Behind the Scenes Minis: Calendars and Kitchen Gadgets

Holly and Tracy discuss the disruptive French Republican calendar, banana dishes, the Universal Chopper, and other kitchen implements. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about the
French Republican calendar this week. We sure did. I love

(00:21):
this crazy experiment. I'm still imagining the Day of Convictions
as like, well, actually day. I don't think that's what
they met by it, but that's just how it struck me.
I had similar thoughts when I was reading about that.
I will say, like, the idea of not having holidays
kind of uh, you know, scattered throughout the year and

(00:42):
a clump of them at the end sounds awful to me.
But that's yeah. Um, before anyone brings it up, let
me just say my husband already did it for you.
When I was like, this is bananas? Why would anyone
do this? And he was like, aren't you the person
that wanted to get everyone on Swatch internet time? And
I'm like, yes, I think I had similar thoughts, and

(01:03):
I stand by that. But the thing is, that's like
one thing, and it wasn't meant to fully supplant everything else,
and it would put everyone on the same simplified thing,
which Incidentally, Swatch beats would have been the same I
think as a minute in the French Republican calendar, since

(01:23):
they had separated it out into a thousand beats a day.
And that's essentially what would have been happening ye with
that calendar, just math wise. But yet that's like one
thing simple. Swatch Internet time was also not intentionally trying
to make life hard for people who wanted to go
to church. Correct. It was not meant to up end
the social norm in a way that that made people

(01:46):
abandon long held beliefs, which is part of the problem.
So I can't remember if I've told this story on
the show at any point, but any time now that
we talk about the French Revolution in any context, I
think about that time that we were in pa Ris,
and I think we were in Paris at the tomb
of Napoleon. We were I know exactly what you're talking about.
We had this tour guide who told us about the

(02:07):
French Revolution and the French revolutions values of liberty, equality
and fraternity, and then she said and then Napoleon took
these values to the rest of the world through the
Napoleonic Wars. And I was like, excuse me, Napoleon. What
There was a lot of looking around amongst our groups
like this is uh, this is a different take on

(02:29):
it than we have heard before. Yeah. Yeah, I feel
like that's what the French Republican calendar was trying to see.
Although Napoleon was like, get rid of this calendar. This
isn't working for anybody. Um, it really did strike me
how funny it would be to identify your birthday by
like a flower. M h, I'm born on daisy. Oh okay,

(02:52):
what a what a nice day for you to people
are well. And the thing that I really find interesting,
and this may just be me applying what I would
do in that situation, is that if you have a
scenario like that right in this calendar that's intended to
secularize everyone, I feel like giving everyone a birthday that's

(03:15):
associated with something of nature is really just a breeding
ground to like form astrology of a different flavor. Yeah.
I read that quote that was like, we're not basing
this on a cult, We're basing it on agriculture, and
I was just like, welcome to the cult of agriculture. Yeah,
I uh, you know, I, as I said, I'm fascinated

(03:37):
by change and I love the idea of this as
an experiment, but oh what a nightmare. We talked about
some more upontumous foods this week, we did. I had
a longer list than two, but those two got very

(03:59):
very busy in terms of having a lot of information,
so they kind of filled up the whole episode. Yeah,
those those others will go on to the next one,
which will happen at some point in time. Um. But
Nana's foster, I feel like I should confess, came up
because I was traveling this weekend with friends who were
very excited to eat Banana's foster, and I had that

(04:20):
moment of like, where did that come from? Um? And
so then I started reading in my hotel room that night.
That was the end of that. UM. And Salisbury steak
is the thing. Let me tell you, this girl loves
the Salisbury steak. I love it to this day. Give
me that TV dinner Salisbury steak with gravy. I love
it so much. I questioned the nutritional value of it,

(04:43):
but I'll eat it just the same now and not
very often. I have such like seven year old sense
memories of it being like a special thing. Because we
did not eat out very often, and my mom was
very big and always preparing all of our meals, so
if we got like a TV dinner, it felt like
a holiday. I feel like my mom wouldn't make it.

(05:03):
But the reason, as far as I know, was that
she had like an economical recipe to make it. Not
that not for any like health food reason. It's not
the kind of health food my mom would have thought
of as no health food, I don't think. Yeah, I

(05:27):
mean we mentioned the top of that, like we I'm
not a doctor, I'm not a dietitian. I feel like
if all you ate were salisbury steak for a while,
you would end up with a tummy ache. But yeah,
I would also get bored to tears. I'd be like,
is there a beschamel sauce in the house? Can we
like anything else? Fry an egg? Great? I know there

(05:48):
are folks that like eat the same things all the
time and that is what works for them. And I
will like make a big, a big pot of the
same thing and eat the leftovers of that for a
multiple consecutive day, but like does not want to do
that most of the time. Yeah, I have friends that
won't eat leftovers, which kind of makes me sad because
some foods get better the next day, for sure. But

(06:11):
you know, whatever people want to eat, that's what they
want to eat, and that is great. That's uh Salsbury
steak though as a as a health food hilarious. Um.
We mentioned in the episode briefly, And I don't want
to go into it too much because it's a family
that still exists, and like, I don't want to be
all up in their business. But I think my understanding

(06:34):
is that after Owen Brennan died, the main rift happened
between his widow and the rest of the family, and
that's what caused some of these these differences and some
some breaking um. And so I kind of think that
is why there are two distinct versions of that story.
One that is definitely Owen Brennan making a business decision

(06:54):
that we need to use bananas because there's so many,
and the other being him tasking his sister with coming
up with something special and new. Um, I don't know,
you can still eat it Brennan's and it sure is delicious.
I'm almost reluctant to say that because there's a very
famous person who's now to cease that I was not
a fan of that used to talk about how much
he loved Brennan's. Um, but uh, don't worry about that.

(07:19):
It's still delicious. New Orleans is, as we all know,
one of the best food cities in the world in
my opinion. Um, and it's pretty amazing. And I know
that as Brennan's was getting on the map. You know.
Ella Brennan's memoir is pretty fun to read. It's an
easy read. She wrote it with her daughter pretty recently.
In Ella has since passed away, But she talks just

(07:43):
a lot about the restaurant industry in a way that's
very matter of fact, and she's like, you know, the
best thing you can have in the restaurant industry is
a friend, because she talked about like when you make
a couple of influential friends that can then help you
get the word out, help you get pr for your restaurant,
helped get reporters interested, Like that's how you grow a business,

(08:05):
like there's and it was just one of those like
it's full of good little tips like that. Also, who
doesn't want to now eat soft scrambled eggs and caramelized
bananas for breakfast? I do I have? UM, I can't
always deal with the texture of bananas, but that the
caramelized bananas sounded really good to me. I like bananas. Also,

(08:27):
the whole story about dealing with just a preponderance of
bananas reminded me of when we were in Iceland, which
at this point was some years ago. My spouse and
I read a restaurant and one of the things on
the menu was a curry, and the description of the
curry and the menu didn't mention bananas at all. But

(08:47):
when it arrived, it was a banana curry, which I
wasn't expecting. Um and I have, like I have eaten
various foods made with bananas or made with plantains which
have some similar these this was a weird flavor profile
to me, like the things that it had been made
of did not go together to me. And I also

(09:10):
just I wasn't expecting there to be banana in it.
That just was not on the description at all. And
after we had finished eating, we stopped at this grocery
store to get some some road snacks for the next day,
and we passed by this table that was normally would
have been covered in bananas, but the bananas were on

(09:31):
sale and they were all sold out, and I was like,
is this what happened at the restaurant? Say, hey, there's
a sale on bananas, let's make something out of it.
Probably not, but that was the story I wrote for
it in my head to explain why I had such
a strange that's funny bananas, bananas. I just now I'm

(09:52):
thinking of Bob's Burgers, because there should do it that
Linda sings with Mr fish Shoulder called I like bananas. Also,
it's criminal that Kevin Klein has not gotten an Emmy
for Mr fish Shoulder's voice. That's all I'm saying, Um, criminal,
criminal um. I also wanted to mention the Universal Chopper

(10:13):
because reading that passage was the most instant flashback of
my life, perhaps because both my grandmother and my mother
had those things that they used constantly. I mean, I
remember my mom running saltine crackers through it after she
was done, using it as part of the cleaning ritual
to it, like to help, you know, clean out all

(10:35):
of the meat residue and stuff. I think of it
so much as like a pillar of our kitchen. It's
just it was just fascinating to me, and I was like, Oh,
I wonder how old are universal. Chopper was because it
looked exactly like the pictures from I was looking like conceivable, conceivable,

(10:55):
I suppose, Um, my grandmother's I'm sure similarly aged. Yeah
have you ever? And I used to love that thing,
like as a kid, I wanted to turn that crank
all the time. Oh yeah, the meat grinder. And you
can use it to chop other things other than me.
You can use it to do vegetables or you know what.
ELPs but instant, instant flashback for me memories. We had

(11:22):
a I don't think we had one of these. We
had a greater thing that had similar sort of set up,
but seems like it probably would have been a little
easier to take apart and clean. Maybe yeah, um, just
because of the way I went together. Kitchen implements, they

(11:46):
are right. It's funny, you know, we're always getting like
new and exciting kitchen implements right, Like they're little you know,
many steamers so you can make kind of fake souvid now.
And there are like a jillion mini wafflers, and I
wonder which I purchase all of them? Um, and I
love a novelty waffle maker. I can't resist it. I

(12:06):
have a problem. But then I wonder, like in a
hundred years or people going to be like people used
to put even eggs in these tiny waffle makers. Yes,
my brother and sister in law got us a breakfast
sandwich maker one time, which my sister in law had
found there's to be incredibly helpful, especially while pregnant and

(12:28):
just couldn't like deal with things some of the time. Um,
and we did make really delicious breakfast sandwich is out
of it a lot. And then after a while we
were like, we have this one device that we are
using occasionally to make breakfast sandwiches that we could also
make without it. So when we were in the process
of move, like culling things to move, uh, we found

(12:51):
a new home for the breakfast sandwich maker. I ran
into a bit of confusion recently, uh, in an interaction
with someone on Twitter, because I will mix scrambled eggs
with cheese and put them in a mini waffler and
make a little That's how I like to make scrambled eggs.
It's just easy, um, and then they're cute. That's not

(13:13):
how I always scrambled eggs. But this person had replied
to me and said, like, oh, I've heard that Americans
make scrambled eggs a lot differently than how we do
here in Europe. I this explains a lot, and I'm like, no, no, no, no,
this is not how people do it. No, no, no,
don't let me be your standard. Um. And I got
to asking them what the scoop was and they were

(13:33):
saying that, like there's milk involved and that there was
something else, and I was like, no, but those things
you're hearing are not standard ways to make eggs either.
Some people put milk in but not everybody, and like
there was something else and now I'm forgetting it. But
it was very funny. I was like, please, don't think
that this is how people make scrambled eggs in the US,
because I'm probably an outline. But boy, it sure is

(13:59):
a andy way because I can make a very crispy
that way with the cheese on the outside, and I
can walk around the house eating it like a finger
food when I'm getting ready in the morning, like to
you know, record, or if I have to go somewhere,
I could put it in a napkin and take it
on the road. Protein and deliciousness. Scrambled eggs in the
mini wom and then I have, you know, scrambled eggs.
It look like spider web. Who doesn't want to eat that?

(14:21):
I do taking it back to that tarantula and the
listener may anyway, that's enough of my blathering about foods
and kitchen implements. Uh, this is your weekend coming up.
I hope it is delightful that you eat only delicious
and nutritious things. And if it's not your weekend, I
hope you still get a good nutrition. You find some

(14:43):
time to relax now and again, because we need it
a little bit every day at least. Uh. We will
be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode and
then on Monday more brand new stuff. Stuff you missed
in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio.

(15:04):
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