Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Grapefruit

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

Alex Schmidt is joined by podcasters/directors Abe Epperson and Adam Ganser (‘Directorpiece Theatre’ and more Small Beans podcasts) for a look at why grapefruit are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Grapefruit, known for being tart. Famous for being tart and weird. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why grapefruit is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Abe Epperson and Adam Ganser are my guests on this one. I hope you already know about the Small Beans comedy Patreon.

It's called Small Beans. It came up especially on the Michael Swaim episode about The Great Gatsby recently. Both these guys, Abe Epperson and Adam Ganser, host wonderful shows on there, including one they do together called Director Piece Theater. Because Abe and Adam are both fantastic directors, whether they're working in comedy or otherwise. They're also very funny and warm and great people. We go way back. We used to work together at the former workplace crack.com. And so you'll hear us hit a groove right away. And I think that makes this a really, really fun episode. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like

native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Abe and Adam each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino or Tongva, Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about grapefruit. A citrus fruit that you've heard of and a fruit that will bring us an astonishing range of places in the world and science and history. In particular history, there is so much of that here. So please sit back or get out your

grapefruit spoon and then get out your grapefruit knife because there are two entire specialized pieces of cutlery just so you can eat the maybe fourth most popular citrus. I still don't understand it. But anyway, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Abe Epperson and Adam Ganser. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Abe, Adam, you are a delight.

Thank you for being here. This is so great. Oh, what a pleasure to be here. What a pleasure. The audience can't see, but he's beautiful. Let me reassure you, audience. He's still beautiful. Oh, still beautiful.

White sock shirt. Oh, you got to be bummed about that hiring, baby. You got to be real bummed about that hiring, right? And I'm not trying to rub this in, I swear to God. But it was incredible. They hired this guy, right? Yeah, Tony La Russa, yeah. Yeah, La Russa, right.

He's very old. He's been out of baseball a long time. And within a week of that news, DUI charge. He gets a DUI charge immediately. and i didn't text you because i was like i don't a text is the way to rub this in i feel like talking about it on podcasts a little more of a generous space uh how are you feeling how are you feeling about it i got i got more texts about tony larousse's hiring than i got about joe biden winning the presidency my phone blew up bigger with a penny drops america a very old hall of famer being selected to be the new manager it's it's the strangest thing

he hasn't been in the sport for a bit this is clearly not what we're here to talk about but i we didn't have a chance to talk i needed to hear it i've heard it now thank you to talk. I needed to hear it. I've heard it now. Thank you. Good hijack. One of many to come. Well, fellas, let's turn to the topic of the day,

which is the grapefruit. And in every episode, I start by asking the guest, what's your relationship to the topic or opinion of it? And either one of you can start, but how do you feel about grapefruit? Please, Abe. Please, I don't want to take your spot here. Yeah, okay. I'll go go first uh grapefruit is a garbage fruit it's so bitter I can't eat one without just dumping just a ton of sugar on it it's like you just don't make sense fruit I if I can't if I can't just bite you like that's entirely on you and uh yeah i just i i

don't have a high yeah priority for grapefruit when i'm like let's go get some fruit i'm like hmm this grapefruit will totally hit the spot no you're not a pineapple guy either right you're not a pineapple guy i mess with pineapple okay but you can't bite into that so you make some exceptions you can bite into pineapple get out of town okay i uh next time we hang out that's the first thing we'll be doing yeah all the world's pineapples i will bite into every single one come on get out of town okay all right i'm gonna get out of town with that i'm so excited that we started with abe introducing fruit laws and adam testing the viability of the laws yeah wait so you say it must be bitten into counselor well sir i i present you the kiwi the hairiest obstruction to your

logic sir grapefruits for some reason are considered a breakfast fruit or just a breakfast food and i feel like it belongs in that category of things that are like are you trying to hijack breakfast for something else like steak and eggs you know what i mean like when people are like hey have steak and eggs why the hell do i want steak in the morning i'd like to be able i'd like to work today you know what i mean like that's a that's a coma for an hour this is what steak and eggs is like and i feel like grapefruit are also like uh somebody from the 30s liked it or something like it's one of those like casseroles that doesn't belong in food anymore what are you talking about like what are you talking about have you not had like those casseroles from the 30s

that people were like, wow, this is really good? And then you eat it and you're like, oh, this is food we don't eat anymore. Oh, for sure. That's what grapefruit is. It's a leftover from a weird time. Okay, okay. It's a bad casserole of fruit.

Thank you. Yeah, you get that one. I do. I love the idea that a thing that grows in nature can be a period piece. That's really exciting. I also, I wanted to check with, because you're both California fellas, I was curious if grapefruit was like presented to you growing up.

Because in Illinois, it did not come up a lot. It was for me. Oh, really? Yeah. You guys had it in the morning? Ooh. Yeah. It was like my mom would serve grapefruit as like, that is your breakfast.

Wow. So you can tell how, why I have the opinions I have. Maybe a psychologist can confirm. But yeah, that was like, sometimes that was just breakfast. And I just put sugar on it. And then that was your day., and then that was your day. That was the start of your day. I noticed that you sugared the fruit. I thought that was a fascinating twist. Because I know now in hindsight, it's like, oh, yeah, people are probably putting sugar on this.

That makes sense. I'd never heard that before this moment. Yeah, you cut it in half, so you got the hemisphere. And then you sugar it, and then you spoon out the this moment. Yeah, you cut it in half. So you got the hemisphere. And then you sugar it. And then you spoon out the innards. Right, right. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Grapefruit was an abomination in my house. We did not serve it. We did not give it any quarter in the Ganser home at all. Never had it. The Schmidt home, we were not even considering that stuff. Like that's advanced.

I think my main grapefruit experience from past years is that I moved into an apartment where there were a few things left in the silverware drawer. And one of them was a grapefruit spoon. And I had to like Google what that is. Because it's, for people who don't know, that's like a spoon with some jagged edges on the the cup part yeah it's serrated yeah and i was like why is this like a combat spoon i don't get it it's weird it's not meant to be put into the mouth it's meant to scoop yeah you know and you can use it to do like pumpkins as well um because you because if you try to eat that, you got serrated blade inside your mouth. That's a bad...

Don't do that. So we all agree, like, podcast done, right? That was fascinating. I just assembled a fruit jury. We just decide out. Guilty.

That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. Trying to do the Lord's work here. What crime did it commit? It's guilty. Just bring it. Just get on with it. Bring in the next fruit. Bananas.

Bananas. So I can't believe grapefruit is enough of a staple that it has its own silverware. I'm like legit outraged by that. How could that be true? Well, there's a whole fascinating world of things about the grapefruit, it turns out. I agree. Who needs the equipment?

But on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics in a segment called Don't Start So, Don't Start So, don't start so close to me. That name was submitted by Dave Henby. We're going to have a new name for this segment every week, submitted by listeners like you. Submit to at SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. That's the plan. Yeah, wonderful.

And yeah, we have a bunch of stats and numbers here. I felt like we should start with the current world record for the size of a grapefruit, right? Let's go big. Let's just find that. And the current world record as of last year, 2019, a weight of 7 pounds, 14 ounces, which is about 3.5 kilograms.

And then 28.75 inches around, which is about 73 centimeters around. Pretty big. Wow. That's a hell of a breakfast right there. That feeds like a family. That's a family right there. That is enormous. That's an Epperson Tuesday is what that is.

You don't want to get hit in the head with one of those. Because that's what we're doing in the Epperson family. Your mom throwing grapefruits at each other. Your mom takes the one grapefruit, places it at the center of the table with a katana blade, slices it in half and says, grapefruit's on the menu, Epperson's. And then there you go

she would say, let's go to war like it's a UFC tournament and then someone would grab it and throw it at the other one the other one would pull out the grapefruit spoon and stab him in the jugular yeah, it was a real dog-eat-dog you all begin sugaring it you sugar the grapefruit

oh yeah, you gotta sugar it. That is an enormous grapefruit, but it does not surprise me. Oh. Because when we typically think about world records of stuff, it's usually multitudes bigger than the normal one. Sure. Yeah, yeah. That feels like, I don't know, that feels like 10 times the size of a normal...

No, well, by volume, that is fascinating. I bet it didn't taste good. That's for sure. No, right. The big ones are always like made of ash or something. Like all the big food tastes like dirt. Half of it is worms. Yeah.

Living in there. Yeah. It's just like most of this weight is worms. Yeah. It's just like, most of this weight is worms. Yeah. I've been weighing grapefruits for a long time now, and I can tell you that's like 65%, 70% worms. Yeah. You just hear a little voice from inside like,

he's right. Like, oh, okay. They're chiming in. Worms agree. Hey, shut up, worms. That's how you treat worms. I love your expertise in this, Abe. This is really thrilling me.

This is genuinely thrilling me. Well, all right. I'm serious. I love it. Because also, folks should know, I definitely picked this topic for us with absolutely no knowledge of your guys' grapefruit preferences or habits or back. It's pretty random, the choice.

So this is very exciting. I enjoyed the fact that there was no way for me to prep for this. There was nothing other than like, okay, I know what a grapefruit is, so here we go, baby. Here we go. Love it. I don't even know what show we're on right now

i just i pull off a mask like it's me joe rogan you're like no no no why i got hoodwinked again let's talk about let's talk about abs you ready to talk about abs does he do that on that show? He talks about muscles a lot. I don't know, man. A lot of muscle talk. I don't know. What a time to be alive.

Yes. Oh, and yeah, speaking of this, we should credit the growers of the grapefruit. It is Doug and Mary Beth Meyer of Slidell, Louisiana. So this is an American grapefruit. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, USA, Louisiana. So this is an American grapefruit. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. USA, baby. Well, next number here, speaking of the innards of a grapefruit, the number is up to 91%.

And up to 91% is the amount of an average grapefruit that is water, according to the USDA. This is just like a standard grapefruit? Yeah, not this freaky one. Like just a normal grapefruit. You're going to get about 91% water, 8% carbohydrates, 1% protein. That's what it's made of. That all seems above board. I don't know. I don't really know the compositions of fruits. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's a lot of water.

That makes sense. Is it more or less than like an orange or a watermelon or something? Yeah, and then I had the same question, and according to the same site, oranges are 87% water. So it's similar to a citrus. You know, I guess citruses are a bunch of water a lot of the time. Yeah. Yeah.

That makes sense. Next number here is the number two. So try to hold on to that number two. Okay. Got it. This is the number of grapefruits that Hunter S. Thompson said that he tried to eat each day. Two entire grapefruits. I do remember this.

I remember this too, because there was that, I think it's like a meme at some point. There was Hunter S. Thompson's, uh like journalists followed him during the day and just documented what he ate and drank yes is that what you're citing yeah i've seen that and it's like mostly cocaine and grape right right yep mostly cocaine grapefruit uh and cigarettes the like a brand of dunhill cigarettes yeah And alcohol. I'm pretty sure he just poured vodka into the grapefruit, which now that I say it sounds amazing. That is kind of a cool idea. So here's my hottest take thus far.

Hunter S. Thompson is not going to be remembered historically as that significant. Like, I don't think he's Mark Twain. I agree. Like, I think he's more like fun like he's kind of a fun figure and the fact that we know how many grapefruits he ate is part of the fun of it

but like he's not yeah uh he's yeah that's it i said it my hot takes out there yeah if you'd like to tweet me at my my twitter handles at abe the mighty you can send me all your angry. Go yourself. Oh, I'm sorry. We don't swear here. It's all right. It's all right. Now you get double the tweets.

Punishment. No. No. It's silly. And I agree. I haven't really read much of Hunter S. Thompson, but I find it just okay. But I'm very interested in, like Abe said, this journalist, E. Jean Carroll is her name, and she followed him around for a day. He woke up at 3pm, went to bed at 8.20am,

and then somewhere between midnight and six o'clock had a bunch of alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, coffee, cigarettes, and then orange juice and grapefruitfruit that was what he consumed for like six hours of the night at what age is he doing this oh great question uh i don't know because like this is an old yeah i assume so probably middle age when i was 25 sure that's that's not great but it's like i could yeah i could do that for six months maybe. Now, older, I'll be dead instantly. Like two cigarettes, half a grapefruit, and one handle of vodka, and it's like, write my eulogy, Schmitty. It's your turn. Remember me fondly.

I like that you land with a handle of vodka. That kind of makes the grapefruit and the cigarettes not really an important part of that and the cigarettes not really the problem i wasn't trying to peg grapefruit as the culprit they're just in the life with extreme grapefruit next number here is 1939 1939 is the year that national geographic featured a woman wearing a dress made out of grapefruit peels. And I sent you guys an old picture of this. It's a lady in a dress made

entirely of grapefruit peels stitched together. Yeah. I loved it so much. Yeah, this is... I did. I genuinely loved that dress. She looks like a mermaid. That is cool. She's a mermaid, right? Yeah, yeah. Right. It looks nice, right? Yes. It's surprisingly good. It looked good good i had to

look at it again like those are grapefruits damn yeah like it looked really good and i think it's just the peels kind of they look almost like fish scales kind of yeah and that's just the design of the dress right yeah that was kind of just how they did it it was in celebration of the rio grande delta having their grapefruit harvest so like the southern tip of texas uh they celebrated by making this dress out of out of the fruit peels yeah it's it's fruit cosplay uh yeah and that's what it is uh yeah basically and it was really well done like that's how i feel about every cosplay i see every single one pass it in front of my eyes i'm like and if it gets to me it's usually pretty good you know because i'm not out there searching for it you gotta really hunt down my eyes to make me look at cosplay so like if it gets for me i'm like great

that's pretty good it's nice looking right whatever bubbles to the top of twitter around halloween exactly usually great yeah yeah yeah that's how this was well done fruit woman and we got another year here uh this is the year 2008 and the year 2008 is the year that the pamplemousse flavor was introduced by lacroix good folks at lacroix oh yeah with uh the i think the only flavor they do that is french named the rest are just what the fruit's called in english but pamplemousse is grapefruit why did they do that lacroix french company i looked everywhere i couldn't find why yeah i really don't know they know exactly who they were is why abe they knew exactly who they

were lacroix was on brand immediately from the very beginning always consistently ceases to make sense to me in general it's like the eaching of drinks it's like it's just like it's so many in a way it's my nemesis because i can't crack i can't crack why like i'm just like okay good choice and my friends love it this is great i'm happy for everybody but why my question is why is this here why am i confronted because when everyone like that year that everyone went crazy for lacroix suddenly everyone's like oh yeah love it you know it's just like okay cool it was very unquestioned it was very unquestioned like like somebody showed up to every party with a pallet of lacroix all of us were like sure but then like four of us were like this this is everything I'm going to do for the next three years.

The rest of the Obama administration is this. It's going to be everywhere. You can't hide from it. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Yeah. Well, we got two more numbers here and they go together and they're from the world of movies. The first number is $557,000 American. And that is the worldwide box office for The Public Enemy, a 1931 movie starring James Cagney. In like today's money, that's about eight and a half million dollars

box office. But that movie has what's called the grapefruit scene, where James Cagney in apparently the biggest movie of his entire career, is having breakfast with a lady and then hits her with his grapefruit. And he's playing a villain. Like, we're supposed to be mad about it. Yeah. But it's still like, what the hell? I mean, I haven't seen this movie. It was not a pleasant scene.

It was very unpleasant. It's like 40 seconds, too. And he's like, he's just every time he opens his f***ing flapper, it's just like, you know what? You need to go. Yeah. Yes. he opens his f***ing flapper it's just like you know what you need to go yeah yes the first thing he says when he like and at the beginning of the clip is you got a drink in this house like she must serve him

at breakfast right it's that's correct he he it's the it's that everything you don't want to see out of like a male figure in a movie he's every single thing you don't want to see and he like a male figure in a movie. He's every single thing you don't want to see. And he's just so mean, like legit mean. It's like what? Yeah, this was a big time for gangster movies. Apparently, box office records were set by the movie Little Caesar starring

Edward G. Robinson, not about pizza, about a gangster. And then this was the next gangster movie that knocked it out. And you're supposed to just completely hate James Cagney, including when he meanly hits a lady with a grapefruit. And so people walked out of this major movie saying like, the grapefruit scene, can you believe it? Cut to the year 2017. Our other number is $140 million, which is the worldwide box office for Girls Trip 2017, which is a very fun and wild comedy that also features a grapefruit scene that everyone talked about. Weird thing. You said 140 million?

Yeah. And like today's dollars, Public Enemy made 8.5 million about. And then Girls Trip made 140 million worldwide. Wow. That's crazy. Huge hit. Yeah. That's a statement, I guess.

That scene is, the girl strip one is incredible. It's an incredible scene. I've never seen the movie. I had never heard the spiel about this scene. I know why people are talking about it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We'll link it because I think the rating I've chosen for the podcast is real preventative here.

But it's Tiffany Haddish describing a wild and definitely fictional sex act involving a grapefruit yeah well the thing that's so good about it is not it's the commitment that she has when she's doing it that's what makes it that's what makes it so funny is like she's cavalier about yes and also committed like she's really going for it on this thing uh that's all uh i can hardly recommend it for yucks i'll give it two yucks up you know it's pretty good i also like that she just like i like her just off the cuff like oh you want an answer for like basically how to get a guy just grapefruit him yep i know right she that's literally like just great such a Seinfeld line. She turned it into a verb. When you turn grapefruit into a verb, like you're owning it.

You know exactly what you mean. Right. Just the total confidence that they will know what she's talking about. No, they don't. Yeah. No one's done this in the entire world. Oh, you want me to clarify? Okay, I will.

We got three big takeaways here. Let's get into them. Takeaway number one. Grapefruits were created by accident on a specific island, thanks to the sexy mutant nature of citrus. I know that's a little of a long one, but one more time. Grapefruits were created by accident on a specific island, thanks to the sexy mutant nature of citrus. That's what's going on. on a specific island thanks to the sexy mutant nature of citrus. That's what's going on.

Yeah, I need more. I have reactions, but I need more before I fly off the handle here. Before you leave the tape completely. That's right. Like, what's spooky about citrus? Yeah. Acid, you know? Do you know? It turns out I do very little about citrus going into this until researching.

Interesting. And it's also the first citrus that an episode has been about. It turns out that all citrus are amazing at crossbreeding and amazing at also mutating on their own. It's a fruit that develops new fruits or combo fruits very easily. We'll link. Heck yeah. It's also the best fruit. Man, killing it, citrus.

That's true. Bananas, slandered. Man, killing it, citrus. That's true. Bananas slandered. Apples slandered. I mean, take note, big apple. Again, if you're upset, tweet at Abe the Mighty. All the times. Give it a shot. All the times.

Give it a shot. So briefly, my grandfather was a citrus farmer. What? Yes. This is germane to this fact. Often, he began to replace his Valencia orange crop with cuties. In fact, that whole area up in Fresno started to replace with cuties, which were a small small mutation obviously because it was an easier fruit to handle like it's literally easier

to peel it and eat it which is so of course consumption numbers went way up and profits went way up because citrus is such a malleable fruit genetically that's amazing yeah he had a citrus farm around fresno oh yeah still he sold it recently but yeah wow yeah 100 dude i can tell you more honestly i can tell you more but i don't want to hijack because it's totally different thing 100 acres ran it himself that's the coolest thing man yeah yeah that is pretty cool yeah i podcast for a living sugar that sugar that podcast sugar that podcast and yeah that that uh is an amazing story and speaks to this thing where we'll have a link from the washington post it's a story called taking a sexy look at citrus

by vicky hallett and it's because the entire citrus genus is sexually compatible with itself, apparently, and also prone to mutation. And so, like, researchers have looked at ancient remains of citrus and decided that a couple of Asian ancestors, the citron, the pomelo, and the mandarin, are, like, them crossbreeding and doing things together generated all of the citrus that we have today over time, which is strange. See, I imagine some kind of citrus Jurassic Park where it's like this fruit was encased in amber and we like got it sweet juices, you know, with a drill. And then you have Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum is like, you've gone too far. You've gone too far. And you're selling it. He stood on the shoulders of citrus fruit.

Yeah. And then they're in the park and there's just ripples and a glass of LaCroix. And they're like, hmm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Not good. Now you're talking. And then for the finale, a T-Rex-sized grapefruit

descends upon all of our heroes and squashes them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a pitch. Write it down. No. So that's, I love that.

And then so with grapefruit, like the science is a little fuzzy, mostly because European record keeping and European science was just not that accurate a few hundred years ago. But this is coming from an article in Quartz, and they cite the Oxford Companion to Food, which says that the first known mention of the grapefruit in the written record dates to the year 1750. mention of the grapefruit in the written record dates to the year 1750 so not that long ago historically uh 1750 on the island of barbados and that's because apparently on barbados a sweet orange from east asia crossbred with a pomelo from java in indonesia and so like all of global trade put these two asian fruits together in together in Barbados and generated the first grapefruit. So just to recap, where are the other two fruits from again? They're from Indonesia.

And where's the other one? Yeah, East Asia. Yeah. It's not about where you're from. It's about what's in your heart. You're right. I have missed the mark once again. Thank you for that.

Yeah. For that spiritual correction. Because they're making love sweet citrus love so what's interesting though is that both of those fruit had to travel to the new world to for that to exist right because barbados isn't near there right i'm not it's in the caribbean isn't it yeah it's in the southern part of the caribbean near south america yeah so that's so trade made that happen exactly yeah yeah i mean i mean i'm sure you i know you said that i'm just it's just all coming i'm just thrilled with this thank you yes it's like a weird it's like i did geography mad lips like how did all of these

things come together but they did apparently that's how it happened interesting so sorry if i missed it because there was a lot of information to unpack there. Where were the first grapefruit trees planted? It's the kind of thing where they grew and were continued to be planted in this island, Barbados. It was also first recorded by a guy named the Reverend Griffith Hughes, who was a minister from Wales. He also, in his records, he called it, quote, the forbidden fruit. And we don't know why. Apparently, he just thought it's like, oh, it's new to me. So it must be the fruit from Eden.

Ha ha ha. And then confused everybody. I feel like I'm on pretty solid ground here having learned these facts. But when I decide this, that grapefruit are clearly made by pirates. Right? I think we have pretty good ground hereados pretty good ground here forbidden fruit it exists in the caribbean in that time period where pirates were it's a pirate fruit because it's also the kind of thing where between it being history and confusing science like we don't know if this was on purpose or not like it could have been right that somebody grafted one fruit onto the

other fruits tree or it's from natural cross-pollination between the flowers of the trees. We don't really know how it started, but we know it started there. Okay. So the pirate fruit. I'm starting to like grapefruits more. Starting to like them a little more, Abe. Nah.

You're going to have to... Look, they have a lot of ground they've got to cover for me. Sure, but next breakfast, just put an eye patch on it and see how much you like it. Just put an eye patch on that grapefruit you're gonna like it better i'm telling you well just and just so listeners at home can know abe right now is dressed in the british navy uniforms from pirates of the caribbean so he's pretty opposed actually to piracy uh more trade please yeah yeah oranges for the crown Oranges for the crown.

Oranges only for the crown. Yes. That's what he was saying before we started recording. A good hour. A good hour to stop saying it. Yeah, yeah. Well, and the one other thing, like the name grapefruit is confusing, right? Because it doesn't look like grapes.

Why? Another reason it's a garbage fruit. Get named correctly, a**hole. Come on. Come on. Well, and apparently the reason it got that name is that on Barbados, the early version of grapefruits kind of were smaller and grew in clusters. And the French word for cluster is Graps, like G-R-A-P-P-E-S.

So they, the name is like a French English mess from Barbados that means cluster fruit. Uh, and now they're bigger and almost more melon shaped, but, but that was the situation before. That's why it's named that.

That is secretly. I, I, But that was the situation before. That's why it's named that. That is secretly... The podcast title. Yeah. And it all comes full grapefruit. Yeah. The fact that it got bigger makes sense because, like, isn't it true that, like, we do that to everything we farm with? You know, like...

Yeah. Turkeys can't even copulate because they're too big now yeah almonds used to be amoeba sized we like you know we bred them to be impossible scientists estimate almonds are going to be like cat sized by the end of the millennium yeah everything just gets bigger actually that's just the way of things you know like just all fruit all animals just slightly getting bigger over time i'm a science guy and it's science yeah yeah james on the giant peach is a work of distant futurism where peaches have become homes yeah yeah yeah man who's the worm now you know that

should be the tagline because also one one last fact within this takeaway is that with grapefruits changing, because citrus mutate and reproduce so easily, like the things we think of as what grapefruits are a lot of times came from one specific mutation or place because grapefruit were brought to America. And then in 1910, a farmer named Kimball Chase Atwood. Hello, Kimball Chase Atwood. What a name. My God. That's a hero's name. Give that man a cape. All right, sorry. Please go on. And so he, one of his workers on his farm discovered that a tree was producing

pink colored grapefruits. And then apparently, according to Atlas Obscura, that's the origin of most pink grapefruits that we think of. And then a similar thing happened in 1929 in Texas with a pink grapefruit tree growing a red grapefruit. And then they were like, graph this onto everything. We got to have red ones and patented it and everything. So they like literally, they have a mind of their own. Yeah, yeah.

Like we can't stop them. Yeah, they just reproduce and mutate however they want to all their own. Yeah, yeah. Like we can't stop them. Yeah, they just reproduce and mutate however they want to all the time. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we don't know its origin, truly. No one can say this is the first. Yeah, it's a pirate story, so it's a matter of legend. I'm whipping out the aliens card, guys. It's aliens.

There we go. Yeah, I'm throwing it down i like i like abe i like it you're a forward thinker i like this put an eye put an eye patch on that alien and i'm all the way in oh pirate aliens oh god oh god alien pirates weigh in on that i love the idea that aliens invented us a food and it's a like a medium unpopular fruit oh yeah that's what they can come up with they're the worst invaders and they're just the entire cosmos they're just surveying us but it's very good it's a very good fruit i really thought they'd like it it's like i just watched a tng episode where reicher makes scrambled eggs by hand but it's from alien eggs and only warf likes it like Like it's one of those, you know? Yeah, yeah. Everyone thinks it's horrible.

But he loves it because he's weird. Because he's a Klingon. God, what a show. Breaking down barriers about eggs. Mainly, yeah. All right. Off of that, we're going to a short break, followed by the big takeaways. See you in a sec.

I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie,

Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace. Because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls.

Well, let's go into our next takeaway here. Takeaway number two. America spent the mid-20th century trying weird grapefruit experiments. Okay. That's what we got up to in the 30s, 40s, 50s. That was what the U.S. was doing. That was our thing. All right, go on.

Yep. This is already like, yeah, of course we did you know so we got up to we got up to some dumb stuff yeah it was like grapefruits and mk ultra that was the 50s because there's four different stories here and some of them are scientific experiments some of them are social experiments but but as a country, we were just trying stuff. And the first one is that in the 1930s, and this is according to Quartz, quote, supposedly it was the Great Depression that put the grapefruit in front of a wide audience during which surplus grapefruit, along with other agricultural extras, were handed out to hungry families, end quote. Yeah, they're just giving them away yeah what why you ask why why i wonder why grapefruits why not like apples why you know where i'm going with this it's the garbage fruit you give it to the it's true to the poor people

because it's like it's i mean it's a little bit of nutrition, a little bit, but it's like, ah, we got fruit today. It's like, ah, it's a grapefruit. Ah, shucks. Like, that's everybody in the depression. But they were happier for it because why? It's the depression. I like to think that they rejected the grapefruit the same way that they did that period of time where we're trying just giving out stipends and people were like, no, no, I need to work for my money.

Right. Right? You know how we tried that? So they give the grapefruits. No, no, I'm sorry. I need a real fruit here. I'll work to earn it. You know?

Also, they're all newsies. Everyone in the 30s is a newsie to me. Everybody. I'm a hobo, see? Yeah, that was everyone. Gotta get these papes out. I'd rather ride the rails than eat that fruit.

That's a disastrous melon, if you ask me. Yeah, yeah. And it's pretty much what we're saying. Like, the government said, okay, the economy is collapsing. The popular food is more in demand, and we're limited on it. What are some, like, less popular weird fruits and other foods that we can give to people for food stamps or for free? And so grapefruits were distributed much more widely because they were like, well, what else do we got in the larder of American foods?

Let's try it on the people. Apparently, as recently as the 1930s, grapefruit were like surprising to people. They were not used to seeing them or being offered them because on the one hand you have this grapefruit handout and then also in the 1930s people started trying something called the grapefruit diet which was also known as the hollywood diet because it was associated with movie stars sure it was considered to be that yeah yeah this is gonna be awful well i mean you but this is obvious right a great there's a lot of there's a lot of actual material to a grapefruit so it feels like you're eating a lot even though you're not taking in that much caloric intake yeah right it's water and it's and it's fruit so it's fruit

equals healthy you know like you can see it you know i mean exactly it's just pulp it's just watery pulp that's slightly your your your disenfranchisement with the fruit of your childhood is fueling my joy right now. I can't lie to you. Don't knock it. Don't knock it. Let me have it. I really... I love that I'm doing this with a nemesis of grapefruit.

It's really just a lot of fun. It's the best. Yes. Yes. Because, yeah, there's various stories of exactly how the diet works and where it came from. But according to Alice Obscura, quote, many of these diets required eating grapefruits as the major part of an extremely low-calorie diet. eating grapefruits as the major part of an extremely low calorie diet,

it probably works in the sense that eating 500 calories a day generally results in weight loss, but it's widely considered unsafe, end quote. Right, yeah. I mean, right, yeah. It's just a crash diet with the branding of, ooh, a fruit you don't always think about. That's basically it. That's a pass for advertisement always i guess that's always been true we're just suckers for that kind of stuff like we seem to be like oh

you know it reminds me of that mad men scene where he goes like your cigarettes are toasted yeah yeah nonsense that's a good point ours are toasted that's right yours are cancerous ours are toasted that's right i'm gonna invent a thing i don That's right. Yours are cancerous. Ours are toasted. That's right. I'm going to invent a thing. I don't know what fruit is around. I don't know. Did you look in the trash? Yes.

Oh, here's a grapefruit. That's it. Make it a diet. Let's go home. The amount of stupidity the people in your analogy have is just incredible. Oh, I don't know. i need to sell a grapefruit they look in a trash can to find the fruit and they find it prove me wrong adam yeah i love it i love it so much also that branding thing's very true because the other thing that sold this diet is a legend that that the medical establishment has had to fight since then.

The rumor about the grapefruit diet is that actress Ethel Barrymore paid the Mayo Brothers $500 to come up with a special diet for her. Wait, the Brothers Mayo? Yeah, as in like... Like the people who invented mayonnaise? No. That'd be also incredible. Oh, I thought you were doing like... Like the people invented mayonnaise? No. That'd be also incredible. Oh, I thought you were doing like a comparison. No, no, no.

Mayonnaise is a pirate sausage. It's also described... Okay. When I said Mayo Brothers, that's because a couple of brothers named Mayo created the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, like one of the top health facilities in the world. Wow. And the Mayo Clinic has disavowed the diet and also insists they had nothing to do with it.

But there was just a lie going around that not only is a grapefruit diet good for you, but also these amazing health people created it, was what everybody in the 30s thought for a while. We hate this idea, and history's not true. That's like a bold statement coming from like, I guess it's a clinic. So like,

if it comes out of a clinic, I'm going to be like, let's probably listen to what they have to say. But like, you could just do it. You could say anything if you're a clinic and most people will believe it. That's the fact. I'm enjoying the dark scene that happened in the Mayo Clinic where they were

like, how can we get away from this grapefruit story my god it's crushing us it's crushing us what are we gonna do no kidding you know guys i got it i got it we're smoking a lot of cigarettes in this health clinic but we're doing it sam ramey's there it's great right yeah it's the 30s so they're like we're not idiots who think grapefruits are healthy. We think cigarettes are healthy. Come on. Exactly. Come on.

We're experts. But these people believe whatever you'll tell them. Well, another story here. So then in the 1940s, industry, because of world events, started trying to trick people into eating grapefruit with salt instead of sugar. So that was the 1940s. The new experiment was people are eating it with sugar because that makes it less horrible tasting. But what happened is World War II.

And so there was rationing of sugar. Sugar prices go way up. And then from there, and this is all according to NPR, they have a great blog called The Salt About Food. When sugar prices went way up, sugar sales went down, and then also grapefruit sales went down. Because people were like, well, I don't have the condiments. I'm not going to eat this horrible fruit anymore. Like, forget it.

And so then companies selling either product, grapefruit or salt, started saying, hey, you should have it with salt. And like Morton's Salt put out an ad where the tagline was grapefruit tastes sweeter with salt. Just because of wartime stuff, they tried to switch people completely. Everyone kind of knew, even though they were saying it, everyone kind of knew like, yeah, you're running out of sugar, we get it. We're in the middle of a war.

I can't think of a single, I mean, I'm sure you guys are going to immediately think of one and make me a fool. I can't think of a single i mean i'm sure you guys are going to immediately think of one and make me a fool i can't think of a single like taste profile of like a substance a food that is bitter and salty unless sweet is in the equation and grapefruits aren't naturally sweet right yeah there's like some sugar to it but like you say it's such a bitter fruit that people were like i need to up the sugar content immediately like i gotta do it immediately which i don't do with apples or oranges right or any actual fruit yeah i like the idea that they tried to just patriot they tried to make grapefruit patriotic by making

it more terrible yeah that's my favorite thing right that's my favorite thing it's like the most american thing in fact yeah it's not a grapefruit it's a patriot salt in complete squalor and we need to make it better somehow by deluding ourselves yeah and then and the other weird thing about this campaign is they were just like trying a trick. They were like, maybe this will convince people. But since then, in the mid 1990s, two scientists at the Monell Chemical Census Center in Philadelphia studied like how grapefruit with salt actually hits you. And they said that by testing the interaction between three taste sensations, salty, bitter, and sweet, they found that salt increased the perception of sweetness by diminishing our ability to taste bitterness. Oh,

that's a little confusing, but that's kind of like, it kind of works. Like you get shot in the leg and it's kind of like pinching your arm. It's like, you don't feel the leg as much now, do you? Yeah.

Kind of. Yeah. It's a trick like that. Yeah. It's a, it doesn't hold water. much now, do you? Yeah, it's a trick like that. It doesn't hold water. They must have had somebody test it, right? They must have had somebody test it, right? I mean, who knows?

I'm sure people tasted this before. Like somebody tasted it and somebody liked it out there. But apparently until the 90s, we didn't actually check scientifically. We were just like, ah, maybe it works. It was just sort of like a it was like a byword it was a cultural byword let's salt our grapefruit right horton over there loves it they look over horton's like it's okay by all means let corporations run amok run wild with their declarative statements this will be good for the economy and our nation it was really the grapefruit when they began to lose faith in the beginning you know it was the

the more i think about it as a boy when i was radicalized it was because of the grapefruit i'm gonna say it i'm gonna say it well and uh one more grapefruit experiment here this This is from the 1950s, and it's something called atomic gardening. Have you guys ever heard of atomic gardening? I'm so ready. I'm so ready for this. I actually have, but I want you to go. I want you to fly.

Oh, thank you. The main source here is an amazing episode of 99% Invisible. The podcast is called Atom and the Garden of Eden, produced by Sharif Yusuf. Because in 1953, Eisenhower gives a speech about the idea of atoms for peace, and says, we got to use radiation for like good stuff. What can we do? And so then- Best part of American history, by the way. The best.

And so one thing they tried is gamma gardens, which is where they would grow plants and also blast as much radiation into them as they possibly could. And it mostly just led to really like deformed or dead plants. However, one test that they did created the Rio Star variety of grapefruit. And that kind of grapefruit is now 75% of Texas grapefruit. It's by far the dominant kind. And it came from this attempt to just use radiation. Like there's a historian on the episode and they describe it as like hitting a genome with a hammer and just seeing what happens. It wasn't a very sophisticated test, but it worked for grapefruit. They got a new one out of it. Yeah. If only they could do with people you know we killed we killed like 10 10 000 people but one of them became a superman so you know yeah so we did get a superman out of it super grapefruit uh imagine you're a scientist during the atomic age it's fascinating to no end because they use the like cobalt 60

because i was reading up about this after you sent this. Oh, yeah. I sent a picture of the diagram of like how it works. Yeah. It's a big box of radiation under the ground and then plants and circles out from it. So the idea is that through radioactive decay, it's shooting gamma rays at your fruits and they're just hoping it's going to just like mess up the DNA in a interesting way, which is just like the equivalent of going like, all right, so let's just give these fruits cancer and see if we like it. They literally just would try anything with the atomic philosophy of like, let's radiate stuff. I don't know. It just messes with you. philosophy of like, let's radiate stuff.

I don't know. It messes with you. It changes your, it breaks up your DNA. That's not good. But they're like, okay, but like, it's really changing stuff in a way we've never seen before. So we should do this, right? And everyone's like, yes. Yeah, that's all dead on. Well, I think let's go into our

final takeaway of the main episode here, because it's a quick story and I'm extra excited to talk to you guys about it. Takeaway number three. The Brooklyn Dodgers once hired a pilot to dive bomb their manager with a grapefruit. That can't- And I saw saw adam who is a dodgers fan nodding about this uh we only make good decisions uh usa usa uh 2020 world champions um i love this what's not to love about it what's honestly what's not to love about it this is like the best it's such a baseball thing to do. Did he die? Is my question. So he did not die.

No. Okay. Because that's. Oh, he lived. That seems like that would kill a man. Baseball is full of like slightly creative pranksters. Like they're not geniuses. You know what I mean?

But like they're a little better than the average prankster. And I love the shit out of that. I love it. Setting fire to each other's shoelaces and stuff. You know like this fits right in. Fits right in there.

I love that we've gotten to this part of the podcast though where I have to once again mention that we're now making it a ballistic, like a bullet because we have nothing else to do with the grapefruit may as well shoot it just huck them at the enemy and also part of this story borderline is hey i found a grapefruit in the trash do you want to use that like it is this is actually what happened yeah this is so yeah here we go uh what happened yeah this is so yeah here we go uh ames theories are confirmed yes sir yeah i love it like uh and and like i said earlier florida is a huge grapefruit growing state like other than

oranges that's that's kind of the big thing they grow and the brooklyn dodgers were at 1915 spring training in daytona beach florida and for people who't know, the LA Dodgers now used to be the Brooklyn Dodgers in New York. And they had a manager named Wilbert Robinson. And Wilbert Robinson was so popular, they changed the name of the team to the Brooklyn Robins in honor of his name for a while. So he managed them for 18 years. He was a very distinguished Dodgers person. managed them for 18 years he was a very distinguished uh dodgers person uh an icon of we got we got like four guys like that we got we got lasorda we got vince scully we got this guy you know we got a few guys that's true it's great they really stick to like uh like figures as figureheads yeah lasorda is the best yeah like don't ever come to me with any trash about tommy lasorda we love him over here no no

we love him over here he falls asleep at games instantly now shows up to games falls asleep he's like 90 he's like 90 years old that's all he can do you're right they were gonna call it the los angeles sorts the la sort of uh led to and so what's happening here is wilbert robinson was also he was a catcher for the orioles and the philadelphia athletics and was like an actual baseball player before he was a manager so he's capable of catching a thing and what's happening is meanwhile in florida there's this is the 1910s so there's a lady who's an aviatrix, a female pilot, and her name is Ruth Law, and she is doing a thing for a local golf course where she drops golf balls as a promotional thing.

I assume safely, I don't really know, but she's doing that. How safe could it be in the 30s or whatever? What year was this, did you say? 1915, so even worse, yeah. Oh, there's no precision in the airplane in or whatever what year was this did you say 1915 so even worse yeah oh 1950 oh there's no precision in the airplane in 1950 yeah several people died because of this stunt all right i'll tell you if she had grapefruits that's what she'd be dropping so right right and they they basically

said that in real life because what happened is uh is the Dodgers heard about the golf stunt and they said, hey, Ruth Law, we'd like to hire you to do like a PR event where you drop a baseball. And then former catcher, current manager, Wilbert Robinson catches it like from the air. Right. That's exciting. That's a nice stunt. That is cool. Yeah. That's like an alley-oop from a plane.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's dangerous, but like an idea, you know? Yeah. But what happens is they plan this and they say, okay, Wilbert, you wait here. We're going to drop a baseball. And then at the location where the plane is taking off, they realize they have not been provided with a baseball.

They don't have one. They're not ready. Incredible. This is already incredible. And according to the Sorzier ESPN And also the Society for American Baseball Research They say that a ground crew member suggested to pilot Ruth Law Hey, what about this grapefruit I found?

Why don't you just use that? They're like, grapefruits are American, like baseball Let's go Also, weren't baseballs brown then? So, like, maybe it actually kind of looked like it. Yeah, probably. Because this is, what, 1915, you said? It's a smaller grapefruit at that time, and maybe it's similar.

Maybe it actually kind of looks like it. Yeah, and for people who don't know, baseballs, they were bigger at the time. But either way, they're smaller than, like, a grapefruit is bigger and heavier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, grapefruits are smaller at the time. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying is I think it's actually a weird confluence where that might not be that crazy of a salute, like a switch. Yeah, that's true. And so I think that's

what they thought on the ground. But they say, okay, we'll just do that. Plane takes off, Wilbert is on the ground anticipating a baseball. And then, according to Sabre, quote, the grapefruit landed in Robinson's mitt and exploded, knocking him down and drenching him in warm juice. And then what happens is, Robinson believed that he had been mortally

wounded and covered in his own blood. He called for help from his players, but they merely doubled over in laughter. This is the best. This is the best. Thank you. Go Dodgers.

Oh my God. That's the best. Do you see? He thinks he died. He thinks he died because he's got grapefruit all over him. He's got gore from this grapefruit all over him. Oh, my God. I'm in pain and I'm dying. And nearby are these baseball players yucking it up.

Right. Love it. That probably looked so funny. That probably looked funny. That probably looked incredibly funny. Yeah. Like he's trying to catch a thing out of a plane. It blasts into pieces all over him.

And he's like, I'm hurt. Oh, my God. I'm hurt. It literally sounds like something it's the best in the simpsons you know and just everyone leaves them and laughs at like leaves them on the field and laughs at him and he's like why why am i being laughed at it's a nelson moment right the entire team and then they walk off it really is and his own team did it to him like this this is nobody else's fault like this is yeah yeah this

isn't like a sabotage or anything this is like that would be fun this is what they thought would be fun it's like every time you ever saw some like people like let's go water skiing but instead of water skiing let's climb on top of each other like a pyramid and see if we can continue to water ski right a thing that is like that is kind of impressive, but no fun for anybody. Nobody's having any fun at all. People in the audience are going like, whoa, they made a pyramid.

I like this. This I like. This is a thing that I, I with my money will pay for. Continue to do this. A man just sitting there having worked a long year in the coal mines or whatever, looks over at his wife. This I like.

This I like. I'm on board with this. The triangle and everything. More pyramids. Ah, it's great. More pyramids. That's what we need, Margie. More pyramids.

Wow. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Abe Epperson and Adam Ganser for splitting this topic in half and scooping out the good stuff. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, because patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is Grapefruit, because Grapefruit is the title of a 1964 art book by the conceptual artist Yoko Ono. One of Yoko Ono's masterworks is called Grapefruit. That's a thing.

Visit SIFpod.fun for the bonus show all about that, for a library of more than a dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring grapefruit with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, grapefruits were created by accident on the island of Barbados thanks to the sexy mutant nature of citrus. Takeaway number two, America spent the whole mid-20th century trying out weird grapefruit experiments.

And takeaway number three, the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team once hired a pilot to dive bomb their manager with a grapefruit. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Patreon.com slash small beans is your friend. You'll find many excellent creators there, including Abe Epperson and Adam Ganser. The two of them co-host a show called Director Peace Theater. Abe co-hosts other shows such as Frame Rate. Adam co-hosts other shows such as the Movie Podcast. I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Anyway, I'm super excited for you to dive deep on these guys, if you have not already, and to check out that whole patreon.com slash small beans situation. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article in the Washington Post. It's called Taking a Sexy Look at Citrus, and it's by Vicki Hallett. A fascinating write-up from NPR's The Salt blog, Grapefruit and Salt, The Science Behind This Unlikely Power Couple, by Nadia Berenstein. A great article from Quartz, it's called Grapefruit, Born in the USA, and that's by Annalise Griffin. And then we've got sources from ESPN and Sabre to corroborate and share that story of Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson

getting dive-bombed by a grapefruit. Find those and more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is unbroken unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say that we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Thank you.