Good Job, Brain! - 3: You Want Truffle Fries With That?

Episode Date: March 19, 2012

Oh boy. How do we even begin to describe this episode? The original idea was to talk about expensive and luxurious gourmet food and the opulent stories behind them... but... well, let's just say we took a few intriguing turns and found ourselves in the absolutely eccentric (and dark) sector of the haute cuisine world. Castoreum, kopi luwak civet coffee, ortolans… we really can't give too much away. ALSO: pop quiz, foreign food translations, weird name origins of companies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, fantastic and formidable fans and friends. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and Offbeat Trivia podcast. This is episode three, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. And along with me are our. cunning and capable cast of co-host contestants. You say that you're humble, but you seem so proud of yourself

whenever you read one of your illiterate introductions. I'm trying to get people pumped. She's proud of, do this. Yeah, let's do it. And here we have. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

I'm Chris. Woo! Yeah. All right, cool. Let's jump into our first general trivia segment, which is pop quiz, hot shot. Here, let me get my random trivia pursuit card. Are these really?

selected at random. These are, these are random. And today we actually have buzzers today. Yay. Is that annoying? No more fake buzzing. Now we actually have official answer buzzers.

Here we go. Blue Wedge, geography. What was named the Sandwich Islands by James Cook in 1778? Colin? Is it Bermuda? Incorrect. So we know there are a bunch of islands. Chris.

Oh, I was going to say like a Cuban sandwich. The correct answer is Hawaii. Oh, really? Didn't want to say it. Why didn't you want to say it? The stakes for being wrong are too high. But Chris and I were wrong first. I know.

Well, now I feel more safe. What's the explanation? The islands were named for the fourth Earl of Sandwich, John Montague. Now, is he the Earl of Sandwich credited with inventing the sandwich, or was that a different Earl of Sandwich? I think that's an Earl of Sandwich. I think that's a different one. Different Earl of Sandwich? Several Earls.

Well, sure. Right. Clearly, there were several earls of Sandwich. Yeah, they got the title. Okay, Pink Wedge, culture. What 80s hair band alum had a recurring role on TV's Gilmore Girls? I don't think I've passed five minutes of New Orleans. Oh, that's so bad I don't watch that show.

No one. I'll take a guess just because of a free one. Vince Neal? I don't know. Incorrect. John Bon Jovi. Incorrect. That was going to be wrong.

The correct answer is Sebastian Buck. Sebastian. From Skid Row, right? Yep, from Skid Row. We're doing poorly on this guy. I know. This is not a good. card for us. Born Sebastian Bierke. Well, you guys always complain about

Trivial pursuit being easy and now it's hard. When have I ever? Okay. Yellow Wedge. Name two of the three women to appear on circulating U.S. currency. Dana. I feel like I buzzed in first, but okay. So Chris did beat me, but I can answer this question. I'm going to answer it anyway. I'm taking it. Why don't you give one of them and I'll give the other one? All right, Sakaduia. Yes, and Susan B. Anthony. Correct. There's one more, too.

Two, are they real-life women? Yes. There's Sakajua, there's Susan B. Anthony on U.S. currency, and then there's... I mean... Betsy Ross? No, no, Betsy Ross. Gee, circulating U.S. currency. There's none on any bills.

On coins, there's presidents, and there's a Sakajua dollar. There's a Susan B. Anthony dollar. And then... Oh, no. I mean, I want it, like, on... on gold coins they have like liberty but like yeah that's an allegorical figure doesn't right yeah it is Helen Keller what's Helen Keller on didn't specify oh that's frustrating okay do you think she's on

one of the state coins like oh yeah I bet that's it yeah yeah for which stay to the internet all right purple wedge what novel begins with Alex and his three Drugs wearing flip horror show boots and considering a bit of the ultra-violent Chris. I feel like I'm sorry, I buzzed in too early. I disqualified myself, so I won't say. Colin? It's a clockwork orange by Anthony Burgess. Yes.

We didn't ask for the author, but thank you over to you. What a show off. Okay, green wedge, what color is a giraffe's tongue? It is multiple choice So one in three chances Blue, orange or pink Dana Blue

Correct And scientists think that The color may prevent sunburn Oh Okay Are they sticking Are they more at risk of sunburn tongues than other animals? Yeah

Their tongues are so long And they reach them out to get the leaves on the tree Well they're 15 feet closer to the sun They are Yeah true last question orange wedge what women's item did joe nameth endorse and where in 70s commercials Colin that was uh legs panty hose correct that's funny I was going to guess legs panty hose but you seemed like you knew it my eyes lit up he was alive during those commercials so

what what were these commercials about Is it just him being like, it's so strong, even a football player. I think if I remember the commercial, like it starts off with a close-up of the foot and kind of, you know, moves up the ankle. And then you realize that it's Joe Namath. And I think the point is, is like, even on me, these looks sleek and sexy or something like that. If I remember, it's, I've seen it on those classic commercial compilations. Maybe he's like, especially on me. Sexy.

Strictly a comfort issue. And we also have our Kickstarter backer question. This one is from Alex Warwick. from San Francisco, California. And I don't, this, this question in particular, I'm not really counting on anybody actually getting, but it is interesting. So when, or what century,

and what country was the first hot air balloon duel fought? Whoa. Dual, all right. When and in what country? Yeah. Colin? Colin. I'm going to guess China,

because these things, it's always China. It's always like they were the first to do it. I don't know. 10th century China Incorrect 18th century France Wow Wait is that right

Well France is right It is technically the 19th century And so in 1808 in France There was a duel Between two Frenchmen And this wasn't like a Cirque du Soleil Spectacle for the people It was actually two men

Who were pissed off off at each other, quarreling over like a famous dancer as a mistress, they believed that they had elevated minds so that they had to naturally duel on hot air balloons in the sky. So the two guys climbed onto their own hot air balloon, and they flew. They were in air, and they dueled. And so it's between Mr. de Grand Prix and Monsieur de Pique. And DePique. And DePie, and DePique, and DePie. first fired and he missed and de grand prix aimed and actually you know shot hit his balloon the Depeake's balloon and the basket tipped and Depeake fell head first to his death whoa I would mean he cheated yeah well I mean that's the crafty way to do it but I don't

know I thought the point of the duel is you're supposed to shoot them like shoot the person oh yeah that's supposed to be honorable It is supposed to be honor. You know the saying, Dana. There's no honor in balloon dueling. The old saying. You can't trust people in balloons. It's an old French saying.

So Alex, Alex loves awesome things. And so the first recorded blunderbust duel fought from hot air balloons seemed very appropriate. And Alex, his interesting fact is that he has a birthmark shape like a Maine lobster. All right. Didn't specify where, but somewhere. Please do not sell this a picture. And we have a second Kickstarter backer question. This one is from Jack Young from Richmond Hill, Ontario in Canada.

His question is, where is the largest desert in the world? Chris. Antarctica. You are correct. Because a desert is nothing to do with sand and cactuses and everything to do with the amount of rainfall you get. That is correct. A desert is classified as an area that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation.

So Jack saw this on a TV show, and he thought it was interesting. And Jack loves video games and movies. All right. Good job, everybody's brains. Let's get into our topic of the week. And today we're going to be dishing about some outrageously luxurious gourmet foods and the reasons and stories behind why some ingredients are. just so gosh darn expensive.

But we wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner. Of course we would. We just eat more. And buy really expensive ketchup with it. But before we get into champagne wishes and caviar dreams, I want to share a few recent bizarre food-related headlines. So let me try to get my best old-timey 1940. his voice.

This week in the news. Extra, Extra. Freedom on the march. So here's some actual headlines, recent headlines. Extra, extra, sex star flies drown their woes in alcohol. Did you guys see the story? No. I was one of those where I saw the headline, but didn't actually click through it, yeah.

So there was, so there were a bunch of scientists, and they found out they would do an experiment. they would put male flies into container with a female fly that just made it. And so basically the female isn't really in the mood. You know, if you know what I'm saying. And so she basically would try to get away or even kick the males. The scientist kept the male flies kind of trying for a long time. And after that experience, they would take the rejected flies and put them in vials. And they're given the choice of normal food or food laced with alcohol.

and most of these male flies, sex-starved male flies would go get plastered and actually choose the alcohol-laced food. You know what I'm talking about, guys. Yeah. Sounds like my Saturday nights. And our second headline is, do-do-do-do. Meatball-eating bear stocks California neighborhood. A large black bear entered a California garage in Southern California.

And he opened up the refrigerator and ate Costco meatballs from this dude's house. So this dude comes back to his house and saw the bear was just camping out, like, eating these Costco meatballs and was like, whoa, I got to get out of here. And it was like, whoa, my meatballs. Also a bear. Damn you, bear. All right. So let's start talking about our expensive foods. And, you know, what are some of the things that you think of when you think of, like, luxurious, rich food ingredients?

I mean, caviar, first thing comes to my. Caviar. Like, yeah. Foie gras. Fwagra, definitely. Fougras, definitely. One of the things I always associate with, like, luxury is, is Kobe beef and Wagyu beef. Well, the term Wagyu actually means Japanese cow.

That seems so unexotic now. Yeah, sorry about that. And so Wagyu, you can actually. I mean, this can actually refer to Japanese-style beef, no matter where it's produced. It is produced in the United States. It is produced in Australia, and it's all called Wagyu. Kobe beef is beef specifically from Kobe. So if somebody is selling you Kobe beef, and it's not made in the Japanese, you know, prefecture that contains the city of Kobe, they are ripping you off.

Right. So Kobe can be Wagyu, but not the other way around. Exactly. Kobe is Wagyu. Wagyu is not Kobe. Not necessarily. Finkle is Einhorn. Finkle, Einhorn.

Wiggu, from the U.S. is generally crossbred with something else, like it's crossbred with Angus. The beef that you eat these days, right, is not produced by cows just sort of randomly roaming the pasture and having sex with other cows, right? I mean, it's all like, they're making sure that the cows are, they sort of very carefully managed so they can have pure bread cows, but not inbred cows. you know, just, you know, making sure that they continue to put in certain genetic materials and make sure it's all cool. So what makes, what makes Wagyu or Kobe beef so delicious?

Like, it is a very fatty type of meat. Yeah, well, it's not that there's, like, more fat. It's that the fat is more consistently marbled throughout. And also because the, like, the muscle fibers are longer, which makes it more tender. And to do this, I mean, there's a whole various, I mean, a lot of people have heard these stories about they feed the cows beer and they feed the cows. grains and it's a certain diet and then they massage the cow to make sure, you know. Wait, when it's alive? Yeah, when it's alive.

Oh, that's so cute. Oh, yeah, the cows up into the point in which they are brutally murdered are treated very, very well. This is pretty good. Getting here, getting massage. Right up until the bullet through the head, they are having a good life. Yeah, and on, and, you know, all of that is true. And, of course, I mean, obviously, you know, different breeders will have different ways that

they do it, but it's not that you can just take any cow and just fill. them up with beer. Nor can you, you can't convert him. Like, you know, the cow's already full grown, just switch it over to beer. Yeah, yeah. It's like, well, I'm massaging my cow. It's like, well, why? You know, to turn him into Wagyu beef.

That's not actually how it works. It's specific breeds, but I mean, over the, over the years they had done this, that the massaging was because there wasn't really a whole lot of room for cows to walk around in the mountainous, you know, sort of uneven terrain of Japanese farms or, you know, in a small space so they would massage it because it couldn't go out and get exercise. So it was a way of maintaining or replacing the exercise. Yeah. They're not treating, they're not luxuriating them.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Put on some enya, some incense. Some giant cucumber slices over the cows on. Yeah. That would be so cute. That's so cute. So now you know when you go to buy, you know, where Kobe B versus Wagyu beef, even though it says Wagyu, it doesn't necessarily mean they flew it in from Japan. Don't be tricked.

Right, right. There are so many dishes out there. They're very expensive. I feel like one of the common ingredients among all these expensive, you know, version of burger or pasta or whatever is truffles. The truffle. And it's like how and why are truffles so expensive? And again, it goes to rarity. It's not like, oh, someone has a, I put up a truffle farm and I just, you know, farm truffles.

Like they've grown the wild and you have to have a trained, especially trained animals to go find them. The pig. As you say, you can't just plant them anywhere because they need the right humidity and the right. right pH balance in the soil and the right and the right other microorganisms and somebody else owns those trees in that land yeah and those pigs yeah and do you guys know why the pigs are such awesome truffle hunters i'm not yeah what is it so the the truffle hunting pigs usually are girl pigs or girl pigies and um it's innate for them to to naturally seek out truffles because in truffles there is a compound that smells you know to the pigs

similar to a sex pheromone of a boy bore saliva so the girl piggy's like oh man I'm going to find myself a stud and it's like oh what is this it's a mushroom and the farmer's like thank you oh how disappointing for those girls

the food episode is always the sex episode there's so much crossover every day they're like why are these guys hiding under trees from me I don't understand man we're all the boys And the most shocking truffle fact for me, so shocking, and I can't believe it, that truffle oil that you see, there's truffle fries, truffle whatever. Oh, the salad is sprinkled with truffle oil on menus. You're like, wow, that sounds so luxurious and indulgent.

Truffle oil actually doesn't contain truffles. Did you not know this? Did not know this? You know how I know this because I watched shows with Gordon Ramsey on it. Whenever somebody uses truffle oil, he's like, you donkey, truffle oil does. doesn't have truffles in it. It's perfume. Which is what it is. It's like perfumed olive oil. It smells like troubles. I mean, is it just the cheap version of something that used to have truffles?

Or did it? Truffle oil never was... I don't think that there is a way to take actual truffles and make oil out of them. I guess you can just sort of drown truffles and oil and hope that the flavor is infused. But I think to get that potency... You'd have to waste a lot of truffles. It wouldn't be worth your time or your money. So what's actually in truffle oil? Mostly it's olive oil, which has an artificial flavor using like a synthetic agent that smells a lot like.

It is perfume. Man, that just totally blows my mind. Well, so those are some of the common expensive ingredients. We're going to be talking about some of the very expensive, bizarre ingredients. And Dana, you go first because yours is. Yours is truly bizarre. Yeah. How do we start this?

How do we start it? So I found a food from Sardinia. It's called Kasu Marzu, and it's otherwise known as maggot cheese. And it's actually like pecorino cheese. So it's a sheep cheese that they slice some of the rind off and set it outside, and cheese flies come and lay their eggs in it. And now, no, no, I've had cheese. happened to before and then the next step of course is that they throw it away because it's garbage right no this cheese is special so the so the flies go into the maggots like eat the cheese

they start the kind of the decomposition process of the cheese becomes like soft and creamy and squishy it has lagrimus it has tears it starts sweating it's going to return to the earth and it's full of maggots the creaminess is actually like maggot poop right because they're eating the cheese and they're expelling they're processing it for you yeah Yeah, they're processing it. So the thing is, if you're going to eat this cheese, you have to get to it before the maggots die. Because once the maggots die in it, it's poison. Like, it's going to make you sick.

You might die. So you need to eat it with the maggots still alive. Oh, good God. And what is this called so I can never order it and make sure that if I see it on the menu, I leave the restaurant? So it's really hard to get. That's another thing. So it's rare. They say it costs twice as much as pecorino cheese.

Oh, okay. I don't even know if you could really get it in the States, but... I don't think so. It's Casu Marzou. If you ask for maggot cheese, you'll know what you're talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went into McDonald's and I asked if they had, you know, instead of... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I wanted to get the chicken, bacon, ranch, but instead of the jack cheese, I asked for the maggot cheese. Here's a trick if you're going to eat it. You need to cover it before you put it, like, put your hand over it before you put it in your mouth, because the maggots can jump about six inches. Oh, God. They might jump into your eyes. So wait, wait, wait, wait, you're supposed to eat it with the maggots still in the cheese? Like, can you just, like, knock on the side of the cheese and they come running out or something?

No, okay, so the way you get rid of the maggots, if you don't want to eat the maggots, you put them in a paper bag and you seal it, and you'll hear, like, little taps against the paper bag. And that's the maggots, like, jumping out of the cheese because I can't get enough air, and then they die. Yeah, okay, well, you know what? Thank you very much, Dana. I'll remember these helpful tips when I don't eat this food. Well, it's an aphrodisiac. Oh, I see. You should know about it.

I'll stick with chocolates and oysters. Thank you very much. Is it an aphrodisiac because after a woman gets so disgusted by that, they'll have sex with pretty much anybody? Anything seems good by comparison. And you might be drinking. They drink a lot of wine with it. You'd have to.

I'd have to have three drinks before I even ordered it. Oh, my God. Well, I can follow on to that, actually. Not things. Speaking of maggot cheese. Yeah, speaking of maggot cheese. So I wanted to talk about something that I had heard about which is called

Dojo Nabe, not like the Cobra Kai Dojo from Crowskaidum. Dojo Nabe is a type of fish, an eel-like fish, but it's a fish. It's called the Loach in English dojo. And Dojo Nabe, what they basically do is to take a block of tofu and they put it into a bowl and then they take boiling hot oil and then they put the boiling hot oil into the bowl with the tofu. This is all prepared table side, of course.

Sounds good so far. Sounds good so far. And then they take the live loaches and they put it, no, okay, all right, we boil lobsters alive and stuff like that. They take the live loaches and they put it into the boiling oil. And the loaches are not,

they are none too happy about this. Wait, I'm sorry, what are loaches? They're a little baby fish. They look like little eels. Loaches, okay. Loches, little baby fish. So they're about, you know, a couple of centimeters long at this point and they and they pour them into the oil with the tofu

and the loaches go oh sugar what the hell um and they're like it's super hot in here oh look a cold piece of tofu i'll burrow into the tofu because it's cooler in here they will seek refuge so they will then all the fish will burrow inside of the tofu where they of course die because the tofu is not the tofu is not the tofu is not cold enough or won't be cold enough to keep them from being cooked. But what you have is a piece of tofu with fish in it that have all been freshly cooked in oil. So if you think about it, it is not very nice to do to the fish. But it's very clever.

But it's probably pretty delicious. I wonder if you could put other things in the oil and make the fish. You are so evil. You can do it with bears, but who has that much tofu? You need a gigantic. block of tofu, you get the bear to burrow inside. You literally in with Costco meatballs.

Make a really big Costco meatball. Come on, bears. Come into this block of tofu. My sweet tofu house. I spent $12,000 on tofu just for this moment. God, it's delicious. And Colin, you have another

weird animal-related, expensive food. Yeah, all of you, yeah, as we're getting here, it's a lot of a crazy animal involvement and you know so this one is not super super super expensive but it was just so strange and it is rare and it is considered a gourmet delicacy in France so this is reading I got into this by reading about Francois Mitterrand and he was the ex-president of France died in 96 and he I started I stumbled across a story about his last meal and got into discovering the Ortolan which is a French delicacy

It's a little bird, the Ordolan Bunting. And I'll come back to Francois Maiteron in a second. That sounds like a baseball term. It does, yeah, the Orde Lawn Bunting. Oh, I love those guys. They're going to have a great season this year. The Orde Loon is a tiny little bird. It's a bird about the size of your thumb or your big toe.

They are indigenous to... They're tiny, tiny little birds, and it's a member of the Bunting family. It's a specific type of the bunting. They're indigenous to regions of France, and it's been considered delicacy going back to Roman times to eat the ordolan. Now you're, okay, I've eaten birds before, chickens, whatever. It's an unusual method.

When you eat the ordelon... Sorry, is it the whole ordelon? You eat the whole ordean, and I'll get there and some... How would you debone it? Well, they're so tiny. They're so tiny. So the delicacy gourmet method of eating ordelon is you catch the ordelon. You force-feed it.

Usually millet, I've read also some figs, I guess, in Roman times. Man, the French really love force-feeding. You force-feeding. You force-feed the ordelon. until it's ready to be eaten. You drown it alive. I mean, I guess he's alive until he drowns. You drown it in... Because the pure tastes good.

You drown it in amniac, which is a brandy, a very old type of brandy. So you drown the little force-fed bird in brandy. He dies. You then roast the bird. You pluck off the feathers. Oh, good. Yeah, you pluck off the feathers. You roast the bird, and then you eat the bird all in one bite.

You put the entire roasted orde-lon in. into your mouth. I've read that sort of the preferred method is you hold it by the beak. You put it in your mouth you bite off everything except the beak. This is the entire bird now in your mouth. Bones, I mean, everything. Organs.

Organs force-fed and roasted and you basically chew it down. You chew it all in one glorious little bite. Now, the weird little ritual... Sorry, why not the beak? I think it's just... The beak's the poison part? I think it's just too crunchy maybe or

too indigestible, I, I, I, maybe it's just because it gives you a little handle. It's like the drumstick on it. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure. But the other weird ritual around eating the ordealon is that you, you drape a napkin over your head. This is the traditional way of eating it. You drape a large table napkin over your head and you huddle under it while you're eating the bird. And it apparently is to do two things. The one thing is, is as the gourmet, you want to get all the aromas and every just little bit of succulence of the ordalon. And the, you know, another possibility is that it is just too gross for other people to see what they're eating. I think it's that.

I think it's pretending you're Sylvester and you're eating sweetie bird and you're like, I know the little. But there's a very poetic reason for it too, which again, and this goes back to the tradition of time, is that you're covering yourself from God so that God doesn't see you eating this little songbird that you have force fed and drowned alive in brandy and roasted and eaten whole. And they do. They talk about that you cover yourself with the thing to hide yourself from God as you eat this. Another common practice, I guess, in Roman times anyway, and still in France, was blinding the birds. So they, yeah, I mean, it's this poor bird cannot catch a break. He's just flying through the forest one day. Next thing you know, they would blind.

He's forest fed. They would blind them so that it messes with their day-night circadian rhythm so that they essentially, they wouldn't know when to stop eating, I guess. Let's make a little blindness for them. I think this is why A little teenage new ninja turtle You're Michelangelo and you're Donatello Just set his clock back It'll fool him

But I think the French figured out that You know, we don't need to blind them If we can just force feed them So anyway, so back to Francois Mitterrand So this has been a delicacy For centuries in France And when he was on his deathbed The practice had become outlawed at the time

But he, as part of his Hours and hours and hours long last meal He requested some ordelan as part of his meal and, of course, found a chef willing to prepare them. Are they cute? Even though it was illegal at the time. They're very cute. I mean, it's a bird the size of your thumb. Yeah, popcorn chicken. The OG popcorn chicken.

It is. It is the original popcorn chicken. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. Are you dreaming about becoming a nurse or maybe you're already in nursing school? I'm Nurse Mo, creator of the Straight A Nursing Podcast,

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already a practicing nurse, these episodes are for you too. Because as you, nurses, there's always something for us to learn. So, subscribe to the Stray Day Nursing Podcast, and I'll see you on Thursday. So my research to bizarre, expensive food is also related to animals. And this one is called the Kopi-Luak coffee. And this type of coffee, which is known to be the world's most rare, smoothest, most flavorful, most awesomest coffee. This is involved something pooping the coffee. It does. That's the one.

You got it. So this coffee, it's about $300 per pound. And only 500 pounds of these beans are produced each year in Sumatra. And so, yep, you're right. There is a smallish foraging little tropical raccoon called the palm a civet or a civet. Sivet? Sivet. I think it's a Sivet.

A Honda Sivet. and this little raccoon would look for the sweetest coffee fruit or I guess coffee cherries and they would swallow the fruit whole and the animal in his stomach they only digest the fleshy fruit part so the undigested coffee beans pass through the system and people collect the beans afterwards they clean it of course and you know they roast and proceed naturally, yes. Proceed your usual coffee roasting ritual. Now, the reason that they take them out of the poop as opposed to just grabbing,

as opposed to just grabbing off the bush, there's something, like it changes the chemical composition, right? So the little raccoons have this unique enzyme in their GI system, and it penetrates, you know, all the fruit is being digested, but these enzymes and acids penetrate through the coffee beans and neutralize the bitter oils in the beans. And it is said that it causes 25 otherwise unreachable flavors in the bean to be released during brewing. So I'm sure there's been. The flavors are poop. Sharton.

More poop and poop. And so, yep, that's the most expensive coffee in the world is because it is. Animal eat that. It must be pre-processed. Yeah. Yeah. So they're not farming it. It's just how many raccoons live in the forest.

Yeah, so I don't know if they have just a bunch of pet raccoons sort of at bay and be like, feast, you guys. Today is the day. Here you go, guys. Here's a bunch of newspapers. Go to your business. Because it doesn't, they don't make that much of it. Yeah, they don't make that much coffee to begin with. If they were friends, they would just force feet.

Yeah. It would be at Starbursts. It would be at Starbucks right now. I like little of record newspapers. I just, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're giving a little bowl of coffee beans, little tiny copy of Uncle John's bathroom reader. I'm imagining little tiny reading glasses on his nose.

This is just another one of these foods that where I'm like, someone had to be the first one. Like, you know, like I believe that it is good coffee, but who someone, you know what would make good coffee, Roger, is if we. The cat poop didn't work out. Honey, the Sipit ate the coffee again. And, you know, food is scarce.

So they're just like, maybe, we'll wash it. We'll wash it. We'll wash it. It's still good, honey. They seem to have passed relatively. They still look like coffee beans. Let's wash them real good, you know. I like Data's idea that this was like number nine in a series of animals that they had tried. Like this is definitely the best one so far

I don't know if it's the best though It's like should we It's pretty good I know should we move on to Having the bear Eat them Yeah after he ate the meatballs Let's have the bear

Eat the civet With the coffee That is the best coffee And the civet that came out Tasted pretty good too There are 29 flavorful files Oh, all right. Well, everyone at this point in our activities,

I would like to announce that I prepared a special food-related trivia quiz for you all. Yay! This is a type of question that has certainly come up on our pub trivia nights before, so it's important stuff to know. So here we go. Here's how this puzzle is going to work. I am going to tell you, there are many, many names of foods that we use.

every day here in America that come from foreign languages. So what I'm going to tell you is the English translation of the name of the food, and you are going to tell me what the common foreign word is that we use in English for that food. For example, if I were to say wagyu, or excuse me, if I were to say Japanese cow, you would say wogu. Yes. Are we buzzing in? Yes, we are buzzing in. So we'll start with something a little bit simple.

The first one is Fat liver Dana was first Fagra Yes, foie gras means a fat liver Little donkey Karen Burrito

Yes, very good Small oven Oh god God, God, God, God, God Petty 4 Yes, that's right Like petite 4? Petty 4 Petty 4

Petit 4. Petit 4 means a small oven. Yes. Forno in Italian. Four in French. Pierced body. Karen? Cabab? No.

Sorry. Pierced body. I'll give you a hint. We've actually had this question before in trivia. We got it right. I'll give you another hint. I'll give you another hint. Pierced body.

The language is actually Japanese. Oh, wait, okay, Dana. Yakutori? Not Yacuori, no, no, no, no. Karen, you already answered. Colin gets a chance. I was going to guess Yakutori as well. It's not Yaku-tori.

It actually, the pierced body is the Japanese are sort of talking around it. Okay, Karen, do you want to try again? Sashimi. Sashimi, yes. The idea there is not pierced body, but cut meat. They're giving it a little bit of a polished edge there by saying pierced body, yes. sashimi, of course, being the type of sushi that has no rice that is simply slices of prepared or raw fish.

How about Little Ears? Oh, oh, God. It's a little bit more obscure. This one's from Italian. Dana. Is it like Orchiette, the little pasta? It is Orchetti, yes. Yes, the little ear-shaped pasta.

How about Little Fat One? That's right. Little fat one. Dana is rocking these out. Gordida. Gordita. Gordita, yes. It's a little fat one.

Gordita. Gordita as in Gordo. Gordo. Yes. Let's do the last. This is the last one. It's a little tough. Quill, as in a quill pen.

Like feather quill. Yeah, like a feather quill with the idea that it's a pen. That's your hint. Quill. Karen. I'm going to go with. No, it is not kabab. Here's your hint. This is also from Italian. This is also from Italian. The object itself is actually shaped. It is a cylindrical shape. Like a quill. Yes. Pene? Pene. Absolutely. The word Pene comes from Pena, meaning quill or feather. And it is a cognate of the English word pen. Penn.

Wow. That's a good one. Yeah. You were rocking. Gastronomy quiz, I think Dana is the winner of this quiz. I like food. I like you. I like to eat. Can I throw in one trivia question? I came across when we were reaching the gourmet stuff. Do it, Colin.

All right. This is a quote. This is a quote. I'm confident one of you guys can get this. This is a quote. I'm going to read a quote. I want you tell me who this quote is, whom this quote is attributed to.

Come quickly. I am drinking the stars. Oh, I like it. Come quickly. I am drinking the stars. I like my drunken aunt with Chris Vincent Van Gogh

Oh no That's a good guess I'll give you one hand I'll give you one hand Come quickly I'm drinking in the stars This was a religious man I'm gonna get at Karen Because Chris already had a bite at the apple

Don Perron Yones Yes Dom Perron Yon Fantastic Yeah Yeah so I guess he's you know He didn't invent champagne, but he's credited with, like, kind of perfecting it or getting it to our state. Yeah, I thought that was awesome.

Wow. Don Perignon. All right. Well, speaking of drinking stars, let's talk about drinking stars and eating gold, goldschlager. Like, how can something with real gold be so cheap? And not poisonous. Yeah. In college.

Well, it's pretty gross. It's pretty good. You convince yourself that it's good because you're, I'm drinking gold. I remember in college, we couldn't get our minds around that. We'd be going, and there was, no, it's not. real gold and you know it is it's real gold look it says on the label but yeah even at that we were too cheap to buy uh gold slugger we bought i'm not lying we bought a knockup gold strike which is it was the knockoff brand and came in a plastic bottle so even cheaper did it still

have gold inside well our joke was that it was made with fools gold and so nice nice that actually that actually might hurt you if it was visible with i mean the reason why you can i mean let me i'm venturing a guess here and i'm sure that karen have you since you've looked this up you actually know but i mean you can pound gold incredibly thinly yeah so so so very very very thin that it's actually not that much gold at all and that's why you can go like go to the craft store and buy gold leaf in very very small quantities actually in gold schlager the actual amount of gold is very very small and it's almost negligible there is probably less than a tenth of a gram of gold in Goldschlager, which comes out to about, in U.S. dollars, $6.20.

At current exchange rates. Yeah, as of this year. So $6.20 for the whole bottle divided by how many shots that is. So you're drinking. That's why your Goldschlager shot does not really cost that much. Yeah, you're drinking pennies there. Yeah, and you're drinking, no offense to the people at Goldschlager Incorporated, who will know that I hear this.

You're drinking some pretty gross garbage alcohol. That just happens. What is actually Goldschlager? It's like cinnamon. It's a shnomer. It's a cinnamon. It's like cinnamon shops. So it's kind of spicy and hot and...

I kind of like it. I was going to tell you. That's why I was so quiet during... Stop making fun of Grouch Lager, you guys. True or false, you guys. Only sparkly wine from the champagne region of France can be called champagne. Depends on who you ask, I think. I'm going to go with the fact that I've bought bottles of champagne that say champagne on them and they ain't from France.

I'm going to say true and false. They're from like Jersey. So I'm, yeah, okay. I think it's a little, I always thought that was the case too. Like they called them California sparkling wines. We're here in California because, oh, they're not allowed to call it champagne. It's, you know, but I was doing a little bit digging into this. And it is pretty funny.

They, in Europe and in France, that, that is the law. Yes, champagne is sparkling wine that comes from the champagne la grapes and the champagne region of France, nowhere else, by law, in European Union, France. The reason that we're not held at that standard here in America, and this blew up America. Because we're America. No, this is great. So this was so important to the French that they essentially worked in this law into the Treaty

of Versailles. They made it essentially a condition upon all the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles that, yes, we agree by law. Wait, I'm sorry, the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I? That, the very same. The very same. Yes. Yes, yes, the one, yeah, so at the end of World War I, you know, getting all the terms of reparations, you know, they managed to get all the signatories to agree that, yeah, champagne only comes from Champaign Valley.

But because the U.S. Senate at the time was fearing, essentially, this would lead to like a League of Nations kind of thing, they rebelled, and the U.S. Senate did not ratify the treaty of Versailles. So the U.S. has never, never ratified the treaty of resized, so we can call anything we want champagne. Yeah, and we should name all our wine champagne. To this day, still technically fighting World War I. Well, no, so I did actually do a little bit more. They did, in fact, in the next administration, I don't have it in front of me, but it was another act of Congress Senate. They passed another amendment officially ending the hostilities, but with no mention of the champagne.

With no mention of champagne whatsoever. So in California, sparkling wine, can call it champagne if we want to. So here's another misconception. Saffron, which we know is probably the most rare spice in the world, is the most expensive by weight, true or false? Well, you just said it was a misconception, so I'm going to say true. I'm going to pretend, because I always thought that was true. I always thought that, yeah, Saffron was.

Well, it's super expensive, but I mean, you know, who's to say there might not be something else out there? Maybe there's an animal that poops something. I don't know. So it is true. It is the most expensive by weight. The labor cost is just insane to collect all these stigmas of these different flowers. They can go for like $6,000 per cost. kilo which is six dollars per gram but the thing is we don't need to use that much saffron

right so really an average amount like in your paella or in your desserts or whatever that you saffron for yeah elixirs uh you pretty much use an average of a dollar 50 worth of saffron so it is true it is really expensive but it's not you don't use it a lot It does. It does. I mean, I have a friend who's a good chef and he loves cooking and I, you know, he's got this little container of a saffron and you would think it was uranium the way it was packed. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like four levels deep. It's a bag inside of a box and then it's just and then this tiny little. There's a cerebitant. It's like the size of your thumbnail down in the middle there, yeah. But what we do use a lot is vanilla and vanilla actually is the second most expensive spice. Yeah. It's ubiquitous, but you know, we use a lot. It just doesn't, it just doesn't weigh a lot and a little goes. a long way. Exactly.

When I was researching about vanilla, I don't know why all my stories are related to different animals or specifically rodent animals. Do you know what castorium is? It's a substance. And I'm going to say no. You guys don't know what that is. I'm going to guess it's something to do with castor beans. I don't know.

Castorium is simply, and I'm going to say this as classy as possible, but these are not classy words. A anal beaver juice. Oh, what? So castorium is Is it like all the best things in the world come from the butts of the little rodents? It seems like it.

So castorium is a substance produced by the glands of a beaver located between the anus and genitals of a beaver. And guess what? It is, in the United States, it is FDA approved. And what you use Kastorium for is to highlight specifically vanilla flavoring and raspberry flavoring. And so butt juice from a beaver makes it. It makes raspberry and vanilla flavored things taste a lot better. I like the flavor profiles.

The synergy of the two flavors. In addition, not only is it approved by the FDA. They don't have to call it castorium or anal beaver juice. They workshoped anal beaver juice. They just did not test. They sold it in giant cans at Costco and just nobody bought it. Yeah, I just can't move these. So they're officially a reference simply as natural flavoring.

That's on everything. So when you're reading the ingredients list and it says natural flavoring, it could be anal fever juice. I'm going to assume from now on, it does mean that. As long as it's not the low-quality artificial anal-beaver juice, it could be. Just the good stuff. Just the good stuff.

So, yeah. So anytime you're eating a... But it's raspberry vanilla flavor. It's not even like beef flavor. Like you'd imagine it in a hot dog or something. Yeah, right. It's in the ice cream. It might be in your favorite ice cream.

You don't know. Just imagine when you're taking that bite of that delicious raspberry ice cream sundae, just fluids expressing themselves mightily like old faithful from from that mysterious area between the anus and the genitals of a beaver this seemed like such a classy show at the start of the podcast we're going to talk about elegant foods delicacies maggot cheese anal beaver juice yeah again And again, I wonder how do they discover this? How, right, right. That's true.

You know, you know what I think it is. So I was down there for something else. You know what? It's like, I was sleeping with my mouth open. And a beaver walked by with some raspberries. When sprayed it in and it just tasted horrible until I ate a raspberry off the nearby tree. And it really, it just made the flavor pop. Yeah.

What can I add to this raspberry? I was buried to make it taste better. Oh, I know. Mom, the beaver expressed his anal fluids all over my ice cream again. Just eat it. There's no more ice cream. Oh. Oh, dear.

It's really an extensive flavor. All right. Let's do our final quiz segment. It's a new segment, and I'm going to call this one Original Formula, and it's the Company Edition. So in Original Formula, I will give you a quick description. of a name origin and you have to guess what the actual name is so today we're going to do companies and corporation names and so for example i'll say the greek goddess of victory and you guys will say Nike yep all right here we go and these are these are actually really

interesting i'm going to position them from easy to hard naturally and buzz in with your barnyard buzzers get them ready all right so this first one here we go so the company The company's original name is Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Colin? That's a 3M. Correct. Which is a lot easier to say than Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Indeed.

Here we go. The literal translation of this company is, Entrusted Heaven. Chris Culler. Would this be Nintendo? Correct. I snuck this one in front. Yeah, oh, thanks.

Intrusted heaven or... Entrusted or trust heaven. Intrusted to heaven. They made gambling products. Actually, somebody has since come out and said that it might mean something else, but there's a whole lot of like back and forth over what the name of the company actually means. But yeah, it contains the characters. We'll go with that.

Trust in heaven. Yeah, for purposes of this. Yeah. Okay. This beverage company was named after founders Roy Allen and Frank Wright. Colin A&W Rupier Correct Roy Allen

and Frank Wright There really was an A&W Not just Come up with it by a marketing team Right The abbreviation of a Latin phrase Meaning healthy soul In a healthy body

Oh Colin It's a6 The shoes right Correct A6 Which sounds like a sciencey term, like ASICs, like kinetics or robotics. I just bought a pair of ASICs shoes.

I swear, that's so funny. So it stands for Anima Sanna Incorporary Sano, which is Healthy Soul and a Healthy Body. I did not know it as an abbreviation. Yeah, I really thought it was something sciencey. I just assumed that they weren't going for basics and forgot the B. That's what I always said. So this company's name is from the name of the founder, Hans Regal. and the city that he's from, which is Bonn in Germany.

Regal Bonn, Regal Bonn. Hans Regal from Bonn. Hans Regal from Bonn. From Germany. Collin. Haribo? Correct. Oh.

Wow. Haribo, the gummy bear company. Oh. And it's interesting because when you think of Harribo, it almost sounds like Japanese. It sounds Japanese. Yeah, Hans Regal from Bonn. Very good, Colin. All right, here we have our last one.

The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book, Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and barely human. That was the original meaning. Darn it, I heard this before, but what is the answer? What's the what type of company is it? This is a tech online web company. Chris?

CompuServe. Incorrect. Good try, good try. We know this term more as a Western term. As a Western term? Like a country Western term. Really? Oh.

Oh, I get it. I know. Yahoo? Correct. Yeah. It is. It is Yahoo. Yahoo.

The word was invented by Jonathan Swift. And it totally doesn't mean, Yahoo! Let's go. Right, right, right. It means a person who is gross. So it's really closer to who are these bunch of Yahoo's. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh, wow. And that's the end of our show. So thank you everybody for joining me today. and thank you, listeners, for listening in. Hope you guys didn't get too grossed out by today's topics,

but they were interesting, nonetheless. And they're never going to forget them ever. Yeah, exactly. Thank you all. And again, we're on iTunes. Give us some feedback on the different segments or the different things that you like. We love your input.

And we're also on our website, which is goodjobbrain.com. And we'll see you next week. Bye, bye. Thanks, everybody. Later. if you like this podcast can we recommend another one it's called big picture science you can hear it wherever you get your podcast and its name tells part of the story the big picture questions and the most interesting research in science science. Seth and I are the host. Seth is a scientist. I am Molly and I'm a science journalist, and we talk to people smarter than us, and we have fun along the way. The show is called

Big Picture Science, and as Seth said, you can hear it wherever you get your podcast.