Good Job, Brain! - 42: Season's Eatings!

Episode Date: December 17, 2012

Put on your stretchy pants and prepare to feast on these holiday food facts: fermented shark from Iceland's midwinter festival, superstitions around Christmas pudding, Jell-O (with cheese?), and the prowess of the Easter hare. ALSO: Country name quiz, 42 & antipodes, and our failed attempts at coming up with alternate names for vegetarian haggis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, smattering of smashing smoking, spitten, smiling smirkers. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 42, and of course, I am your humble host, Karen, and we are your school of scone, scoffing, scallywag scholars. I'm Colin. I'm Dana. And I'm Chris. This episode is, of course, brought to you by online men's wear store, Bonobos, the destination for best-fitting pants, sweaters, jackets, and more.

And they also supplied prizes for last week's Smarty Pants Listener Challenge, and it's time for me to reveal the answer. So the riddle last week was, Tell me where I reside with Spot and Fido on my side. Seven Peaks might be your guide under a regal hat that gleams with pride. And the answer is... It is the Canary Islands. Yes, you actually solved it, Colin.

I did. I did. I have to admit, I mean, it wasn't solving us so much of a recollection. So my path was, all right, where I reside, a flag with dogs on it. Spot and Fido by my side. I remember really learning that Canary and Canary Islands is the same route as like canine, which is why there are dogs on the flags. Not the birds. Right, not the bird.

So it was really more I just happened to remember that. But yes, Canary Islands, dogs on the flag. The birds are actually named after the island. Not the island named after the birds. So, yeah, the Canary Islands are off the northwest coast of mainland Africa. Just to finish, yeah, the clue that it was the Seven Peaks also pictured on the flag as well, right? Yeah, and I think that's the tricky part because Seven Peaks, you'd be like, oh, it's mountain or some sort of a sharp object. But the Seven Peaks are actually, there are seven main islands in the Canary Islands.

They all have volcanic sort of origin, so they're kind of like volcanoes, seven volcanoes. So there you go. We've notified the listeners, and congrats to you guys who got the answer, right? It was a little bit, tough one. Good job. And today's episode is episode number 42, and 42 is... The meaning of life. The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

Yes. The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. See, here's another interesting fact about the number 42. Do you guys know what antipodes are? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah, they're like the opposite.

Oh, like the opposite place is on the globe. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You pick a spot, and the antipode is its exact opposite spot if you were to go straight through the middle of the earth. Yeah. Yep. So in 1966, a mathematician by the name of Paul Cooper, he actually theorized that if you

bore a straight hollow tube, like a hole, through earth and you took out all the air and lava and if you jumped through to the to the other side it would take 42 minutes no matter what the two antipodes are right yes that'd be a fun ride would decelerate as you're coming out the other side well you would well you would accelerate toward the middle right and then once you pass the middle you would slowly be decelerating right and they would virtually cancel out correct it wouldn't be perfect right but they would almost almost cancel out, right? The first half of the journey is basically free fall acceleration.

But, you know, when you pass the center, then the second half consists of exactly equal deceleration. So 42 minutes no matter where the antipodes are. If you can get around the problem of all that, magma swirling, yes.

And without further ado, let's jump into our general trivia segment, Pop Quiz Hotchot. Get your Barnier buzzers ready. And I have a random trivial pursuit card here. Let's do this. Blue Wedge.

Oh, man, this is hard. Name two of the five German states that start with B. That was Colin. Well, Bavaria, I believe, would be one. Mm-hmm. And, man. Bonn? Is that one? Or is that

one? No, that is a city. Oh. Bismarck. Bavaria is one. Berlin. I censored myself. I was like, no, that's a city. Brandenberg.

Bremen from the folk tale. And Badenvertenberg. So those are the five. All right. And Brandenburg, like the Brandenburg Gate. Pink Wedge for pop culture. Who made her big screen debut in Sid and Nancy before garnering a Golden Globe nomination for the People versus Larry Flint?

Colin. Was that Courtney Love? Yes. All right. Yellow Wedge. Eleanor Roosevelt appeared on which classic quiz show? Multiple choice. The $64,000 question, what's my line?

Or you bet your life. I've never heard of any of these shows. I will say it's what's my line. Correct. I would guess that as well. With Groucho, right? Yeah, that was where you had to ask people questions and they would to figure out what their line of business was.

Oh. Right. So I'm sure they were quizzing her to find. out that she was the first lady of the United States. All right, Purple Wedge. What is Shakespeare's shortest play? Oh. Colin.

I just, I'm taking a step. Is it as you like it? Incorrect. I don't know. It is the comedy of errors. I wish this also told you what the longest play is. Oh, yeah, yeah. Green Wedge for Science.

If you were born in July, what's your birthstone? And I guess none of us were born in July. I believe it is Garnet or... No, that's January. Oh, sorry. Is it Ruby? Yes, it is Ruby. My brother was born in July and it was red, but I didn't know which it was.

Ruby? Good job. All right. Last question. Orange Wedge. Wow. What position was left out of Abbott and Costello's who's on first routine? Shortstop.

Incorrect. Oh, really? I don't know. Oh, geez. Let's see. They do who's on first. What's on second? I don't know is third base.

Right. Yeah. I don't know. Catcher. I'll guess catch her. It is right field. Oh, okay. So the players were who, what, I don't know.

I don't give a darn. Why? Because today and tomorrow. Oh. Good job. That was a tough one. That's a good, great question. Yeah.

Yeah. In this week's episode, we're trying to gear everybody up with holiday spirits. And one of the best things about holidays is other than vacation days. It's the food. Yeah. It's the eating. So today's show is all about holiday food Okay, well, bring us a thingy pudding

Oh, bring us a thingy pudding Oh bring us a thingy pudding And a cup of good cheer We won't go until we get some We won't go until we get some We won't go until we get some So bring some Okay, well I'll start us off with a holiday food quiz

So I'm going to describe the dish and you tell me what it is. Oh, the name of it. The name of it. First one. Nuts, raisins, and spices held together with beef fat. Oh, they're a little bit gross, too. Would this be mince meat?

No. Oh, that was my guess. Hold on a lot. Nuts, raisins, and spices held together with beef fat. Is it sugar plum? You're very close. Is it? It's not pudding, is it?

It's plum pudding. Oh, plum pudding. They used to call. All raisins plums. Beef fat. They actually use beef suet, which is the stuff that's around the kidneys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they use.

To hold it, well, to hold it together. Well, I mean, this is like centuries old. Yeah, and you have it laying around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. A sweet roulette of sponge cake and chocolate icing. This is a Yule log. Yes.

Which is a rolled-up cake that looks like a piece of wood. Or a dingon. It's a log. A trio of foul ensconced upon one. another. A turduckin. Yes. Or a Pandora's cushion.

A cushion, that's right, Pandora's cushion. A pie made with meat, beef, fat, fruit, and spices. Is minced meat pie? Yes. A medieval precursor to eggnog made with curdled milk and wine. Hmm. Crog? Grog?

No, that's mold wine. Wow. That's my thought. No, I don't mean it. Pesette. P-O-S-E-T. Yeah, P-O-S-S-E-T. I've definitely heard of that.

I did not know that's what that was. Sounds real gross. Whenever you involve the word curdling. I mean, I've read it in like medieval setting books and things like that. They moved on to eggnog and didn't look back. A dish consisting of custard, fruit, sponge cake, and whipped cream arranged in layers. Karen? A trifle!

Yes. Fish preserved with lie that has been washed. and boiled. That's ludophisk. Yes. I love his music. Ludacris. Cake made with current saltanas and almonds, originally from Scotland.

Okay, I'm just going to, not my answer. I'm just kind of reform. Go for it. Well, sounds like Panetone, which is Italian. Yeah. Or stolen, which is from Germany. What would be the Scottish version of this? It's called a Dundee cake.

A Dundee. Yeah. All right, a traditional Norwegian flatbread made with potato, milk, and flour. And the largest in the world is in Minnesota. Oh, God, what is it? It starts with an L. Yes. Oh, what is it is?

I ate this at Disney World in the Norway Pavilion. It's not like limping, what is it? Oh, you're so cool. It's called Lefsa. Lefsa, that's what it is. Okay, and the last one, potato pancakes, usually topped with applesauze. Laca. Laca, laca, laca.

And sour cream. Good job, you guys. So, Dana, you had mentioned earlier Ludofisk, which is the Dandenavian fish covered in lye and sort of semi-fermented. I have a sort of related dish that I would like to talk about that's even one step beyond that in terms of craziness. This is the traditional Icelandic dish of hacarl. Hot Carl. Hot Carl. H-A-R-L.

H-A-R-L, H-A-R-R-L, which is essentially fermented. shark. But the process is a little nuts. So Hakarl is made with the Greenland shark. And the way you make the dish is you, well, you catch the Greenland shark

first. So it assumes you have a Greenland shark. It seems like that's the hardest part. Step one. Step one. Acquire Greenland shark. Take the shark. You gut it. You clean it. Cut off the head. You bury it in a hole in the ground. Covered up with dirt. And then

you wait two to three months. while it decomposes and putrefies, you come back, you dig it up, you take what's now sort of a, the remains of the putrified shark meat, all the liquids, all the liquids would have drained off into this time and have been absorbed into the soil. You hang it up, you let it dry, and after it's dried, it sort of has this brownish rind on it. You cut off the rind, you chop it up into cubes, and then you eat it, and that's hacarol. Now, here's where it gets weird. This is reported to be... It gets weird from now.

This is... Yeah, that was the normal part. That was the normal part of this dish. It's reputed to be the worst smelling food on the planet. Oh, I bet. We've talked about durian. We've talked about ludophis. This dish may actually take the cake for the most foul

presentation. And part of the reason it's so foul has to do with the shark itself. So Greenland shark on its own is poisonous. If you eat it fresh, it would kill you because it has ridiculously high concentrations of urea, which is, you know, yeah, it's what gives urine the ammonia smell. When it, when it combines with water, urea turns into ammonia smell. Crazy levels of urea and... P.M. Poop's got to show up.

And a compound called TMAO, which is basically what breaks down into rotting fish smell. Like when fish goes bad, you're smelling TMAO that has converted. So the Greenland shark is high in both of these, so you can't eat it right away. Like there are stories that if you eat it fresh, You can vomit blood. So what the fermentation does is it breaks down these compounds to make them safer to eat. When you eat it, it smells like urine. So here's a question. Yes.

Why even eat it at all? Why even eat it at all? You know, there are a number of theories that range from this is just a joke to be played on foreigners when they come to Iceland. Like I could see getting as far as burying the sharks, so you never have to think about it again. It's the part three months later where somebody's like, hey, Ivan, do you remember that shark we buried? You want to dig it up and hang it in the garage for whatever? This is a traditional dish really associated with a midwinter festival in Iceland called the Thorseblot, named after Thor.

So there is just a bevy of awesome, awesome quotes about Harkarle. And this dish actually has the distinction of it's got the golden trio of celebrity chefs. Anthony Bourdain has covered it on his show. Andrew Zimmern has covered it on his show. Gordon Ramsey. Tried to eat it. Gordon Ramsey famously spit it back up, vomited it. Even he couldn't keep it down. Anthony Bourdain said it is, quote, the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing he's ever eaten. And Anthony Bourdain has eaten a lot of things. Here's some quotes from other people.

It's a little like a tuna fish sandwich that's been sitting on the bottom of your lunch bag for three weeks. It resembles a tramp sock soaked in urine. It tastes like someone pooped in your mouth after a bender. Oh, jeez. Yuck. And every guide I've read, you know, is like, if you're going to go try this for the first time, it warns you. Be prepared to vomit. Be prepared to drink heavily.

Just know what you're getting yourself into. The pee you can chew. Hmm, who's getting hungry? Whenever we listen to Christmas music, there's the wonderful. song, we wish you a Merry Christmas in which the carolers tell the person whose house that they're caroling at that they please bring us some figgy pudding. Now, of course, all kids sing this song and nobody actually understands what what figgy pudding is. So I decided this was the episode to do the research and figure out what figgy pudding is. And I just not, as I had known to

people thought it was finger pudding. It says not finger pudding. So as it turns out, figgy pudding is pretty much just a variation on the traditional English Christmas pudding. We have a lot of listeners in the United Kingdom. You guys can just go to sleep now because you know all about this. The only entertainment value is to listen to Americans who have never eaten one of these in their lives, talk about it. But everybody who always have Christmas pudding at the end of your big Christmas dinner. And it is not, I want to really stress, like, Jello pudding. Right. It's, it is a conglomeration. Basically, what you do is you mix together in a bowl, breadcrumbs, flour, sugar, and like all kinds of candied fruit and a lot of alcohol, a lot of raw brandy, like a good deal of it.

And you use beef suet, as we said, the fat around the cow's kidneys. And this goes back centuries upon centuries ago, a lot of people in the United Kingdom would make these in around Europe, and you steam it. That's how you cook it all. But what you get is this sort of gelatinous mass, more bready but like super soaked through with things. After you steam it all through, you have to wait. Some recipes it takes like a month minimum. One recipe that I found, they call for at least three months of putting in the fridge and just waiting for everything to just all hang out and congeal and become as one.

This is as featured in the popular cookbook from the time, quick three month meals. Yeah. One pot. Yes. Three months wheels. What else are you doing with your time? That's fine. The preparation of this pudding has actually, of course, taken on a lot of. lot of traditions and superstitions as well. So some traditions say that you do it on Sunday, the Sunday stirup, where everybody stirs the pudding. Some people say that you have to stir the pudding from east to west, which is the direction

that the old wise men traveled to see Jesus. Some people say that your pudding has to have exactly 13 ingredients in it, one for Jesus and then one for each of the 12 apostles. Some people say that the unmarried girls have to stir it or else they'll never get married in the next year. Actually, so what the recipe that I was reading said, you can either just serve it as it is, and what you could also do is you could take a quarter cup of brandy, hold it over a flame until the brandy is on fire, then pour it while it's still flaming over the whole pudding, and turn off all the lights and bring it to the table. And then once the brandy

has gone down, that's when you can eat it. You can add coins to the pudding. People started adding coins into the pudding, and whoever got that slice won the coin. Okay, I've heard about that. But then it started becoming a little bit more symbolic. So it's like there were coins, but then they'd also put tokens in, like a thimble, which represented thriftiness or prosperity. So if you got the thimble, you would be the one who's prosperous that year. And, oh, a ring. You might put a ring in there, and the ring would be for marriage.

So, and so as it turns out, figgy pudding is Christmas pudding made with figs. That just happens to have figs in it. There's this really weird trend among holiday foods where you put items or collectibles or coins or whatever in your food. A lot of these foods are for holidays around the end of the year, and these are very kind of like, you know, good omens or good portents for the things for the New Year. I can see them sort of tying in a lot of superstitions. I know there's the King's Cake in French culture, and especially in the New Orleans area, kind of like a pie pastry cake. Yeah, like a tartlet. And there's a ceramic baby Jesus in the cake.

And whoever gets it is the winner. During Chinese New Year, you eat dumplings. Sometimes there's a coin in it. And I remember this as a kid. What no one really thought about was you boil dumplings in really hot water to cook them. And then when you serve them, the ones with the coins are super hot and burned in time. Because they've been in boiling water. And as a kid, I was like, I don't want the coin.

It is funny how these traditions, you know, will stretch back from culture to culture to culture and they'll be sort of analogs and you can see how they grew up. Yep. One of the things that I was, as I was looking up, holiday foods, I was thinking of looking up the origins of other traditional foods. And I only got as far as, you know, green bean casserole. We had it during Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah.

You know, you take green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and then you get those French fried onions. Yeah, you sprinkle over the top, right? It would probably not surprise you in any way whatsoever to know that this was invented in 1955 by the Campbell's soup. Yeah, I think, yeah, I can totally see that. It's like the grand age of casseroles and also the grand age of industrialized recipes. Like, oh my God, frozen green beans, canned soup.

Preserve fried onions. Some people, I don't think they really know that now. Like, it's just sort of entered into the pantheon of traditional Thanksgiving recipes. So one of the holiday foods I found that is very popular in the Midwest and the southern regions of America is Jello Salad. And I've never heard of this before. Growing up as a kid, even, it's very 70s to me. Like, Jello salad just says so 70s. Yeah, I agree.

I found a recipe from Jello for a hollow. a holiday tree or a potluck. It's called lime cheese salad. Ah. So you dissolve one package lime jello in one cup hot water. Then fold in one cup cottage cheese and one tablespoon mayonnaise. Yeah. Blend.

Chill until firm. Unmold. Garnish with salad greens. Fill center with seafood salad. Yeah. Make six serving. Place in kiddie pool. As a kid, I'd be at parties.

I'd be like, mom. why is this jello cloudy? Jello's supposed to be transparent. Yes, it looks like a virus outbreak because of the cottage cheese. And there's so many of these holiday jello salad recipes I found in pictures of it. Some call for olives and velvita cheese. It's just so weird. And so I look back at, okay, where did this all come from, right?

Before jello was made, gelatinous entrees or desserts were a thing of luxury. Very complicated to prepare. It took a long time to cook, to mold it, and then to cool it, to set it. Actually, one of the weird things that they used as a gelatin substance was Eisenglass. Do you guys know what Eisenglass is? It sounds like a Tolkien thing. It sounds beautiful. It does.

It's from Rivendale. The swim bladders of sturgeons or other fish. So they're like the floaty swimbladders that's kind of like the air pockets. and they would grind it down and dry it and it would have some kind of like a sticky gelatinous characteristic to it so in the early 1900s the actual powder like gelatin powder was finally made and it kind of changed hands wasn't really successful for a while until it met orator woodward who has an awesome name orator woodward he also had little commercial success until he realized something and this is early 1900s home bankers didn't know what to do with

a food that pretty much is ready to serve and needed no recipes. All you have to do is mix it with water and all of a sudden you have this gelatinous thing that sets. So here's the genius part. He gave people recipes. In 1904, Jello and his company distributed free cookbooks and booklets like the Greenlee Castle thing. It was created to make an artificial need for this product. One of the Jello cookbooks published in 1922 is called Jello, America's most famous dessert, at home everywhere. And it featured vignettes of like different lifestyles of people in America and how they enjoy Jello.

And there's a fine line between like marketing and flat out lying or an inaccurate exaggeration because they would have scenes of, oh, here are the Chinese immigrants working on the railroad. They love Jello. They put rice in their jello. That's how they enjoy it. And they had scenes of the Inuit people of Alaska or near the Arctic Circle. They enjoy Jello this way. In Mission Country, the religious people enjoy Jello this way.

The gypsies enjoy Jello this way, and obviously they're not true. No. No. But who would know? So really, Jellet created this need for, like, elaborate gelatin dishes. And they're known as congealed salad or jello salad. Conjilled salad is not a nice description. No. And so by the 1930s, these jello salads were.

all the rage and it kind of coincided with the wartime attitude of using everything you got things are rare you have to save everything oh here's this handy jello packet i'll put all my leftovers and mix it with jello and make this giant food item that's a mix of everything entering into the post-war phase they still had that mentality of i have to save everything but also they want something to look fancy right and that was that was the thing about jello it's the visual appeal of yeah very fancy so here's some classic retro congealed salad names. Mint jello with capers.

Oh, why would you do that? I guess it's like mint jelly with lamb. Maybe. Maybe. Shredded wheat, apple, jello, sandwich. Wait. I was on board until the sandwich part.

Shred wheat and jelly together? That's just like a textural nightmare. Asparagus castle? No. But I want to see it. It sounds like it would look awesome. And, of course, these got really elaborate. I remember seeing one of the retro recipes called for flaked fish or canned tuna that they would set in jello in a shape of a fish.

Which is kind of a verins. Jello fish made with flaked fish. At that point, just get a real fish. I know. By the 1950s, these salads became so popular that jello responded by actually creating and putting out savory and vegetable-flavored jello. to make these salads. Because strawberry and tuna fish doesn't sound like it roughly. Most of the time they use lime.

Like lime jello was the jello flavor to use for these savory salads. Yeah, that's why they're sort of traditionally, you see them in the green. Well, good time to have a little break a word from our sponsor, as we muster up the courage to talk about food again. Book Club on Monday. Jim on Tuesday. date night on Wednesday Out on the town on Thursday

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We are also part of Airwave Media Network. I've been doing the program since 2006. That's a long time, and the show has a long name. My history can beat up your politics. Find me wherever you get podcasts. And we're back. Welcome to Good Job Brain, and this week we're talking about holiday foods. Yeah.

Both delicious and gross. Sometimes they can be both. Sometimes they can be both, depending on whom you ask. I want to go back a little bit, Chris, you know, you were talking about some of the traditional dishes from the UK. And I always feel like these old traditional English or Scottish dishes, just they have just so much character, maybe, with the word I'm looking for. So I want to talk about haggis. So you guys probably have some rough conception of what haggis is, right? Anyone want to take a rough stab at describing what haggis.

I can't. I think it sounds delicious. Yeah. Okay. So it's made out of like our cows. It's like a giant sausage, but encased in like a cows or a sheep's stomach. And inside is like chopped up meats and like oatmeal and spices. Am I right? You're fairly close. Yeah. It's, it is traditionally, it's a sheep stomach. It's a boiled dish served in the sheep's stomach. And inside, you are right, there are spices and stuff. It's not just chopped up meats. What really gets a lot of people is that specifically what goes inside the haggis are the sheep's lungs and heart and also usually the liver. So it's the inner organ. So you've got to like the gizzards. You've really got to. Yeah. So it's the lungs, the heart, the liver, oatmeal, as you said, some oats. Our old friend Beef Sueet from the top app of the show.

It's minced together. That's cooked. And then, you know, a lot of spices and things like that as well. But that goes inside the sheep's stomach lining. Talk about non-photogenic foods. This would be a really good example of a non-photogenic food. It's just kind of like a brown mush coming out of a sliced open stomach case. How do you eat it? Do you get your own haggis? Well, no. So it's more of a communal food. So the haggis is, without doubt, strongly, strongly associated as a traditional Scottish food. The exact origin, it's a little hard to pin down. And even the name is origins of the name aren't quite clear. But there's no doubt that it's associated with Scotland. References go back as early as the 1400. So this is an old, old, old dish. One idea is, like,

like a lot of these old traditional dishes is it's you got to make the most of what you have, you know, and so this might be a dish that you're out on a hunt. You've just slaughtered a sheep or you're hunting. You've got to cook all this stuff right out in the field, especially the inner organs are going to spoil the most quickly. Yeah. So the idea is what can you cook, you know, simply quickly to preserve it, you know, and not waste anything. The holiday or celebration, I should say, that this is really associated with is a Burns Night's Supper. And I don't know if you guys have had the chance, the privilege, someone said, to go to a Burns Night's Supper, which is a celebration in honor of Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet. After he died, friends and people

wanted to honor him started having these celebratory dinners, largely because he wrote a very famous poem called Address to a Haggis. And so he is really kind of considered the father of marrying the haggis with the Scottish, just nationalist, traditionalist, traditionalist pride. So I had the good fortune to go to a Burns Night's Supper a few years ago. We had some friends. And it was an occasion, an elaborate sequence of events. It starts with a speech, a welcoming of the guests. The host will usually give what's called the Selkirk Grace is, I'm going to do my best here. I'm not going to affect an accent, but it's written in Scottish-style English.

So this is the Selkirk Grace. Some hay meet and cannot eat and some wed eat that want it, but we hey meet and we can eat and say, let the Lord be thank it. We have it and we can eat it, so let's go ahead and eat it and thank the Lord. And then is the presentation. of the haggis, which is brought in on a large plate, and it's big. So the first thing that struck me was, wow, that's bigger than I thought. You know, I was imagining these, like, little personal haggis is.

Oh, yeah. Oh, a personal pan haggis? Yeah, a mini haggis hut. And if you're doing it right, you might have some bagpipes playing. And then you read the address to the haggis, the burns poem. And I am not going to read it because it's quite long. As you read out the address to the haggis, there are actions that you perform. Oh, wow.

The signature action of the presentation is at the line, his knife-see rustic labor dict, and you draw out as dramatically as possible a big-ass knife, and you stick it in the haggis and you slice it open. Awesome. And it is visceral and kind of entertaining. Yeah. It's kind of scary, but very entertaining.

Wow. That sounds fun. Let's do it. Yeah. This whole time you're also drinking, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, this is, we've all been drinking.

I had some of the best scotch whiskey, or just whiskey, if you prefer, that I ever had that night. So we're drinking. Everyone's happy. And I have to imagine that part of the drinking is to get up the courage to actually eat the haggis if you've never tried it before. It's like a party. Yeah. It really is a party. And so, of course, this being San Francisco in the 2000s, there was also a vegetarian haggis on hand for those members of the party who were vegetarian.

A tofaggis. Vajagas We tried Tofagas Then we tried Vajagas Then we just settled on vegetarian haggis It's for the best It's for the best That's where less marketing is better

It really guards against you Doing anything cute with the name I can't believe it's not haggis Wait so here's a question What does it taste like? Did you like it? I am going to fess up I did not actually try the real hag

I heard all that I couldn't I could not bring myself to try the real yeah you smell it I would be pumped up I was ready to eat it right where you like take the knife and you slice it it's like so this is funny a lot of people Americans in particular have a real misconception about what this dish is so about

10 years ago a haggis company in Scotland surveyed a thousand tourists they found out that 33% of American tourists thought the haggis is an animal Like, it is just an animal that you could go catch. I'm going to go catch some fresh caught haggis and eat it up. If you have a traditional Burns Night's Supper would be on the anniversary of his birthday, January 25th. So we had it sort of in the same holiday season.

It's coming up. We've got a month from now. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. That's right. A good job haggis party. Yeah. And don't do what I did, which is wimp out and not eat the haggis.

Right. Yeah. So another holiday food item that I was curious about and felt like investigating was, the Easter egg. Why are eggs associated with Easter? Does anybody want to make a guess at this one? Is this birth? Yeah. Yeah, what's one of those weird, it's one of these like hybrids where they took a lot of the pagan fertility, right? It predates Christianity. The egg has been looked upon by many religions since the dawn of man is sort of like being representative of the universe and of birth and of life coming out of nothing. And of course, you know, the Easter

celebration in just as pagan religions winter solstice celebrations eventually became Christmas, Easter. The spring celebrations became Easter. There's no coincidence. It's all celebrated around that time. For Christians, the egg was sort of back interpreted to also be the tomb of Jesus. Really? And life inside that, you know, coming out of it. Yeah. There was a lot of sort of the retconning when they would sort of slam the two religions together. Yeah. But here's the question. Why do we color our Easter eggs? Why do kids color Easter eggs? It's just fun. So this is why some of the earliest, earliest Christians, when they were first using the egg as a symbol of life and eating it during Easter, would stain them red so that it was the blood of Jesus. Oh, yum. And so egg staining is a super, super old Christian tradition. So when you get your kids together and you color Easter eggs, you are doing something that Christians have done for 2,000 years. Who even uses real eggs anymore?

because now kids just have plastic eggs that candies are hidden in and that's what they go on their Easter egg hot for them. They do? Well, we had those. I remember plastic eggs. Kids have a good. We never ate.

I mean, we would die actual eggs. We never ate them. We used to have to eat a ton of egg salad after Easter. And it was like weird colored egg salad. And so let's go even deeper on this. Why does the Easter bunny bring Easter eggs? Well, I believe that's another

that the rabbit was a fertility symbol. Because they blew it a lot. They procreate quite. easily hairs spring fertility life you know that all kind of goes around the same celebrations but again the idea of the bunny bringing eggs this is this is actually not a corporate invented tradition like this really does go back like centuries upon centuries this idea of the Easter bunny bringing Easter eggs for the children okay because this is good job brain we should get into some of this science apparently

this came into the US I was reading via like at least some like Pennsylvania Dutch You know, when they were kind of coming over from Germany, there was a word, I believe it's pronounced Osterhoss, which just means Easter hair. Not as opposed to a rabbit. But hairs, they have a lot of babies. They can get pregnant while they are pregnant. Yeah. I had read that. In late pregnancy, they can get impregnated, and the fertilized eggs will just chill out in, like, a waiting area, basically, and just, like, wait until the room is clear.

It's like an on-deck circle. Yeah. Yes, they're in the on-deck circle. And as soon as the hair gives birth, the fertilize eggs, like our turn, so you can never, you never not have to be pregnant. You can just be pregnant forever. And that is why they just... Jealous ladies?

Yes. And that is why during May, that is why, you know, procreating like rabbits, because they can just crank them out. They get a few ready. There's babies on deck. There have actually been a very, very, very, very... few cases in history of what this is called superfeitation in humans, where something will go wrong, basically, and a woman who is pregnant will get pregnant again.

But here's the thing. You don't know, because it happens very close to each other, you think you're having twins. And the only way they can tell is if they, after the babies are born, and typically what happens is one of them is premature. Not necessarily the second baby. Sometimes the first baby can go to term. very, very, very few cases of women thinking they gave birth to twins

and actually they got pregnant while they were already pregnant and these are two separate pregnancies. I've never heard of that. That's crazy. Super rare. I thought this episode was going to be like, oh, celebrate the holiday with delicious food, but now everybody's kind of grossed out. I knew, I knew

that it was going to turn into weird and gross angles on foods and I'm not disappointed at all. Okay. Well, we have one more final quiz today. Oh, Oh, I forgot to mention, we won an award a couple weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we were nominated for the 2012 Stitcher Awards for Best Games and Hobbies Podcasts and also Best Album Art.

Yep. And we attended the very fancy event hosted by Stitcher here in San Francisco. We had a lot of fun. I think we had the most fun. Oh, yeah. We had a great time. That happens to us a lot of places, though. We met some very nice, good job brain fans.

You know who you are. Thank you so, so very much to you guys for coming up and saying this was the first time that we had ever actually met any good job brain fans who are not like our moms. So it was great. Face to face. It was great. It was so much fun for us. So thank you guys for saying hello. Yeah.

And we also provided entertainment for the award ceremony. And we did some live trivia on stage. It was fun. And we just met a lot of cool fans and peers. Colin and I actually met a couple of people from Decode, D.C., which is a political podcast, very famous. We were out to lunch with them, and they found out that we ran Good Job Brain and were involved in a trivia show. And immediately, one of the women was like, oh, can we do trivia right now? I have a quiz for you guys.

And so, of course, Karen and I were like, yeah, we can do trivia. And so she proceeded to ask us, all right. This is within seconds. This is within seconds of meeting this woman. It was great. And so she asked us a question, which I will ask you guys just in one second. Oh, okay. And that will be the first question in a quiz that I have prepared for you guys here.

So get your buzzers ready. So this quiz is going to be about geography, specifically country names. So all about names of countries and what they have in common, maybe what they have different. So here's the question that Lena asked to me and Karen. And I would like to brag that she told us that we were the only people who had successfully answered it. So that wasn't even a humble brag. There's no humble here. That's a braggy brag.

All right. So this is a question that you guys can work on together jointly. There are 10 countries in the world whose names are four letters long. Okay. And when I say names, I mean, they're common name. I'm not going to, you know, trick you. The Republic of you? Right, exactly.

Yeah. So the common name that people call these countries, ten countries whose names are four letters long, once you guys see how many you can name. Well, let me start with. Africa. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Do whatever you want. Molly, M-A-L-I, T-O-O-G-O, Chad, C-H-A-D. All right. Peru. Yeah, Peru. Fiji. Uh-huh. Oh.

Cuba. Yep. I would add Iraq and Iran. Yeah, two good ones right there. Oman. O-M-M-A-N, the only country whose name begins with an O. Correct. You've got nine.

There's one left. It is an Asian country. Okay. Louse. Louse. Oh, yes, yes. And that's it, huh? And that is it.

Those are the 10. Technically, Laos, their name is the Lao People's Democratic Republic. And in fact, they specifically asked the United Nations not to call them Laos anymore. So that's the only reason it's a little unclean. And for a bonus question, can you guys name the one country that used to have a four-letter name but no longer does? Siam. Yes, Siam, which is now in Thailand. Good job, Chris.

Now we're going to get into the meat of the quiz here and kick it up a notch. All right. There are, of these countries, three of them whose capital city also has four letters in the name. Can you guys name any or all three of those? Karen. Lima, Peru. Lima, Peru is definitely the easiest one. Oh.

I think Fiji as well, but I forgot what the city was. Yeah, you're right. It is. The capital of Fiji is Suva. Suva. S-U-V-A. S-U-V-A. And I will be very impressed if any of you guys got the last one. it is actually Lomae, the capital of Togo. So Lima, Peru, Lome, Togo, L-O-M-E, Accent E, and Suva, Fiji.

Wow. So that's a good trivia within a trivia question. There are two pairs of countries who are what we call substitution neighbors, meaning that if you change one letter in the name of the country, you get the name of the other country. So can you guys name the two sets of countries that fit this description? Well, the first ones are, of course, Iraq and Iraq. Those are the easy ones. Oh, they're like one letter off?

One letter off. There is one other set of country names, where if you change one letter from one name, you get the other country. Purely coincidentally, like Iran and Iraq, this other pair also starts with a letter I. We can get this. We can get this. Ireland and Iceland. Correct.

Ireland, Iceland, Iran, Iraq. Yeah. There are six. countries whose name ends in the letter U. Now, I'm going to challenge you guys, because I know you guys can do this. I need you guys to name five of these six countries. Ends with a U. Peru.

The country name ends in the letter U. That's right. Peru actually is on both of these lists. That's right. Macau? No, no. Macau would be a region, and there are a lot of region. So these would be, you know, sovereign states, members of the U.N.

Okay. Timbuktu. Nope. That would be an old name. That would be an old name, yes. Vanuatu. Correct. Wanamuatu.

Tuvalu. Okay, wait a minute. These are all seasons of Survivor. Uh-huh. There's another season of Survivor, yes. Palau. Palau. Oh, man.

Guinea Basal. Oh, Gini Abasal. I thought, yeah, you guys would get that one. And then the last one is Nauru. But that was good. You guys got four out of the six. All right. This part of the quiz is called Snow White and the Seven Stans.

There are seven countries that end in stands. S-T-A-N. And, of course, if you don't know, Stan means linguistically land of. Okay. So, I'll give you one. Afghanistan is land of the Afghans. Okay. Karen. And you guys can do this collectively if you want.

Okay. Kazakhstan. Yep. Kyrgyzstan. Yep. Pakistan. Pakistan. Yep.

Turkmenistan. Yep. Tajikistan. Yep. And one more. And one more. Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan

Yes So I had asked you about countries that end in the letter you I'm going to give you guys letters There is only one country that ends in the following letters I will give you the letter You guys buzz in quickly and give me the country So for example if I were to say Q A Middle Eastern country

You would say I have no idea Iraq You would say Iraq Oh okay All right This Asian country ends in the letter

H. Dana. Bangladesh. Bangladesh. Correct. The only country in H. This European country ends with the letter

K. Karen. Denmark. It is Denmark. This European country ends with the letter G. I was going to say

hamburger. Say smaller country. Luxembourg. Luxembourg. Yeah. Yes Very good So instead of last letters

We're going to focus on first letters here I want you guys to tell me What are the only two letters That do not begin a country name And for the purposes of country name We'll take the United Nations here Okay it's not Q Right there's Q for Qatar

X Z Z Z Zambia X is one of them Dana, that's correct There are no countries that start with the letter X What is the other one? W It is W Yes!

Absolutely right There's a Q There's V's There's Z's J's West Germany used to V or W Would have been Yeah

Yes these are current listings All right well good job guys That was meant to be a little bit tougher But I think any one of these Could overlap with some good trivia questions Good job It's like smoke coming out of my ears All right and that is our show

Thank you guys for joining me And thank you guys listeners for listening in Hope you learn a lot about Peru It was very popular. Fish that tastes like you're in, jello dishes, and all of these festive things

that we talked about in this episode. You can find us on Zoom Marketplace, on iTunes, on Stitcher, and also on our website, which is good jobbrain.com. And don't forget to check out our sponsor, bonobos.com, and we'll see you guys next week.

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