The Fantastic History Of Food

War often calls for quick thinking and unconventional tactics, but few battles have ever been won with… potatoes. But, during World War II, the USS O’Bannon, a U.S. Navy destroyer, found itself in a tense standoff with a Japanese submarine. With the enemy dangerously close, too near in fact for their deck guns to be effective, the crew resorted to a rather unexpected weapon.  This is the incredibl...

At it’s very core, war is essentially throwing everything you have at your enemy hoping that they break first, and at times that breaking point can be as much a psychological one as a physical one.  Wars of attrition, as in the case of prolonged siege warfare, is all about seeing who can last the longest.  And today's story is all about one of those siege warfare breaking points, and how an army w...

The entire experience of eating a fancy meal these days is no longer just about the food itself. For decades, chefs like Heston Blumenthal have been creating entire culinary experiences to delight all of your senses at once, pairing sounds, smells and textures along with the already delicious flavours of their food. But while this trend has taken off again more recently, this is by no means a mode...

It’s well into the northern european winter season at the end of 1939. Five hundred thousand Russian Soviet Soldiers are making a collective push northwards, swarming the countryside as they go. They are armed to the hilt with tanks, explosives, machine guns, grenades and a staggeringly overwhelming number of troops. But there is one thing that they didn’t count on, one thing that threatened to de...

For the majority of history they were considered the ultimate delicacy by European nobility who just couldn’t get enough of them. From snack to status symbol, the pineapple has graced many a King and Queens palace courts, while outside of them they took on a mythical quality akin to some sort of precious jewel. Today, we’ll track the pineapples voyage across the seas and into the history books as...

For as long as so-called civilised societies have existed, equally uncivilised clubs and groups have sprung up within them, allowing their members to revel in all sorts of weird and wonderful excesses. In previous episodes we have heard about secret food clubs with a goal of eating every type of animal on earth. Todays story may not be so different, although this clubs members were’nt so picky abo...

Turn on the tv or radio, or scroll any news site online and you’ll no doubt be inundated with stories about crazy weather anomalies happening all around the globe. Volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, earthquakes, tornadoes and so much more. But none of us, thankfully, have ever lived through one of the strangest events in history when something a lot more dense than rain began falling from the skies...

In our modern age we have lived through natural disasters and floods in various parts of the world, and no matter what, they are always tragic. But tragic floods are not always a cause of nature. In episode 7, we discussed the great molasses flood that occurred in Boston and the ensuing devastation of that event. Well today, we’ll be taking a look at a similar, albeit less gloopy tidal wave of des...

This episode is a look at how in the early to mid 1900’s the abolitionist laws banning the production and consumption of alcohol played a majorly significant role in the creation of what, today, is a veritable institution of the American South, NASCAR. ------------------- Please support me on Patreon for just $2 a month: patreon.com/foodhistorypod ------------------- Sources for this episode's res...

There are many stories throughout history of individuals with freakish appetites, who seem to be able to consume quantities of food well past what a human stomach should be capable of handling. Today, we’ll be diving into the story of Charles Domery, a Polish-born soldier who tried to eat the whole world. ------------------- Please support me on Patreon for just $2 a month: patreon.com/foodhistory...

For most of history, the Dutch have been an almost all-powerful force to be reckoned with. They were the forerunners for a lot of the world's exploration, and for a long time dominated the seas and trade routes through the stranglehold of the Dutch East India Company. In the preceding century, they were still under Spanish rule, with 2 of their kings, Charles the Fifth and his Son Phillip II, simu...

For today's story we will be diving into the life of a truly extraordinary man named William V McKenna, and while he fits the category of “people who eat random things”, those things that he ate can’t really be classified as food. So let's see just how this man, William McKenna first discovered his talented digestive system. ------------------- Please support me on Patreon for just $2 a month : pa...

WW2 was raging onwards, with men fighting and dying each and every day. It was so delicately poised that there seemed to be no end to the fighting in sight. Weeks and months dragged on into years, and with them came more and more plots of how to win the war. Some were impractical, some were impossible, and some were downright insane. But every now and again, one of these plots would be just insane...

There is a spice we use so commonly today that it's hard to believe that at one time, wars were fought, people were killed and entire civilizations almost wiped out, simply so that the strongest force could get their hands on this prized spice. ------------------- Thank you to Four Sigmatic for being a sponsor for this episode. To make it easy, Four Sigmatic is offering you 30% off anything in the...

If ever you’ve doubted food's integral place in history, today’s stories are sure to remind us all, that no matter what life and history in general, wouldn’t and in fact, couldn’t be the same without the daily rituals that food brings. ------------------- Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode. To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune...

Many old food-based fortunes were light-hearted party games mainly played around Halloween time, but some of there were deadly serious, and their results were taken as gospel truth. And at the time, all you needed to tell the future, was a full pantry and a little imagination. ------------------- Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode. To make it easy, Athletic Greens wi...

Today's stories aren’t just about the small-time pilfering of food here and there from your local grocery stores. No, today we’ll be talking about people stealing truckloads of the stuff at a time, not it seems to quell their stomach's callings, as much as to refill those empty wallets. ------------------- Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode. To make it easy, Athletic...

There are few things more universally loved than a good sandwich. We as humans love the simplicity and deliciousness of having something to hold all of our favourite fillings together. But there was a time in our history when the venerable sandwich was used not for sustenance, or delight in a tasty meal, but rather as a loophole with which to get around some rather limiting laws. -----------------...

As soon as people became wealthy enough not to have to spend every waking hour of their day, working, cleaning, hunting or cooking, they had enough to look in the mirror and decide what they didn’t like about themselves. From the truly horrific and crippling footbinding practices in imperial china to modern day plastic surgery, people have been searching for ways to achieve their body goals. Victo...

Even the most famous and lauded among us still have a few tasty secrets up their sleeves, and today we’re going to dive into this fascinating side of one of modern cookings most famous gourmands: Julia Child. ------------------- Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode. To make it easy, Athletic Greens will give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5...

Not only were western cultures happily eating raw fish for ages, at one point they were uh, in fact eating it so raw as for it still, in fact, to be alive. That’s right, today we’re talking about the 1939 craze of college students competing to swallow as many as they could of the humble goldfish. ------------------- Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode. To make it easy...

There is nothing quite like pizza. The variety is endless, the experience is magical, the taste is delicious and they can be found in almost every single country on earth with any number of local variations. Which makes todays story all the sadder, when we find out that from their humble italian origins, 30 000 of these delicious delicacies were once condemned to mass burial in Michigan. ---------...

There are quite a few stories from historical banquetry that weren’t of the presumed fun and hearty nature. Instead it seems that there was an occasional trend, in wealthy circles specifically, to up the ante so to speak and either trick their guests into believing one thing when in fact an entirely other thing was true, or making them believe that they were about to face actual real death at any...

We continue to follow the journey of tea as it makes its way to Europe and the Americas. We’ll see the large role tea tends to play politically amongst rival nations as well as internally in Turkey, and we’ll get to have a look at how this humble beverage has made its way to each and every corner of the globe. ------------------- Thank you to Athletic Greens for being a sponsor for this episode. T...

The history of tea is as long and complex as its variety of flavours. It's a history quite literally infused with tales of spirituality and mysticism. It has evolved over the ages to become world renowned for it’s science backed health benefits, but to find out the true origins of tea throughout history, we need to go back almost 5000 years. ------------------- Take the next step in your life by g...