Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Honley Frye and
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about sandwiches. We did.
Speaker 1: I will talk about sandwiches all day long. Here's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing that came up. We talked at the end
Speaker 1: in the Ruben Origin story about Elizabeth Wile or weel.
Speaker 1: I don't know how she pronounces it, so my apologies
Speaker 1: if it's wrong. And she wrote several of the articles
Speaker 1: that I was reading because she had her own like
Speaker 1: sort of dramatic play out of what happened when she
Speaker 1: initially shared her family story, which is that a food
Speaker 1: historian named Andrew Smith, who has written a lot of
Speaker 1: food histories, reached out and was kind of like, you
Speaker 1: are wrong, wrong, wrong, And then she and her husband,
Speaker 1: and particularly her husband really started to dig until they
Speaker 1: could find a primary source, which is why we know
Speaker 1: that the oldest one is from nineteen thirty four, because
Speaker 1: he got the Nebraska Historical Society, I think, involved, and
Speaker 1: they found one in their archives, and I was taken
Speaker 1: aback a little bit because she very much shares this
Speaker 1: entire story of their disagreement and how it played out,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I wouldn't do that. I'd be too scared.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting, and listen, I'm just glad we have
Speaker 1: a ruben sandwich. That's all I need. It's all I need.
Speaker 1: We were going to talk about how we both dislike
Speaker 1: Sloppy Joe's. I hate them. I hate them too. They
Speaker 1: were a staple in my household growing up, Like there
Speaker 1: was just there was sort of a rotation of the
Speaker 1: things that we regularly ate for dinner, and Sloppy Joe's
Speaker 1: was in the rotation. And I was like, I hate this.
Speaker 1: This is effectively chili on a bun. Well, but there's
Speaker 1: no beans. There are chilies that don't have beans at all.
Speaker 1: All of these foods are on my no fly list. Yes,
Speaker 1: So I hated that you bite into it and the
Speaker 1: stuff comes out everywhere, and I hated how it made
Speaker 1: the bun wet. I just hated it and it and
Speaker 1: unlike Holly, I did not have a viscerally negative reaction
Speaker 1: to the idea of chili. I was always like, why
Speaker 1: don't we just have chili and not this hamburger bun
Speaker 1: to go with it? Right? And my mom would make
Speaker 1: chili that she would serve over rice, like there were
Speaker 1: other ways to make the chili stretch with some or
Speaker 1: you know whatever, the meat and sauce stretch with I'm
Speaker 1: kind of sauce at our house, whether it was spaghetti
Speaker 1: with spaghetti sauce or chili over rice or whatever. And
Speaker 1: I was just always like, like, I hate it. Why
Speaker 1: do this version when other options are a thing? Right?
Speaker 1: It wasn't like I hated it enough to have a
Speaker 1: standoff with my mother, which I did with some other
Speaker 1: foods that I cannot deal with, But I was just
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't understand. Why were we are
Speaker 1: choosing to have this obviously inferior presentation of meat and
Speaker 1: tomato sauce. Yeah, I don't don't. I don't have at all.
Speaker 1: I don't like messiness, and we didn't mention in the episode,
Speaker 1: but like some people do, theirs much sweeter and include
Speaker 1: like barbecue sauce. I think some of the earliest, like
Speaker 1: newspaper write ups before there were canned Sloppy Joe sauces
Speaker 1: on the market, were like you can use a little
Speaker 1: tomato paste and barbecue sauce, which you can. I guess
Speaker 1: if this is your jam. I don't like any of it. Blick,
Speaker 1: it's messy. I don't want sloppy, sticky glorp on me right, No,
Speaker 1: thank you. It's just occurred to me that these objections
Speaker 1: that I have to sloppy Joe's I do not have
Speaker 1: over like a pulled pork barbecue sandwich because the pork,
Speaker 1: the pulled pork holds together in a way that ground
Speaker 1: beef and a sauce does not get ground beef, and
Speaker 1: like loose meat sandwiches, no just no open face it
Speaker 1: and milk cheese on top and will get closer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I might be willing to eat it, but I also
Speaker 1: don't want it sweet. Now, Dad, if you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: please don't play it for mom. Listen. My hat is
Speaker 1: off to anybody who cooks for anybody. And if someone
Speaker 1: cooks me a homemade meal, even if it's something I
Speaker 1: don't like, I will eat it because I appreciate that
Speaker 1: they took the time to do it. But this would
Speaker 1: never be my first choice. I will never make it
Speaker 1: in my home myself. I don't think I have had
Speaker 1: a sloppy Joe since leaving my parents' home to live
Speaker 1: on my own. I'm trying to remember. It's been a
Speaker 1: long time, a very long time. Yeah, I just don't
Speaker 1: love it, you know. I love a hot brown. I love.
Speaker 1: Of course. That's another one that like you don't pick
Speaker 1: up you eat it with a fork and a knife
Speaker 1: because it's it's a big mess, and it feels sort
Speaker 1: of in that same genre as like a krooke monsieur
Speaker 1: to me, And I do like a crooked monsieur. I
Speaker 1: love a chrooked monsieur. You make it a croke madomin,
Speaker 1: I'm all over it, say Frida egg on top. Yeah, love,
Speaker 1: I love, I love, but I do like a hot brown,
Speaker 1: and it made me want to make them. Do you remember.
Speaker 1: I didn't remember, and my memory was jogged in an article,
Speaker 1: but I didn't have time to like go chase it
Speaker 1: down right. We talked about, uh, the introduction of the
Speaker 1: Manwich brand sauce, which inherently has had some problems hmm,
Speaker 1: of it being somehow a gendered sandwich. Yeah, weirdly gendered
Speaker 1: for some reason. And they had an ad campaign not
Speaker 1: that long ago, but I don't remember. I mean it's
Speaker 1: been a little while. That was kind of like hyper
Speaker 1: masculine in its thing and suggesting that like, if men
Speaker 1: did not like this sandwich, there was something wrong with
Speaker 1: them or whatever, and they pulled it very quickly because
Speaker 1: people were like, what are you doing? To their credit,
Speaker 1: they immediately pulled it. But I'm still like, how did
Speaker 1: that ever make it to air? I don't. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember like man which ads when I was a kid
Speaker 1: being on TV having a weird like, I was like,
Speaker 1: why is it sandwich for men? I don't understand a lot. Clearly,
Speaker 1: I'm just not understanding about sloppy Japs. Yeah, me either.
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I don't get the appeal. I don't,
Speaker 1: but I do know people that love them. So we
Speaker 1: also mentioned that I wanted to talk about the reviews
Speaker 1: of the newly opened newly in the last ten years,
Speaker 1: Sloppy Joe's in Havana. Yeah, if you go, like on
Speaker 1: trip Advisor and you read the reviews, they are so
Speaker 1: desperately polarized that it sounds like some people are going
Speaker 1: to the real Sloppy Joe's and some people might be
Speaker 1: going to a different place that's using the same name
Speaker 1: because they don't sound like the same place at all.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, And I don't know if that's the case.
Speaker 1: But like some of them are like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: this was such an elegant meal. It was incredible, Like
Speaker 1: I loved it. It's a bar, but like the cocktails
Speaker 1: are amazing and the food was really good, and I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that the Historic Society brought this back. And
Speaker 1: then others are like the only thing they have on
Speaker 1: the menu is tuna, and I'm like what, Like, I
Speaker 1: really don't know what's going on there where these are
Speaker 1: so completely disparate. But should I get to Havanah, I'm
Speaker 1: I'll find out. Okay, we have not talked about the
Speaker 1: Jewel of Discovery in the research. Okay, I mentioned in
Speaker 1: the episode. I don't remember which of us talked about it,
Speaker 1: that there was a book that came out in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two which is the Cocktail Menu with instructions for
Speaker 1: the Havana Sloppy Joe's. And this book is fully available
Speaker 1: online in digital form nice like where they have scanned
Speaker 1: the whole book in on a site that does a
Speaker 1: lot of old cocktail books. And it is such a
Speaker 1: jewel because it has a lot of interesting cocktail recipes
Speaker 1: in it if you're into that. But here there is
Speaker 1: also a drink in it called the sloppy Joe, oh wow,
Speaker 1: which sounds far more interesting to me than the sandwich.
Speaker 1: I also don't like rapavieja or I clearly have a
Speaker 1: problem with like shredded or ground meat. That is kind
Speaker 1: of I don't dislike either of those inherently, but there's
Speaker 1: something about in a sauce. It becomes I'm like, what
Speaker 1: else is in this sauce? Like I just I'm not trusting.
Speaker 1: Apparently you're not really into soup sea there. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I do not like gloopy food. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: It's bisc or bust. I was just telling my friend Kristin.
Speaker 1: It has to be very thick and very creamy, and
Speaker 1: I have to know who made it. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I'm very weird about it because I will literally
Speaker 1: eat food off the floor sometimes. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: This is the place where I'm persninkity, but not just
Speaker 1: like I'm not wandering around the earth going look food
Speaker 1: on the floor, but if I drop a thing, I'll
Speaker 1: sometimes eat it. Anyway. The drink called a sloppy Joe,
Speaker 1: which I have not made yet but I am absolutely
Speaker 1: going to, is one part pineapple juice, one part cognac
Speaker 1: and one part port wine with a few drops of
Speaker 1: grenadine and curisau and you shake it with cracked ice
Speaker 1: and then you serve it in a tall glass and
Speaker 1: sounds really interesting to me, and I'm going to make it.
Speaker 1: I'm making a puzzled face. But it's just like they're
Speaker 1: just kept being more what is your puzzlement? I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know. They just it started with pineapple, and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, and I think my brain kind
Speaker 1: of built out a drink from there and it was
Speaker 1: not then the list of things that you were expecting
Speaker 1: a teaki drink and not knyac and wine in it, right, yeah, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually think this sounds pretty darn good. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'll report back, okay with the Sloppy Joe cocktail. But
Speaker 1: I kind of just want to make a bunch of
Speaker 1: drinks from that book because they there are a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting ones that sounds fun, which put me in
Speaker 1: the mind of I was like, oh, this is why
Speaker 1: Ernest Hemingway like this. Listen, we all know Ernest Hemingway
Speaker 1: loved to drink. Do you know what a death in
Speaker 1: the afternoon is? I I feel like yes, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: It's not gelling with the answer. It is a cocktail
Speaker 1: that is generally some people say Hemingway invented this, uh huh,
Speaker 1: and uh it is half by some measures. You'll see
Speaker 1: different measures included. Some will say it is half champagne
Speaker 1: half absinthe, and some will say it is just like
Speaker 1: a flute of champagne, and then like you do a
Speaker 1: jigger of absinthe, But jiggers come in all sizes, so like,
Speaker 1: depending on how big your flute is, you're already into it.
Speaker 1: But it's a lot, And I'm like, who I mean,
Speaker 1: that's good for a once in a while. But I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, wonder Hemingway like sloppyges. They made
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting drinks. Now we know, now we know.
Speaker 1: And then he just imported it into Key West in
Speaker 1: his own version. This all makes sense to me. I
Speaker 1: want to rubin so bad right now I can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever eaten one. It's just corn
Speaker 1: beef and sauerkraut and thousand island dressing, this, thousand aves
Speaker 1: and right, these just weren't ingredients that we had around
Speaker 1: the house, right, But like you, I've been to delis
Speaker 1: with you. I know you've had access I have. So
Speaker 1: here's kind of a funny story. Uh, my dad goes
Speaker 1: to visit like his one living aunt as to the
Speaker 1: community where she lives, and that is what they get
Speaker 1: every time because it's the one. And I think there
Speaker 1: have been at least two times that I have been
Speaker 1: visiting my parents and there has been a plan that
Speaker 1: I'm going to accompany Dad on this visit, We're all
Speaker 1: going to get rubens. And then every time something has
Speaker 1: gone wrong and like either the visit hasn't happened, or
Speaker 1: I have needed to stay with my mom or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, I don't it's I think it's just
Speaker 1: one of those things. Similarly to like a cob salad,
Speaker 1: where since I never really had one growing up, by
Speaker 1: the time I became an adult and was in restaurants
Speaker 1: that served sandwiches and salads and stuff, I already had
Speaker 1: other sandwiches and salads that are favorites. I do like
Speaker 1: to try new foods. I mean that's not something I
Speaker 1: shy away from doing ever, right, But when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like a salad or a sandwich or whatever,
Speaker 1: A lot of times, like there's a thing that's the
Speaker 1: thing that I want, and I stick with that. I'm
Speaker 1: going to totally get a Ruben though you've convinced me
Speaker 1: I should try one. I hope you like it. If
Speaker 1: you don't save it, freeze it, I'll eat it when
Speaker 1: we're together next. I don't let no Ruben be left behind.
Speaker 1: That's okay. I'll bring it on the plane with me
Speaker 1: to Iceland. I mean, yeah, I'll do it. Speaking of
Speaker 1: which is a good time to mention we're going to Iceland.
Speaker 1: They are going to Iceland the first week of November,
Speaker 1: the second to the eighth. If you would like to go.
Speaker 1: This is in in the next in the series of
Speaker 1: our fun international trips that we've been doing each year
Speaker 1: almost except the pandemic messed up that whole plan. We're
Speaker 1: going to Iceland. We're going to spend some time in
Speaker 1: Raykovic and some time in vic and we're gonna eat
Speaker 1: interesting things and visit historical places and you can come
Speaker 1: to You can do that at Defined Destinations dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Defined Destinations dot com. Uh, and it should be
Speaker 1: right there on the main page for it, says Ice.
Speaker 1: I'm mailed in my mail in voting application, so I'm
Speaker 1: set for that. You are set. Yes, it happens during
Speaker 1: the election here in the US, so be mindful if
Speaker 1: you want to sign up that that may be part
Speaker 1: of the situation, part of the planning. Yeah, you want to,
Speaker 1: you want to plan ahead for that, but we uh
Speaker 1: envision a very good time and you can get all
Speaker 1: the details there on the Defined Destination website. This week
Speaker 1: we talked about Marjorie Courtney Latimer and the celacanth. Sure did.
Speaker 1: Boy do I love her? She's yeah, I love her
Speaker 1: trumping around in repurposed nursing uniform and stockings, ripping those
Speaker 1: stockings all to shreds, doing her naturalist work. I would
Speaker 1: not wear stockings to do that or address But the
Speaker 1: fact that she was absolutely adore the fact that a
Speaker 1: man was like, yeah, I want to marry you, but
Speaker 1: you can't be doing this naturalist thing, and she was like,
Speaker 1: we're breaking up. Then I love that. Don't love the
Speaker 1: fact that when she did finally find somebody that seemed
Speaker 1: to release support these interests, that he died. That was
Speaker 1: very sad, But I love her. I tried to track
Speaker 1: down as much as I could about her relationships with
Speaker 1: the like the indigenous population of Southern Africa, because that
Speaker 1: whole thing is really fraught obviously, and ethnographic collections and
Speaker 1: museums can also be really fraught. But based on everything
Speaker 1: I was able to find, it does seem like that
Speaker 1: she was approaching these kinds of things with as much
Speaker 1: respect as possible given, especially like the time that she
Speaker 1: was living. Yeah, for reasons I don't know, she was
Speaker 1: the only person in her family to go buy a
Speaker 1: hyphenated Courtney Latimer last name. A lot of the rest
Speaker 1: of her family just went by Latimer, or her sisters
Speaker 1: when they had sons, would put Latimer or would put
Speaker 1: Courtney as like the son's middle name. But she made
Speaker 1: it her hyphenated last name, which I liked. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I liked that, I just did. I also
Speaker 1: needed I needed her colleague J LB. Smith. I needed
Speaker 1: him to calm down. I get it. I have absolutely
Speaker 1: worried myself into sleeplessness over something that was within my control,
Speaker 1: well not within my control anyway, But his letters to
Speaker 1: her are so overwhelming in how worried he is about
Speaker 1: the fish guts, and I understand the reasons for being
Speaker 1: upset about it, but I just feel like being in
Speaker 1: her position, getting a letter that's like, you must preserve
Speaker 1: the fish's viscera, and it's like it's too late, like
Speaker 1: they were rotten. We didn't have anywhere to store one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five pound fishes viscera. Keep it like
Speaker 1: I was doing my best. It's clear that she was
Speaker 1: doing her best. And it's also clear that as he understood,
Speaker 1: like was catching up with the situation as it unfolded,
Speaker 1: that he also understood that she did her best. She
Speaker 1: did her best, Like he never none of the letters
Speaker 1: that I read came across as criticizing her once he
Speaker 1: knew what the situation was like, he doesn't seem he
Speaker 1: never said anything to her that was like you are
Speaker 1: so bad of your job for having Like, none of
Speaker 1: it was ever like that saying that it was the
Speaker 1: biggest tragedy to zoology. I was like, you didn't really
Speaker 1: need to put that in writing. But he does seem
Speaker 1: to have been once he understood the situation, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: you really did your best, and in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways did more than a person could reasonably be expected
Speaker 1: to do. You found a way to preserve this one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five or however many pound fish in
Speaker 1: the summer overs in a place where there wasn't refrigeration
Speaker 1: for it, right, and no one wanted to help, And
Speaker 1: no one wanted to help because everybody was like, I
Speaker 1: don't want that stinky fish. Her account of it was
Speaker 1: definitely like, this fish was literally alive this morning. It
Speaker 1: does not stink. It will stink if you don't let
Speaker 1: me put it in the morgue. So anyway, I love her.
Speaker 1: I do like that. Smith when it came to other
Speaker 1: people criticizing her, was very publicly vocal about no, no,
Speaker 1: you do not understand. Yeah, you know, at a time
Speaker 1: when it was probably very easy and natural for other
Speaker 1: people in that field to presume that she was a
Speaker 1: foolish woman ding dong who didn't handle it right to
Speaker 1: have like somebody that was respected and male to go like, no,
Speaker 1: you're all wrong, you don't understan And I named the
Speaker 1: fish for her because she did so much. She's the
Speaker 1: reason we have this, it's the reason we have any
Speaker 1: of the fish at all. Well, And I would love
Speaker 1: for him to have pointed out, like the first, the
Speaker 1: first dude that she talked to you about it was like,
Speaker 1: it's just a fish. I'm going on a yeah, I Also,
Speaker 1: we've already rerun the episode on the piltdown man hoax.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, we have already run that as a Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1: But you know, when I was, when I was reading
Speaker 1: about all of this, and I, you know, found this
Speaker 1: article where what was that guy's name, Arthur Smith Woodward.
Speaker 1: I want to say, that's what his name was. I
Speaker 1: scrolled past it in my outline. Yeah, when I found
Speaker 1: that he had written this where he was this article
Speaker 1: where he was like because because its value was not
Speaker 1: appreciated only the exterior, And I was like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not what happened, Arthur Smith Woodward. Also, you don't know
Speaker 1: this yet, but you have no room to be casting
Speaker 1: aspersions on anybody else's judgment. You're going to be real
Speaker 1: discredited before. Yeah, you told everyone that the skull that
Speaker 1: was pieced together with dental putty was the missing link.
Speaker 1: So you don't you don't get to, you know, try
Speaker 1: to subtly shame a woman museum curator in your papers.
Speaker 1: You are not the arbiter of good specimen judgments. Really
Speaker 1: not super not anyway. I keep saying I love her,
Speaker 1: I really do do you love her? I do I
Speaker 1: love her? I kept finding things where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: and this is also great nursing uniforms to just being like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm not going to be a nurse anymore,
Speaker 1: but I made all these uniforms, so that's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wear for now. This is mr personal style. My
Speaker 1: personal styles is that it does kind of mystify me
Speaker 1: a little bit that people were like, yeah, we are
Speaker 1: going to trust this seven year old judgment about which
Speaker 1: mushrooms are safe to eat. But apparently she did know
Speaker 1: by that point which mushrooms were safe to eat. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I am very glad that I stopped being sort of
Speaker 1: preemptively concerned about the availability of information and finally got
Speaker 1: her up to the top of the list. Love it,
Speaker 1: Love it. This is your weekend coming up. You know,
Speaker 1: if you like to go out into the woods and
Speaker 1: look at bird nests and stuff, I hope you get
Speaker 1: to do a whole lot of that. And if not,
Speaker 1: if you're an indoor kid, I hope there is some
Speaker 1: great video game or book reading in your few. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with a Saturday classic tomorrow and something brand
Speaker 1: new on Monday. Stuff You Missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.