0:07

Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart

0:09

Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Anneries and I'm Lauren

0:11

Vogelbaum, and today we're talking about gaspacco.

0:16

It is Yeah, this

0:19

is another one that I remember the very first

0:21

time I had it. Yeah, it was like

0:23

five years ago. It was recent

0:26

at a very fancy restaurant

0:29

in Atlanta. Some would call it

0:31

the fanciest restaurant in at Nanta.

0:36

You knew exactly what I was talking about.

0:39

Um, it was an amuse bush

0:42

and it came in this time a rutle cup

0:44

and it was so cute, and it was so delicious. That's

0:47

lovely. It's very refreshing. Yeah. Oh yeah,

0:50

I had it way back in high school. I was I

0:52

took a few years of Spanish in high school because

0:55

I was living in South Florida at the time. It seemed like

0:57

the thing to do. Um, and uh,

1:00

it's a lot easier than French. And and

1:04

we we had a version of gaspacco that

1:07

is not like what I'm

1:09

going to describe caspacho as being in

1:11

a second here. But it was very

1:13

lovely and refreshing. Yeah.

1:18

Before this episode, I did not realize

1:20

how popular was in Spain.

1:23

Oh yeah, no, it's kind of a thing. Yeah,

1:25

I don't think I would have if you said I had in high school

1:27

Spanish class without this knowledge that I now

1:29

have, I would have been like really, but

1:34

now I know and soon you will to listeners.

1:37

Becau Spaco always makes me think of a

1:39

series of unfortunate events. Oh yeah,

1:41

yeah, from the wide window, which I think is the third

1:43

or fourth. I think it's the third, but um

1:46

quote. As you probably know, chilled

1:49

cucumber soup is a delicacy that is best

1:51

enjoyed on a very hot day. I myself

1:53

once enjoyed it in Egypt while visiting a friend

1:55

of mine who works as a snake charmer. When

1:57

it's well prepared, chilled cucumber soup

1:59

has a delicious minty taste, cool and

2:01

refreshing, as if you are drinking something as well

2:04

as eating it. My

2:06

my, my mom, my mom would make

2:08

a children conversate for my school lunches

2:11

sometimes. Um.

2:14

Apparently, Gaspaco

2:17

is an important plot point in The Simpsons.

2:20

Red Dwarf psych and Chowder

2:24

writ in about that, yeah in the in the

2:26

Simpsons clip. And to be fair,

2:29

we just pulled this up and watched it to make sure

2:31

we knew what we were talking about. We wouldn't want to get

2:33

anything about the Simpsons wrong. Yeah,

2:36

Lisa tries to encourage

2:38

a vegetarian option of at

2:42

at a barbecue and and

2:45

it goes over as well as you might

2:47

have met. Yes,

2:49

but she didn't use the best descriptor

2:52

for it. I would say not to criticize

2:54

Lisa, and

2:56

yeah, it is really popular in Spain.

2:59

A Spanish refrain goes quote

3:01

there's never too much. Oh,

3:05

it's it's it's um vegaspaco no

3:07

I am paco. Um. It literally

3:09

translates to something like there's no indigestion,

3:12

where gaspacho is concerned, but um,

3:14

but has come to be used to mean um,

3:17

you can't have too much of a good thing. Ah. Yeah,

3:20

that's lovely. But this all brings

3:23

us to our question what

3:30

is it? Well, gaspacho

3:33

is a raw vegetable soup blended and

3:35

served chilled. What those vegetables

3:37

are can vary pretty widely, but the classic

3:39

uh Spanish and delusion version features

3:42

tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumber.

3:45

Key to making this not just like salsa? Is

3:47

it? You blend or pure that vegetable

3:50

stuff with olive oil and stale bread,

3:52

creating this lovely creamy emulsion and giving

3:55

the soup some body. Also, the tomatoes

3:57

seeds should be sieved out and the skins

3:59

are usually removed. This version

4:01

is often seasoned with just a salt pepper

4:03

and a splash of vinegar, preferably sherry

4:05

vinegar, and the result is kind of tart

4:07

and vegetable and refreshing, but also smooth

4:10

and comforting. Yeah

4:12

mm. The name most likely

4:14

comes from an Arabic word for soaked bread,

4:16

or perhaps a pre Roman word

4:18

for residue and or fragment,

4:21

or a Greek word for collection

4:24

box, which sometimes folks would put bread

4:26

into those collection boxes, okay, or

4:29

a Hebrew word meaning break into little

4:31

pieces. Yeah, because traditionally

4:33

you're going to make it with a mortar and pestle, and so

4:36

yes, grind those ingredients into little pieces.

4:38

Yes, So lots of options there.

4:40

Will get more into the history as

4:42

per usual. Little bit later, I

4:45

found some controversies, of

4:47

course, to use onion

4:50

or not to use onion, and if so

4:53

much garlic yes,

4:56

no, spicy peppers cuman

5:00

cuman. Yeah,

5:06

just like to make some rhymes when

5:08

they're they're they're uh

5:10

yeah, there there are, Um, there are lots

5:12

of controversies about what you should

5:14

and should not put in different types of gaspacho,

5:17

but there are a lot of varieties and related

5:19

dishes. Um. Really, gaspacho

5:21

is a use up what you've got sort of dish, like I use

5:24

what's freshest and ripest, So

5:26

anything can go. In terms of your vegetable and

5:28

or fruit bass. I've read recipes

5:30

that include stuff like grapes, strawberries or honeydew

5:33

melon, and I am intrigued right

5:35

to possible

5:37

additions to add body are ground

5:40

almonds or pine nuts, or hard boiled

5:42

eggs or raw eggs or homemade mayo.

5:44

Uh. Flavorings can include citrus juice

5:46

and fresh herbs for garnishes, anything

5:48

from diced vegetables of the varieties that

5:51

you've put into cooked seafood or

5:53

boiled egg or cured ham or chopped

5:55

olives or tasted croutons, and

5:58

on and on and on and on and on. And

6:00

we could probably have have a

6:03

stiff argument about whether adding almonds

6:05

means you should just go ahead and take out the tomatoes

6:07

and make an aja blanco. Um, And at

6:09

what point the ratio of bread tomato

6:12

makes it a Gaspacho versus salt

6:14

maejo versus Poora and taquarana. Lots

6:17

of lots of variation in there.

6:20

Yeah, a little little bit of wiggle room,

6:22

some wiggle room, but not too much wiggle room.

6:26

No, no, this is the thing.

6:28

This is the sort of thing that people do have opinions

6:30

about. I am I'm

6:32

not versed enough in it to have opinions. Also,

6:34

I really can't eat like classic gaspacho

6:37

because Bell Peppers. Right,

6:40

I've only had it the twice,

6:43

and I've only had the tomato

6:45

one, the one with tom right.

6:48

Yes, so I

6:50

also cannot wait in too

6:52

much. We'll

6:55

have to We'll have to figure it out. We'll have to go. We'll

6:58

just have to go to Spain. Done,

7:01

all right, agreed, that's

7:05

the simplest way to do it. Yeah. Yeah,

7:08

there are even some versions served

7:10

hot. I know what?

7:13

Yeah what? Oh

7:16

well, I don't know about that. I'm

7:20

sorry if I've said something too shocking, I you

7:23

have. That was a shocker.

7:25

I don't know if I can recover. Oh

7:28

my goodness. Alright, alright, um,

7:30

it is super popular in Spain. People drink

7:32

it straight. I saw many pictures of just gaspacho

7:35

and people's refrigerators kind of like the

7:37

like a picture of or like a cardboard

7:40

you know. Here you just get like a cardboard milk

7:42

thing. And yeah, it's's

7:44

frequently served in a glass, so

7:47

yeah, some people drink

7:49

it every day. It's a hot weather. Go

7:51

to some Spanish cookbooks

7:54

classified gaspacho as a salad.

7:56

It would be in the salad section of their cookbook,

7:58

a liquid salad salad uh

8:01

And nutrition wise, you know, it depends

8:04

on what you put in it, but it's like a

8:06

liquid salad, lowish in fat and

8:08

sugars, with a good punch of protein and micronutrients

8:11

here vitamins and minerals. It's got a lot

8:13

of vitamin C in particular. And

8:15

one study out of Tufts University had its

8:17

participants ecaspaco twice a day

8:20

in addition to their usual diet, and

8:22

within a week, the subjects had lower

8:24

amounts of these stress related compounds

8:26

in their blood um the kinds of

8:28

things that indicate cellular and system

8:30

dysfunction, like chronically. These compounds

8:33

can cause progressive damage from inflammation

8:35

and are part of like the plaques that cause heart disease.

8:38

Researchers think that the vitamin c Inpaco

8:40

is primarily responsible. Uh

8:43

so a nice picker up.

8:46

Yeah phrase, yeah it

8:48

is. Now it's a it's

8:50

a good way to get your vegetables. Yes,

8:53

yes, I concur um

8:55

numbers on you might be

8:58

shocked to here are hard

9:01

to find, but

9:03

I would wager there's quite a lot

9:05

of it being consumed in Spain in

9:07

particular. Yes, yes, i'd

9:09

say it Waxes and Waynes and popularity through other

9:12

other places in the world. Yeah,

9:14

I would agree. And this just about

9:16

brings us to our history section. But

9:18

first it brings us to a quick break for a word from

9:20

our sponsor, and

9:31

we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes, thank you. Okay.

9:35

So I

9:37

I have some opinions about

9:39

this myself, Oh goodness. But

9:42

some historians say that ancient Roman

9:44

soldiers were making an early Formspaco

9:46

with their rations, which we did touch on in

9:48

our m R. E episode, but as

9:51

a reminder, olive oil, bread, salt, garlic,

9:53

and vinegar. Still

9:57

others saying there was a Gospaco prototype

9:59

in the Bible. Throughout history,

10:01

we have searched for ways to use up stale

10:04

bread, and by we I mean humanity,

10:06

yes, not just lord enough right,

10:09

And in the book of roof. There is a mention

10:11

of dipping bread in vinegar. Is

10:15

it is that the I mean, is

10:18

it exactly? Is

10:21

it? But it does come up when

10:23

you look up history of Gaspacho,

10:25

and I guess you can say it's a very very

10:27

early, early relative. I feel like usually

10:29

there's a bit of a closer uh

10:31

connect. But I

10:34

am not the foremost

10:38

store and expert on this, so

10:40

I will I will include it

10:42

in here. Yes, some

10:45

believe that the Arabs, who occupied

10:47

Spain from the eighth century to the twelveth

10:49

century CE, brought with They

10:51

brought white soup with them, made with almonds, bread,

10:54

garlic, salt, and olive oil. And

10:56

this is that a whole bluncle that I was talking about

10:58

earlier. Um and grapes are melon are

11:00

used for garnish or sometimes in the soup

11:03

it celf o um.

11:05

But yeah, yeah, this this is considered a

11:08

legit uh

11:11

Gaspacho adjacent dish. I feel

11:13

like we're throwing some shade, and I don't mean

11:15

to personally. I don't

11:17

know how this happened. Maybe

11:20

I was just in a spicy mood when I

11:23

wrote this. One

11:25

of the first records of Gaspacho was

11:28

in a medicinal book, prescribing it for stomach

11:30

acountments, soften the stomach

11:33

and prevent future faction. Oh

11:36

yeah, that is what it was supposed to help you

11:38

with. Sure, okay, sounds nice. In

11:40

the seventeenth century, Don Quixote's

11:42

pal Sancho Ponzo mentioned gaspacho

11:46

quote, A reaping hook fits my hand better

11:48

than a governor scepter. I'd rather have my

11:50

fill of gaspacho than be subject to the

11:52

misery of a meddling doctor. H

11:56

Tomatoes have been a key ingredient in Gaspaco

11:58

since the nineteenth century, making the so called

12:01

red Gaspaco that went international.

12:05

See our tomato episode, which is one of my faves

12:08

for more. But basically, Spain was cultivating

12:10

tomatoes soon after Columbus brought them back

12:13

from his journey. Definitely by the

12:15

sixteenth century. It took a minute for tomatoes

12:17

to catch on because people thought that they were poisonous

12:20

or like possibly caused

12:22

you to become a werewolf. I

12:25

feel bad laughing because I'm sure it was very

12:28

serious. But in are these are modern

12:30

ears? It sounds funny, it

12:32

does? It is? It is humorous to imagine

12:35

someone avoiding eating a tomato. Because it might

12:37

make them a werewolf, it is,

12:39

but also living a little on the wild

12:41

side and using it for decoration only,

12:44

all right, because because yeah,

12:46

like like, look at this expensive, toxic thing,

12:49

and look at how daringly close it is to

12:51

my uh eating food

12:54

et humans. I love you. I could

12:56

become a werewolf at any minute. Gaspaco

13:01

like this red gaspaco did follow us soon after

13:04

the tomatoes. People who planted and

13:06

harvested tomatoes used gaspacho

13:09

to keep them going. Landowners

13:12

sometimes hired gaspace aros

13:14

who are people to make this cheap

13:16

food and serve it to the folks working on the field

13:19

so they could keep working even longer.

13:22

A seventy seven description of gaspaco

13:25

entailed soaking bread crust first and water,

13:28

then in a sauce of garlic and choby

13:30

bones, vinegar, sugar, salt, and

13:32

olive oil. Wants the bread of soften fruits

13:35

and vegetables were added in. And

13:37

yes, uh, keep in mind that blenders

13:39

did not exist at this point in history,

13:41

so I mean neither did refrigerators. So

13:44

so two of the important elements that we have in making

13:46

gaspaco today we're missing. Um And

13:48

yeah, these these big wooden bowls and big

13:50

wooden pestles would have been used to grind

13:53

all the ingredients together into kind of like a paste

13:55

andaco and

13:58

gaspacco and mark

14:00

out. At

14:02

the time, it was definitely viewed as a food of

14:05

the working class. From the sixteen eleven

14:07

book The Treasury of the Spanish Language,

14:09

it listed gaspacho as quote food

14:11

for vulgar people. But by

14:14

the nineteenth century it had been embraced

14:17

by the bourgeoisie. But they

14:19

of course fancied it up with a bowl

14:22

what oh my goodness, cut

14:25

shop, boiled eggs, peppers

14:28

and tomatoes, all of these were options. It

14:30

was like kind of like a bar situation. We're could be like, I

14:32

want this anyway.

14:35

In for Napoleon the Third's wife, Eugenia

14:37

de Montello introduced France to gaspaco

14:40

around this time as well, and

14:42

perhaps largely to northern Spain,

14:44

because the dish came out of Andalusia at the southern

14:47

chunk of Spain. And yeah, she insisted

14:50

that gaspacho was served during their wedding banquet.

14:52

Apparently in eighteen fifty three, the

14:55

dish had made its way to America. By the eighteen

14:57

hundreds, It was included in Mary Randolph's cookbook

14:59

The Rginia Housewife. Um, although

15:01

it was called gaspacho and the recipe

15:04

didn't seem to call for smooching, so

15:06

I'm not sure. I think it might have just been like a salad,

15:08

like an actual like salad, like not a

15:11

liquid salad, but a salad salad. And

15:14

apparently it became a trendy by

15:16

the nineteen sixties here

15:18

in the States. In sixty three one,

15:20

Betty Wasson wrote in the Art

15:22

of Spanish Cooking that quote, almost

15:25

overnight, gaspacho, the soup salad

15:27

of Spain, has become an American food fashion.

15:30

American food fashion. M

15:34

m. Yeah. It was a

15:36

plot point from the Oscar

15:38

nominated film Women on the Verge of

15:40

a Nervous Breakdown. Um. And the plot

15:42

point is that laced with sleeping

15:44

pills. Yeah, yeah, I think I think

15:46

valium. Maybe you watch this, you watch

15:49

this character like like putting the ingredients for

15:51

gaspacho in a blender and just shoving in like a handful

15:53

of valium. Oh why

15:56

uh you know they're women

15:58

on the verge of a nervous down. It's

16:01

right there in the kind of your right what

16:03

am I thinking. Um.

16:05

And as of today in Spain, you

16:07

can add a cup of gaspacho to your McDonald's

16:10

meal for around a euro. Oh

16:13

that's healthy than a lot of the options

16:14

we have. Goodness, I know, um And

16:16

on rather the other end of the food spectrum,

16:19

chefs are doing all sorts of lovely sounding

16:21

things, adding diced mango, macerated

16:23

and an east liqueur uh, serving

16:26

it in bowls made of woven cucumber slices,

16:29

topped with with red wine, granada or

16:31

green apple ice cream.

16:34

I know I want to eat all of those things.

16:37

I do too, I have to say, I don't. I

16:39

feel like I don't see gaspaco on menus

16:41

around here too often, but

16:44

I would love to see some of these.

16:46

Yeah. I can't think of the last time that I saw

16:48

it on a menu in Atlanta,

16:50

giving it in a little thimble.

16:54

I don't think they even do that anymore, because I'm

16:56

pretty sure they change how they home

16:58

menu. Sure questions

17:01

for later, Yes, yes, but

17:03

this brings us to the end of our history.

17:07

We do have some science. But first

17:09

we've got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor,

17:22

and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you

17:24

and yes we're back with gaspacho. Science.

17:27

There's science for everything. It's wonderful there

17:30

is, I know, huh so because

17:32

gaspacho is a simple dish that highlights

17:34

the flavors of raw vegetables. If

17:36

you're gonna make spaco, you want the best ripest

17:39

vege that you can find. Felicity Cloak,

17:42

writing for The Guardians, said, there's no point in

17:44

making it with anything less than obscenely ripe

17:46

ingredients. Obscenely right.

17:49

I loved um

17:51

and further as my very favorite food

17:54

science writer one J Kenji Lopez Alt

17:56

pointed out over on Serious Eats, the

17:58

fact that you're not cooking this means

18:00

that you need to find other ways to bring

18:03

out the flavor of your vege.

18:06

Part of that is a literal physical bringing

18:08

out, because the flavor of a plant

18:10

is often largely locked up inside

18:12

of it's a stiff, protective cell walls.

18:15

Um. Those flavors come from molecules that

18:17

the plant uses to to grow and to thrive. When

18:20

we apply heat to foods um, we're

18:22

softening those cell walls to get that good

18:24

stuff out. But heat is not the only way we can

18:26

do this. No, no. Now,

18:29

of course, that the part of gaspacho where

18:32

you blend or pure a. It means you're you're

18:34

busting open some cell walls from like pure mechanical

18:37

force. But there are a couple things that you can

18:39

do to help the process along and make sure that

18:41

you're getting the most out of those lovely, obscenely

18:44

ripe ingredients. First,

18:47

maceration maceration

18:49

um, not mastication. That's different, uh,

18:52

And it's also different from another word that frequently

18:55

people con confuse it.

18:57

I think I did that on this very show once. Um

19:00

Asceration is soaking something so

19:02

that it softens and and breaks down

19:04

a bit um. And a fun thing about

19:06

fruit and vegge is that you can mass rate them

19:08

in their own juices. Because of science.

19:10

If you sprinkle vegetables with salt, it'll draw

19:13

water out of the cells and then get to

19:15

work on and then that water will get to work

19:17

on softening those vegetables, and

19:19

a bonus along with that water, some water soluble

19:21

compounds will come along for the ride, and

19:23

some of those compounds our flavor. So

19:27

if you chop up your cospatcho ingredients and then sprinkle

19:29

them with salt and let them sit for like

19:31

a thirty minutes or more, they'll go juicy

19:33

and get softer and release some of their

19:36

flavors. This also works with sugar.

19:38

If you're making like a fruit salad and can be

19:40

really it can be really nice, just a really good punch

19:43

to like kind of just make everything a little

19:45

bit. If you're looking for crisp, it's not the way to

19:47

go unless you put paper

19:49

towels on top and then set

19:51

something on top, because that's how I make UM. I make lasania,

19:53

but the noodles are like zucchini,

19:56

and you put salt on there and then you put paper

19:59

towels and and a weight and

20:01

it helps get it drain out the liquid reid.

20:05

Yes, excellent. Oh

20:08

now I want lasagna, okay um. And

20:11

in the case of gaspacho, UM,

20:13

you'll also want to mascerate your bread just by soaking

20:15

it in water. UM. You should probably drain the

20:17

softened breads that you're not watering down the final

20:20

soup. M But next

20:24

after masceration, you can do something that

20:26

I would normally never recommend doing to a

20:28

tomato. You freeze

20:30

it. I know. The

20:34

reason that you normally do not want to

20:36

freeze or even really refrigerate tomatoes

20:39

is that they are very cold sensitive. A deep

20:41

chill will soften their delicate cell

20:43

walls and make them go all mushy, which is the

20:45

opposite of what you want a tomato to

20:47

be. Um, but that's

20:50

actually exactly what we're looking for

20:52

here. So yeah, salt your edge, freeze

20:55

it overnight, and then thought before blending,

20:58

get the most out of him. Also

21:00

for best results, um, I have seen it suggested

21:02

to refrigerate your gaspacho overnight

21:05

so that all of the flavors really melt together. Yeah.

21:08

Yeah, actually too lazy to do

21:10

that. And a lot of times I read it and there's a part of my brain

21:13

says, no, I can't be true, just because

21:15

I know what's going on. You just don't want to wait.

21:19

Oh yeah, I feel that one. I never

21:22

I never remember to. This

21:24

is why I don't bring food to parties, or if

21:26

I do, it's like I got carrots and

21:29

some humus really available,

21:31

will taste good? How how it is? Yes?

21:34

Those are good too? Oh hey, they're delicious.

21:37

M I

21:39

think I'm just hungry. Yeah, I think I am too.

21:41

I don't know what's going on right now. That's

21:44

about all we have to say. That

21:47

is that is relatively short episode. Um,

21:49

but but please, uh, folks out

21:52

there from who are from Spain or who have

21:54

visited. Uh, if you have an in gaspacho

21:56

stories, we would love to hear them. Or recipes.

21:59

Oh good, so are recipes? Yeah yes,

22:02

but we have heard in the meantime from some

22:05

other listeners because we are now

22:07

at listener Ma

22:11

too cool. Their school like Spaco,

22:14

except that your school apparently you had in Spanish.

22:16

Yeah, it's a

22:19

big world out there. It's

22:22

a wild world in Spanish

22:25

class Corel

22:27

Springs, Florida is a wacky place. Well,

22:30

I believe that, but so

22:33

many strip malls anyway, yes, anyway,

22:36

Geneva wrote, I grew up in the midwest,

22:38

North Dakota, to be exact, and lived within

22:41

three blocks of a Taco John.

22:43

Yeah, we had a Taco Bell, but it

22:45

wasn't as popular as the Taco John's in Bismarck.

22:48

I did not realize that a majority of the states

22:50

did not know the glorious Taco John's

22:53

until moving out to Oregon. We

22:55

got some great street tacos here, so not

22:58

missing their tacos, but very

23:00

once in a while I get a craving for potato

23:02

alais, which are basically salty coin

23:04

sized tater tots with the delicious

23:06

and unhealthy nacho cheese sauce to

23:09

dip them. When

23:11

I was in Nebraska, there was a Taco Bell

23:13

on one side the street and a Taco

23:15

John's on the other side near my work, and

23:17

at lunch, I would go to Taco Bell to get a Dorita's

23:19

lecos taco and Taco John's

23:22

to get lays, then go back and have

23:24

a fantastic meal in my car.

23:27

That sounds amazing. So many people

23:29

have written in about Taco Johnson, every single one

23:31

of them no joke mentioned the potato

23:33

Lays, which I think now

23:35

is just updated and has a different cartain,

23:38

which is a big deal apparently. Yeah,

23:41

so if you're in the region

23:43

someone passing through live there, uh

23:46

Taco John's Potato checking

23:49

out a sponsorship. No, just

23:52

saying what the listeners have

23:55

have informed us. We are merely reporting

23:57

exactly exactly. Rose

24:00

wrote, I really enjoyed your recent episode

24:02

on the Humble Sweet Potato as they are delicious

24:05

and brought back one of my fondest memories of my one

24:07

year study abroad to Tokyo, Japan. Picture

24:10

it. It's the fall of two thousand seven. I'm

24:12

once again a stranger in a strange land. I'm German

24:15

and immigrated to the US at age fifteen, freshly

24:17

arrived from Seattle to Tokyo to partake

24:19

in a year long intensive program at the

24:21

best private university Kale. Each

24:24

evening I walled myself off in my private

24:26

dorm room, studying away, feeling culture

24:28

shock and utterly lost in this new environment. Until

24:31

one evening in early October, a mournful

24:34

cry matched my homesick melancholy, the

24:36

voice from a passing loud speaker called Yumaima.

24:46

At first, I paid no mind to these morning

24:48

cries. I could hardly understand what the sad

24:50

voice was even saying. In just three short

24:52

weeks, I had heard similar messages announcing the gas

24:55

men, political candidates, the large appliance,

24:57

household, recycling truck, and more. They

25:00

there is a truck and allowed speaker in Japan for

25:02

every possible surface. Unlike

25:04

these others, who would at most only

25:06

come around once a week, the Yucky Emo truck

25:08

began to come by every single night, interrupting

25:11

my studies. The other trucks came by midday

25:13

or early evening. Yucky Emo man came

25:15

by late at night, seven eight or nine o'clock.

25:18

Finally I couldn't take it. Who was the sad,

25:20

yucky emo man and what was a yucky

25:23

emo? I had to find out.

25:25

So one night, when his melancholy cries

25:27

started up, I dropped my studies to follow

25:29

the mysterious voice. I chased him down

25:32

narrow streets blocked by dead ends. I'd turn right,

25:34

he'd go left, past the cemetery in the old

25:36

neighborhood Buddhist temple. Then

25:38

I turned the corner and there it was a

25:41

small, flatbed Japanese truck with a raging

25:43

wood burning fire. In the bed of the truck. Over

25:46

the fire was a roasting drum, like what's

25:48

used to roast chilies in the fall in the United

25:50

States. I was gobsmacked. The

25:52

radiant heat was so intense I could feel it from a

25:54

yard away. As I approached the truck,

25:56

a young child and his mother excitedly exchanged

25:59

money for a brown paper bag. As soon as

26:01

the boy received the bag, he tore it open to

26:03

reveal a perfectly roasted sweet

26:05

potato. He split the sweet potato in

26:07

half, and without ceremony, dug in. No

26:09

condiments needed in that instant, watching

26:12

this scene unfold, I realized I was looking at

26:14

the Japanese version of the ice cream Man.

26:16

I was hooked. I ordered two on

26:18

the spot and never looked back. That's

26:21

beautiful, I would

26:23

like to say, because this is not a visual

26:25

medium, we were doing interpretive reading.

26:28

Oh yes, yeah, not per

26:31

se. It's a dance adjacent

26:33

but very close, not

26:36

quite but very close. That sounds amazing.

26:38

I would love that. Oh yeah,

26:40

that that sounds so good. Um

26:43

And and I hope I don't think

26:45

I quite captured the melancholy that it sounds

26:47

like this. This man was was crying his

26:49

wares with He did a pretty

26:51

excellent job. Also,

26:55

my Japanese is super rusty, so I hope that

26:57

I got most of those words vaguely correct,

27:00

did better than I would have done. Well, there you go,

27:02

there you go. I also wanted to include

27:05

um A Shannon sent

27:07

us a picture that she

27:09

witnessed in downtown Chicago. And

27:12

it's a Hostess Twinkie

27:15

trailer and it looks like

27:17

a big Twinkie. It's a giant It's

27:19

a real giant Twinkie trailer. Um.

27:22

It is a thing of beauty, it really is.

27:24

It's I would be so disappointed

27:27

when I if I like, boarded

27:29

this trailer and it wasn't filled with cream.

27:31

Though that's true, we can't we

27:34

can't delve in anymore. We can't let

27:36

the dream die because right now we

27:38

can still believe it. It's just

27:40

just a giant yeah. Um, oh,

27:42

twinkies. I never had

27:44

a twinkie. You've never had a twinkie? Yes,

27:46

And our coworker Ramsey, for a while

27:49

he wanted to do like an up close

27:51

twinkie action video of me trying it,

27:53

and it never happened on

27:56

like moral grounds or no. No,

27:58

it's just never ever come away.

28:00

Okay, Yeah, all right, well

28:03

thanks to work on Yes, self

28:06

improvement were always a work in progress.

28:08

You know, I've got a lot of good traits,

28:11

but on the bad side, never had

28:13

a twinkie. Probably a lot of people are like, she

28:15

is weird. Something is clearly

28:17

off. I

28:20

don't think I had one until college.

28:22

My dad was very firm

28:24

about not having food like that in the house.

28:27

And thanks to

28:30

all three of them for writing.

28:32

Yeah, you two can write to

28:34

us and we would love to hear from you our emails.

28:36

Hello at savor pod dot com. We're also

28:39

on social media. You can find us on

28:41

Twitter and Facebook and Instagram

28:43

all at Savor Pod. We do hope

28:45

to hear from you. Savor is a production of I

28:47

Heart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcasts

28:49

from my Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,

28:52

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

28:54

favorite shows. Thank you as always

28:56

to our superproducers Dylan Vagan and Andrew

28:58

Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we hope

29:00

that lots more good things are coming your way.