Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Ladies and gentlemen. They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's not Boland, and my name is
Speaker 1: Noel the butter lover Brown. Now that's good. I don't
Speaker 1: don't ever call me that. I will not call you that.
Speaker 1: If we're outside of the balance of this episode. Is
Speaker 1: that fair? I guess so. Also, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: our wonderful producer Alex pointed out right before we started rolling,
Speaker 1: the butter lover was considered an insult in medieval Roman Catholicism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Roman times to call someone butter lover? Was it
Speaker 1: was fighting words, wasn't it. We got the nod from Alex. There,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous history, and today we are looking at
Speaker 1: a very ridiculous but I would argue, very important part
Speaker 1: of butter history. Yeah, and also part of the history
Speaker 1: of religion as we know it. And it's ridiculous, I
Speaker 1: guess because a big part of the Protestant Reformation, as
Speaker 1: uh it turns out, was hinged on the prohibition of
Speaker 1: that delicious, creamy substance we know and love, many of
Speaker 1: us I do. How do you feel about butter? Butter? Yes,
Speaker 1: I love it. I've had I've had many loves, hard
Speaker 1: one and often lost in my life. Noel, and Butter
Speaker 1: is Butter is the one that's going to stick around.
Speaker 1: I think you're messing with me. I am not messing
Speaker 1: with you. I am not messing with you. The it's true.
Speaker 1: Everythinging that the illustrious Mr Brown said is true. And
Speaker 1: this is somewhat timely for us because this year, the
Speaker 1: year in which we're recording this marks the five anniversary
Speaker 1: of the Protestant Reformation. And I mean, that's such a
Speaker 1: staple of of high school history classes. But just in case,
Speaker 1: well what was the Protestant Reformation? Ben, So, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you asked. So. It was a schism from the
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic Church, and it was originally instituted by a
Speaker 1: fellow named Martin Luther to the guy that nailed the
Speaker 1: thing to the door. Yet he's the guy who famously
Speaker 1: nailed feces onto the door in fifteen seventeen. So what
Speaker 1: you're saying is he had thes and Butter was one. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we are uh And I believe I believe that jay Z,
Speaker 1: just I mean, is gonna guess that jay Z probably
Speaker 1: based his song offs I was thinking that might be
Speaker 1: the case. It has a feel, has that feel to it. Uh.
Speaker 1: The problem that Martin Luther had to keep it in
Speaker 1: a in a short format. Right. The problem that Martin
Speaker 1: Luther had was that the way that Catholic Church was
Speaker 1: functioning seen in his opinion in many ways as corrupt
Speaker 1: and as oppressive, and he had his own theology that
Speaker 1: conflicted with this. Right, I mean corrupt in the most
Speaker 1: like Mafioss sense of the word corrupt. Essentially, the church
Speaker 1: charged people um what they called indulgences in order to
Speaker 1: go against Catholic doctrine or things that were prohibited food
Speaker 1: items for example, or activities that were prohibited. You could
Speaker 1: essentially pay for absolution. And this was clearly a huge
Speaker 1: beef with Martin Luther. Because I have the pulled up
Speaker 1: in Internet form and I typed in a search for
Speaker 1: the word indulge. I didn't even make it all the
Speaker 1: way to indulgence, and it appears forty five times um
Speaker 1: in the document. And there were there were serious, fundamentally
Speaker 1: contradictory theological opinions that Martin Luther had, or maybe beliefs
Speaker 1: is a better word here. Uh. The indulgences, Yes, clearly
Speaker 1: a corrupt practice. Right. He also challenged the authority of
Speaker 1: the pope, and he believed that the Bible didn't have
Speaker 1: to stay in the Latin language. He when he translated
Speaker 1: the Bible to German, he honestly set that culture on
Speaker 1: a path toward a standard written version of a German language.
Speaker 1: Well totally mean, like a big part of it too,
Speaker 1: beyond this weird practice of selling indulgences was making it
Speaker 1: more accessible to people and not having to have everything
Speaker 1: go through some sort of high church official or you know,
Speaker 1: like the idea that you could speak directly to God
Speaker 1: rather than have to have a go between some kind
Speaker 1: of like medium almost in a way, in the form
Speaker 1: of a priest, you know. And and Butter is not
Speaker 1: just a tiny h Well look at that kind of
Speaker 1: detail in this story. In fact, if not for this
Speaker 1: band on Butter, there might have been a much slower
Speaker 1: growth rate of the Protestant movement. So if we look
Speaker 1: at this first, I guess the best way for us
Speaker 1: to start is to consider fast days. Should we travel
Speaker 1: back in time to medieval Europe. I think that's a
Speaker 1: wonderful idea. So here we are midieval Europe. Dude, It's
Speaker 1: kind of weird here. It's really dark and gloomy, and
Speaker 1: everyone looks really bummed out. Yes, yes, yes, you'll you'll
Speaker 1: also notice that there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: look hungry. Watch out for that poop. Oh you slipped,
Speaker 1: that's fine, it's my poop. I was here earlier. Gross,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I was just really feeling the moment.
Speaker 1: That skinny guy in the stocks over there, he looks
Speaker 1: pretty malnourished. That's also plague, So I don't touch him.
Speaker 1: I think I've driven this bit into the ground. Well,
Speaker 1: luckily we're riding it out still, because now that we're
Speaker 1: in this environment, we can note that there are some
Speaker 1: obvious traditions that are different from our own in the
Speaker 1: modern day. Right, Lucy, look at that? See that monk
Speaker 1: man sure does have a shiny head. Yes, yes, he
Speaker 1: has a ton shore ah my eyes, so what at?
Speaker 1: That's a tansha is the word for that type of
Speaker 1: haircut where they shave the top of their head. I
Speaker 1: thought it was it called a bowl cut. It's it's
Speaker 1: like the opposite of a bowl cut. It's like the
Speaker 1: fringe around a bowl cut, minus the party. Okay, you
Speaker 1: learned something new every day these monks that we're hypothetically
Speaker 1: looking at are living in a system of fairly rigid
Speaker 1: and exacting rules dictating both their um, their religious practices,
Speaker 1: and their day to day behavior. And one of the
Speaker 1: big things about this we're drawing a lot of this
Speaker 1: from a book called Butter, A Rich History by Elaine
Speaker 1: Coast Sulva. Uh. One of the big things about this
Speaker 1: was the the sort of food you could eat. And
Speaker 1: if it were a Wednesday, if it were a Friday
Speaker 1: or a Saturday, then these monks the way this tradition
Speaker 1: started could not eat any animal products. They were vegan
Speaker 1: three days out of the week. They are really ahead
Speaker 1: of a curve on that one, no kidding. And then
Speaker 1: in lent the forty day period leading up to Easter,
Speaker 1: they also couldn't eat animal products, so they were vegan
Speaker 1: functionally for like forty days or their version of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what's wild and didn't occur to me until looking
Speaker 1: into this stuff is it was accounted for something in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of like half of the calendar year, added
Speaker 1: it all up together, and that's if you don't well,
Speaker 1: we'll get to indulgences and how they play in here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, You're absolutely right. That really adds up, and
Speaker 1: that makes me appreciate every filly cheese steak I have
Speaker 1: ever eaten or will ever eat. Do you do that
Speaker 1: the cheese whiz version? You know, I'm not loyal enough.
Speaker 1: That's the classic? They say, Yeah, but I like the provolon,
Speaker 1: you know, like a good provolonge. You ever eaten cheese
Speaker 1: whiz out of the can? Yeah? Man, Yeah, We've all
Speaker 1: had dark times in our lives, right, I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: do whip cream out of the can. But cheese whiz
Speaker 1: is just like, it's not it's not a food. It's
Speaker 1: not a food. It's essentially like the powder that comes
Speaker 1: in the crow macaroni and cheese boxes, just like an
Speaker 1: aerosol form. Don't they have to call the cheese food product?
Speaker 1: I think so American cheese slices. But the thing that's
Speaker 1: cool too about this is, um, a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff really hinged on region. We take for granted the
Speaker 1: idea of importing and exporting and are the availability of
Speaker 1: like anything, and like we don't really have to limit
Speaker 1: our food intake based on where we live. If we
Speaker 1: want strawberries, we can get strawberries. If we want some
Speaker 1: you know, tropical fruit that's not grown anywhere near us.
Speaker 1: We can get it because of like you know, refrigeration.
Speaker 1: But back in these days that was not a thing,
Speaker 1: and your diet was dictated pretty much exclusively on what
Speaker 1: was available in your region unless you were super wealthy,
Speaker 1: and even and even then it would be incredibly rare,
Speaker 1: you know, or be incredibly expensive, for instance, to get
Speaker 1: certain spices like peppercorns. So now we've got we've got
Speaker 1: our monks who about half the year just can't eat
Speaker 1: meat or dairy and is also coincidentally believed to fuel lust.
Speaker 1: Any animal product is thought as like essentially an aphrodisiactive sorts.
Speaker 1: This tradition became becomes intensely problematic when the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: extends these fast Day rules to all Christians. So for
Speaker 1: not just monks, anybody who is a Christian has to
Speaker 1: skip meat, milk, eggs, animal fats or butter on Wednesday's, Friday's, Saturdays,
Speaker 1: and all during Lent. And this is where we really
Speaker 1: see the problem of geography that we mentioned coming into play,
Speaker 1: because the Roman Catholic Church isn't is it in Southern Europe, right,
Speaker 1: It's based in Rome. It's in charge ideologically of a
Speaker 1: lot of Europe, but it's based in Rome, and they
Speaker 1: had access to like fish, a lot more fish, you know,
Speaker 1: fresh fish, and also things like olive oil that were
Speaker 1: alternatives to butter, because butter, you know, as as we know,
Speaker 1: is delicious to just spread directly on things, but it's
Speaker 1: also a really great way to cook things, and it
Speaker 1: infuses pretty excellent flavor into things that you cook with it.
Speaker 1: Olive oil is also fantastic, I would argue, it doesn't
Speaker 1: quite add the same you know, some kind of mom
Speaker 1: kind of you mommy same kind of kick as butter does.
Speaker 1: So that played into this as well. Southern Europeans were
Speaker 1: not only not only was olive oil sort of functioning
Speaker 1: the way that butter functioned in different areas of Europe,
Speaker 1: but olive oil was considered superior and Southern some Southern
Speaker 1: Europeans actually had prejudices against butter, really really strange stuff.
Speaker 1: There was this belief that you know, butter was disease vector,
Speaker 1: that the reason people got leprosy was because of their
Speaker 1: buttered consumption. And so when Southern Europeans were traveling abroad,
Speaker 1: some would even bring their own supply of oil. You know,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to come back to Rome with leprosy.
Speaker 1: So pack of pack of mule full of olive oil
Speaker 1: or put bags on the mule. Don't put the oil
Speaker 1: in the mule. I mean unless it's you know, starting
Speaker 1: to rust. Yes, sure, I mechanical mules. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. Cut all of this, but don't
Speaker 1: leave it in. It's fine, We're just having a conversation here.
Speaker 1: So Southern europeans all about olive oil, olive oil, maybe
Speaker 1: fish oil. These are the superior flavor ingredients, right, These
Speaker 1: are the superior um products in comparison to butter. But
Speaker 1: in parts of Europe where there were dairy farming countries
Speaker 1: like France or where Martin Luther lived Germany, cutting butter
Speaker 1: from the diet was a huge deal and it was dangerous.
Speaker 1: It was tantamount to some form of forced starvation essentially
Speaker 1: m because think about it, if they can't consume any
Speaker 1: meat or then also cheese, right, cheese would be out.
Speaker 1: Then they couldn't rely on butter. Things were getting really
Speaker 1: really skimpy in the pantry and the larder, and this
Speaker 1: rule was applied in a very corrupt way. This is
Speaker 1: where indulgences come in. And did you read about these
Speaker 1: when you were a kid in school? Man, this sounds
Speaker 1: like the most crooked, disturbing practice. Well, it's like the
Speaker 1: it's it's it's you know, a religious equivalent of like
Speaker 1: Polly Walnuts from the Sopranos knocking on your door and
Speaker 1: you know, expecting his collections for protection, you know, but
Speaker 1: this is like spiritual protection. Let's basically saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you you grease my palm a little bit, and I'll
Speaker 1: give you a pass. In other words, I won't break
Speaker 1: your legs or you know, put you in the stocks
Speaker 1: when we find out that you've broken fast by eating
Speaker 1: you know, something that was prohibited like butter. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's crazy. So if you are well connected Catholic royalty,
Speaker 1: or if you're a wealthy merchant, for instance, and you're
Speaker 1: saying the common people maybe all well and good three
Speaker 1: days out of the week without button, but I am
Speaker 1: of different stock, have every single one, they'll sounded like
Speaker 1: Winston Churchill, including the children. Oh that's terrifying. I forgot.
Speaker 1: We're there actually right now. Still we we haven't come
Speaker 1: back from our time traveling. Yeah, figure out what day
Speaker 1: of the week it is so we don't get in
Speaker 1: trouble because you know, this is a spiritual institution. We
Speaker 1: are talking about a religious rule, and this means that
Speaker 1: in addition to physical penalties that might exist, you know,
Speaker 1: if their physical penalties for breaking a religious rule, the
Speaker 1: ultimate threat is that you can you are spiritually committing
Speaker 1: a transgression against the will of God. And the thing
Speaker 1: too is in these regions where they didn't have ready
Speaker 1: access to the alternatives to butter, there were merchants that
Speaker 1: would capitalize on that and would provide or import I
Speaker 1: guess really really really poor quality oils. And there's actually
Speaker 1: a quote from a book by the name of Fast
Speaker 1: and Feast from a um priest from fifteen twenty that
Speaker 1: goes as as such. In Rome, they make a mockery
Speaker 1: of fasting while forcing us to eat an oil they
Speaker 1: themselves would not use to grease their shoes. Then they
Speaker 1: sell us the right to eat the foods forbidden on
Speaker 1: fast days, but they have stolen that same liberty from
Speaker 1: us with their ecclesiastical laws. Eating butter, they say, is
Speaker 1: a greater sin than to lie, blaspheme, or indulge in impurity,
Speaker 1: which is just insane when you think about it, you
Speaker 1: know that that list of priorities could be so messed up.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not just a matter of controlling a population, right,
Speaker 1: it's a matter of economic import for the for the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church, because they're taking this money that people are
Speaker 1: paying for dispensations, right. Uh. And they had different rates,
Speaker 1: and they had sometimes they had groups paying like a
Speaker 1: community paying for a dispensation. They're using the cash these
Speaker 1: folks are paying them too construct bigger buildings, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: and to fund crusades. And there are even there there
Speaker 1: are even things that the local population still recognizes about
Speaker 1: this practice. Right. There was a special collection box in
Speaker 1: French parishes to collect what was called butter money. Right,
Speaker 1: So these entire communities where it's told you can eat butter. Dude,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a mafia term. When you get that
Speaker 1: butter money, a little bit of butter money, you know,
Speaker 1: forget about it. That's not my best that Now everybody's
Speaker 1: looking around at that terrible accident, and we apologize to
Speaker 1: any Italian Americans out there that Ben is deeply offended. No,
Speaker 1: that was not Italian American. It was just it was
Speaker 1: you yeah, like uh like you know, forget about it, Brooklyn, Jersey.
Speaker 1: That's fair, that's fair. Oh boy, well, who knew that
Speaker 1: butter can be so controversy? Right? Who knew? Who knew?
Speaker 1: We We knew, we we we read, we read up
Speaker 1: on this point. We knew earlier that's going. So in
Speaker 1: this case, it's not somebody saying, Okay, I know that
Speaker 1: butter is banned on Wednesdays, but We're having a big
Speaker 1: wedding at my castle and I'd like to serve butter
Speaker 1: to you know, the people attending the wedding. This case,
Speaker 1: there are these entire regions who just continue to pay
Speaker 1: an extra tax for the right to conveniently ignore a rule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or even like like you said, royalty or you know,
Speaker 1: very privileged members of society could pay the tax for
Speaker 1: like their entire household. Yeah, yeah, they could. They could
Speaker 1: do it as a you know, like a group rate.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they got a price break, you know,
Speaker 1: I wonder if if members of the church would say, well,
Speaker 1: for you by yourself, it's X amount of stuff, but
Speaker 1: you get a couple of get a couple of units
Speaker 1: off for every family member you add. They probably didn't
Speaker 1: do price breaks, sort of like buying group passes to
Speaker 1: like Disneyland or something like like a cell phone plan.
Speaker 1: This is almost like a cell phone plan because you
Speaker 1: have to keep paying a cable bundle or a cable bundle. Basically,
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic Church was like the comcast of the
Speaker 1: medieval ar in this you know what that is accurate
Speaker 1: to a frightening degree in in this case, officially and
Speaker 1: locals even today would call certain buildings like butter towers.
Speaker 1: You know that the money was used to build these
Speaker 1: gigantic religious uh well to add expansions on or to
Speaker 1: build these gigantic religious structures. This struck Martin Luther, along
Speaker 1: with all the other problems you had. This struck him
Speaker 1: as tremendously insulting because you know, Noel, we're walking around
Speaker 1: in the past. Our clothes look probably really cool, I
Speaker 1: would hope, although our hat game is nowhere near as
Speaker 1: evolved as the Middle Ages hat game. But we we
Speaker 1: don't have any money in this area of time. So
Speaker 1: if we're in this community, if we like sat down
Speaker 1: and lived here and we didn't have money to pay
Speaker 1: for that dispensation, then we're getting swindled by people selling
Speaker 1: garbage oil. Right, that might not even be edible. There's
Speaker 1: no way around this butter band for us. So what
Speaker 1: what are we what are we supposed to do? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And just just to backtrack just slightly, I found an
Speaker 1: example of one of these kind of blanket dispensations in
Speaker 1: and this is from the The Butter Book, A rich history.
Speaker 1: Queen Anne, who was the Duchess of Brittany, um got
Speaker 1: Rome to give her a dispensation for not only herself
Speaker 1: but the entire household, including all her servants and family members.
Speaker 1: And Brittany did not produce any cooking oil at all.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a butter based economy, I
Speaker 1: guess for lack of a better time. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: because the this dispensation was ultimately extended to all of Brittany,
Speaker 1: and this kind of started, um, the the undoing of
Speaker 1: some of this gradually. Um. But it didn't come for free,
Speaker 1: because they had to still give to the church and
Speaker 1: there were even special prayers that they had to do. Yes,
Speaker 1: I contrite confession, it's not it's technically it's not enough
Speaker 1: to just give them the money and say let me
Speaker 1: let me snarf my butter in peace. Technically they have
Speaker 1: to make a contrite confession where they are legitimately apologizing,
Speaker 1: confessing to receive the apps solution from sin. And that's
Speaker 1: where those butter boxes came from, that we were talking
Speaker 1: about in churches where you would pay this spiritual tax
Speaker 1: in some of these French parishes, and they actually paid
Speaker 1: for the construction of like these ornate cathedrals, and one
Speaker 1: of them, in um Ruin and borges Um was dubbed
Speaker 1: the Tower, the butter Tower or the tour Debure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we can see, we can see how this becomes
Speaker 1: a an active segments of the regional economies. Right, and
Speaker 1: this whether or not I mean, obviously we see we
Speaker 1: look back and we see the process of granting indulgences
Speaker 1: as corrupt. Right, But if it is the practice of
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church is making the rules,
Speaker 1: then they're the ones who decide if something is corrupt,
Speaker 1: it would logically follow. However, Luther, in an open letter
Speaker 1: to the Christian nobility of the German nation, said that
Speaker 1: this was an enormous problem, that these clergymen should not
Speaker 1: be traveling around Germany telling people two pay money and
Speaker 1: say they're sorry before they can eat the butter that
Speaker 1: they already made. They already may be paid for right,
Speaker 1: they already churned themselves. The religious institution was not involved
Speaker 1: in the creation of the butter. We just had to
Speaker 1: pay them. And this practice, which was seen as selling forgiveness,
Speaker 1: became very, very widespread. And I loved this. I loved
Speaker 1: this phrase. And then we talked about a little bit
Speaker 1: off air. Professor of Lutheran History Theology of Pacific Lutheran
Speaker 1: Theological Seminary called it this. That's Dr Kircy Sturna an
Speaker 1: economy of grace. Yeah, that's pretty pretty great image. And
Speaker 1: there's a quote from Professor Sturno says, today we buy
Speaker 1: life insurance and health insurance to secure our possessions. In
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, the only security came through church. These
Speaker 1: indulgences were the people's insurance policies, tangible pieces of paper
Speaker 1: that said, hey, I'm good, get out of health free exactly.
Speaker 1: But as we've been saying, for Luther, these clergies selling
Speaker 1: indulgences represented just kind of totally exposed what he saw
Speaker 1: as kind of the rot within the Roman Catholic Church
Speaker 1: that convinced poor peasants that they could be forgiven for
Speaker 1: a price, and in Luther's particular theology, um forgiveness was
Speaker 1: free and you could be saved by faith alone and
Speaker 1: grace alone, and it did not have to follow this
Speaker 1: you know, bizarre pyramids scheme of like paying for forgiveness,
Speaker 1: which you know, I mean it totally cheapens it if
Speaker 1: you're thinking about it, like objectively, right, especially when consider
Speaker 1: uh different parts uh different passages of the Bible which
Speaker 1: talk about the dangers of the dangers have counted on wealth. Right.
Speaker 1: This leads us to an interesting parallel. Is it a
Speaker 1: coincidence that most of the dairy rich countries that were
Speaker 1: producing and using butter at the time were the same
Speaker 1: nations that broke away from the Catholic Church in the
Speaker 1: sixteenth century. Man, butter is delicious, and you know where
Speaker 1: they clearly needed it. Yeah. There's there's no old quotation
Speaker 1: that I remember reading that says every the paraphrase something
Speaker 1: along the lines of like every nation is uh seven
Speaker 1: days away from revolution if they're not eating. Because food
Speaker 1: is one of these fundamental motivators. When we're talking about
Speaker 1: people who live in a staple food economy, these are
Speaker 1: not people who had As we mentioned earlier, this vast
Speaker 1: variety of food they could eat for fun, you know, well,
Speaker 1: and and and I know, I keep joking about the
Speaker 1: deliciousness that is butter, and that's you know, surely some
Speaker 1: part of it. But this was something that they needed
Speaker 1: to properly cook their food and you know, make it
Speaker 1: easier to digest and to be nourished by you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if they were cooking vegetables, it's not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of fun eating raw vegetables, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you want to do a nice little stir
Speaker 1: fry or something, and the butter gives you what you
Speaker 1: need to do that if you don't have access to
Speaker 1: cooking oils. This leads to what Professor Stirner calls one
Speaker 1: of Luther's biggest teachings. Nothing of eating, drinking, sleeping, marrying,
Speaker 1: or sex is sin. Not believing in God is sin.
Speaker 1: That's a quote from That's a quote from the professor
Speaker 1: and then sums it up this way. And I love
Speaker 1: how approachable this professor's languages. And he's the one who says,
Speaker 1: we're good. Yeah, same professor, she says. In other words,
Speaker 1: everything is cool. Eating butter is cool. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons why the Reformation was so successful. It was that
Speaker 1: Luther radically changed how people thought about what's wrong and
Speaker 1: what's permissible, and so in a very real way, something
Speaker 1: that seems simple to us today, something simple as when
Speaker 1: you are allowed to eat butter. In part, lad Martin
Speaker 1: Luther to march up on October thirty one and fifteen
Speaker 1: seventeen and publish his n theses. Uh. And the door
Speaker 1: that we were referring to the way, the way the
Speaker 1: story slash legend goes is that he nailed it to
Speaker 1: a church door in his hometown of Wittenberg. And these,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole crux of Theses was to call
Speaker 1: into question fundamentally, you know, the idea of the pope
Speaker 1: being essentially godlike, and you know, specifically this idea of
Speaker 1: God being completely removed from the average man and woman
Speaker 1: and their ability to communicate directly with God through prayer. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And the printing press also emerges on the scene, which
Speaker 1: means these teachings spread rapidly in today as we record this,
Speaker 1: there are more than forty thousand Protestant denominations across the globe.
Speaker 1: I mean, Theses was like, you know, the first meme
Speaker 1: that's not bad it's pretty bad. A lot of memes, though,
Speaker 1: I think everything your exactly meme classifications aside, this is
Speaker 1: pretty profound to think that butter of all things and
Speaker 1: change the could change the world. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: people ever, if people ever think about that when they're
Speaker 1: the next time, you know, they're in church, or they
Speaker 1: go to a youth group where they oh. And I
Speaker 1: do have to point out Martin Luther was not by
Speaker 1: any measure a a perfect man, but in this case,
Speaker 1: he did something amazing and it's fascinating. You know, if
Speaker 1: you if you were listening to this and you identify
Speaker 1: as Protestant, uh, give it, give it a think and
Speaker 1: check out butter rich History to learn more about this strange, fascinating,
Speaker 1: oftentimes invisible and profound ways in which this food stuff
Speaker 1: affects you. What'st thou like the taste of butter? Man,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we say that reference for the end anybody, anybody,
Speaker 1: which everybody but I was looking into it as well,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think about this until we were researching this.
Speaker 1: But the family that's portrayed in that film are Protestants,
Speaker 1: but they're like even more extreme versions of Protestants. That
Speaker 1: I want to just completely extricate everything associated with the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church. And uh, there's a fantastic moment where butter
Speaker 1: comes up as being almost like the most sinful indulgence.
Speaker 1: So that's still stuck around even through Protestantism, although it
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't like being taxed or in that way. Oh
Speaker 1: that's a brilliant connection. Well done. I didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: But what do you think about that? Is that is
Speaker 1: that accurate? I don't know. I think I I think
Speaker 1: it's intentional. I will go on the record saying anything
Speaker 1: it's intentional because I was always these were Puritans in
Speaker 1: the film. I was always wrapped up in the concept
Speaker 1: of the clever word play of You know, we had
Speaker 1: talked about this when we're hanging out earlier, not just
Speaker 1: the because folks we fan boyd over this film so hard. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was all we talked about for several weeks. And
Speaker 1: I am so surprised that I missed that. And thank
Speaker 1: you for telling me, because I dwelt on the concept
Speaker 1: of not butter, the taste of butter. It's like the
Speaker 1: pursuit of happiness, right. Um, But now I'm I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back and watch the Witch, and I might
Speaker 1: just do it eating a stick of butter. It's such
Speaker 1: a thing as too much of a good thing. Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna find out firsthand. I'm I'm mostly kidding. I
Speaker 1: have never to my analedge eating an entire stick of butter.
Speaker 1: Give her a deep fried butter at carnivals. That's a
Speaker 1: thing I have, but I haven't tried it. Did you
Speaker 1: ever give it a show? Dude? No, too much of
Speaker 1: a good thing? It just seems really weird. I feel
Speaker 1: like butter is an ingredient and not its own snack. It. Well, mean,
Speaker 1: it's like it's good on a piece of toast for sure,
Speaker 1: which essentially is me. Come on, let's be real, eating
Speaker 1: a piece of toast with butter on it. It's a
Speaker 1: vehicle for butter. It's true. There's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, like some people dreat popcorn, is a vehicle
Speaker 1: for butter. Well, you guys out there, tell us how
Speaker 1: you like to eat butter. Do you like to deep
Speaker 1: fry it? Do you like to just eat it with
Speaker 1: a spoon? You know, what's your favorite? What about clarified butter?
Speaker 1: We didn't There's so many things, but what am I doing?
Speaker 1: What am I doing? We need to we need to
Speaker 1: plug our friend Lauren and Annie's podcast, food Stuff. They
Speaker 1: have a series of episodes on the history of butter
Speaker 1: um and they also have a video that's pretty cool
Speaker 1: called get Some Culture. Butter The tea is in parentheses,
Speaker 1: So check out food Stuff. It's another house stuff works
Speaker 1: podcast and they're they're friends of ours, so they're cool
Speaker 1: and you should listen to them. Yes, yes, indeed, and
Speaker 1: that will be just the beginning of your food science journey.
Speaker 1: And this concludes our episode for today. We are going
Speaker 1: to return, but as we said earlier, in the meantime,
Speaker 1: we want to hear what you think, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear about other foods that fundamentally changed the world.
Speaker 1: You can let us know at our email address. We
Speaker 1: are ridiculous at how stuff works dot com and hey,
Speaker 1: we're all over the internet to yeah, we have real
Speaker 1: stuff now. We've been just kind of like haphazardly, um,
Speaker 1: you know, just saying search for us online, But no,
Speaker 1: we have things now. We've got Instagram dot com slash
Speaker 1: ridiculous History and Facebook dot com slash ridiculous History. And I,
Speaker 1: if I'm being really probably would have figured that out
Speaker 1: on your own, because you're all smart, scrappy people, and
Speaker 1: we really appreciate you listening to this show and smooth like.
Speaker 1: But we'll see again real soon