Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Working on
Speaker 1: our episode on eponymous foods a few months back with
Speaker 1: so much fun that I wanted to do another installment,
Speaker 1: and this one ended up because they got to be
Speaker 1: rather large stories to have just two foods. First is
Speaker 1: a salad that, much like other eponymous foods we have
Speaker 1: talked about, came together improvisationally and out of necessity. And
Speaker 1: a second a cracker made to aligne with specific dietary
Speaker 1: guidelines with a namesake who would, without a doubt be
Speaker 1: horrified at how that item has evolved. So today we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about the Caesar salad and the
Speaker 1: Graham cracker. So a mainstay on restaurant menus is, of
Speaker 1: course the Caesar salad. The Caesar salad is not named
Speaker 1: after Julius Caesar as you might have thought, or at
Speaker 1: least it probably was not, and it's also a much
Speaker 1: newer invention that you might have thought. It was made
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. But this is also one of
Speaker 1: those items that has some conflict and its origin story yes. So.
Speaker 1: The main story, and the one that is most widely repeated,
Speaker 1: is about a man named Caesar Cardini who was born
Speaker 1: Abullardo Caesari Cardini in the Novara region of Italy on
Speaker 1: the western shore of Lago Majore in e six. He
Speaker 1: had five siblings, Risino, Nareo, Carlata, Gaudenzio, and the youngest Alessandro.
Speaker 1: And though although he was born, of course, with the
Speaker 1: Italian spelling of his name, which ended in an E,
Speaker 1: Cardini used the spelling that we would normally associate with
Speaker 1: Julius Caesar Uh, including on the signs for his restaurants.
Speaker 1: So professionally he went by Caesar with kind of the
Speaker 1: anglicized spelling, and we're going to get to those restaurants momentarily.
Speaker 1: Caesar moved to the United States after having worked for
Speaker 1: a number of summers in Canada. First he moved to
Speaker 1: San Francisco and worked as a waiter at the Palace Hotel.
Speaker 1: Then he moved to Sacramento, California, and opened a restaurant
Speaker 1: called Browns with his business partner, William Brown. But then
Speaker 1: in late nineteen nineteen, a lot of people were avoiding
Speaker 1: public places because of the influenza pandemic, so the restaurant
Speaker 1: was closed. Caesar went back to Italy for a time
Speaker 1: and then back to the North America, first in Montreal
Speaker 1: and then eventually San Diego, where his brother Alex joined him.
Speaker 1: In nineteen and because of prohibition, the Cardinis operated a
Speaker 1: restaurant across the US Mexican border in Tijuana, where they
Speaker 1: could serve drinks to their patrons along with their food.
Speaker 1: They also did kind of a nightclub scene, and it
Speaker 1: was very common for residents of the US to cross
Speaker 1: the border to frequent establishments in Mexico for this reason,
Speaker 1: and the Cardines restaurant, which was called Caesar's Place uh
Speaker 1: and which had opened in nineteen twenty three, was very popular.
Speaker 1: According to Cardini himself, here's the origin of the salad.
Speaker 1: This is usually dated to nine although there are also
Speaker 1: different years sided depending on the source material. Quote. It
Speaker 1: was a fourth of July weekend, over thirty five years ago.
Speaker 1: I had my restaurant in Tijuana. Then we were out
Speaker 1: of food and the suppliers were closed. I went back
Speaker 1: to the kitchen and took inventory. There were a few
Speaker 1: crates of romaine lettuce, half a creative eggs, a bin
Speaker 1: of stale bread and a wheel of romanello cheats. That
Speaker 1: was all with all those people out front that wanted
Speaker 1: to eat. So I rolled up my sleeves, I rubbed
Speaker 1: a bowl with garlic, broke up the romaine, and coddled
Speaker 1: the eggs. I had my cooks cut up the stale
Speaker 1: bread and soak it an olive oil, then put it
Speaker 1: in the oven to toast. I mixed the eggs and
Speaker 1: lettuce with pear vinegar and green olive oil, added the
Speaker 1: grated cheese and toasted croutons. That was it. As for
Speaker 1: the tradition of mixing the salad table side, that also
Speaker 1: at Cardini came from the scarcity of options in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: If customers only had one choice of dish on the menu,
Speaker 1: Cardini figured his servers could at least make a show
Speaker 1: of serving it. But Caesar is not the only person
Speaker 1: who claimed to have invented this salad. Another man named
Speaker 1: Paul Maggiora, who was Cardinis business partner, said it was
Speaker 1: him who threw the salad together, and that because he
Speaker 1: had made it for airmen from the United States, he
Speaker 1: called it aviators salad. Yeah, that name will come up,
Speaker 1: and yet another version But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: there is another man, Livio Santini, who was eighteen when
Speaker 1: he worked for the Cardinis in their tu on a restaurant.
Speaker 1: He claimed that the salad was when his mother had
Speaker 1: made back in Italy, and then he made it in
Speaker 1: the restaurant kitchen, only to have it taken over and
Speaker 1: claimed by Caesar. Even Cardini's brother Alex, said that he
Speaker 1: was the real inventor, a story that has been debated
Speaker 1: in the family for years. According to the version, Alex
Speaker 1: told he may a salad for a bunch of Air
Speaker 1: Force pilots from rockwell Field who had fallen asleep in
Speaker 1: the restaurant after partying all night. The Cardinis let them doze,
Speaker 1: and when they woke up, Alex made them the aviators
Speaker 1: salad for breakfast. Alex's version may have been a variation
Speaker 1: on the original variation that included Anchovi's that's something that
Speaker 1: Caesar was apparently against. Yeah, we're gonna have a quote
Speaker 1: about that later. Uh. There are even though a couple
Speaker 1: of variations within this version. One is that though Alex
Speaker 1: Cardini invented the dish, the salad came to have Caesar's
Speaker 1: names simply because it was his name on the restaurant.
Speaker 1: Another version that sometimes pops up is that Alex invented
Speaker 1: the salad when the two were running their first restaurant together,
Speaker 1: and that he named it for his brother, But that
Speaker 1: is a little unclear. In the restaurant that he mentioned,
Speaker 1: which is called Alex and Caesar's, there's not really evidence
Speaker 1: that that really existed or if he was misremembering, because
Speaker 1: it appears that there was a time when Alex had
Speaker 1: his own restaurant called Alex's Place. That is based on
Speaker 1: advertisements in papers that that's confirmed, and it's possible that
Speaker 1: he considered that a joint venture. But in any case,
Speaker 1: Alex Cardini eventually moved to Mexico City and opened several
Speaker 1: restaurants of his own, and on the menus there it
Speaker 1: was called the Alex Cardini Caesar Salad. In recent years,
Speaker 1: Alex's granddaughter Carla Cardini, has shared Alex's version with foodie groups,
Speaker 1: including the tip that it should include lime juice, not
Speaker 1: lemon juice, which is often attributed to a mistranslation. But wait,
Speaker 1: we're not done yet. There is yet another claim to
Speaker 1: the salad's invention. This one does not originate in Cardini's
Speaker 1: restaurant at all, and it predates the Tiawaa creation by decades.
Speaker 1: This version places the salad's inception in Chicago, totally different place,
Speaker 1: at a restaurant called the New York Cafe, and the
Speaker 1: year nineteen o three and the spersion. It's another Italian
Speaker 1: who gets the credit, Jacomo ja who was a cook
Speaker 1: at the cafe, and he is said to have named
Speaker 1: the recipe after Julius Caesar. But this version has appeared
Speaker 1: in print a number of times. The first example of it, though,
Speaker 1: seems to be in a book titled Bull Cook and
Speaker 1: Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices, which was self published in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty by a man named George Leonard Herder, and
Speaker 1: Herder was quite a character in a variety of ways,
Speaker 1: but the lack of sourcing for most of his history
Speaker 1: details means this version has a whole lot of question
Speaker 1: marks around it. It is entirely possible that Jacomo Jr.
Speaker 1: Is a fictional character that herd Or dreamed up. Herd
Speaker 1: Er claimed that this person, Jacomo Jr. Had made the
Speaker 1: salad dressing out of ingredients that he had on hand
Speaker 1: because he was trying to make mayonnaise, but never pulled
Speaker 1: it off, and that he had then just made it
Speaker 1: into addressing and added croutons to please his French customers
Speaker 1: and bacon to police his German patrons. Herder also claimed
Speaker 1: that this was the only version worth making, and that
Speaker 1: any other version of a caesar salad was quote fouled up.
Speaker 1: One of the elements of a Caesar salad that comes
Speaker 1: up from time to time, and it's really not clear
Speaker 1: in which of these many iterations that originated, is that
Speaker 1: you're supposed to eat it with your hands. The romane
Speaker 1: lettuce isn't supposed to be chopped. The leaves are left intact,
Speaker 1: so each leaf can be picked up by the rigid
Speaker 1: base and then eaten without any utensils. Serving it this
Speaker 1: way means that the preparation has to be done to
Speaker 1: really exacting standards, with the leaves rolled in the dressing
Speaker 1: instead of tossed the way one would toss a chopped salad,
Speaker 1: to ensure that the leaves are coated evenly. Because the
Speaker 1: ends need to be left clean, you to grab them
Speaker 1: with your hands. I kind of love this, I kind
Speaker 1: of want to try it. Um. I know I have
Speaker 1: seen plates of caesar salad plated that way. It never
Speaker 1: occurred to me you were supposed to pick it up
Speaker 1: with your hand. I always just cut, cut, cut, But
Speaker 1: now I will know. So coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about how the caesar salad spread in popularity, which
Speaker 1: probably contributed to this ongoing conflict over who got credit.
Speaker 1: But first we are going to pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Regardless of who initially thought up this salad, it quickly
Speaker 1: gained a following. One of Cardini's most famous customers was U. S.
Speaker 1: Army General Billy Mitchell, who was considered the father of
Speaker 1: the U. S. Air Force and whose outspoken criticism of
Speaker 1: military leadership led to a widely publicized court martial in
Speaker 1: but in the early nineteen twenties. Mitchell was stationed at
Speaker 1: San Diego and was a regular at Cardinis. To you
Speaker 1: on a restaurant, and the general fell so in love
Speaker 1: with caesar salad that when he traveled he would show
Speaker 1: chefs at the restaurants he visited how it was made,
Speaker 1: and that helped spread the dishes popularity. Cardini later said,
Speaker 1: quote when he had his big court martial, his wife
Speaker 1: told me he used to come home from the hearings
Speaker 1: and mix a caesar salad for dinner. Julia Child wrote
Speaker 1: about experiencing the caesar salad at Caesar's place as a
Speaker 1: child in her book From Julia Child's Kitchen quote, My parents,
Speaker 1: of course ordered the salad. Caesar himself rolled the big
Speaker 1: card up to the table, toss the remain in a
Speaker 1: great wooden bowl. And I wish I could say I
Speaker 1: remembered his every move, but I don't. The only thing
Speaker 1: I see again clearly is the eggs. I can see
Speaker 1: him break two eggs over that romain and roll them
Speaker 1: in the greens, going all creamy as the eggs float
Speaker 1: over them. Two eggs in a salad to one minute
Speaker 1: coddled eggs and garlic flavored croutons and grated parmesan cheese.
Speaker 1: It was a sensation of a salad from coast to coast.
Speaker 1: In seven, journalist and gossip columnist Earl Wilson wrote a
Speaker 1: piece about the popularity of the caesar salad in Hollywood
Speaker 1: that was for a syndicate new column which appeared in
Speaker 1: papers across the US, and he opened it with quote,
Speaker 1: I've long noticed that such Hollywood glamor pusses as Joan Crawford,
Speaker 1: Dorothy Lemore, Lana Turner, and Betty Hutton smells strongly and
Speaker 1: strangely of and here your columnist blushes furiously of garlic.
Speaker 1: Wilson eventually discovered that the source of that garlic smell
Speaker 1: was the movie stars fondness for Caesar salad. But the
Speaker 1: truly interesting part of this right up is a paragraph
Speaker 1: in which Wilson gives the reader of today some clues
Speaker 1: about how the dish was spread around the country and
Speaker 1: how it became so popular. Note in the quote, though
Speaker 1: he got Cardini's name wrong, he writes, quote, I found
Speaker 1: it was invented by an Italian named Caesar Gardini in
Speaker 1: his Tioana restaurant. Edmund Low tasted it there and brought
Speaker 1: it to Hollywood. Caesar's ex partner, Peter Fregario, is now
Speaker 1: a captain at On Reeves here, where, of course you
Speaker 1: can get a wonderful Caesar salad. That column all so
Speaker 1: evidence is how garlic was at this point not the
Speaker 1: dietary staple for the US that it is today. And
Speaker 1: I think we've all been on social media and seen
Speaker 1: people make the joke like when the recipe calls for
Speaker 1: two clothes of garlic, I put in six or whatever
Speaker 1: other number not the case at his point in time.
Speaker 1: Wilson goes on to tell the reader how to make
Speaker 1: a Caesar salad, although he does this in a very
Speaker 1: jokey way. There's a whole side story about how his
Speaker 1: kids tennis ball got in it um and then he says, quote,
Speaker 1: try it. What can you lose but your stomach. Some
Speaker 1: people out here say you can eat all that garlic
Speaker 1: and because of the climate, absorb and never smell up
Speaker 1: the joint with it. That's what they say. I love garlic.
Speaker 1: You've probably heard at some point that a true Caesar
Speaker 1: salad has anchovies, or that it originally had them, And
Speaker 1: we mentioned that Alex's version had them, and they come
Speaker 1: up in an interview that Caesar card and he gave
Speaker 1: in that article, which likens Cardini's influence on food in
Speaker 1: the US to that of Buddy Bolden's on jazz quotes
Speaker 1: and is saying, quote, it's a wonder my salad has
Speaker 1: survived at all what some chefs have done to it.
Speaker 1: They had anchovy's tomatoes, minced ham, even asparagus. Why do
Speaker 1: they want to spoil it? Going about the rift between
Speaker 1: Alex and Caesar and Alex's inclusion of anchovy pace. This
Speaker 1: seems like a dig on Caesar's part against his sibling.
Speaker 1: Very publicly. In nineteen fifty three, the International Society of Epicures,
Speaker 1: which was based in Paris, named the Caesar salad quote
Speaker 1: the best original dish to come out of the United
Speaker 1: States in the past fifty years. Since Caesar Cardini became
Speaker 1: famous as a salad expert. After being lauded by that
Speaker 1: international society, he was often asked for tips on making
Speaker 1: great salads in the press, and one that showed up
Speaker 1: repeatedly in newspapers in nineteen fifty six was that quote,
Speaker 1: horse radish should be added to the dressing for every
Speaker 1: green salad to really tease the palette, use one half
Speaker 1: level teaspoon for every four servings, and be sure to
Speaker 1: add a pinch of cinnamon. I'm okay with this horse
Speaker 1: radish suggestion, but then you add cinnamon to it, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what I literally when I read it made
Speaker 1: the scooby doo confused noise. I was like, but now
Speaker 1: I want to try it and see, because maybe he
Speaker 1: knew maybe I have both those things in the fridge.
Speaker 1: We'll see. So by that time Caesar Cardinny had relocated
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. He had been selling his dressing by
Speaker 1: the bottle, initially from his small gourmet grocery store, which
Speaker 1: was Caesar Cardini Foods, and then by a wider distribution
Speaker 1: That dressing was trademarked in and he had left two
Speaker 1: restaurants behind in Tijuana. They continued to operate under his name,
Speaker 1: but they had new owners. On November three, Cardini had
Speaker 1: a stroke and he was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery.
Speaker 1: His brother Alex offered a reward after his brother's death
Speaker 1: to anyone who could prove him wrong that the salad
Speaker 1: was his invention and not Caesar's. And while this stoked
Speaker 1: an ongoing family feud, and both sides feel that they
Speaker 1: know the real truth, it doesn't seem that this matter
Speaker 1: was ever definitively settled. After Caesar's death, his daughter Rosa
Speaker 1: ran the family business until it was eventually sold. It
Speaker 1: continues today. You can still buy Cardie news dressing at
Speaker 1: grocery stores across the country and also from online retailers,
Speaker 1: and I did while I was researching this delicious. As
Speaker 1: for the restaurants Caesar's place, it still exists it's in
Speaker 1: what was the second location where it moved to in
Speaker 1: uh there in Tijuana. Although it's life of service has
Speaker 1: not been continuous for a while. It had over the
Speaker 1: years become quite run down, and in two thousand nine
Speaker 1: it actually closed. But now it is run by the
Speaker 1: Placentia Group which acquired it in and they re modeled
Speaker 1: it and dressed it up and made it beautiful, and
Speaker 1: now it's a very um like high end experience, and
Speaker 1: if you order a Caesar salad there, you will get
Speaker 1: the entire table side show of careful preparation. And while
Speaker 1: the restaurant still touts itself as the home of the
Speaker 1: original Caesar salad, it now credits Caesar Alex and Livio
Speaker 1: Santini with its invention. And July four is now National
Speaker 1: Caesar Salad Day in the United States. I feel like
Speaker 1: now I will always have a Caesar salad on that day.
Speaker 1: Not a difficult ask in my book. Um are now
Speaker 1: moving on to our second story, which is Graham crackers,
Speaker 1: which are today a sweet standard in many cupboards. It's
Speaker 1: the base on which we build s'mores. It's a snack
Speaker 1: for toddlers. It is the star ingredient in some dessert crusts.
Speaker 1: But the origin of the Graham Cracker was all about
Speaker 1: clean living, and to get into that, we have to
Speaker 1: talk about Sylvester Graham. Sylvester Graham was born July five
Speaker 1: in West Suffield, Connecticut. He had sixteen siblings sixteen. His father,
Speaker 1: he was seventy when his youngest child was born, died
Speaker 1: when Sylvester was only two. His mother was left destitute,
Speaker 1: with many of these children still young enough to be
Speaker 1: living at home. The pressure of this whole situation caused
Speaker 1: his mother to really have a breakdown. The courts determined
Speaker 1: her to have quote a deranged state of mind. So
Speaker 1: a year after his father's death, Sylvester, who was still
Speaker 1: a toddler, started down a long series of foster living situations,
Speaker 1: sometimes with older siblings. And after working a number of
Speaker 1: jobs as a young man, Graham, who is described as
Speaker 1: having been sort of odd and also you'll see him
Speaker 1: described as weak bodied in his youth, started college, but
Speaker 1: not until the age of twenty nine, but that did
Speaker 1: not last. He too had some sort of mental breakdown
Speaker 1: one semester into his education at Amherst, and that led
Speaker 1: to two significant events. One and he decided to leave
Speaker 1: college and instead become a Presbyterian minister, and two he
Speaker 1: got married to one of the nurses who took care
Speaker 1: of him. That was a woman named Sarah Earle. Graham
Speaker 1: preached about nutrition and health in tandem with any discussion
Speaker 1: of religious matters, because he really believed they were all connected.
Speaker 1: And this was not entirely unusual for the time, but
Speaker 1: Graham was definitely an extreme example. Although he was technically
Speaker 1: a minister, he did not have a congregation. He was
Speaker 1: really good at public speaking, so he gave lectures first
Speaker 1: on temperance, which was a cause he had long supported,
Speaker 1: and then on wider health topics. He would use the
Speaker 1: idea of moral debasement as an example of how damaging
Speaker 1: behaviors like drinking and eating rich food could be, always
Speaker 1: with plenty of anecdotal stories of people who had fallen
Speaker 1: from grace through indulgence. Graham published a book in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven titled A Treatise on Bread and Breadmaking, and
Speaker 1: it jumps right into the heart of the matter regarding
Speaker 1: the reverence beliefs in the opening lines, which read quote,
Speaker 1: there are probably few people in civilized life who were
Speaker 1: the question put to them directly, would not say that
Speaker 1: they consider bread one of the most, if not the
Speaker 1: most important article of diet which enters into the food
Speaker 1: of man. And yet there is in reality almost a
Speaker 1: total and universal carelessness about the character of bread. Thousands
Speaker 1: in civic life will, for years and perhaps as long
Speaker 1: as they live, eat the most miserable trash that can
Speaker 1: be imagined in the form of bread, and never seem
Speaker 1: to think that they can possibly have anything better, nor
Speaker 1: even that it is an evil to eat such vile
Speaker 1: stuff as they do. He was also a proponent of
Speaker 1: what we would call a raw food diet today. Graham
Speaker 1: felt that food in general should be eaten in its
Speaker 1: natural state, as provided by God to achieve the best health.
Speaker 1: He wrote quote, if man were to subsist wholly on
Speaker 1: uncooked food, he would never suffer from the improper temperature
Speaker 1: if his ailment. Hot substances taken into the mouth serve
Speaker 1: more directly and powerfully to destroy the teeth than any
Speaker 1: other cause which acts immediately upon them, And hot food
Speaker 1: and drink received into the stomach always in some degree
Speaker 1: debilitate that organ, and through it every other organ in
Speaker 1: portion of the whole system, diminishing. As an ultimate result,
Speaker 1: the vital power of every part, impairing every function and
Speaker 1: increasing the susceptibility of the whole body to the action
Speaker 1: of disturbing causes and predisposing it to disease. Again, if
Speaker 1: man were to subsist entirely on food in a natural state,
Speaker 1: he would never suffer from concentrated ailment. Again not a doctor.
Speaker 1: But as we mentioned just before quoting these passages, all
Speaker 1: of these thoughts about food and eating raw were tied
Speaker 1: up with morality, not in the sense of today's very
Speaker 1: problematic associations of assigning food's moral values usually associated with
Speaker 1: how it could impact your weight, which is its own
Speaker 1: whole problematic thing. But this was a different connection between
Speaker 1: food and morality. Specifically, Sylvester Graham thought that people were
Speaker 1: just too full of lust and sinful sexual urges, and
Speaker 1: he thought that their diets were causing that problem. Graham's
Speaker 1: entire approach to eating and health and morality weighed everything
Speaker 1: on a scale where things he perceived a sinful were
Speaker 1: and he believed going to negatively harm a person's physical
Speaker 1: well being just as much as their soul. And he
Speaker 1: thought that the fatty and meat heavy food that was
Speaker 1: so common in US homes was over stimulating people in
Speaker 1: a way that manifested as sexual urges. He had a
Speaker 1: whole odd logic where he thought that meat raised a
Speaker 1: person's body temperature in such a way that it made
Speaker 1: them lustful. Reminds me of John Harvey Kellogg. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wrote a note in this outline that just bless his heart.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we are going to talk about what came
Speaker 1: to be known as the Graham diet. Those were Graham's
Speaker 1: guidelines for eating and good health, and they got to
Speaker 1: be surprisingly popular. But before we get to that, we
Speaker 1: are going to take a moment to hear from the sponsors.
Speaker 1: They keep stuff you missed in history class. Going to
Speaker 1: achieve health of body and soul. Graham outlined the ideal diet,
Speaker 1: and while it's definitely got some merit nutritionally at its roots.
Speaker 1: For example, he was very big on a plant based diet,
Speaker 1: but his system also does not sound very enjoyable because
Speaker 1: in addition to eating simple food with little preparation, you
Speaker 1: really were not allowed to season anything. Definitely no salt,
Speaker 1: definitely no pepper. Meat obviously was out, as was alcohol,
Speaker 1: and of course no smoking. But do you like coffee
Speaker 1: or tea? Too? Bad? Water? Only there's no there's no
Speaker 1: delightful beverages. Um. He would allow eggs, which is a
Speaker 1: whole weird thing. I'm not sure what his logic was there.
Speaker 1: But in addition to that strictness of what you could eat,
Speaker 1: he also had steep limits on how much of it
Speaker 1: you could eat, which was not very much. He prescribed
Speaker 1: two meals a day, and they should be on the
Speaker 1: small side. His inspiration for this diet wasn't eating the
Speaker 1: same way that he believed Adam and Eve would have eaten.
Speaker 1: He preached the civilization had gotten humans away from the
Speaker 1: perfect nutrition of the garden of Eden. He wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: we are informed also that the Romans more than two
Speaker 1: thousand years ago had four or five different kinds of bread.
Speaker 1: But at whatever period in the history of the race,
Speaker 1: this artificial process was commenced, certain it is that indirect
Speaker 1: violation of the laws of constitution and relation which the
Speaker 1: Creator has established in the nature of man. This process
Speaker 1: of mechanical analysis is, at the present day carried to
Speaker 1: the full extent of possibility. He wanted people, ideally to
Speaker 1: grow their own wheats, or, barring that, to find sources
Speaker 1: of quote the best new wheat that can be produced
Speaker 1: by proper tillage in a good soil, and here they
Speaker 1: could wash and grind the wheat for their bread themselves.
Speaker 1: He believed this was a lot healthier than anything you
Speaker 1: could purchase. The coarse wheat flour he encouraged people to
Speaker 1: make themselves became known as Graham flower. So In that
Speaker 1: same book about bread, Graham also managed to pick a
Speaker 1: fight with professional bakers, writing quote, in cities and large towns,
Speaker 1: most people depend on public bakers for their bread. And
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that public bakers as a body
Speaker 1: are as honest and worthy a class of men as
Speaker 1: any in society. I have no wish to speak evil
Speaker 1: of anyone, and it is always painful to me to
Speaker 1: find myself compelled infidelity to the common cause of humanity,
Speaker 1: to expose the faults of any particular class of men,
Speaker 1: when probably every other class in society is as deeply
Speaker 1: involved in errors, which, in the sight of God events
Speaker 1: at least an equal degree of moral turpitude. But public bakers,
Speaker 1: like other men who serve the public more for the
Speaker 1: sake of securing their own emolument than for the public good,
Speaker 1: have always had recourse to various expedients in order to
Speaker 1: increase the lucrativeness of their business. Graham then goes on
Speaker 1: to explain how bakers have started to use additives in
Speaker 1: their flower to make bread, and some of them are dangerous.
Speaker 1: He also says that even bakers who don't stretch their
Speaker 1: supplies with additional materials are still using mediocre flower. He
Speaker 1: talked about this in speeches and sermons as well as
Speaker 1: in print. Do you can imagine how much bakers liked this?
Speaker 1: That was not at all? The baking profession got so
Speaker 1: tired of being bad mouthed by Sylvester Graham that in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven a group of bakers in Boston protested
Speaker 1: his lectures, causing one venue to shut down. The replacement
Speaker 1: venue had to be boarded up to keep the mob out.
Speaker 1: His lectures regarding Butcher's were similarly damning, and on two
Speaker 1: occasions Butcher's showed up to protest Graham's talks. The year
Speaker 1: after a treatise on Bread and bread Making, Graham released
Speaker 1: a lecture to young men on Chastity, which offers very
Speaker 1: detailed information on how the minister believed that a poor
Speaker 1: diet would lead to sinful behavior. It is already pretty
Speaker 1: clear that Sylvester Graham was not what you might call
Speaker 1: sex positive, but he makes that so abundantly clear in
Speaker 1: the preface of this book, writing that quote he who,
Speaker 1: in any manner endeavors to excite the sensual appetites and
Speaker 1: arouse the unchased passions of youth, is one of the
Speaker 1: most heinous offenders against the welfare of mankind. He also
Speaker 1: speaks out in this published lecture against basically any sexual
Speaker 1: activity that's not conducted in an effort to produce offspring,
Speaker 1: even masturbation, which he refers to as self pollution and
Speaker 1: asserts is a quote very great and rapidly increasing evil
Speaker 1: in our country. Even married couples should be careful because
Speaker 1: quote sexual excess within the pale of wedlock is really
Speaker 1: a very considerable and an increasing evil. Basically any sex
Speaker 1: as evil, which is not a great attitude. In addition
Speaker 1: to eating a very rigid diet, Graham also believed that
Speaker 1: salvation and longevity required that people forego a lot of
Speaker 1: creature comforts. He preached that people should bathe frequently, which
Speaker 1: is great, of course for hygiene, but he also taught
Speaker 1: his followers that they should do that bathing only with
Speaker 1: cold water. It should never be warmed up, because again,
Speaker 1: remember if you get warm, you'll have bad thoughts. Mattris is,
Speaker 1: according to Sylvester Graham, should not be soft and cozy. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were more appealing aspects to his guidelines for healthy living,
Speaker 1: including that he did want people to get fresh air
Speaker 1: and move their bodies, and also he was a big
Speaker 1: fan of wearing comfortable clothes. Despite those more pleasant aspects,
Speaker 1: a lot of this sounds extreme and even bizar to
Speaker 1: the modern ear, but in the nineteenth century a lot
Speaker 1: of people really liked what Graham was saying. For one,
Speaker 1: the temperance movement was well under way by the eighteen thirties.
Speaker 1: There were an estimated six thousand local temperance societies in
Speaker 1: the US. By eighteen thirty three, Graham was affiliated for
Speaker 1: a time with the Pennsylvania Society for Discouraging the Use
Speaker 1: of Ardent Spirits. Historian Adam D. Spritzen makes the case
Speaker 1: in his book The Vegetarian Crusade that social movements like abolition,
Speaker 1: which encouraged people to avoid foods that were connected to slavery,
Speaker 1: had set the stage for people to think about food
Speaker 1: from a moral perspective. Additionally, cholera had claimed the lives
Speaker 1: of thousands of people in North America, leading people to
Speaker 1: fear anything that might spread disease, including the food and
Speaker 1: drink that they consumed. Eventually, Graham had amassed such a
Speaker 1: following that Graham might boarding houses were established so that
Speaker 1: his followers could adhere to the principles of his teaching
Speaker 1: in sort of an easy, organized way. Graham didn't really
Speaker 1: profit from any of these they seemed to be run,
Speaker 1: for the most part by people who believed in his message.
Speaker 1: Sylvester Graham did continue to tour giving lectures and even
Speaker 1: started publishing his own periodical, briefly, which was the Graham
Speaker 1: Journal for Health and Longevity. Graham had emerged as an
Speaker 1: early dietary reformer, one of the first people to create
Speaker 1: a model of health lifestyle that his followers embraced. Just
Speaker 1: as the concept of a meat abstaining lifestyle was really
Speaker 1: gaining traction in the US and the world, the word
Speaker 1: vegetarianism had started to become more common. Sylvester Graham died
Speaker 1: on September fifty one at the age of fifty seven.
Speaker 1: Death notices of his passing in the press were pretty minimal,
Speaker 1: in part because his relatively early death invited criticism of
Speaker 1: the very lifestyle he had helped to establish. Your food
Speaker 1: was so great, why you die so young? Would be
Speaker 1: critical just the same. The death did cause all manner
Speaker 1: of controversy, even though they tried to keep it low key,
Speaker 1: and accounts began to spring up in papers about the
Speaker 1: last days of Graham's life. He had been sort of
Speaker 1: frail his whole life, from the time he was a child,
Speaker 1: when he was being sent from one foster situation to another.
Speaker 1: Physician Russell Thatcher Trall, who had known Graham, pointed out
Speaker 1: in one article that Graham had only become a vegetarian
Speaker 1: at the age of forty, so he could not have
Speaker 1: gained all the possible benefits from it that someone who
Speaker 1: gave up meat earlier in their life might have. Trall
Speaker 1: also disclosed to readers that Graham's doctor had insisted at
Speaker 1: the end of the man's life that he eats some
Speaker 1: amount of meat to improve his circulation, or that he
Speaker 1: would no longer treat him, and according to Trale's accounts,
Speaker 1: Sylvester Graham acquiesced, but immediately regretted having done so. We
Speaker 1: do not know if any of this account is true,
Speaker 1: and despite the controversy. Graham ms continued to follow his
Speaker 1: teachings well after his death, and it's in the second
Speaker 1: half of the nineteenth century that the Graham cracker emerged
Speaker 1: as a commercial product. The specific the origin of the
Speaker 1: Graham cracker is a little bit unclear. Sometimes you will
Speaker 1: see Sylvester Graham himself credited with inventing it. I actually
Speaker 1: saw several articles say that it was invented in e
Speaker 1: nine in bound Brook, New Jersey, by him, but there's
Speaker 1: not a lot in the way of substantiation for that
Speaker 1: specific date. The phrase Graham cracker does appear in various
Speaker 1: things starting in the eight thirties um, but it's always
Speaker 1: unclear what exactly it means. It is also entirely possible, though,
Speaker 1: that this evolved as a food created by Graham Mites
Speaker 1: an attempt at making some sort of cracker with Graham
Speaker 1: flower to just sort of fill that need in their diets.
Speaker 1: Most accounts you will see kind of couch the Graham
Speaker 1: crackers having been inspired by Sylvester Graham and his food reforms,
Speaker 1: rather than invented by him. But we do know that
Speaker 1: it originated either with the man himself or with his followers.
Speaker 1: But that form of a baked good would have been
Speaker 1: very different from the food that we call a graham
Speaker 1: cracker today. For one, it would not have been sweet.
Speaker 1: According to article in the Washington Post quote, the real
Speaker 1: graham cracker was closer to a brand salteine without the salt.
Speaker 1: That weighed a ton and missed out on taste. Probably
Speaker 1: not a thing you would want to use to sandwich
Speaker 1: a big chunk of chocolate and some toasted marshmallow. In
Speaker 1: the late eighteen nineties, the National Biscuit Company, which would
Speaker 1: eventually become Nabisco, started mass producing graham crackers. They weren't
Speaker 1: the first to do it, but they were the first
Speaker 1: to release successfully launch it as a product. Then in
Speaker 1: their honeymade graham crackers were introduced, and at that point
Speaker 1: anything truly tying them to Sylvester's ideals was completely gone.
Speaker 1: Not only were they mass produced at that point, but
Speaker 1: they were sweetened with molasses. That was something he would
Speaker 1: have abhorred. It is the safe bet he would think
Speaker 1: smores are fully demonic. I just can't imagine him not
Speaker 1: being really, really ho afied by them. Yeah, well, if
Speaker 1: it makes them feel any better from beyond the grave.
Speaker 1: When I was a child my mom who had a
Speaker 1: lot of very strong opinions about the the types and
Speaker 1: quality of food that her children should eat. Graham crackers
Speaker 1: were one of the acceptable things in our household where
Speaker 1: we did not have a lot of refined sugar. So
Speaker 1: there's that. I mean, they're still better than a lot
Speaker 1: of sweet things you could give a kid in terms
Speaker 1: of sugar content. Now I kind of want to look
Speaker 1: up and see if there are any like old school
Speaker 1: Graham cracker wricipies that I could try making and just
Speaker 1: see what sort of horrors emerge from my oven um.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we're gonna have a more fun listener
Speaker 1: mail about John Henry Pepper and his legacy. This is
Speaker 1: from our listener Alex, who writes, Hey, Holly and Tracy,
Speaker 1: I just listened to your episode on John Henry Pepper
Speaker 1: and his Ghost, and your descriptions of his demon strations
Speaker 1: at the Royal Polytechnic Institution reminded me strongly of a
Speaker 1: similar series of lectures I went to as a kid.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, where there's a large
Speaker 1: university and Professor Bassam Shaka Shari used to put on
Speaker 1: public chemistry demonstrations for audiences of all ages. My first
Speaker 1: grade teacher took me to see one of his Christmas
Speaker 1: lectures one time, and it was a formative experience for me.
Speaker 1: Pepper sounds like he had a similar approach to science
Speaker 1: education as Professor Shaka Shari. I ended up working in
Speaker 1: science education for many years as a biologist at the
Speaker 1: Exploratory Um, a science museum in San Francisco that sounded
Speaker 1: like a more modern version of Pepper's installation at the Theater.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend a visit if you're ever in the area.
Speaker 1: Alex also suggests a topic that is I don't know
Speaker 1: if it will happen or not for various reasons. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a tricky subject, but I really appreciate both
Speaker 1: the suggestion and this wonderful uh. Missive also thank you
Speaker 1: for being an educator Alex and a scientist. UH. If
Speaker 1: you would like the right to us you can do so.
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