere in
the world, you may have never seen this fruit before.
They very familiar with the paw paw.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I am familiar with the papa.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
So if people in other countries to get confused, because
a papa can sometimes refer to like like a papaya,
like yeah, fruit, this is not that. This is the
fruit asamina triloba.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah. In Asian countries of papa is like a time.
It's like a small spiked fruit. Yes, I had that
as well.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah. This, So these are it's so interesting, Like you
can't really describe what they taste like because they do
not taste like any other fruit. But I would say
and also they're not an agricultural product. That's what really
interesting about them. So each the fruit of each tree
(36:04):
tastes a little bit different and also like their stage
of ripeness. I know some people like to eat them
when they're like just barely ripe, and some people like
to wait for them to be like like overripe, where
they get kind of like a funky flavor. That's not
for me, but maybe I had have worked my way
up to it. It's the largest edible fruit native of
(36:25):
the United States, but it is also it's never been
commercially domesticated. Now, I want to be really careful about
the way that I like talk about like domestication and
food use, because just because it's not been like commercially farmed,
doesn't mean that it hasn't in different times been an
(36:49):
important food source for indigenous peoples and as well as
very various communities around the United States still today, especially
where it grows. It's very common in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan,
this kind of area, and it doesn't it doesn't grow
(37:10):
other places. So so the pawpaws are ripening right now,
late August to October. I would say October is pretty late.
We've got they like it's starting to get pretty late,
So I've gotten my first poppaws off the trees yesterday,
and I got a couple more today. I was on
(37:30):
a run and I almost got hit in the head
by a couple of them. They The reason why you
can't like cultivate them or you can't like commercially grow
them is a few different reasons. One, they have an
extremely soft skin. They bruise so so easily. They have
(37:52):
usually four like kind of big seeds in them, so
it is a little bit hard to like figure out
how you're supposed to eat them. There are some myths
about them, like poisonous or whatever. Basically like you just
don't eat the seeds. There apparently are some people who
are sort of sensitive to the skin. I can give
(38:12):
you some some stomach upset, but just don't eat the skin.
Don't eat the seeds. Perfectly fine, but I like suck
the flesh off the seeds and spin out. It kind
of tastes like a mix between a banana and a
mango and maybe like a little apple, and it's super sweet.
They're delicious.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah, I mean I feel like I have. I've had one.
I haven't had one in a while, but I'm now
I'm intrigued to have one again.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I will, I will get you a couple. So they
don't and they don't keep very long, like a few
days at room temp and then in maybe in like
a week or so in the fridge. So a lot
of people will like kind of like scoop out the
pulp and like kind of like process it and freeze it.
(38:57):
But the main reason why they can't be like ma
actually farmed is because they're an understory tree. So they're
grown a tree, and but they usually are like a
small tree that grows in a shadow of larger trees.
So you're realpful to have like like a farm, like
a farm of these, right, So they've just never been
(39:18):
commercially grown. If you want some, you got to go
find them yourself. And I think that's pretty neat. Yeah,
you'll know that they are ripe because they're you know
that they're ripe because they're falling off the tree. So
you're gonna look for them on the ground. Ones that
have just fallen because obviously they've been there for a while.
They probably can get like eat by bugs and stuff
(39:41):
like that. You can gently shake the tree and they
and they will fall off. But you gotta be careful
because if a land hard, they'll like you know, splat open.
The ones I found today we're kind of split open.
So I was running for like about two miles with
(40:02):
like pawpaw juice running on my hand. But worth it.
So yep, find a find a find some papause or
find someone who knows how to get them, and get
them some of them for you. I got you, all right,
you got time for a one? One more? Here? Yeah,
(40:22):
give you a little more? Did you have another one
or uh?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
The only one I have left doesn't have a ton
of information. I didn't have quite as thorough of research
on that one, so probably best to favor for next time.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
All right, Well, I it is tis the season. I
have been enjoying an Octoberfest beer, so we're gonna talk
about Octoberfest. And we could do an entire episode about Octoberfest.
Just gonna talk about the beer a little bit, so
for sure. First off, Dave, there are ah there are
(40:56):
six breweries in Germany that are like some of the
oldest ones, some of the oldest breweries in Germany, some
of them dating back to thirteen twenty eight. There are
only six breweries in Germany that meet their requirements to
serve beer at Munich Octoberfest. Really, these beers have to
(41:19):
adhere to the Ryan Hedziegerbalt, which is the German beer
purity law. They have to be brewed within the city
limits of Munich. They're only six.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
We have taught about that that purity law.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
In our beer episode.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Well that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
So these breweries are are They're six one. There's a
Schwatzen brow rye Hacker Shore, Paul Honor which you can
have here, haf Brow which you also have here, Augustiner,
and Lewen Brow which you might be able to find here.
So I told you the six. What is the largest
producer of Octoberfest beer in the world.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
I'm gonna say half bro.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
This this is a dick move. It is a trick question.
It is not none of those. The largest brewer of
Octoberfest beer in the world is the Boston Boston Beer Company. Really, Boston, Massachusetts,
good Old Sam Adams Octoberfest is the most widely produced
(42:20):
Octoberfest beer in the world. Because while in Germany they
are restrictive about which beers can be called can be
served at Munich Octoberfest, in the United States, there is
no such regulation, and every craft brewery in the country,
i'm sure has at least one Octoberfest, and like I said,
(42:42):
Boston Beer Companies is the one that brews the most.
Now here's the thing. The beer that we drink here
in the United States from Octoberfest, which is a amber
colored Marson beer, is different from the Octoberfest that is
served in Germany because at about the nineteen seventies they
(43:03):
changed their formula, whereas here in the US we're sort
of brewing. Most of the brewers, I've had some that
brew the lighter style, we're still brewing a style that
harkened back to an older era of Octoberfest. I think
this is so fascinating and I'm at but for my end,
(43:25):
I'm actually glad that we serve this because I like
it better. But anyway, what is Octorerfests? Real quick? It's
the festival that's held Munich every fall. Originally it was
held in the first one was held in October eighteen ten.
The royal families of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Teres
(43:46):
of Saxony had gotten married, and the people liked the
party so much that they started having it every year
Germany was it's a new new country at this point, right, Well,
actually it was not even sure a country at that point. Yeah,
(44:07):
So it's usually they actually like sort of pushed back
the date over time, so it begins in September, but
it always ends on the first Sunday in October or
October third, whichever is later. Oh so we're in Octoberfest
right now.
Speaker 2 (44:27):
Huh. But yeah, it just happened in Columbus here last week.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Yeah. They moved it back to have like nicer weather
so it could be outside, right.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Originally the beer that was brewed for Octoberfest was actually
a darker beer, like more like a dunkel. Back then
they didn't have the data different technology to roast them all.
It was roasted over an open fire, so it was
like a dark chocolatey even like smoky style. Oh. But
(45:03):
later on, so that was like kind of like around
the sixteenth century is when duncle was first developed. Later on,
in eighteen forties, some German brewers actually visiting the UK
learned of a new technique to use hot air to
roast malt, and then they developed an amber lagger with
(45:28):
that wasn't as dark. So this was but it really
It was actually an Austrian Anton Dreer from Austria that
was the first one to kind of develop this style.
But Gabriel Settlemeyer of Germany popularized it from the Spatan
Brewery and he called his beer a Marsen beer. Now
(45:50):
what does what does a Marsen mean? This is just
a beer that was brewed in March because in fifteen
to fifty three the Duke of Bavaria made a law
that no brewing could take place in the summer because
I guess there was like people like were getting sick
from the like brewing, like the hot climate because they
didn't have refrigeration.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Well that makes sense, and like.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
Bacteria getting into the beer making people sick. So everyone
had to brew all the beer that they were going
to brew by the end of March and then store
it in cool places like caves until it was ready
to drink in the fall. But they had to drink
all the beer to make room for the next batches.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Well, I mean got to have an excuse.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
So the style of mars And beer that we have
now is lighter than the one in the fifteen hundreds. Yeah,
but they but they so they were all called mars
and beers, but they like wouldn't have looked that similar.
So when someone tells you a beer is a marson like,
it kind of doesn't mean anything. I know some people
(46:59):
will get mad at me for saying that, but this
kind of beer because saying though, yeah, this actually became
the unofficial beer of Octoberfest until eighteen seventy two when
it became the official beer. So it's basically like an
amber colored lagger. But I think this is really really
interesting because if at the nineteen seventies Paulnner introduced a
(47:22):
lighter style of beer, which is basically responding to like
like consumer demands. They wanted to have a they wanted
to have a lighter beer. They called it the weissn
style or a fest beer, and within about twenty years
all the other five big breweries in Munich changed theirs
(47:42):
to this lighter golden lagger. So from like, but like
I said, in the US, we have like still held
onto this like older tradition and I just think that
that is like super fascinating.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Yeah, I do too, And to this day, ID expect
you to pull beer out both of this one.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
If you go to Hofra House, which is like the
kind of like chain restaurant that that he is actually
like based in Munich. They serve two different beers. They
serve in September their Marson Octoberfest, which is like like
(48:29):
this color of beer. But then in October they start
serving their fest Beer, which is that lighter beer that's
more like what they have in Germany. So you can
actually get both and a couple of times around my
birthday because it's my favorite beer style. I've had an
(48:49):
Octoberfest beer tasting, and I would say our friends at
the land Grand Brewing Company, I think they changed their formula,
but they the one that they used to have was
closer to that actual German style. This is from man
Tree and it is that darker, more traditional style. This
is my favorite kind of beer in the world, hands down.
(49:11):
Oh so there you go my beer.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
My beer is from Hawaii.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
That is Octoberfest prost.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
Well, damn you know. I think Joe for a culinary
episode the National Delicacies episodes that might be No, it's
not the first beverage. When did we talk about the
hot Toddy? Did we do one that was all about drinks?
Speaker 1 (49:37):
I ended up I did. I did some cocktails at
the last one.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Well, at some point I talked about a hot Toddy
and now I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
I think it was that same one too.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Well, shit, I'm gonna cut everything out that I just said.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I'm sorry, No, I that's my fault.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
I don't remember what's going on.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Well, I think this is a pretty good episode. We
started at Rice Aroni, the the the San Francisco treat
and brought all the way around to you know, American
breweries carrying on the German brewing tradition. I don't know
(50:15):
if we I don't know if we have any listeners
in Germany, but I feel like that's like the most
controversial statement I could ever make.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Well, you know what, Joe, I'm pretty sure we do
have a couple of German listeners. So if that's true,
you know where to find, Joe.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Germany is the Disneyland of beer, and I I you
know they know what they're doing.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
Damn man, Okay, you saved yourself there. But I and
that sounded like an insult to start.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Oh, it's not an insult. I do actually think it's
really interesting though. I would say I would put American
craft breweries up against any beer in the world. The
problem is there's so god to have many of them
that it's like a wide range of quality. Right. Yeah,
(51:09):
you have some that make beer that's as good or
better than any of the beer in the world, and
then some that are just suck good.
Speaker 2 (51:19):
But yeah, yeah, Well, when your thing is making beer,
you're gonna have a wide range, man.
Speaker 1 (51:26):
And I'm thinking I'm gonna combine these two interests when
I'm gonna I think I'm gonna free some pop Pop
pulp and trying to make a Pap Paul beer.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Oh, I'm guessing that's like something that you can find, right,
Like that's something people do, or are you inventing something new?
Speaker 1 (51:45):
I feel like I feel like I've done it before.
That's mostly a homebrew thing because it's really hard to
get that many poppaws. Well, I've heard of a few
commercial breweries doing it, but they have such a short
period where they're ripe. It's hard to do. But I'm
(52:07):
only bringing a five gallon batch, so it's easy enough.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, So yeah, yeah, all right, Well, I think another
successful National Delicacies episode. I love that we end up
learning about some new foods and I always want to
try all these things and then some of them are
pretty hard to find. You kind of these are around
here at to make them yourself?
Speaker 1 (52:33):
Mm hmm yep, what can you do?
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Ye?
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Also go go get practice your Brita rolling skills.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah. Well, on that note, if you know, I think
we say this every time we do a National Delicacies episode,
but if you've got some traditional food that you grew
up with or something regional you want to tell us
about or like us to look into more An Hour
of Our Time podcast at gmail dot com, and we
(53:05):
would look forward to doing these episodes. We do them
about twice a year, so hit us up.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Bye. I couldn't think of something clever.
Speaker 2 (53:22):
Thank you for listening to An Hour of Our Time.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
If you like what you heard, explore our catalog of
over two hundred episodes and rate and review us on
your platform of choice.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
And if you'd like to support what we do, visit
patreon dot com slash an Hour of Our Time podcast
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