Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Before we get into today's episode, we want
Speaker 1: to cite Dr John Wyatt Greenley, who is a world
Speaker 1: class authority on not just deals but many things from
Speaker 1: the medieval world, and want to cite his work because
Speaker 1: he has put a lot of time and research into
Speaker 1: the story that we're going to explore today. You can
Speaker 1: also find his website, which we mentioned in the episode,
Speaker 1: Historia car Tarum dot org if you would like to
Speaker 1: learn more about his past, present and future work. Hey,
Speaker 1: and as we're going through this episode, we've collected a
Speaker 1: bunch of research from a bunch of different outlets, and
Speaker 1: what we didn't realize is that much of the writing
Speaker 1: that's done on this topic comes directly from the research
Speaker 1: that Dr Greenley has performed. And two of the main
Speaker 1: articles will be pulling from today are from history extra
Speaker 1: dot com. The article is Fishing for Gold, how eels
Speaker 1: our the Medieval Economy and another one is on Historia
Speaker 1: Carterum dot org and that's the Eel Rents Project. So
Speaker 1: once again, thank you so much. The citations are important
Speaker 1: and much of what you will hear in today's episode
Speaker 1: comes directly from the work of Dr Greenley. Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. We've got our super producers Casey Pagram,
Speaker 1: got our super producer Max Williams, live and direct here.
Speaker 1: My good Palin co host Noel Brown is on Adventures
Speaker 1: will be returning soon. I am Ben, and I am
Speaker 1: not going into today's episode alone. Found out that my
Speaker 1: very old dear friend, my writer die Matt Frederick himself
Speaker 1: is into the concept of this episode. No spoilers yet,
Speaker 1: but Matt, there you are. How's it going? Man? Hello back,
Speaker 1: Hi everybody? Yes, yeah, can we get around of applause
Speaker 1: in there? Max for yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, unnecessary unnecessary?
Speaker 1: You know why why not while we're while we're throwing
Speaker 1: Max under the under the producer bus, Max, give yourself
Speaker 1: a round of applause for that applause to here. I
Speaker 1: didn't know. I didn't know you could do that. I
Speaker 1: didn't know either, So so Matt, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today. Uh hit you up a little
Speaker 1: a little while ago, like yesterday off air and asked
Speaker 1: you about your position on eels in general. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ben straight up slapped me in the face. With an
Speaker 1: eel right before this with the question that doesn't work?
Speaker 1: But yes, yes, this is all coming together very quickly.
Speaker 1: But Ben, I have to tell you I couldn't be
Speaker 1: more excited to discuss this topic with you today. Yes, yes, Now,
Speaker 1: just before the three of us started recording today's episode, Matt,
Speaker 1: you had a question for Max. What was that question? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: how do you feel out sushi in general? That's the
Speaker 1: first question? So in general? Yeah, all about it? Totally,
Speaker 1: will do it? Okay? Okay? Is that like public sushi?
Speaker 1: Is that high end sushi? Any sushi? I don't really
Speaker 1: have much standards. I mean I'll eat like other lower
Speaker 1: than publics. I don't know how much lower is really
Speaker 1: than publics but I'll go there. Okay, I don't care,
Speaker 1: got it? You heard that quick trip? Max? Is there
Speaker 1: ready for your sushi? Uh? But okay? But what kind
Speaker 1: of thing do you order? Is eel on the menu
Speaker 1: for you when you get sushi? So it's been a
Speaker 1: long time. I mean, look, you know, you go to Kroger,
Speaker 1: you go to public, you get like the one that's
Speaker 1: been sitting there for a couple of days. I mean
Speaker 1: it's usually just like a California roll like that, they
Speaker 1: might put something else in there also, like you know,
Speaker 1: it's usually just like slim pickings. But if I'm getting
Speaker 1: some nice sushi, yeah, I'll give me the weirdest thing
Speaker 1: you have. I mean to call back a previous episode.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll do a cricket sushi roll. I'll do it. Yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: dare to dream. I'm on board with this. I think
Speaker 1: we're all kind of sushi fans. What about you, Matt,
Speaker 1: you are you a sushi guy? But only if it's revolving.
Speaker 1: If the sushi is revolving in some way, then I'm down.
Speaker 1: If it's just yeah, yeah, if it's just static sushi,
Speaker 1: not interested, Yeah yeah, because it's supposed to be fresh,
Speaker 1: and what's more fresh than watching it rolled toward you
Speaker 1: on a belt? Yeah. We we are big fans of sushi.
Speaker 1: I'm also a big fan of Unagi specifically, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, the Japanese freshwater eel. And today's episode is
Speaker 1: about eels. We got there segue British British eels. Yes,
Speaker 1: this ties into a weird dream of mine, an ambition.
Speaker 1: I would say that I god, I want to do
Speaker 1: at some point in life. But today's episode is also
Speaker 1: a weird way about finance. You see, once upon a time,
Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous historians, the British used to pay their not
Speaker 1: with money, but with eels, e e l s, eels
Speaker 1: and other things like firewood and eggs. So it's it's
Speaker 1: really cool. This, this is super cool. It makes me
Speaker 1: kind of wish we were still there to an extent,
Speaker 1: because I've got lots of just things around the house
Speaker 1: I need to get rid of. If I could, if
Speaker 1: I could pay rent with kids books, Oh my god. Um,
Speaker 1: but yes, that that is what we're discussing today, the
Speaker 1: economics of almost it is a barter system or it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's so weird to imagine a living and or dead
Speaker 1: creature as a piece of currency. Yeah. Yeah. And as
Speaker 1: we know, as our fellow listeners of both Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: and the show You and I created stuff they want,
Speaker 1: you know, are aware, currency has been any number of
Speaker 1: bizarre things in the past, from peppercorns two giant rocks.
Speaker 1: And while we originally found this via History extra dot com,
Speaker 1: it turns out the vast majority of the research in
Speaker 1: this episode is the work of one person, Dr John
Speaker 1: Wyatt Greenley, who was again the expert on this fascinating story.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's look to him for examples. We've got
Speaker 1: a cool example to get us into this way. Back
Speaker 1: in eleven or some monks at a place called Ramsey
Speaker 1: Abbey in Huntingdon's Share and they needed a way across
Speaker 1: a local fin f e n. So there was this
Speaker 1: landowner whose name was Ralph Tubberville. That's correct. There were
Speaker 1: people named Ralph in the eleven hundreds. Uh So, Ralph
Speaker 1: had this road and he said, I'm willing to lease
Speaker 1: this and it was an elevated causeway. It was pretty
Speaker 1: dope as construction went at the time. And so for
Speaker 1: the right to use this road, the monks at Ramsey
Speaker 1: Abbey said, okay, Ralph, we'll pay you and once a
Speaker 1: year we're gonna kind of pay you were rent on
Speaker 1: this road. But it's not gonna be in. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna be in terms of what we would consider currency today,
Speaker 1: was it. No, it would be one thousand eels per annum,
Speaker 1: as well as two pounds each of pepper and ginger
Speaker 1: and a pair of scarlet trousers that was specifically for
Speaker 1: the man of Tuberville. It's just the weirdest attition there.
Speaker 1: You know, what were the negotiations, like, you know, did
Speaker 1: they start with the eels and then they eventually you know,
Speaker 1: they tacked on scarlet trousers, like like seal the deal?
Speaker 1: And also how many pairs of red pants do you need? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Christmas time, and you know they just thought
Speaker 1: it would really go with what Ralph had going on
Speaker 1: on the upper part of his body. They just thought
Speaker 1: the red is just gonna look nice with that green
Speaker 1: tunic he had going on. Yeah, Tuberville was all about
Speaker 1: the vibe, whether or not he was a clothes horse.
Speaker 1: We know that when he passed away. This same abbey
Speaker 1: later renegotiated the deal, and Ralph's widow was not as
Speaker 1: in the pants as he was. She did not want
Speaker 1: anymore scarlet trousers. Instead, she wanted half a mark in coins,
Speaker 1: sixty cartloads of firewood. But as Greenley notes, she still
Speaker 1: wanted those one thousand eels, which is wild. Do they
Speaker 1: get them all at once? Is it? Like? What do
Speaker 1: you do with a thousand eels at once? Like even
Speaker 1: if you're i mean, if you're one person or a family,
Speaker 1: even if you've got twelve kids, a thousand eels there's
Speaker 1: not a great way in eleven nine to keep that
Speaker 1: stuff good unless you're converting it to fertilize her. Immediately,
Speaker 1: it was like eel the bitcoin of its day. You
Speaker 1: could convert it to other currencies. I I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe there was a drying technique that
Speaker 1: I just don't know about, as salted jelly deel kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Well, well, here's the here's the weirdest part.
Speaker 1: It was commonplace from like at least the tenth century onward.
Speaker 1: People in England, all all across England paid some taxes
Speaker 1: in terms of eels. Living eels were dead eels. And
Speaker 1: that's because coins were not as common. And as coins
Speaker 1: became a little more common, these eel rents did decline,
Speaker 1: but they didn't decline for centuries. And this is where
Speaker 1: our story takes place, because nowadays, you know, I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this guy's During the pandemic, we saw a
Speaker 1: lot more people carrying a lot less cash. And do
Speaker 1: you guys remember when places like home depot and other
Speaker 1: stores literally add signs up about a coin shortage. Did
Speaker 1: you guys see any of that? They still have that
Speaker 1: in my area. I don't know about you guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I haven't been to home depot in
Speaker 1: a minute. It probably should be, but yeah, I do
Speaker 1: remember that coin shortage completely. Yeah, and there's not enough coin. Well,
Speaker 1: in medieval times there also was not enough coin um
Speaker 1: and there just wasn't These are precious metals being pressed,
Speaker 1: sometimes individually, sometimes in mass, but there aren't that many
Speaker 1: coins that are metal going around. So as Dr Greenley
Speaker 1: found a lot of places, a lot of landlords would
Speaker 1: accept these things that they would call in kind payments
Speaker 1: or in kind rent. So it could be eels, it
Speaker 1: could be other things. It could be ale, beer, laggers,
Speaker 1: those are really popular, eggs, grain, really anything that a
Speaker 1: household could make use of. And firewood was also very
Speaker 1: very common. That firewood as a whole other episode which
Speaker 1: could we could continue into the America's into the times
Speaker 1: of you know, the sixteen hundreds and prior to that,
Speaker 1: when you could pay all of your rent with firewood
Speaker 1: just because of the harshness of the weather and the
Speaker 1: winters and the nights. Anyway, we're talking about eels today, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about eels. Eels were not some especially rare
Speaker 1: animal at this time. They were in fact incredibly plentiful.
Speaker 1: And the lords of England, the rulers at the time,
Speaker 1: they wanted their cut, they wanted their vig you know.
Speaker 1: So if you look at if you look at the
Speaker 1: ten eighties six Domesday Survey, you'll see that they had
Speaker 1: more records of rent being paid in eels than they
Speaker 1: did of rent being paid in corn. And like, this
Speaker 1: was nuts. If you lived in the village of Harmston,
Speaker 1: for instance, in Lincolnshire, then your community collectively would oh,
Speaker 1: Earl Hugh of Chester seventy five thousand eels per year.
Speaker 1: I like the use of per adam though, Matt, that
Speaker 1: sounds so much classier. Sure, yes, but listen to this again.
Speaker 1: We're talking crazy numbers here. Seventy five dollars to old Earl.
Speaker 1: But by the end of the eleventh century there were
Speaker 1: more than five hundred and forty thousand eels being paid
Speaker 1: as rent in England. Panum. Yeah, so they have see perannum.
Speaker 1: It's just smooth. You're smooth guy. So landlords, what did
Speaker 1: they do with these eels? Well, they ate some of them.
Speaker 1: But it goes back to the earlier question Max, Matt
Speaker 1: and I had, which is what you do? What do
Speaker 1: you do with all these eels. Dr Greenley explains how
Speaker 1: a landlord would kind of cycle these out. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to those Ramsey monks. They had tenants, and
Speaker 1: their tenants collectively gave them more than seventy thousand eels
Speaker 1: every year, and the monks couldn't need all of those.
Speaker 1: They were they were probably at some point sick of
Speaker 1: eating eel if you can believe it. Max can't believe it.
Speaker 1: He's a big old fan. And and uh. And then
Speaker 1: what they would do then is they would use the
Speaker 1: eels that their tenants gave them as a way to
Speaker 1: pay for stuff they needed at the monastery, Like they
Speaker 1: seven a thousand eels a year to Ralph and later
Speaker 1: as widow. And then they agreed to pay four thousand
Speaker 1: eels each spring to peter Brew Abbey for the right
Speaker 1: to take stone from a quarry nearby that the abbey controlled,
Speaker 1: so eels could be literally money that you eat, which
Speaker 1: I feel like, I feel like it's crazy that it
Speaker 1: worked that long, because if you could just eat, like,
Speaker 1: if you could just eat a green back right now,
Speaker 1: the world would be a very different place. That's very true.
Speaker 1: And a greenback is oh, you're talking about the paper
Speaker 1: slash fabric stuff that we use. This currency, got it
Speaker 1: literally eating money? Yeah, I guess that's the same thing.
Speaker 1: Well that that this is a good way to get
Speaker 1: into talking about something who already brought up. These are
Speaker 1: not fresh eels usually usual. These are not the ones
Speaker 1: that are coming straight out, and they were just speared.
Speaker 1: As Professor Greenley points out, and he's literally the world's
Speaker 1: foremost expert on this, it wasn't as if people were
Speaker 1: stockpiling massive pools of live eels. These are actually preserved eels.
Speaker 1: We we kind of joked about, you know, a drying technique,
Speaker 1: but yeah, salt and time and smoking, drying all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff was very common. It was a common
Speaker 1: practice to do that to these eels and then trade those.
Speaker 1: So you are you actually would have God, I'm imagining
Speaker 1: chests in some wealthy landlord's house, just chests of eel
Speaker 1: uh that are required. It's like the medieval MTV cribs
Speaker 1: where someone's taking a tour of the abbey and then
Speaker 1: some guy who was like the celebrity, you know, host
Speaker 1: of the abbey is is like, and this is our
Speaker 1: eel room. Stacks on stacks on stacks or should we
Speaker 1: say sticks on sticks on sticks, because when the eels
Speaker 1: were dried and preserved, they were bundled into sticks. That
Speaker 1: would be about twenty five eels per stick. So that
Speaker 1: was the definition of bawling. How many eel sticks do
Speaker 1: you have? You know what I mean? I'm so I'm
Speaker 1: so sad that there wasn't some equivalent of poetry or
Speaker 1: hip hop bragging about the amount of eels people had.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it would hold up. I'd listened, I'd
Speaker 1: listened to that mixtape once. Oh dude, yes, that would
Speaker 1: be in my car right now. I wonder if they
Speaker 1: if they had like quarter sticks. That was a quarter stick. Uh,
Speaker 1: and just it's five eels just kind of wrapped up
Speaker 1: but some kind of maybe red trousers. I don't know. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really weird, man. We know this because there's an
Speaker 1: historical record of who paid who what and what that
Speaker 1: currency was. And the currency was sticks, right, That's how
Speaker 1: you know it's a stick of eel. So um. There's
Speaker 1: a quote here from an article on Dr green Mainly's
Speaker 1: eel rent project on his website Historia carter Um, where
Speaker 1: he walks us through the difficult business of calculating the
Speaker 1: worth of an eel x mill owed y abbey z
Speaker 1: sticks of eels per year, But really, what what does
Speaker 1: that mean? And then there's another thing here when you're
Speaker 1: talking about taxes, because you know, in medieval Europe as
Speaker 1: everywhere else, you always had to pay the king in
Speaker 1: the in that case or the rulers a little bit
Speaker 1: of that eel off the top. How much eel did
Speaker 1: they get off the top? And how do you figure
Speaker 1: that out when you're dealing in sticks of eels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is actually beyond the capacities of our great inflation calculator.
Speaker 1: So we're going to refer to some excellent work by
Speaker 1: Historia carter Um. Here we go, when we try to
Speaker 1: make an educated guess about how much, you know, cold
Speaker 1: hard scratch and eel was actually worth. We could see
Speaker 1: that a single translates to about thirty six to seventy
Speaker 1: two cents in dollars today, So a stick of eels
Speaker 1: would equal something between nine dollars and six cents and
Speaker 1: eighteen dollars and eleven cents in the modern day. So
Speaker 1: Historia Carterum argues that if we take those two measures
Speaker 1: as kind of our spectrum of high and low end
Speaker 1: price points. Then we get a window of understanding that
Speaker 1: we didn't have otherwise, and that gives us an even
Speaker 1: better sense of just how many eels were moving in
Speaker 1: this weird dried eel market. So there's a flip side
Speaker 1: to this. Let's let's try to think of what what
Speaker 1: we in the modern day could use to understand the
Speaker 1: value of eels, and Dr Greenley has a great answer
Speaker 1: here as well. If you are a friend of Jeff,
Speaker 1: which is our euphemism for Amazon Prime subscribers, then you'll
Speaker 1: be happy to do well. I don't know if you'll
Speaker 1: be happy to know, but if you'll be fun at parties.
Speaker 1: When you say an Amazon Prime membership is like what
Speaker 1: a hundred nineteen dollars If you paid an eels, that
Speaker 1: would only be about a hundred and sixty five to
Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty eels, So just six to thirteen sticks. Man,
Speaker 1: that's pretty great on a on a yearly basis, that's
Speaker 1: not that many eels. I'm just kidding. Imagine how much
Speaker 1: how much actual work that would take for an individual
Speaker 1: to go out to a river and catch three hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty eels, Like that's a lot of days and
Speaker 1: hours and just to get your Amazon Prime membership. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, you're You're absolutely right, Matt.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird because now I'm I'm going to spend
Speaker 1: the weekend. I don't know about you guys been to
Speaker 1: spend the weekend thinking like how much is this an eels? I'll,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be at the local bookstore or something,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, I might try it. I might just
Speaker 1: try it, see if I can. I can pay in
Speaker 1: a in a stack of eels. That's really I just
Speaker 1: see the headline already, like local lind A man arrested
Speaker 1: for trying to shove eels down a man's pocket. You
Speaker 1: guys don't understand history, he said, So you know what
Speaker 1: I just thought of. Guys, let's have we have forgotten
Speaker 1: to take into account the smell? We didn't even think
Speaker 1: about the smell. Everybody's got eels up in their house
Speaker 1: in a chest somewhere on sticks in a room. They're
Speaker 1: carrying them around to pay for rent. What is what
Speaker 1: is the smell like out there? Success bro money, The
Speaker 1: fishy smell of some eels would be a dead giveaway
Speaker 1: that the person you were talking to is just bawling
Speaker 1: out of control. So uh yeah, well, you know, smells
Speaker 1: in general were treated differently on a cultural basis back then. Right,
Speaker 1: this is kind of pre deodorant. It does make you
Speaker 1: wonder what that did for the I don't know how
Speaker 1: to put this lightly, the sex drive of everybody waltson around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's oh, that's a segue for sure, nicely done, Matt,
Speaker 1: because I think the Church comes into play here. You know,
Speaker 1: the Church is one of the biggest authority figures at
Speaker 1: this time, and they are historically very concerned with sex
Speaker 1: and very concerned with lent l e n T. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's that lent rent. So we're just gonna be rhyming
Speaker 1: all over the place. Yeah. So, so let's talk about
Speaker 1: the species of the British river eel. Yes, so um,
Speaker 1: most of the eels that end up being used in
Speaker 1: this old rent situation are caught in autumn, that's to know, right,
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because there's a yearly
Speaker 1: downstream migration. And back to Dr Greenley's article for History
Speaker 1: extra fishing for Gold, how eels powered the medieval economy? Okay,
Speaker 1: that are that are occurring in autumn? So lots of
Speaker 1: them are being caught, but the rent wasn't due until
Speaker 1: the start of Lent, so late winter or spring. So
Speaker 1: everybody's catching, drying salting, doing whatever they do to those
Speaker 1: eels to get them on the sticks. Um. And the
Speaker 1: reason why rent was due at this time because there
Speaker 1: was during Lent, you were prohibited from eating meat. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is very important. So if you cut any fresh eels,
Speaker 1: you can't eat them. Got dried eels, They're still good
Speaker 1: for eating, but you can't eat them because you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to. So the church understood this explicit connection between meat.
Speaker 1: They believed there was an explicit connection between eating meat
Speaker 1: and um carnetas. No, I'm just showing um the carnal urges. Yeah, yeah, Carnea,
Speaker 1: I know. I was just saying, because they're so good,
Speaker 1: they're almost sexual. They're so good. You're on the money, man,
Speaker 1: you're on the eel money. Because they believe that the church,
Speaker 1: that is, believe the eating meat, which they would you know,
Speaker 1: define is like be for sheep, etcetera, what have you,
Speaker 1: was going to inevitably make a person kind of nusty, right,
Speaker 1: kind of amorous? And why is that? Because a creature
Speaker 1: that was created va sex would in some way in
Speaker 1: in inform your body or I don't know, symbolically make
Speaker 1: you get all torned up. That's the concept. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: charged up. It's interesting too because, unless you think we're
Speaker 1: picking on Europe too much, the consumption of certain animal
Speaker 1: parts across the world has long been believe to increase libido,
Speaker 1: you know, like especially eating sexual organs of animals. For
Speaker 1: the Church at this time, it was just enough that
Speaker 1: the animal was created through good old reproduction. And we
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking, Hey, guys, don't fish also reproduce?
Speaker 1: Don't they also kind of have a sexual union? Yes,
Speaker 1: fish reproduced, But the Catholic Church wasn't worried about that,
Speaker 1: probably because they couldn't walk to a nearby field and
Speaker 1: just see, you know, I'll say it, eels getting down,
Speaker 1: getting skin a max with each other the way they
Speaker 1: can see cattle. But think about what an eel looks
Speaker 1: like thin, think about the touch of an eel so slippery,
Speaker 1: it's so it's so very penis Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: just you think it would be the opposite, like, don't
Speaker 1: get the eels, don't eat the eels. There's way too
Speaker 1: much sexual stuff going on there, But no, it was
Speaker 1: it was. It was the opposite of that. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: bring up a great point. It is it is sort
Speaker 1: of weird for us to look back and say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: wasn't that one of the most phallic animals you could
Speaker 1: have allowed? But but instead they were They said, no, nope,
Speaker 1: it's a lent and even if you're married, you need
Speaker 1: to be abstinent for this time. So meat is off
Speaker 1: the table because it might make you violate this spiritual system.
Speaker 1: Eating fish was thought to not excite the libido in
Speaker 1: any way at all, so you could have as much
Speaker 1: fish as you wanted. Eels were a great choice because
Speaker 1: they were everywhere right in the rivers and the waterways.
Speaker 1: And eel pies we're super, super popular. Eel pies are
Speaker 1: still a storied, if declining tradition in the UK today,
Speaker 1: and that is because virtually every medieval European at the
Speaker 1: time believe that these fish reproduced a sexually, and it's
Speaker 1: a very very old belief system that dates back to
Speaker 1: Aristotle and the somewhat unique life cycle of the eel,
Speaker 1: which is ugly. Just for the record, I think they're ugly,
Speaker 1: but they probably think we're ugly. Too. Yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 1: they would get real, real weirded out by us if
Speaker 1: there were just some studying going on. I bet it's
Speaker 1: happened in the past. But the reproductive cycle of these
Speaker 1: eels really is fascinating. They would go out into the
Speaker 1: open Atlantic, the the ocean there, and that is where
Speaker 1: they would breed. Then they would migrate to land, and
Speaker 1: this is when they're in a very small state as
Speaker 1: a fairly new creature. So the young, the young essentially
Speaker 1: called Elver's there's a term I did not know e
Speaker 1: l V E r s. And they're heading up the river.
Speaker 1: Once they find a home that's you know, somewhere amongst
Speaker 1: the river. There they stay and then they grow for
Speaker 1: over a decade around it decade until they eventually head
Speaker 1: back to the sea to get it on and then
Speaker 1: send their little young ones back up the river. And
Speaker 1: then they die. Oh yeah, they do die after after coitas, no,
Speaker 1: just after doing it, after doing it, they die. Uh.
Speaker 1: And Aristotle very smart dude, right, he'd never made the
Speaker 1: connection between Elver's, this juvenile form, and the growing form
Speaker 1: we call eels. So he wrote with a lot of
Speaker 1: self assurance that eels springs spontaneously out of the Mud.
Speaker 1: And then other writers followed his example and said, that's it.
Speaker 1: They come, they come from the Mud. This was so
Speaker 1: well established in the European zeitgeist that persisted into at
Speaker 1: least the fifteen hundreds, maybe longer. And part of that
Speaker 1: was because if you look at an eel before it,
Speaker 1: you know, gets to its final form, you wouldn't normally
Speaker 1: see sexual organs. They only develop ovaries and testes at
Speaker 1: the very very end of their lives, right before they
Speaker 1: head out for that fatal romantic encounter on the high seas.
Speaker 1: That's how they know. They gotta go like one, Oh
Speaker 1: I got sorry, guys, I got balls. Now it's over
Speaker 1: for me. That's how that's how it goes. That's so
Speaker 1: messed up that that's like their death sentence or their
Speaker 1: death cry or I don't know, that's just so weird
Speaker 1: or is it awesome. There's a great way to go.
Speaker 1: I suppose I like that optimism. Yeah, let's go with that.
Speaker 1: And so people were searching for eel ovaries and test
Speaker 1: these for centuries. It wasn't just Aristotle. We're not picking
Speaker 1: on just one guy. Sigmund Freud also looked and he
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything. So because these eels were not seen reproducing,
Speaker 1: and because if you searched one of their bodies you
Speaker 1: would not see anything that indicated they could reproduce, it's
Speaker 1: kind of understandable that they were like, no, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's weird things that come from the mud. They go
Speaker 1: to the sea. You can pay rent with them. What's
Speaker 1: not to love? Seriously, And it wasn't until seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: seven that an Italian dude named Carlo Mondini actually located
Speaker 1: and eel Ovary and there was much rejoicing. So everybody
Speaker 1: thank that guy because he made an important discovery that
Speaker 1: may sound kind of irrelevant today, but it was something
Speaker 1: that confused people for a very long time. And Sigmund Freud,
Speaker 1: just to clarify, he was specifically looking for eel testes.
Speaker 1: He he didn't find them, but so they knew. Just
Speaker 1: imagine that. I could just see that just going out
Speaker 1: getting another eel, just like holding it up, got a
Speaker 1: microscope and he's just like the testes. The test is, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gotta paint, you know U. I imagine I imagine
Speaker 1: Sigmund like being disappointed that he's known for his work
Speaker 1: in psychology, and he's like, but I'm an eel man.
Speaker 1: I'm on the quest for the balls. Psychology is very secondary.
Speaker 1: But he would do a Reddit A m A and
Speaker 1: people would be asking about Freudian theory, and his response
Speaker 1: would be like, hey, guys, can we keep our questions
Speaker 1: focused on eel tests? Please? That's right, that's right. Please
Speaker 1: save all your questions unless they're about eels. There are
Speaker 1: no eel test these they say they reproducing a dream,
Speaker 1: a subconscious thought of another eel coming out of them.
Speaker 1: You're nailing it. Sorry, it's perfect, it's perfect. I want
Speaker 1: to read that Reddit A m A. So, so this
Speaker 1: is the thing. Their unique position in religion and culture
Speaker 1: of the time helps us understand why pay eel rent
Speaker 1: remains such a long lived practice, even after coinage was
Speaker 1: a little more common. Most of the other in kind
Speaker 1: rents had disappeared by the century or so, but not
Speaker 1: eel rent. Landlords continued to collect that from the thirteenth century.
Speaker 1: You can see records that show people are paying with
Speaker 1: the eel, like more than four hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: eels annually, and they were still making new inc and
Speaker 1: new deals that we're all in Eel. You're right, we
Speaker 1: are accellently rhyming a lot on this. I should tell you, Matt,
Speaker 1: I think you missed it. Um, but Max was there
Speaker 1: a few episodes ago Nolan got really close to freestyle
Speaker 1: and I think, I think, yeah, I think he's gonna
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna get do it. Some finally finally
Speaker 1: respond to the culture kings. Shout out to them, Man,
Speaker 1: they're good dudes too, and yeah they're and uh, back
Speaker 1: to eels. Dr Greenly also has an explanation for the
Speaker 1: decline of this practice, the Black Death. Sorry, that's an
Speaker 1: unexpected heavy twist, but yeah, the Black Death. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess it was seen as a little less clean in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And I can imagine that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until after nine. Oh what a great year,
Speaker 1: thirty nine. That's when red meat started to become way
Speaker 1: more available to people, and you know, I would say
Speaker 1: probably became pretty exciting given all the eel consumption over
Speaker 1: the centuries. And at the same time, you know, the
Speaker 1: population was much lower after Black Death, and that meant
Speaker 1: there's way more currency per person out there, you know,
Speaker 1: floating around. So you can imagine that the demand for
Speaker 1: eels over all began to drop, and around that time
Speaker 1: there were only I think around thirty four thousand eels
Speaker 1: that were paid that I don't know, how do you
Speaker 1: say this eel rent was only paid with thirty four
Speaker 1: thousand individuals. I don't know how to say this stuff, guys.
Speaker 1: And so we see this precipitous decline four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand eels every year during the thirteenth century or so,
Speaker 1: down to just thirty four thousand eels in the game
Speaker 1: a little later, and then in the fifteenth century and
Speaker 1: the fourteen hundreds we see another huge drop and by
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred. By the year fifteen hundred, which is a
Speaker 1: good one, but it doesn't stack up the thirteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: To Matt's point, by hundred eel rents had mostly disappeared,
Speaker 1: but not all the way. Nope, Nope. In the sixteen eighties,
Speaker 1: there's this amazing mill in Norfolk that's still rented out
Speaker 1: for thirty pounds. That's not all and sixty eels. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so good luck to you you, Okay, I gotta ask
Speaker 1: the question, like, can you like borrow that? He like
Speaker 1: discussed that somebody like, hey, so I only got twenty pounds,
Speaker 1: but I got like ninety eels with me. It's non
Speaker 1: negotiable eels. You just have those exact measurements right there.
Speaker 1: That's correct. They don't make eel change either. And like
Speaker 1: you can't have sixty one eels because you have to
Speaker 1: pay four eel storage when you're there, cost two eels
Speaker 1: to store your eels. Right, it is weird sixty eels
Speaker 1: because that's two sticks and a portion of another stick. Yeah, weird,
Speaker 1: two five of a stick sticks on sticks. Uh. Next,
Speaker 1: your questions are so astute that I feel like you've
Speaker 1: been in this hustle before. I'm not gonna answer that.
Speaker 1: I want to leave you just wondering a little bit.
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, I respect, I respect an enigmatic man.
Speaker 1: But you make a really great point, Max, Because there
Speaker 1: it was this family, the Windham of family. Uh that
Speaker 1: sounds so familiar. If you can get off exit eleven
Speaker 1: here on Highway four hundred and you'll find Wyndham maybe
Speaker 1: it was their family, Oh my god, connecting the dots um.
Speaker 1: But they were of Felbrigg Hall and they really did
Speaker 1: have a hard time collecting the payments because people weren't
Speaker 1: pay and eel rents anymore. Sorry, we don't. We didn't
Speaker 1: dry them this past autumn, you know, for Lent the
Speaker 1: way we were supposed to because of the whole naughty thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, sorry, we don't have any eels, but we
Speaker 1: do have that thirty pounds. So they felt like what
Speaker 1: we can say from the Windhams is they felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't want to change the old ways.
Speaker 1: It is possible that this was a lent thing l
Speaker 1: e n t for them, but it may also be
Speaker 1: possible that they were super into eel. Pie is where
Speaker 1: I'm gonna diverge just for a second, So I'm just
Speaker 1: sending you guys a picture over our zoom call today
Speaker 1: about pie mash and eels. Pie Mash and eel shops
Speaker 1: have been in London since at least the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: and they serve stewed or jellied eels. I desperately want
Speaker 1: to try it out. What do you do? You guys
Speaker 1: want to describe the picture? The second one? I said,
Speaker 1: I have these saved on my computer sometimes. Oh man, Ben,
Speaker 1: you know, I like recently haven't saying I'll try everything
Speaker 1: and I'll try this with you, buddy, But this is
Speaker 1: this is disgusting. It's like it looks like ice cream
Speaker 1: that went bad and got like gooey on top, and
Speaker 1: just Matt take over. The eel isn't the setting part,
Speaker 1: it's the jelly. It's the Yeah, it's just so slippery
Speaker 1: and it's just so gelatinously and transparent and you can
Speaker 1: seal the you can see the eel bits in between
Speaker 1: the jelly parts. Yeah, but I do want again, I
Speaker 1: do want to point out it comes with sides. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know why that was the saving gracy. It's
Speaker 1: a combo meal. What do the sides look like? Like?
Speaker 1: Nothing thus far is really at appetizing. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it's just parsley and lemon mashed potatoes. You know what
Speaker 1: does the mashed potatoes look like? That you cover it
Speaker 1: with the same sauce. Though, I really want to try it,
Speaker 1: so sorry guys, folks, ridiculous histories. Please please check out
Speaker 1: jelly to eels or let us know if you have
Speaker 1: had an experience with them. We'd like to hear your take.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, like you said at you you were
Speaker 1: pressed it when you talked about firewood, right payment and
Speaker 1: firewood carrying over to the early United States or the colonies.
Speaker 1: In the early days of what would become the US,
Speaker 1: people also liked old eel pie. They just didn't like
Speaker 1: paying eel rent. So today sushi may be the most
Speaker 1: common use of eel in the US, Like we talked
Speaker 1: about the very top unagi. But if you go back
Speaker 1: just a few centuries ago, eel pie was the business.
Speaker 1: People were all about it. Yeah, and we got some
Speaker 1: great info here from Libby O'Connell who wrote The American Plate,
Speaker 1: a culinary history in one hundred bytes, and she's discussing
Speaker 1: just how big eel was everywhere Cape Cod. It was huge,
Speaker 1: local streams all over the place, and they were so
Speaker 1: sought after. Imagine this, you guys. They were using lobsters
Speaker 1: as bait to catch the eels. Why, I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: you get you're gonna tell me that you well, I
Speaker 1: guess imagine jelly to lobster, Like I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's much better. So if you're going to prepare
Speaker 1: your eels in that way, um, really, you prepare anything
Speaker 1: in that way and you lose me. But the thought
Speaker 1: of using a lobster to catch an eel just frustrates me.
Speaker 1: Man well, you know, back in the day, lobsters didn't
Speaker 1: have the same reputation they enjoy in the modern age.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear here, that's because they were
Speaker 1: served to people, often disadvantaged members of society, in a
Speaker 1: really gross preparation. They weren't shelled, people didn't take the
Speaker 1: meat out. They crushed it all together and made it
Speaker 1: like this kind of gross soupy thing so delicious. Well,
Speaker 1: you're fine as long as it's not jelly. Huh yep. Uh.
Speaker 1: If it's crunchy, cool cool. If it's slurpy, I like it. Uh. Yes,
Speaker 1: So this to turn into a little bit of a
Speaker 1: gross food episode for some people, but I I definitely
Speaker 1: want to try this. Like you said, eels were a hot,
Speaker 1: hot commodity, but something happened. There was a decline in
Speaker 1: the supply of eels. They were no longer as plentiful
Speaker 1: as they were once upon a time, and this led
Speaker 1: to a decline of interest in savory eel pie and
Speaker 1: over time, o'caddle notes people in the US started to
Speaker 1: move away from eating animals consumed in their natural form, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, a lot of us listening to the show
Speaker 1: today have never killed a chicken that we ate. We've
Speaker 1: never slaughtered a cow or dressed a deer. We've gone
Speaker 1: to a grocery store, We've gone to a restaurant or
Speaker 1: something like that. So O'Connell argues that maybe that's what happened.
Speaker 1: Maybe people got further and further away from the natural
Speaker 1: state of the creatures they were consuming. And the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: notes that eel has seen a resurgence and popularity driven
Speaker 1: by the rise of sushi, but that lack of supply,
Speaker 1: that dearth of supply continues to be an obstacle because
Speaker 1: today the eel has been classified as endangered on the
Speaker 1: International Union for Conservations Red List of Threatened Species because
Speaker 1: the seafood supplies run low in Asia. There's also been
Speaker 1: more poaching in the US, further depleting regional resources. You know,
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense if there aren't as
Speaker 1: many eel around and people are kind of changing their tastes,
Speaker 1: and then eventually the eel, you know, are protected. We're
Speaker 1: just not going to be eating him in the same way.
Speaker 1: But it does make me sad that there isn't some
Speaker 1: even if it's not iel, that there's some kind of
Speaker 1: one to one like that that would be valuable enough,
Speaker 1: like I can't there can't be a rat infestation in
Speaker 1: somebody's rental home and then you take out all the rats,
Speaker 1: you get a stick of rats, and then you can
Speaker 1: use that to supplement your rent um. I mean you
Speaker 1: can imagine it kind of in the way like a
Speaker 1: pest control service would cost x amount of money. So
Speaker 1: you may be able to work that in if you're good,
Speaker 1: if you're a good negotiator. But it's not the same
Speaker 1: thing as having a stick of eels. Yeah. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: would need a perfect storm of economic factors to make
Speaker 1: to create an animal that could be used as a
Speaker 1: widespread regional currency. Right, we would need cultural Moray's that
Speaker 1: not more a deels. There we go. We would need
Speaker 1: we would need yes, we need cultural more ales. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'd need some authority figures saying that there was some
Speaker 1: necessity behind the food stuff. And then we would also
Speaker 1: need uh for we would need for people to not
Speaker 1: reject idea of eating it, and would also need to
Speaker 1: be plentiful. Rats are plentiful, but people generally in the
Speaker 1: West reject the idea of eating rats for sustenance. They're
Speaker 1: seen mostly as vermins, sometimes as pets, but not as
Speaker 1: not as like you wouldn't need to Okay, wait, no,
Speaker 1: it's we're towards the end of the week. Oh that's
Speaker 1: a weird question, Matt Max. Given the choice you had
Speaker 1: to eat one, would you eat an eel pie or
Speaker 1: a rat pie? Yeah? I worked in restaurants for like
Speaker 1: a decade. I know how disgusting rats are. Like, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. And I actually had some in a rental
Speaker 1: home that I lived in and caught around thirty eight rats,
Speaker 1: that's my estimate. But here's my problem, and I think
Speaker 1: I may have told this story before. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: an idiot. I didn't understand how rats function and how
Speaker 1: a depth they were at finding their way back, even
Speaker 1: if you take them away a couple of miles. I
Speaker 1: think I did not want to kill them. They they
Speaker 1: weren't hurting me in any way. It was just gross.
Speaker 1: So I would trap them where you know there it's
Speaker 1: a live trap where it just closes behind them after
Speaker 1: they go for that sweet sweet peanut butter, and I
Speaker 1: would take them away. There's a large airport near me,
Speaker 1: and I would release them kind of out into the wilds,
Speaker 1: out there where there's no civilization, thinking, oh, they'll find
Speaker 1: a way to live over here. You know what I
Speaker 1: caught thirty eight because I'm pretty sure I caught many
Speaker 1: of the same rats, like three or four times. Oh
Speaker 1: the rats are going back and they're like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got locked up for a second. But peanut butter. You know, dude,
Speaker 1: get the peanut butter. It's so worth it. This guy
Speaker 1: gives you peanut butter and he drives you back. You
Speaker 1: might be a legends. Glad I moved out. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you made it here to Matt, and I'm super
Speaker 1: glad you were able to join us on the show today,
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, thank you for tuning in. We want to
Speaker 1: hear from you, folks, especially if you've lived in the UK,
Speaker 1: you've visited, have you tried eel Pie and mash? Isn't
Speaker 1: any good? You know? I think our our crew here
Speaker 1: is a little bit um. Collectively, we're a little bit
Speaker 1: dubious on whether or not this is worth a shot.
Speaker 1: Some people not going to name names on the zoom call,
Speaker 1: might play it safe and get some fish and chips,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: Those are delicious, But let us know what your experiences like.
Speaker 1: You can do that on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
Speaker 1: I think we may also have our email working Ridiculous
Speaker 1: at I heart media dot com. Uh, Matt, it feels
Speaker 1: It feels just a tad weird for me to ask
Speaker 1: you this, because we do hang out pretty much all
Speaker 1: the time. But this is usually the point in the
Speaker 1: show where we give our illustrious guests a second to
Speaker 1: talk about some of their own upcoming projects or where
Speaker 1: people can learn more about their work. Oh well, sure,
Speaker 1: of course stuff they don't want you to know. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming everybody that listens to this show is aware of
Speaker 1: that one, just because you and Noel host this one.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe not. We talked about you a lot. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: well thanks, Wow weird, no, but stuff that I wanted
Speaker 1: you to know. I would highly recommend this brand new
Speaker 1: show that our team is making with Tenderfoot TV. It's
Speaker 1: called Algorithm. It is out right now. Yeah, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to get I think three episodes by the time
Speaker 1: you're hearing this fantastic stuff. It's hosted by Ben Kiebrick,
Speaker 1: one of the producers on Monster of the Zodiac Killer
Speaker 1: and Monster d C Sniper, as well as Camp Hell
Speaker 1: and Awaki that's hosted by Josh Stain, another one of
Speaker 1: the producers from those Monster series, but this time they
Speaker 1: are hosting their own series, both through crime shows, both
Speaker 1: compelling as all heck and scary. Highly recommend both, and
Speaker 1: if you'd like to hear more about the history, culture,
Speaker 1: and strange science of food, do check out our peer
Speaker 1: podcast Savor, which is hosted by Andy Reese and Lauren
Speaker 1: Vogelbaumb Thanks as always to our super producers Kasey Pegraham
Speaker 1: and Max Williams. Over there, who will eat an eel
Speaker 1: pie with me? If a rat pi is the only choice?
Speaker 1: Thanks to Gabe Louizier, our research associate, Christopher Hasiotis, Eve's
Speaker 1: Jeff Coche and of course Jonathan Strickland. I don't know
Speaker 1: his position on eel pie, but something tells me we
Speaker 1: will learn about it soon. I forgot to do that.
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Jonathan, Nope, that's it. We're going. We're going
Speaker 1: see you next time, everybody. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio, a Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.