Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in.
Speaker 2: I have Ben.
Speaker 1: That's Noel. Do you see a wanderer from Afar? Who
Speaker 1: is that man?
Speaker 2: Is that Max shoots at Clouds Williams.
Speaker 1: It might be our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 3: Max won't pass the gunshot residue test. Williams.
Speaker 1: Max with opinions about the President's Williams.
Speaker 2: Max Howe, that kind of has a slant rhyme to it.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: So Max, you have returned to us recovering from the conditions.
Speaker 4: Yes, what Okay? Now I'm just gonna just keep go
Speaker 4: past that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, I was on a quick little vacation when I
Speaker 5: saw some friends up in Charleston. When and saw my
Speaker 5: friends Michael and Jacqueline, who since the last time I've
Speaker 5: seen them, had two more children. They have five children,
Speaker 5: all under the age of eight. Yes, yes, and they're
Speaker 5: all blonde with blue eyes. My friends are referring to
Speaker 5: them as children in the corn. And they live on
Speaker 5: a farm. And yeah, I was like, Michael, I don't
Speaker 5: get why you moved to a farm. And then like
Speaker 5: you know, drove the tractor around and shot his twenty
Speaker 5: two millimeters rifle because that's the that's that's the biggest
Speaker 5: one I would hold.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't do the shotgun.
Speaker 5: And I was like, okay, I kind of get it. Still,
Speaker 5: like you know, Walmart's within thirty minutes of me, but still.
Speaker 1: You would say the shotgun was too spicy.
Speaker 4: It was a little too spicy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you see what we're doing here, Noel, I do,
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 3: We're getting to the the the spicy stuff, the hot
Speaker 3: the hot juice.
Speaker 2: What's another name for hot sauce. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've hit a wall Ua caliente.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, fair enough, fair enough?
Speaker 3: The uh uh the Devil's nectar, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: uh the Mephistopheles sip and juice.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Uh, that's that's a reach. But we are the milk
Speaker 1: of Apollo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it. Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we are returning with our history of condiments, and
Speaker 1: today we are following up on a conversation with our
Speaker 1: pal Ben Hackett, guest super producer here on Ridiculous History.
Speaker 1: We're talking about hot sauce and uh, Noel shout out
Speaker 1: to stuff they don't want you to know. I was
Speaker 1: listening to a recent recording we do, those holes, those
Speaker 1: absolute monsters. I was listening to a recording we did
Speaker 1: wherein we talk about the word sauce sauce.
Speaker 3: You know what's funny, Ben, I watch a lot of
Speaker 3: British type cooking competitions, and I've noticed that they accent
Speaker 3: the word sauce really Unusually, they'll call it hot sauce,
Speaker 3: not hot sauce or any kind of you know, we're
Speaker 3: making like a nice Bonnets sauce and there's a real
Speaker 3: hard punch on the sauce.
Speaker 1: They spend a lot of time on the.
Speaker 3: U they do, they do, and they also, you know,
Speaker 3: they call it a filet absurd. You're close enough to
Speaker 3: France to know that it's pronounced file What are you doing?
Speaker 2: It's an odd flex.
Speaker 3: Speaking of which, check out our crossover episode with Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 2: But Ben, I love hot sauce. I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 2: love hot sauce. Max I think could take it or
Speaker 2: leave it because of his condition.
Speaker 1: He has the condition.
Speaker 5: Yes, I will say the condition is exacerbated by it.
Speaker 5: But I also just I just have never been with
Speaker 5: the hot sauce. I was at a friend's birthday party
Speaker 5: a few months ago and I picked up some of
Speaker 5: the hot wings and I ate a few of them,
Speaker 5: being like, I can handle this, and my friend Rob
Speaker 5: looked at me, goes, you look like you're in a
Speaker 5: lot of pain.
Speaker 2: Now I hate it.
Speaker 4: I wish I could.
Speaker 2: You immediately fell out with a case of the vapors.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well as Max is recuperating from the condition,
Speaker 1: which we are never going to explain. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the history of hot sauce first off, can we. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's so we're talking about when we say hot sauce,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a group term for condiments made with
Speaker 1: chili peppers as a base. It's true that there are
Speaker 1: other hot things, right, other hot condiments, sure, But nowadays, Noel,
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say, in general, when people
Speaker 1: talk about hot sauce they mean stuff with chili peppers
Speaker 1: as sort of the kaiser sos, the key.
Speaker 2: Ingredient a million saying yea.
Speaker 3: And of course, much like barbecue sauce, there are lots
Speaker 3: of methods may vary wildly.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be you know, more vinegary ones.
Speaker 3: There's gonna be ones that are a little more chunky,
Speaker 3: maybe almost resemble more of a salsa. There's gonna be
Speaker 3: some that are punishingly spicy for the intrepid culinary travelers
Speaker 3: out there, and then there are gonna be some that
Speaker 3: are kind of for everybody, barely even like could be
Speaker 3: considered hot, almost more of like a nice little just
Speaker 3: a bit of a let's call it tang.
Speaker 2: I like them all.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily go out for the punishingly spicy ones.
Speaker 3: I find those to be oppressive and pretty unpleasant. But
Speaker 3: there are some I think, you know, what is it
Speaker 3: the Scoville rating.
Speaker 2: We should really talk a little bit about that at
Speaker 2: some point there.
Speaker 3: You know, obviously there's a there's a scale for how
Speaker 3: spicy things are.
Speaker 2: I think I find myself living comfortably probably in the
Speaker 2: middle somewhere. This is where I max out nice. How
Speaker 2: about you, Ben?
Speaker 3: Do you like the I know our buddy Matt, who
Speaker 3: is not with us, who is one of those a
Speaker 3: holes on stuff that I don't want you to know, likes.
Speaker 2: This hot as they come. Baby. He's like, give me
Speaker 2: all the caps, says.
Speaker 1: It's so weird when we are on the road with Matt,
Speaker 1: and I feel like because Matt is so kind and polite.
Speaker 1: It usually falls to one of us to be the
Speaker 1: person who speaks to the waiter and says true, no, seriously,
Speaker 1: he does want it as hot as possible.
Speaker 2: We our boy wants to be punished. He's been a
Speaker 2: bad boy.
Speaker 1: He feels bad about something that there's this huge variety
Speaker 1: of hot sauce, as you said, Noel, because uh, they're
Speaker 1: also now a wide variety of chili peppers. There's active
Speaker 1: arms race, two ones.
Speaker 2: Being made, right, We're trying to the mutant chilies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out Carolina Reaper, et cetera. So the weird
Speaker 1: thing is, with a lot of food inventions or discoveries,
Speaker 1: it's usually difficult to trace an origin point. Hot sauce
Speaker 1: is very different because chili peppers come from one place
Speaker 1: in the world. They come from what we would call Mesoamerica, Mexico,
Speaker 1: Central America, Amazon Basin, South America. It's the only place
Speaker 1: they grew on their own.
Speaker 2: They would have grown naturally there. I got I got it, okay.
Speaker 3: And then of course, like colonizers, Am I right, they
Speaker 3: just kind of scoop them all up and spread them
Speaker 3: hither thither and Yon, you're so.
Speaker 1: Right, and these are pre European colonizers because chili peppers,
Speaker 1: just like maize or corn, chili peppers were domesticated by
Speaker 1: local populations. And oh gosh, I'm looking at all our
Speaker 1: bad puns for peppers. Little pep PEPs got domesticated really quickly.
Speaker 1: The use of chili peppers as a condiment dates back
Speaker 1: easily seven thousand BCE. Like the Aztecs were using this,
Speaker 1: They were probably grinding up chilis with water and whatever
Speaker 1: local herbs were available, and then they would eat them
Speaker 1: with an ancestor of what we call the corn tortilla today,
Speaker 1: which means the world's first case adea was likely a
Speaker 1: chili pepper paste casadea.
Speaker 2: Well, now, Ben, I have to I may have to
Speaker 2: dispute this.
Speaker 3: Do you think that they have the shredded Mexican cheese
Speaker 3: blend at this point in history?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: They? We do know they had some variety of dairy,
Speaker 1: They did have da Okay, yeah, Now was it the
Speaker 1: kind of casadea we would recognize today?
Speaker 2: Probably not?
Speaker 3: Yeah, perhaps more of a caeso fresco type situation.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 1: I mean they also know isn't it true that Aztec
Speaker 1: civilizations or Meso American civilizations didn't just use this stuff
Speaker 1: as a condiment, they also used it as medicine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's it's powerful stuff,
Speaker 3: and as we know, oftentimes if you do have a
Speaker 3: little bit of a case of the sniffles, eating a
Speaker 3: nice spicy soup, you know, can really clear out your
Speaker 3: sinuses and it causes them to kind of run wildly.
Speaker 3: So the az Sex figured this out. They use it
Speaker 3: not just to enhance the flavor of their food, but
Speaker 3: also to treat, as we said, things like the sniffles, colds,
Speaker 3: sore throats, stomach aches.
Speaker 2: And again I mean to this, Dave.
Speaker 3: Actually, if you ask Anthony Bourdain rest in peace, what
Speaker 3: the best cure for a hangover is, he will say
Speaker 3: some really spicy food, a Coca Cola classic, and smoke
Speaker 3: a joint.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought he. I thought he said aspirin. You
Speaker 2: might have said aspirin as well.
Speaker 3: The rest of them might be placebo effect, except for
Speaker 3: the spicy soup, because I swear to God that stuff
Speaker 3: will cure what ails you, and at the very least
Speaker 3: it comforts you in some respect, and kind of does.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's because it's like such a a it affects you. Therefore,
Speaker 3: it might take your mind off the crappy thing that's
Speaker 3: affecting you.
Speaker 1: Oh right, right, right, Yeah, it's because chili peppers contain
Speaker 1: a collection of things called capsaius aenoids. The main one
Speaker 1: of these is capsausin, and capsayusin mimics that sensation of
Speaker 1: heat when it hits where a families show when it
Speaker 1: hits certain tissues in the human body. Also, it was
Speaker 1: astonishing to learn capsayusin is part of the vanilloioid family,
Speaker 1: like the vanilla.
Speaker 2: Wait, is that real vanilloid? Yeah? Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 2: a very like white robot or something.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it's a It has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the nooid of was that pizza hut? It was dominos, dominoes.
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with the nooid of.
Speaker 2: That guy was crazy.
Speaker 1: That guy had made some really specific choices.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he was basically if anyone doesn't remember
Speaker 3: thenoid it was this like claymation dude wearing a rabbit
Speaker 3: costume and like flying around a red rabbit costume. I
Speaker 3: believe he used an umbrella like Mary Poppins, or maybe
Speaker 3: it was balloons, but I do distinctly. Remember there was
Speaker 3: a golden period for product tie in video games, and
Speaker 3: there was an Avoid Thenoid video game for Sega Genesis
Speaker 3: as well as one where you could play as the
Speaker 3: seven Up Dots.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and I did like the seven Up game
Speaker 1: for that.
Speaker 3: I don't recall anything about it other than you were
Speaker 3: a little dot with like sunglasses.
Speaker 2: So he is he?
Speaker 1: Thenoid is a problem for all pizza delivery folks.
Speaker 2: Is he a Hamburgler type figure? Very much? Yeah? You
Speaker 2: guys ever played checks Quest? No? I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Is that like one of those early PC kind of
Speaker 3: like fantasy like text t type games.
Speaker 5: No, it's actually so it's built off the Doom engine.
Speaker 4: Cool, but it was just like it came free in
Speaker 4: a box of checks.
Speaker 5: And you put it in your you know, Windows ninety
Speaker 5: five or Doss computers.
Speaker 2: So we're going old.
Speaker 5: Again now, and you're basically instead of you're playing Doom,
Speaker 5: but instead of you know, murdering people, you are sending
Speaker 5: slime back to a different dimension. It's a banger. It's
Speaker 5: like you can find it emulators and all them. They're
Speaker 5: multiple games. It's truly amazing, and you, like you think
Speaker 5: about it, you got it out of a box of checks,
Speaker 5: which was like, how much.
Speaker 1: You're from a very pro serial family, Max.
Speaker 5: Which is funny because I am a pretty anti serial person.
Speaker 5: Listen to our serial episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there it is. And also for anybody who's
Speaker 1: eating peppers right now as you're listening to this, you're
Speaker 1: going to experience the follow up order of operations. Once
Speaker 1: you get that initial burn, you get a bunch of
Speaker 1: endorphins hitting your brain and that triggers an anti inflammatory reaction, right,
Speaker 1: that's the word.
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is medicine.
Speaker 3: Man. It'll do something for you, doesn't It cause like
Speaker 3: your blood vessels to contract or something like that.
Speaker 1: Oh, like similar to caffeine.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: So maybe I'm mistaken, but I could have sworn that
Speaker 3: I had another effect sort of like that.
Speaker 1: We know that ancient ancient Meso American civilizations would use
Speaker 1: chili pepper to relieve toothpain, which I think is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, also, it must be said, if you're a human,
Speaker 1: your mouth and your anus have similar receptors for capsayism,
Speaker 1: which is why sometimes the stuff that goes into your
Speaker 1: northeast will also burn coming out of your Australia.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, I wasn't in were off off the map
Speaker 3: cap sason. Apparently there's a study from open Are published
Speaker 3: in Open Heart, which is like a you know, hard
Speaker 3: health journal, that found that cap sasin is very important
Speaker 3: for promoting vascular and metabolic health because it can actually
Speaker 3: improve blood flow, uh and therefore lower your blood pressure.
Speaker 2: Oh there we go. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of funny because you you'd think it
Speaker 3: would be like bad for stuff like that, you know,
Speaker 3: because it is so aggressive, it can be so like
Speaker 3: aggressively kind of all encompassing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I know it's doing good stuff. Have you?
Speaker 3: Have you guys seen this amazing fellow on Instagram. I
Speaker 3: kind of forget what his handle is, but he goes
Speaker 3: one Carolina Reaper pepper dipped in chili oil. He talks
Speaker 3: like that, and he just like he eats these peppers
Speaker 3: all whole, dipped in the most like aggressively spicy chili
Speaker 3: oil and other various chili products, and then he just
Speaker 3: eats it and goes.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that, but I have seen the entire
Speaker 1: sub genre of YouTube reactions. There are people who will
Speaker 1: just explain to you calmly the crazy thing they're about
Speaker 1: to eat, and then the rest of the video is
Speaker 1: them sort of stowing, you know, or sometimes yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: they are the people. I think the overreactors are playing
Speaker 1: a bit to the camera.
Speaker 2: I think you might be right.
Speaker 3: My favorite is a clip show I guess of TikTok
Speaker 3: reactions to this really really sour candy called like the
Speaker 3: Black Death and like this woman, this British woman says.
Speaker 2: It's like there's a met boat jam through the roof
Speaker 2: of me mouth. It's like it's funny stuff.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure there are some peppers that will make
Speaker 3: you feel that way too, if you're not careful.
Speaker 1: All right, So we know that this pepper, the chili
Speaker 1: pepper phenomenon, it originates in Mesoamerica. How did it get
Speaker 1: to the rest of the world. Well, we got a
Speaker 1: fast forward to a bunch of Europeans. One guy who
Speaker 1: is notoriously terrible at geography, Crystabal Cologne, known as Christopher
Speaker 1: Columbus here in the US. He goes out on this
Speaker 1: journey to find India. He does not find India. He
Speaker 1: gets lost along the way and stumbles across one of
Speaker 1: the world's most popular condiments. The Queen and King of
Speaker 1: Spain had tasked him with finding pepper like table pepper,
Speaker 1: the grindable like peppercorns. Sure he did not find that.
Speaker 1: He did not find India. He found instead this intense
Speaker 1: spicy plant chili peppers. And he called it, in a
Speaker 1: burst of creativity pepper, probably because he didn't want to
Speaker 1: get in trouble with the monarchy.
Speaker 3: Oh funny, So they weren't aware of this other kind
Speaker 3: of more spicy brethren to the humble table pepper.
Speaker 1: They had no idea, and so he just called it
Speaker 1: pepper for branding purposes.
Speaker 2: Essentially.
Speaker 3: That's interesting, and now to this day we use peppers
Speaker 3: for all kinds of stuff. It's kind of I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, like green pepper isn't related to the chili pepper. Well,
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess maybe it's. It's what's the deal?
Speaker 3: Can we can we dissect really quickly what it means
Speaker 3: to be a pepper, and is table pepper peppercorns related
Speaker 3: to a green pepper or an orange pepper.
Speaker 1: So black pepper, the pepper, corn, the table pepper. It's
Speaker 1: the it's a fruit of a flowering vine. So pepper
Speaker 1: is usually in that sense, that kind of pepper is
Speaker 1: usually dried out and used as a spice, or of
Speaker 1: course you grind it on a nice pasta.
Speaker 2: Sure, Oh yeah, please say when? Right? Right?
Speaker 3: Well, so I guess what I'm getting out here, Ben,
Speaker 3: is so the fact that we have associated the word
Speaker 3: pepper with all of these other kind of more you know,
Speaker 3: I guess, for lack of a better term, fruit like bodies,
Speaker 3: is all as a result of somebody kind of making
Speaker 3: a whoopsie and not wanting to get in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, kind of yeah.
Speaker 2: His sory is.
Speaker 3: Full of that kind of stuff, isn't it. It just
Speaker 3: sort of like someone just throws it out there and
Speaker 3: it just sort of sticks, and that's all we got.
Speaker 1: Now, so we can give a collective boo to our
Speaker 1: pal Columbus.
Speaker 2: Are we ready? Yes?
Speaker 3: Please, let's boom boo on you.
Speaker 2: Shame on you.
Speaker 1: However, like the Police Academy franchise, this was not all bad,
Speaker 1: all right, Max? Do you want to do your Crystal
Speaker 1: Ball cologne comparison?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: That he's just like, you know, an early edition of
Speaker 5: what your will. Oh jeez, you know, if I get
Speaker 5: a chance to kick the corpse of Woodrow Wilson, I
Speaker 5: will Yeah.
Speaker 1: New Potus rankings dropped.
Speaker 4: So still too high. Still too high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he low, though he is a pretty relativelyately low.
Speaker 2: Not low enough.
Speaker 4: He's in the teens for a long time.
Speaker 5: He was top ten, though he's he's I think they
Speaker 5: said down five since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: Can you give me like three of the worst things
Speaker 3: that he did that make you despise him? So again,
Speaker 3: I'm not nearly the student of presidential history that you are.
Speaker 4: He resegregated the national government.
Speaker 2: Oh, that'll do it, Okay, cool, staytamar.
Speaker 1: He also invented that thing where you have to put
Speaker 1: emoji's in text.
Speaker 2: I like emoji's in texts. Never well, he's much less
Speaker 2: aggressive than ending your text with a period.
Speaker 4: All right, Yeah, I got you on this one.
Speaker 2: So the uh, it's my feelings.
Speaker 1: H And you know this trade, this proliferation of peppers,
Speaker 1: it came in step with the proliferation of things like
Speaker 1: this spread of onions and garlic. Europeans were exposed to peppers,
Speaker 1: but also people in meso America were exposed to garlic,
Speaker 1: they were exposed to onions, and now those are sort
Speaker 1: of a holy triumvirate of hot sauce.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting too, especially considering that if I'm not mistaken, Ben.
Speaker 3: The spiciness of a chili is almost like a survival mechanism,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like a like a flower having thorns.
Speaker 3: It's to discourage animals from eating them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely true, and humans enjoyed that. We'll get
Speaker 1: to that. We'll get to why humans enjoy that in
Speaker 1: a second. But you're one hundred percent right. Let's spend
Speaker 1: some time on an oft ignored tail one. The Jedi
Speaker 1: won't tell you the Great Columbian Exchange, all right, So
Speaker 1: our buddy.
Speaker 2: A middle passage type situation.
Speaker 1: Geez really Yeah, So our buddy Christopher Columbus goes back
Speaker 1: to Europe. I mean, many other European explorers go to
Speaker 1: what they call the New World. They come back and
Speaker 1: they're like, we have this amazing plant. It's flavorful, it's cheap,
Speaker 1: it's adaptable. Spaniards in particular borrowed the word chili from
Speaker 1: Aztec civilization. Ah, and so borrowed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just let's just call it what it is.
Speaker 2: Stole like they stole everything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's the cool fact that you taught me a
Speaker 1: few years ago. Hungary was one of the first countries
Speaker 1: in history to customize chili peppers, they created paprika.
Speaker 3: Oh God, I love paprika. So paprika is is not spicy.
Speaker 3: I mean it's basically just ground kind of more savory,
Speaker 3: not sweet peppers exactly. I'm not sure exactly what kind
Speaker 3: of pepper goes into it, but it's such a nice,
Speaker 3: you know, just robust flavor.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you, Ben.
Speaker 3: You mentioned the idea of chili's being flavorful for people
Speaker 3: finding them to be. So do you think chili's at
Speaker 3: a certain spice level should be considered flavor or is
Speaker 3: it literally just poisoning yourself flavor?
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, yeah, because I loaded the question a
Speaker 3: little bit, but you yeah, you you held the line.
Speaker 1: I agree with you because Hungary loved the flavor, the sensation,
Speaker 1: the depth of the chili pepper, but they didn't like
Speaker 1: the heat, so they removed the seeds, dry the pepper,
Speaker 1: grind it up into paprika, and to this day, Hungary
Speaker 1: is one of the best climates for growing paprika peppers.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: I know, you know what I like a lot, Ben,
Speaker 3: A smoked paprika, Oh yeah, really takes it to the
Speaker 3: next level.
Speaker 1: Also, I'm a cheap skate. So if I'm in your
Speaker 1: local grocery store and I see two choices of paprika
Speaker 1: and one is regular paprika, one is smoked paprika, and
Speaker 1: they're the same price, I feel like I'm losing money
Speaker 1: if I buy the regular pestle.
Speaker 3: Smoked is usually a little bit more because it's this guy.
Speaker 3: It's a whole another process. I'll tell you the best.
Speaker 3: If anyone's passing through Atlanta, and I know you guys
Speaker 3: know this, you got to hit up your decab farmer's
Speaker 3: market where you can get absolute tubs of smoked paprika
Speaker 3: for like pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 1: They're crazy with the spices. Yes, go to get thee
Speaker 1: to the cab.
Speaker 2: The last forever, you know. I mean, they really do you.
Speaker 3: If you keep the mare tight in a dark, dry place,
Speaker 3: you'll be able to be rocking that smoke paprika for
Speaker 3: a good long while.
Speaker 2: That's the thing too, about the trade that talking.
Speaker 3: About these, you know, being able to this is a
Speaker 3: product that will keep right, especially if you're drying it
Speaker 3: out like it will, you know, not.
Speaker 2: Spoil for very long periods of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the chili pepper didn't just hit Europe, right,
Speaker 1: It's now a fundamental part of Asian cuisine exactly.
Speaker 2: But then we're talking about different types of pepper.
Speaker 3: We got Seschwan peppers at this point, some of these
Speaker 3: peppers that have almost a numbing quality to them. It's
Speaker 3: really interesting the varieties of peppers that are out there
Speaker 3: in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the chili pepper arrives on the Asian continent via
Speaker 1: Portuguese traders, probably in the early fifteen hundreds or so.
Speaker 1: And this stuff is an instant hit. Their affordable, they're durable,
Speaker 1: you can domesticate them and grow like customize them for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word. So they replace black pepper
Speaker 1: as the primary spice across most of the continent, and
Speaker 1: Asian cooks begin mashing up their peppers with liquids and
Speaker 1: other flavorings, making all sorts of sauces a whole panopoly.
Speaker 1: Thailand in particular is the birthplace of something called nom
Speaker 1: prick that combines peppers in a sauce with things like
Speaker 1: fish paste or fermented shrimp paste. Shout out again to
Speaker 1: our pal Ben Hackett. He is a fellow fan of
Speaker 1: hot Takes and hot Sauce.
Speaker 3: We were talking when he guest produced the show the
Speaker 3: other day about how it was a real bonding thing
Speaker 3: between he and his dad when he was growing up.
Speaker 3: They would try all these different spicy hot sauces after church.
Speaker 2: They'd also go and get like, I think I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna lie. This kind of grossed me out a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: We see on hot Ones, that Hot Wing show a
Speaker 3: lot of times people will have a glass of milk
Speaker 3: on hand.
Speaker 2: I don't know that it's scientifically proven.
Speaker 3: That milk actually nullifies the effects of a spicy food.
Speaker 2: But perhaps it's a placebo thing. But Ben and his
Speaker 2: dad opted for cottage cheese, which I find to be
Speaker 2: the most detestable substance in the culinary world.
Speaker 1: Interesting out of all the other things.
Speaker 2: It's a texture thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, it looks like baby vomit to me kind of
Speaker 3: it evokes those feelings.
Speaker 1: Do you eat a lot of baby vomit?
Speaker 2: Or what's me? Who am I an acceptable amount? Acceptable?
Speaker 1: Just like the FDA of Ratords and cereal.
Speaker 3: I am a father. At some point a baby has
Speaker 3: probably vomited in my mouth.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're absolutely right about the milk dairy products
Speaker 1: do help you if you are over your head in
Speaker 1: a heatful situation. And it's because hot peppers, like you
Speaker 1: said earlier, they did not evolve to become purposely delicious.
Speaker 1: The heat was originally a way to make the plants
Speaker 1: less delectable to various animals. Exactly, I wouldn't fruit evolve
Speaker 1: to avoid being eaten. Apparently, it's due to the fact
Speaker 1: that small mammals would eat peppers, and when they did,
Speaker 1: because mammals have teeth, they would chew at the seeds
Speaker 1: and this would ruin the plant's ability to propagate to reproduce.
Speaker 1: But birds, as you know, well null, oh boy, they
Speaker 1: don't have teeth.
Speaker 3: No, they just have weird, sharpened, pointy bone things that
Speaker 3: they come at you with. Sorry, I'm turning over a
Speaker 3: new leaf about birds.
Speaker 2: I told you.
Speaker 3: I've been playing Wingspan a lots. Yeah, and it's really
Speaker 3: changed my outlook on birds. I know so much about birds,
Speaker 3: and they are quite delightful creatures in their own way,
Speaker 3: but they also still freak me out. We'll leave it
Speaker 3: to humans to say, well, fu plant to your biologically
Speaker 3: evolved defense mechanism.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna eat you. Just the same.
Speaker 6: M h.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, birds have different taste receptors than mammals, so capsaiusin
Speaker 1: doesn't them the way a rat would be deterred. But
Speaker 1: humans liked the they liked the rush, they liked the
Speaker 1: pain of the thing. And one of the first questions
Speaker 1: civilization asks itself as the chili pepper goes global, is
Speaker 1: can we make money off of this?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely money to be made. I don't know
Speaker 3: how quickly do you think it kind of caught on,
Speaker 3: ben Like, it seems like a little bit, you know,
Speaker 3: when it would hit, it would be an acquired taste, perhaps,
Speaker 3: you know, at a time where let's just say culinary
Speaker 3: offerings were perhaps a little bit more on the vaniloid side.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Nice, callback Yeah, it happened pretty quickly in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things, because again, the chili pepper is so
Speaker 1: easily cultivated. But so when they start making commercial hot sauce,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of debate about this. We are not
Speaker 1: sponsored by any like big hot sauce brand, please sponsor us,
Speaker 1: but we're super down by the way. So let's go
Speaker 1: to Massachusetts. In eighteen o seven, this thing comes out
Speaker 1: called cayenne sauce and it was named after the Cayenne
Speaker 1: chili peppers. But it wasn't until the eighteen sixties that
Speaker 1: hot sauce became a big staple in the United States.
Speaker 1: And it's all due to Tabasco.
Speaker 3: Tabasco. Gosh, you know what I think when I hear Tabasco. Now,
Speaker 3: what's up that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Bob
Speaker 3: Odenkirk plays the porn star and he tells this whole
Speaker 3: story about how he was having a hard time getting
Speaker 3: you know, up for the scene and how Tabasco plays
Speaker 3: a role in helping helping I actually realize now that's
Speaker 3: why I said the thing about blood vessels contract. Oh wow,
Speaker 3: I remember it from Curb because apparent if you apply it.
Speaker 2: Let's just say to you, what was it? What did
Speaker 2: you refer to the backside as the Australia the Australia.
Speaker 2: Then it'll causes you to go to messens.
Speaker 1: That Bob Odenkirk is going places.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, they should give him his own show.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'll get one. Speaking of fiery, fiery facts and foods,
Speaker 1: we got to give a shout out to Dave DeWitt
Speaker 1: and Chuck Evans over at Fiery Foods Central because they
Speaker 1: break down the evolution of commercialized hot sauce uh in.
Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, they learn about it via vintage bottle collectors.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, and they say much of what we know
Speaker 3: about now extinct brands of hot sauces comes from bottle collectors.
Speaker 3: Like you said, Ben, there is not a great body
Speaker 3: of material on the subject of collectible hot sauce bottles,
Speaker 3: but we are indebted to Benny Zumwalt, author of Ketchup Pickles, Sauces,
Speaker 3: Century Food in Glass.
Speaker 2: It's a whole book.
Speaker 3: Really, No, it makes sense, you know, the idea of again,
Speaker 3: the ability to preserve this stuff. That's another thing that
Speaker 3: happens when you make hot sauce, especially there's a little
Speaker 3: bit of fermentation going on. Is it'll it keeps a
Speaker 3: lot longer. Although I only recently realized Ben that you
Speaker 3: you are supposed to refrigerate your hot sauces after opening.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Some people don't think about that because they think of
Speaker 3: it as like a table sauce, you know, like at
Speaker 3: at a restaurant.
Speaker 2: But you should. I don't think it's gonna kill you.
Speaker 3: I've definitely had some nice hot sauces that I did
Speaker 3: not refrigerate, and I ate them and I'm okay, I'm
Speaker 3: still with us. It didn't even get a tummy ache.
Speaker 3: But it does recommend that if you read the fine
Speaker 3: prim going on pickles, sauces, nineteen century food and glass,
Speaker 3: who dutifully this is Betty's zovall. We're talking about catalog
Speaker 3: obscure hot sauce bottles found by collectors. Many bottles in
Speaker 3: the hands of collectors were uncovered from archaeological digs and shipwrecks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they found they found the condiments that the sailor used, right, Right,
Speaker 1: And we've talked in the past about how naval food
Speaker 1: just absolutely sucked for so long. Right, they had heart attack,
Speaker 1: which is barely digestible or edible. So they want some
Speaker 1: hot sauce and the Yeah, the militaries of the world
Speaker 1: still love hot sauce today. If you open an mre,
Speaker 1: anybody in the US Armed Services can tell you one
Speaker 1: of the best things you get is a tiny little.
Speaker 2: Like airplane bottle.
Speaker 1: Airplane there it is airplane bottle of hot sauce.
Speaker 2: It's the kind that Hillary Clinton keeps in her bag.
Speaker 3: Right, she has that thing on her because she's connected, man,
Speaker 3: she's with the culture.
Speaker 2: She's very relevant. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if we fast forward, we see that eighteen forty
Speaker 1: nine is a crucial year in hot sauce and condiment history. Yes,
Speaker 1: because that's when Lee and Parns out of the UK
Speaker 1: make something called Worcestershire sauce.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people might pronounce it Worcestershire sauce, Wooster sauce, Wooster
Speaker 3: sauce results Harry, but yeah, I mean it's it's it's
Speaker 3: I don't know how I would describe Worcestershire sauce as
Speaker 3: sort of like liquid oo, mommie. It's a it adds
Speaker 3: a little tang uh and a little bit of not
Speaker 3: really spice exactly salt for sure, but really it just
Speaker 3: has this extra thing to it, right. It's really good
Speaker 3: to add to a soup, bass or whatever. Maybe on
Speaker 3: a steak. It's like if you've.
Speaker 1: Ever, if you've ever, uh ever had to throw a
Speaker 1: bag of wet trash over your head and uh like,
Speaker 1: while you're throwing it in the dumpster, a little bit
Speaker 1: of that garbage juice, just a tiny bit gets in
Speaker 1: your mouth grows.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's what. Okay, So you tell us how you
Speaker 2: really feel about Worcester sauce. I love it. I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it's good.
Speaker 3: It Also it feels to me again, I couldn't tell
Speaker 3: you what's in it exactly, but it does feel to
Speaker 3: me like, uh, there has to be some relationship with
Speaker 3: like a one sauce. You know, there is something in
Speaker 3: a one sauce that is very woosh to sure, but yeah,
Speaker 3: this really does become quite popular because also, as we know,
Speaker 3: British food kind of has a reputation for being bland
Speaker 3: and terrible. So you know, anything to add a little
Speaker 3: bit of flavor to that stuff.
Speaker 1: We're sure actually has a lot in common. I would
Speaker 1: argue with the ancestors of ketchup right, like garam it's
Speaker 1: early guess it was.
Speaker 2: More of a brown yeah, kind of like umammi paste.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think we're nailing it with umami. And again,
Speaker 1: just to be clear, folks, please do not drink trash
Speaker 1: juice out of your garbage can just.
Speaker 2: God, Ben, you had to say it again to bring
Speaker 2: it back. We're bringing it back.
Speaker 1: Also, eighteen forty nine, that's the first recorded crop of
Speaker 1: tabasco chili's, which are the key ingredient in Michael Henny's
Speaker 1: Tabasco pepper Sauce. There is a guy who doesn't get
Speaker 1: sighted too often in the Michael Hinney story. His name
Speaker 1: is Colonel Monsel Watt. Oh, yeah, Louise or gentleman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a real pilm. He's a Louisiana banker, and he
Speaker 1: has this. He has a series of plantations. One of
Speaker 1: them is called the deer Range plantation. He grows well.
Speaker 1: The people he enslaved grow these tabasco chilis on this plantation,
Speaker 1: and he eventually starts spreading the word. He speaks to
Speaker 1: the New Orleans Daily Delta paper of note at the
Speaker 1: time about this this crop he's growing, and no, I
Speaker 1: think you would love to chew the scenery on this one.
Speaker 6: I must not own meant to notice the Colonel's pipple patch,
Speaker 6: which is two acres in extent all planted with a
Speaker 6: new species of red pipple which Kondel Lots has introduced
Speaker 6: into this country called Tabasco red pepple. The kernel attributes
Speaker 6: the admirable health of his hands to the free use
Speaker 6: of the pile.
Speaker 1: Amazing, well done.
Speaker 3: Health of his hands. I don't think he's talking about
Speaker 3: his two hands. Yeah, he's definitely not talking about his
Speaker 3: his you know, paid laborers with yeah, benefits and health care.
Speaker 3: He's basically referring to them almost like livestocks. Look look
Speaker 3: at the health of of my of my Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's gross.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, showing a horse's on auction or something.
Speaker 1: It's And Tabasco itself is a misspelling of Tabasco, the
Speaker 1: Mexican state. More appropriation lovely. Yeah, he's not even get
Speaker 1: the spelling right. Super chill guy. He makes the first
Speaker 1: hot sauce from these chilies and he sells it in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine. Around about eighteen fifty nine, he gives
Speaker 1: some of the chilies and a sauce recipe to his buddy,
Speaker 1: Edmund Mikilhinney. And Edmund mikil Henney, also a plantation owner,
Speaker 1: has a spot on Avery Island. He's starting to grow
Speaker 1: these things. The US Civil War happens. Union troops come
Speaker 1: in from New Orleans. In eighteen sixty three, mickel Henny
Speaker 1: and his family leave Avery Island. They hide out in
Speaker 1: San Antonio, Texas and wait for the heat to die down.
Speaker 2: They come back. Wait, why are they on the lamb?
Speaker 2: Why are they being sought.
Speaker 1: Up because the Union soldiers are invading.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and these are bad, bad slave owner men.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not super chill hold onto their antiquated and
Speaker 1: despicable way of life. So they come back to Avery
Speaker 1: Island their plantation there in eighteen sixty five, and they
Speaker 1: see the plantation is mostly destroyed. It's pretty ruined. However,
Speaker 1: in the soil they see a few like picture Dave
Speaker 1: Attenborough style, they see a few little green sprouts chili
Speaker 1: plants have survived, and those patch the pepple patch, and
Speaker 1: Mikael Henney is able to regrow a huge crop of
Speaker 1: Tabasco peppers from this stuff.
Speaker 3: They are resilient little buggers. That's actually a part and
Speaker 3: parcel with their whole. You know, stay away, don't eat
Speaker 3: me like they are. They have a bit of a
Speaker 3: heartiness to them.
Speaker 1: And so in eighteen sixty eight he packages this stuff
Speaker 1: up using Colonel Watt's recipe or something inspired by it,
Speaker 1: and he sells it, or he doesn't even sell it.
Speaker 2: At this point.
Speaker 1: He said it to people that he hopes will be wholesalers,
Speaker 1: and he sends it in used cologne bottles.
Speaker 3: Is there anything that Tabasco company has done to distance
Speaker 3: themselves from their racist legacy.
Speaker 5: Also, do we know if they got all the cologne
Speaker 5: out of the bottles or unclear? Sauce was just like
Speaker 5: really clone, Like wait.
Speaker 3: There was a there was like a little bit of
Speaker 3: a spill that was part of the secret ingredient.
Speaker 1: Michael Heady's original now with Drakard Doir.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so funny. You know he would be a man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because Drakard Noir is a choice. It's a bit
Speaker 1: of a douchebag cologne. Let's be honest, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: you know we're we're taking a lot of we're taking
Speaker 1: a lot of shots of people today, right hot.
Speaker 2: So nobody in particular.
Speaker 3: Just hey, if you were at Tricard Noir, go with God,
Speaker 3: It's fine.
Speaker 2: I've definitely warned at some point, did you really? It's
Speaker 2: when I was younger and didn't know better.
Speaker 1: Okay, well all right, man, everybody's on their journey.
Speaker 2: It just sounds pretentious.
Speaker 3: It sounds fake French or something, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: like very hog daw Yeah exactly. I think we're talking
Speaker 3: about that that's fully fully invented. It's nothing to do
Speaker 3: with anything.
Speaker 1: But speaking of invention, we do have to mention someone
Speaker 1: you you brought up earlier, Wilbur Scoville, the creator the
Speaker 1: Scoville scale. So whenever you see those TikTok or YouTube
Speaker 1: videos where someone's like, this is the hottest pepper, here
Speaker 1: are the stats, it's so and so on the Scullville scale, exactly.
Speaker 3: You know, it's funny, but I meant to mention this earlier.
Speaker 3: But it reminds me the the innovations in peppers that
Speaker 3: are going on today. People you know, cross breeding things,
Speaker 3: and I believe there was another pepper that was just
Speaker 3: just dropped that is even spicier than the ghost pepper.
Speaker 2: I can't quite remember what it's called.
Speaker 1: I love it when people say something just.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this new species of pepper just dropped. But it
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 3: Reminds me of like, you know, what, what what happens
Speaker 3: with marijuana now that it's much more you know, freely
Speaker 3: available and legal and less suppressed and stuff. So there's
Speaker 3: tons of different you know, strains and all of that,
Speaker 3: and cross breeding and people trying to make the fanciest,
Speaker 3: you know, most potent one. People always talk about weed
Speaker 3: back in the day was like way less strong. I
Speaker 3: kind of wonder if the same thing was true of peppers,
Speaker 3: you know, like old school peppers, probably there was nothing
Speaker 3: even approaching the levels of spice and variety that we
Speaker 3: have today.
Speaker 1: But you're one hundred correct.
Speaker 3: It was popular enough that there were enough different ones
Speaker 3: and enough different folks making hot sauces that somebody needed
Speaker 3: to keep track of them. So any little baby mouths
Speaker 3: out there wouldn't get point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, inter Wilbur Scooville, Yeah, Silber, a little Wilber.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he like he's alive. It's nineteen twelve or so,
Speaker 1: and there's so much hot sauce that people are trying
Speaker 1: to have some sort of uniformity right too, figure out
Speaker 1: some comparative scale. And his idea was this the Scuolville scale.
Speaker 1: Ask us, how much water do we need to dilute
Speaker 1: a spicy extract of a pepper in his case until
Speaker 1: it no longer tastes spicy? So every degree of dilution
Speaker 1: is one Scoville heat unit or shu a shoe. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, five thousand cups of water dilute one cup
Speaker 1: of Tabasco sauce to the point where it's no longer spicy.
Speaker 3: For some reason, I'm picturing like a drug deal of
Speaker 3: hot sauce going now, or someone whips out the testing
Speaker 3: kit and has like the little dropper, you know, sticks
Speaker 3: it on like a like a magnifying glass plate or whatever.
Speaker 3: How does one conduct a Scoville test? Surely they don't
Speaker 3: actually have to dilute the thing with like a thousand
Speaker 3: cups of water.
Speaker 1: Well, the scale itself evolved from that practice, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's much more evolved science now. We do know
Speaker 1: the Scoville measurement is the globally accepted standard for spiciness
Speaker 1: with these peppers. So and not all the peppers are,
Speaker 1: of course as spicy as the others. So shashido peppers
Speaker 1: almost a sweet pungency to those things. They have a
Speaker 1: pretty low shoe. They can be fifty to two hundred
Speaker 1: Schoolville units of Pulplano is more like fifteen hundred. Ajabanyero
Speaker 1: can be one hundred thousand to three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand Scoville units. And right now, if we're looking in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, the world's hottest pepper according to the
Speaker 1: Scoville rating system is called pepper X.
Speaker 2: That's right, two.
Speaker 1: Point sixty nine million Scoville units.
Speaker 2: Wow, how many cups of water? Would that be too many? Human?
Speaker 3: I did do a little cursory google and and there
Speaker 3: apparently is a thing, a device called the chili pot,
Speaker 3: which is claimed to be the world's first Scoville meter,
Speaker 3: designed to be using situations where people want to quickly
Speaker 3: and reliably know the Scovil units with their chili based
Speaker 3: product or chili pepper.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, so kids, test your chili peppers.
Speaker 3: You don't wanna you wanna get you want to get
Speaker 3: any of those tainted PEPs I'm picturing.
Speaker 1: I'm picturing some like hippie woodstock thing, but instead of drugs,
Speaker 1: it's all chili peppers. So I'm saying there's some guy
Speaker 1: running around like, don't eat the orange peppers.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Or like that scene in Boogie Nights where the dudes
Speaker 3: like fight lighting off firecrackers, you know, and like everyone
Speaker 3: and you listening to Sister Christian.
Speaker 2: But I believe that's Rio Speedwagon.
Speaker 3: Excellent scene, one of the most anxiety inducing scenes ever.
Speaker 2: Who's that actor that plays like, oh.
Speaker 3: Gosh, Gary, or no, it's not your own bit, but
Speaker 3: you could have It's not he could have though.
Speaker 2: Alfred Molina, Alfred Molina.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah he could.
Speaker 3: He's unhinged. Gary Oldman totally could have played this role.
Speaker 3: He's in a bathrobe waving a gun around. You know,
Speaker 3: I think Gary Oldman basically played that character in True Romance.
Speaker 3: Very similar. But but Max, I believe you have a
Speaker 3: Gary Oldman aside.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: So before we got on the recording, Ben and I
Speaker 5: were talking. I'm like, oh, yeah, I finally got to
Speaker 5: watch Oppenheimer and I'm like, we're talking about the presidents
Speaker 5: at the same time. I'm like, yeah, Gary Oldman played
Speaker 5: a good Truman. Ben goes Gary Oldman's and Oppenheimer.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seen the film because we.
Speaker 4: Talking about Robert Downey Jr. Kind of hiding in the character.
Speaker 2: It's right.
Speaker 4: I looked at the cast list. I'm like, oh, Gary
Speaker 4: Oldman's gonna show up as Truman.
Speaker 2: Benny Softie's in it too.
Speaker 3: Who I just is blowing up. I love that guy
Speaker 3: so much. I'm sad the Softie brothers are breaking up
Speaker 3: for the time being. But what a polymath. I'm just
Speaker 3: incredible actor, incredible director, incredible writer.
Speaker 2: Just really really had to see that guy succeed.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna wrap this episode up before one of
Speaker 1: us reveals themselves to be Gary Oldman, who is again
Speaker 1: an amazing actor. Like, if you're hearing this now, you
Speaker 1: might be Gary Oldman and you might not know he's
Speaker 1: that good.
Speaker 2: He is. Yeah, he can rock the makeup. You know.
Speaker 3: All he needs is like an eye patch, you know,
Speaker 3: to set him over the top. There's some really good
Speaker 3: memes where it's just like side by side images of
Speaker 3: him in different films, and the guy is an absolute chameleon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he's a regular till this one. They may
Speaker 1: be the same person. No, entirely possible. It's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: A thing that is also entirely possible. Speaking of awkward seguays,
Speaker 1: you can save yourself from the sensation of heat if
Speaker 1: you eat a pepper that's too peppy for you. Capsaius
Speaker 1: In binds to a thing called t RPV one vanilloid receptor, right,
Speaker 1: because again it's related to the vanilla bean. Sure, drinking water,
Speaker 1: as we all know, does not help you eliminate the heat,
Speaker 1: not a.
Speaker 2: Bit, because it's not heat.
Speaker 3: It's not like it's it's not exactly like you've burned
Speaker 3: your tongue or you have an auchi. It's something else
Speaker 3: you've like ingested a substance that is eliciting a chemical
Speaker 3: reaction that feels like heat, but it's not like But
Speaker 3: at the same time, though, I have to have to say,
Speaker 3: with certain levels of spicy food, you do feel like
Speaker 3: you're sweating and your face does kind of get warm.
Speaker 3: So the urge or the impulse to drink water it
Speaker 3: makes sense. But no, it's not going to do a
Speaker 3: damn bit of good.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right on all accounts. Capsisin again, that active
Speaker 1: ingredient or kaiser sous capsaisin dissolves in fat and alcohol,
Speaker 1: not in water, So if you drink a lot of water,
Speaker 1: you're spreading that substance around. We're just moving the burn
Speaker 1: to different areas, like you're like your gullet, right, dairy
Speaker 1: products and weirdly enough, booze will help absorb or act
Speaker 1: as a detergent.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's true, Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Not for nothing do people serve chicken wings and beer
Speaker 1: and so many restaurants.
Speaker 2: That does make sense.
Speaker 3: It's a good pairing too, because a good beer has
Speaker 3: a nice crisp bite to it as well. They just
Speaker 3: sort of like it's just sort of like a nice
Speaker 3: white wine with the shrimp pasta or something like that.
Speaker 3: Big fans milk from mammals. It turns out contains a
Speaker 3: protein called casin, which is the same protein that creates
Speaker 3: the kurds in sour milk. No favorites those lumpy boys
Speaker 3: that also Yeah, if you scrape them off and splat
Speaker 3: them into a vat and you got yourself cottage cheese.
Speaker 3: Casin is a lipophilic, which means it was the fat
Speaker 3: protein and that causes it to act as a kind
Speaker 3: of almost the way detergent is able to dissolve and
Speaker 3: kind of you know, react with stains and with with
Speaker 3: you know, besmirchments of garments. This does so with spicy
Speaker 3: food with capsasm.
Speaker 1: I do like besmirchment. Yes, thank you, that's great. And
Speaker 1: with that, folks, we are going to wrap up our
Speaker 1: history of condiments starting you know, this is our hot
Speaker 1: sauce episode. I don't know how to end it. I'm
Speaker 1: just so excited.
Speaker 2: I will say this.
Speaker 3: I may have let this little story slip in the past,
Speaker 3: but I am a big fan of hot sauce and
Speaker 3: I have very lucky to have occasion to travel to
Speaker 3: New York relatively frequently and when I go. In the
Speaker 3: past handful of years, I've been staying in Williamsburg and Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: and in Williamsburg, really close to the hotel where I
Speaker 3: always stay is a little shop call the Heatonists, which
Speaker 3: is a storefront connected with the now We Feast brand
Speaker 3: and the Hot Ones you know the Chicken Wing celebrity
Speaker 3: eating Chicken Wing show, And they have all of the
Speaker 3: hot sauces you can get with a subscription.
Speaker 2: Again an a sponsor, but would be happy to be.
Speaker 3: You can get all of those Heatonists Hot Ones hot
Speaker 3: Sauce bundles and they just have a remarkable collection of
Speaker 3: hot sauces from around the world. So every time I go,
Speaker 3: I grab a hanvel with the first time I went,
Speaker 3: I was a Dodo and I put it in my
Speaker 3: carry on bag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Forgot that hot sauces just barely exceed the fluid outs
Speaker 3: levels for a carry on you are able to check it,
Speaker 3: but I was not able to check my bag for
Speaker 3: other reasons, and so they confiscated my precious hot sauces.
Speaker 2: Ever since that, I'll always checked check the hot sauce.
Speaker 1: I had a similar situation with moving some kimchi from
Speaker 1: South Korea.
Speaker 2: And you sound like you're smuggling in it. No, no,
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 1: I got it through you know, totally.
Speaker 2: Legal means.
Speaker 1: And I just didn't think of the air pressure. And
Speaker 1: so when we landed in the US, I had this
Speaker 1: would have once been a very reasonable package of kimchi
Speaker 1: had ballooned up, and.
Speaker 2: Lead leak in your bad.
Speaker 1: Just expanded, expanded, and I was thinking we could probably
Speaker 1: still eat it. Kimchi is quite durable. It is quite durable,
Speaker 1: but it is uh. It is best to not take
Speaker 1: things on planes unless you know how they won't behave
Speaker 1: I don't know why that sounds like a mean comment
Speaker 1: about children on planes.
Speaker 2: Oh, man, children on planes are the worst. They're up there.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you ever been in front of one that
Speaker 2: that just.
Speaker 3: Like kicks your seat like I guess he's like he's
Speaker 3: doing it on purpose. And if you ever had to
Speaker 3: turn around and make a mean face at him, I'll
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: I've done the face.
Speaker 5: I've uh. The most recent time I came back from Portland.
Speaker 5: I like to come back from the West Coast a
Speaker 5: red eye because you get on the plane, you fall asleep.
Speaker 4: And I got stuck next to.
Speaker 5: A woman and her kid or kid was in the
Speaker 5: middle seat and he hapen trying to sleep on my shoulder.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know, you man, don't don't don't get.
Speaker 5: No, he made it weird. Kid made a weird buddy.
Speaker 5: You were a lot smaller, you fit in these seat
Speaker 5: a lot. But I mean, granted my not general love
Speaker 5: for children as well stated, but still I'm like, here.
Speaker 1: How how old would you guess the kid to be?
Speaker 2: Nine?
Speaker 1: Okay, undercover air marshal right.
Speaker 2: Obvious, definitely definitely.
Speaker 3: I will say I've been on the other end of
Speaker 3: that as well, where I've accidentally popped a snooze on
Speaker 3: somebody's shoulder and a plane what so yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's look, when you're asleep, you don't know
Speaker 2: what you're gonna do.
Speaker 3: I'm perpetually nine in my mind and in my heart.
Speaker 3: But no, seriously, guys, what's here?
Speaker 2: Sleep? All bets are off.
Speaker 4: Sure this wasn't asleep. This kid was like trying to
Speaker 4: do it while he was away.
Speaker 2: He was doing he was knowingly max.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely an air marshall. Okay, that's h and again
Speaker 1: so they call it honeypot right there. Yeah, so wow,
Speaker 1: tune into ridiculous histories, extended cinematic universe. Little Marshals, the
Speaker 1: new new.
Speaker 3: From the Police to Cat, from the makers of Police
Speaker 3: Academy and Kindergarten Cop Comes Little Marshalls, Little Marshals.
Speaker 2: We can't wait.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be on Hulu probably or maybe maybe Disney.
Speaker 2: It's gonna get buried on Apple Plus. There it is there.
Speaker 1: It is stick with us. Hey, you guys know who
Speaker 1: else is a fan of hot Sauce? Do you tell
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland aka the Twister.
Speaker 3: I thought he was allergic. I thought it would kill
Speaker 3: him instantly? Or is that just shellfish?
Speaker 1: I think he has the condition?
Speaker 3: Okay, well I just I just hey, look I just
Speaker 3: dropped in to see what condition Max's condition was in.
Speaker 1: Oh, this whole episode is worth it because of the
Speaker 1: weird shrug Max just gave us.
Speaker 2: It was a very good shrug. It was clear.
Speaker 3: It was like the the It was like the shrug
Speaker 3: they based that emoji on.
Speaker 2: There. It is there.
Speaker 1: It is thanks as well to the fact, thanks as
Speaker 1: well to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Thanks to uh,
Speaker 1: let's see Eve's Jeff coat. Doesn't the condition sound like
Speaker 1: it could be like a wrestling name.
Speaker 2: I'm really do.
Speaker 1: It could be on Jersey. I'm sure they called me
Speaker 1: the condition.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm going to write an entire episode about
Speaker 5: this condition and make us do an episode about it
Speaker 5: just because of this now, right, Well but no, no.
Speaker 2: No, we got to keep the condition mysterious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can never explain demystifying the I will never
Speaker 3: say what it is.
Speaker 5: But I'm gonna say every single liken, like, every single
Speaker 5: thing about it, what it is. Someone can just Google
Speaker 5: search and figure it out.
Speaker 6: Why.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sorry, man, all right, Max, you're the boss. Whatever you say,
Speaker 3: samer than this tree while we have.
Speaker 1: The chance, get it while it's fresh, folks. Uh, thanks
Speaker 1: of course to Alex Williams who composed this track. Thanks
Speaker 1: to aj Bahamas Jacobs, which we will also not explain.
Speaker 2: Noel, what is?
Speaker 1: People might hear you on the Puzzler.
Speaker 2: They might.
Speaker 3: I actually was supposed to record yesterday, but I had
Speaker 3: to reschedule because I've had some electrical issues in my
Speaker 3: studio and the electrician.
Speaker 2: Ran into the time that I was supposed to record
Speaker 2: with a jam.
Speaker 3: But we have rescheduled for this Friday, so barely a
Speaker 3: hicco should come out around the same time that it
Speaker 3: was originally planned to, which I don't know when that is,
Speaker 3: but it will be in the very near future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do us a favor and see how I want
Speaker 1: to embarrass you.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, see.
Speaker 1: How old Bahamas feels about hot sauce?
Speaker 2: What is this Bahamas business man? What is this Bahamas business?
Speaker 2: You'll have to ask him. He doesn't know, he said, So.
Speaker 4: It's life conditioned, Noel, I guess.
Speaker 2: Let's see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.