Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Ham!!

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

Alex Schmidt is joined by writer/author Robert Brockway (1900HOTDOG, new novel ’Carrier Wave’) and writer/game creator Seanbaby (1900HOTDOG, game ‘Calculords’) for a look at why ham is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode. (Alex's podcast hosting service requires a minimum of 5 characters per episode title, so that's why this episode's title has 2 exclamation points)

Ham. Known for being a meat. Famous for being a meat from pigs. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why ham 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. I'm joined by two wonderful comedy writers and people who are making one of my favorite websites in the entire world. Robert Brockway and Sean Baby are on the show this week. Robert Brockway and Sean Baby. Robert and Sean are the two wonderful comedy minds behind 1-900-HOT-DOG. And 1-900-HOT-DOG is a website. It is not a hotline that's missing a digit. Do you remember a time when comedy websites would have

articles on them that were fun to read, right? And like somebody also put some thought into it and some personality into it and some actual effort into it. Well, let me tell you something. There is a comedy website that is still that way. There is a website out there like that. And it's 1-900-HOT-DOG. They've got new stuff every weekday. There's a Patreon to support it, but a bunch of it is free and right in front of you. I can't recommend 1-900-HOT-DOG enough. I just have fun saying 1-900-HOT900 hot dog. I don't say it out loud a lot. 1-900 hot dog. That's good time. Anyway, Robert and Sean are also former colleagues of mine at the former workplacecrack.com. And then Robert is also a novelist with many exciting books under his belt. Everything from his Vicious Circuit trilogy written for Tor Books, to his latest, which is the post-apocalypse epic,

Carrier Wave. And then Sean's also a gaming writer and a game creator, and I cannot recommend his mobile game enough. It is called Calculords, and it makes math fun. And I am not talking in a, I am tolerating the game math munchers because it's better than school kind of way. I mean, it uses math as a thrilling strategy game mechanic. It's just great. I could go on about these guys. Point is, I'm very glad they're here. 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 Robert recorded this on the traditional land of the Podunk and Wangunk people. Acknowledge Sean recorded this on the traditional land of the Patwin, Muwekma, and Karkin people. 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 ham. Ham is a meat you know. Ham is a meat you could know much better. And a meat that I still need to figure out a podcast title for. The service I use says that podcast titles have to be at least five characters long or they won't put it up. And Ham is three characters long. This is the first time I've had this problem. So we're gonna see what happens. I skated by with socks. I hit exactly five, but this one I'm gonna put two spaces after it and see what happens.

If there's something weird there, that didn't work. So that's just fun. That's going on. Anyway, please sit back or stare at a picture of a pig wondering how it could be such a magic animal. Homer Simpson was right. And either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Robert Brockway and Sean Baby of 1-900-HOT-DOG. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Robert, Sean, it is so good to see you. I so often see the pixelated artistic 1900 hot dog, Robert and Sean, and now I get the real thing. This is great. Yeah, their pixelated versions are better. I gotta say. They're sexier, they're smaller.

I think you're more handsome, but I'm less handsome. Oh, I was gonna say the same thing about you, brother. That's really nice. I'd say bring it in, but we're virtual. Hi, Schmitty, where's your pixelated version? Yeah, I wanna see a pixelated version of you. Schmitty, if you write us seven 1-900-HOTDOCK articles, I'll draw you in pixels.

That is a deal, honestly. I have done one, and then we're on one. It's going great. And it's fantastic. Yeah, I would love to achieve pixels. I learned a lot about hot dogs, and one individual hot dog man. And maybe that's a good way to, every episode, I always start by asking the guests, like, what's your relationship to this topic?

What's your opinion of this topic? I love meats. But also, growing up in Chicago, we're surrounded by it. You know, so my first article for you guys was about an actual hot dog person in Chicago. But how do you guys feel about ham in your life? How does it strike you? I have a question for you, because I do think ham is a very funny word. It's got you. What do you call it?

The short vowel monophthong i don't know you're the smart one but like it has like a whimsy to it when you end a word with an m it's kind of like a bouncy g or a hard k like a like a oingo boingo babe like that's a full punch line because the bouncy g is so silly an m can have that effect if you follow it past a short vowel monophthong. This is all comedy science. I'm sure you guys are up on it. Remedial comedy science. You're way past the ham section of your comedy education.

Ham was chapter one. Where are you? 30 Rock. I think 30 Rock's a great show with lots of fun jokes and good joke density. They actually did a ham joke where the ham was the entire punchline and they tagged it and called it back. And so like that shows the power of ham as a funny word. Yeah.

Maybe not as related to ham as you were hoping. But here's the funny thing about ham. It comes from the butt. But when you order pig butt, they'll give you the pig shoulder. So that's. Oh, this is the kind of timely content I was looking for. Right there. Observational. And ham is such a comedy meat.

I have that same experience you've had, Sean, of like the name is somehow hilarious and the rest of it is somehow hilarious, even though it's like one of the things at the deli counter. Like no one finds turkey funny, really. But it's next to it. Right. It has a hard funny really but it's next to it right it has a hard

k but there's something about the rest of that word that just i also i'm realizing i didn't ask in the run-up like are either of you vegetarian or or else like otherwise uninterested in eating ham like do you all like it very much yeah i like him i was a vegetarian for six years, and then I didn't have the money for it anymore. So now it's all hot dogs. Yeah, that's a substantial ham break. Now I eat whatever I can catch, whatever falls into my lap by providence. I love ham. A go-to move for me when I'm making a homemade mac and cheese, I like to cube up some ham, toss that in as the water's boiling. That's a hot cooking tip, hot ham tip.

Well, yeah, I also eat meat. I enjoy ham. I was like, I didn't pull off six years of vegetarianism, but I was like briefly for a few months vegetarian and I missed eggs the most. The rest of like meats, I just kind of came back to later. I raised chickens for many years. So I don't really see the moral dilemma in eating eggs.

Like, they just drop them wherever they want. Right, they're falling out of them. Chickens are awful creatures. Yeah. Once you spend some time around chicken, you're like, eh, I'm fine eating eggs. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you think that I was, like, a good person? No, I had a girlfriend that was vegetarian.

Oh, it was just... Yeah. Okay, I see. I'm not a good person. I figured was like a good person? No, I had a girlfriend that was vegetarian. Oh, it was just. Yeah. Okay. I'm not a good person. I figured Alex was a good person. Was yours morally driven, Alex? Or was yours lady related? It was like a health attempt.

I was doing fine. And I was like, what if I attempt immortality? And then I missed eggs. Nice. Did it work? That counts as a good person. You're trying to get out also i am still around so maybe i'm immortal now and i like i'll find out later you know i feel like you don't know until age

you might have bought yourself that like day that day or two until the singularity you you made it at 102 you will thank christ that you did that two months of vegetarianism well guys i think from here we can get into our first segment. And on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And that's in a segment called Every Little Statue Does His Magic. Every little number turned me on. Actually, I have prepared my own song here, you if you wouldn't mind oh sean please okay

this is just for you okay it's very mundane alex says it isn't true alex says it's fascinating alex smitty says fuck you because it's dance it It's stats. Shemona. It's stats. It's stats. Shemona. And you get your stats from Jeopardy! Champs. And you get your fucking stats.

Who's stats? That's it. That's for you. All time first. And if you can't. That should be fair use. But if you need uh 20 grand to cover michael jackson's bad uh i'll just venmo you well now that you've said what it is it'll just be a long bleep sound for rights purposes but it'll be fine no more no more

beeps after that my bad i wasn't planning on it. I just got excited. Just got excited. I love it. So the one I did, I want to credit the listener who submitted it. Phil Stewart provided the wildly inferior one I did. That name was submitted by Phil Stewart. We have a new name. He can have credit for mine, too. And then Phil Stewart, he did mine, too.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, if you're looking to litigate, it's Phil Stewart. So that name was submitted by Phil Stewart. We have a new name for this segment every week, submitted by listeners like you. Make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to at SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com, because we're going to rip right into these numbers here. The first one is 18 to 20 percent. And 18 to 20 percent is the approximate amount of a pig's body

that can be made into ham. Ham comes from the butt and also the rear legs of a pig. But I do know if you order pork butt, you always get a shoulder. I've never heard, I've never ordered a pork butt and gotten a ham. Yeah. Give me some butt. Even though ham is from the butt. Right. The parts called the butt are the front shoulder. Yeah.

And then what we think of as the butt, because it's in the back by the legs, that's all ham. All ham all the time. I bet if you ordered pig booty, they'd give you ham. Yeah, yeah. Or something criminal. Filthy and terrible act that none must see. Listeners, write him after you order pig booty in public at a butcher shop. Yeah, that's code.

That's butcher code. I realized going into this, I have been very, like that Homer Simpson famous line about pigs being a magic animal where all the meats come from it. Like, I didn't really know what part of a pig translates to what. So it turns out ham is the rear portion. It also turns out there's the saying living high on the hog, right? Like, oh, he's living high on the hog. He's doing really good.

That is because the choicest cuts of a pig come from upper regions of the pig, from the ribs and the loins. So it's like a directional saying. That's what it means. I practiced a reaction just for your fascinating fact. Ready? Yeah. ribs and the loins so it's like a directional saying that's what it means well i i practiced a reaction just for your fascinating fact ready yeah i did not know that well robert well that was oh right i knew i had to get that one right for your first one i put in all over i'm just gonna take that and have it after everything we talk about like every time i'm not saying it again

you can just loop it yeah that should be in your theme song a couple of times uh next number we have here is the late 1400s the late 1400s are the origin of the word ham for pig meat as the way we're used to it it comes from the old english word ham which means the back of the knee That comes from a Germanic base that means to be crooked. And then it took until the late 1400s for pig legs and butts to be called ham in the English language. And just think, future historians will look back on today as the day they invented pig booty. They'll say the term pig booty was invented in 2020. Comes from old american pig booty

originally referring to a vile butcher sex act i like that i like that it meant crooked originally so that you could still call somebody a ham as an insult yeah so we can still we can still use a perfectly good comedic phonetically comedic insult yeah there you go yeah because it is it is coming from it seems like the name progressed from this is a word for the like rear knees of a pig and then it just sort of bled up to the butt and the thighs and so on it's a weird uh progression i don't know what they called it before it is i don't have a joke about it i just i really like that i like that something can go from the back of the knees up to the butt i I'm like, that sounds really nice. I just can't wait to call somebody a f***ing ham.

See, why make him bleep? Now he's got to go through and do a bleep there. Sorry, Alex. I forgot already. That's all good. Next number here, and I realized I knew nothing about this before

researching it. Next number here is about six months, and about six months. And about six months is the amount of time it takes. Is that how long it takes to cure a ham? It's close. It's to age a Virginia ham. Apparently there are pretty specific specs for a Virginia ham. Is that uniquely regional or can you make a Virginia ham in like Vermont? I believe you can make it anywhere.

Yeah. But people mostly just do it there. It's not like champagne. It's not like champagne. It's not the champagne of meats. If you were like a pet ant, would you be like, technically, it has to be from the Virginia region of ham to be called this. Right, a place called ham.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the recipe, it's about six months of aging. You feed them Virginia peanuts, among other things. And then also you age it to the point where it develops a layer of mold on the outside. And the mold is removed for cooking. But NPR did an article about it. And they interviewed the owner of a traditional Virginia ham shop who says that she receives dozens of angry phone calls from people every year who think they just paid like 130 bucks for moldy ham.

Like they're really angry about what they just bought. Well, they did. So the ham is on the consumer end. They get a ham that still has mold on it. Apparently it is very old school. Yeah. Like they're like, you can take it off. That's to prove.

That's to prove how authentic it is. You got to have that mold on it. Otherwise, how do you know it's a Virginia ham if it's not moldy? Yeah. Seems like a good way to get rid of some moldy hams I have lying around. Just re-market them. You could flood the Virginia ham market with false mold. It's supposed to be there.

Anyway, I'm just scheming. I'm just being a ham over here, a crooked ham. And that leads into this next number here is 40 million. And 40 million is the number of hams produced annually by the country of Spain. And in Spain, it is a bunch of champagne style stuff where there's certifications for various kinds of jamon. And it's some of the most luxurious and fine hams in the world. and it's some of the most luxurious and fine hams in the world. Hamon.

I'm glad. I knew that was coming. I'm glad it happened so I didn't have to prompt you. Phil Stewart, everybody. His spirit resonates through the whole episode. Yeah, yeah. Good for Phil, yeah. Have you guys ever eaten, there's one kind called Hamon Serrano there's another kind called jamon iberico and then there's a few more fancy uh european hams from spain i

don't know if you've ever had them i have been to a lot of cocktail parties where they get real excited about their spanish hams but i i couldn't tell you which ones i ate oh okay i have i worked in a lot of fancy restaurants. So we had to frequently do tastings. And every once in a while, they'd bring in like their exotic ham guy who was never as cool as you would think. Like you wanted him to be like, you wanted him to be like a tango instructor looking guy where he comes in with like peacock shirt and just sexy. Like a Chris Farley type, like an overly agile fat guy yeah you wanted him to be like something special but it was always just like a guy with a briefcase and then the briefcase had ham in it you really i really want to eat ham out of a briefcase but all right i'd

call it a ham case i mean it's good i couldn't tell you anything else about it do they make special briefcases just for ham what What are those called, Alex? That's a Virginia briefcase for sure. It's a case from the Virginia region of brief, so that's how it works. Well, and from there, I think we can get into, there's three big takeaways

of the episode, and the first one has another exciting number in it. Takeaway number one. Across history, a few guys have found weird reasons to carry hams around with them day to day. I know that's a little bit of a lengthy takeaway. Are we supposed to guess?

I don't think so. No. There's just two stories here. Distracting enemies. No. You got an enemy. They're coming at you you there's too many to fight throw a ham one to two enemies are going to detach from that main group related much more

manageable number of people to fight cheap armor that's true a good ham will take a bullet yeah or whatever take a even just like a punch somebody coming in for a punch ham them if you were wearing a ham i would punch you i know you i know digressions are normal in a podcast but is this too much digression from the i'm assuming you're gonna cut like 90 of this so just trusting you like a butcher i shall select the finest cuts. The finest cuts of ham punching. Well, we got these two stories here, and I'll say that takeaway again because it was long. Across history, a few guys have found weird reasons to carry hams around with them day to day.

And I feel it's hard to bring a ham with you place to place. But the first story here is from Atlas Obscura. It is the tale of what is now a 118-year-old ham. This 118-year-old ham is reportedly the world's oldest ham that is still edible. No. Who would eat it? Like, how can they prove that, aside from just eating it and seeing if somebody dies? Yeah, apparently they had microbiologists examine it.

And I'm trusting them. Yeah, that's all I know. The answer is way stupider than I thought. Okay. What a day at work it was for that microbiologist. His friends are like curing diseases. And they're like, where are you taking off to today? He's like, I gotta go see if this ham is still edible.

It's 118 years old. They're like, buddy, we're trying to do some real work here. I'm checking out the article was not written during COVID, which makes me feel better. Like that's a real, it's a real miss by your department. They're pulling real disease researchers off for this. Like, hey, hey, come on. Off the COVID. We gotta check out some ham. You gotta keep them busy. It's money. You got that ham money baby

and this weird ham here it was treated as a pet I don't mean like the pig was somebody's pet the ham was the pet of a food company owner he put like a little collar on it up by the bone part

and it's still there that's adorable that's a nightmare if i was in someone's home and they had a ham and a collar i would just immediately start fighting them immediately i know what this is about you won't get me into that basement no good will ever come from what you've done here i will i will defend myself also like you walk in and they're immediately like, don't worry, it's not human. And you're like, nah, now I'm worried.

It's not a good explanation. That's a no-win scenario, though. I don't think it's better if it's ham. If it was human, I'd say, okay, you're just a murderer. If it's ham, I'm like, oh, no, there's something much stranger going on here. That's my point. That's the point I'm trying to oh no, there's something much stranger going on here. That's my point. That's the point I'm trying to make about this ham. Well, and this ham, it was a patent also kind of advertising.

Because what happened is it was cured in 1902. And I guess if people don't know, curing is a way of preserving and completing ham and cooking. But this was done by the Gwaltney Foods Company in Virginia. And then they lost this ham. And it was lost for two decades. It ran away. How long do you look for a ham? I'm missing a ham.

Five minutes later, I lost a ham. I'm not currently looking for the ham after five minutes. 20 years go by. It's a beloved pet, Sean. You have like a whole new team of ham detectives on this? Looking for the ham after five minutes. 20 years go by. It's a beloved pet, Sean. You have like a whole new team of ham detectives on this? It would be the next generation. My grandfather died looking for that ham. Ham the next generation.

TNG. So a wonderful name is about to come into the story. Pembroke D. Gwaltney Jr. That's pretty good. Is a guy. And he, according to, Obscura, quote, on its rediscovery two decades later, the elated Pembroke Deke Waltney Jr. made the piece of pork his pet ham.

He put a brass collar on it and paraded it around various expositions to prove to customers his meat could be kept without being refrigerated. End quote. 10 out of 10 for this story. I love every detail of this insane story. My only note is that it's too insane to possibly be real, but I love that you told it to us. I don't trust you.

I don't believe you. I don't even like you anymore. I'm just lying. The end of our relationship. Ham pranks with Alex Schmitty. Man, you really had to go all out back in the day just to sell a food product. Like now they put a package on it and you're like, hey, maybe I'll try that. Then you had to start a pet and parade it around the town.

Be like, my ham is worthy of being, it's worthy of your affection. So we've also had a hundred years to ask, like no one thought to say, how are you certain this is the same ham from 20 years ago? Like, was there a microbiologist back then to verify, yes, this is your ham from the samples I took 20 years ago? No, you just look for the rings. Cut it open, count the rings.

Count the ham rings, that's how old it is wouldn't it be terrifying if over time it got bigger oh man not into it just like a tree it yeah at a certain point it must like it must lose all of its moisture and then just accumulate mold layers so also the other thing about this ham is, we're not going to take the time to do it, but you at home can right now view this ham, because the ham is part of a museum collection. Apparently, Virginia has a county called the Isle of Wight County. So the ham is in the collection of the Isle of Wight County Museum

in this county in Virginia. And they have an online ham cam. Also, the museum's closed, but I checked. The camera's still running. You can see this empty, small museum with a ham in it if you'd like to. You can just fire it up. This is another one of Alex Schmidty's ham pranks. If you go to online ham cam.

You're not getting. Terrible, terrible. You're going to know what a pig booty is. Yeah, you're going to know what a pig booty is for sure, you're going to know what a pig booty is for sure. You're going to see it. You're going to see it in action, and it is wet. And I can't emphasize enough, this business owner was like going around the world saying, I own a food business.

And people are like, really? And he's like, yes, slap a ham on the table. Like, I've done it. I'm the best. His business model is to sell one ham for $14 million and it's taken him 118 years to find one sucker and he finally did.

It all paid off. Now his grandchildren are rich. And the other old carrying around ham story here is coming from National Geographic. It's an article by Tracy Watson and the title of the article is Ancient Sundial Shaped Like Ham Was Roman Pocket Watch. And that's kind of the whole story.

We've got the details here. All right, are they sure that's ham, or is it just a terrible sculptor? Or was he just shooting for something else? And I think I sent you guys a picture of what this looks like. It's a ham sundial, and it is very detailed, very nicely sculpted, a big ham that you can use as a pocket sundial that an ancient roman owned and carried around as usual i have some questions like how big was an ancient roman pocket oh that someone might think we'll make a ham that fits inside your pocket or if we want something to fit inside your pocket we'll make

it ham sized because that's weird toga i mean that's pretty much all pocket you have a good point that's just one big pocket right that contains a human but like if you're a lady and and you see a guy in a toga how much of that bulge is ham right that's stuffing great question a little dishonest are you okay i think we've just i think we've discovered it I don't think that was a a pocket sundial I think that was like a sexual enhancement for ancient Roman men like I know we're all wearing a couple of tube socks in the front of our pants right now sure back in ancient Rome you stuff a ham in your toga right he got caught and he's like that's my pocket sundial stuffing a ham in a toga has got to be a euphemism now.

Stuff a ham in a... I'm going to duck out and see if there's a dot com. Right. Don't search anything we talk about, listeners. Don't do it. It's too much. It's never safe. You'll be on a list.

I guess we work blue even when we're not cursing. So I apologize to the ham listeners and the people of America. Len, this sundial here, it was excavated in the 1760s. So also like powdered wig people found this. But it was found in a Roman villa in Herculaneum, which is near Rome, and it was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius. by Mount Vesuvius. So that like volcanic ash covering stuff like Pompeii, one of the preserved things, is an object that according to Alexander Jones of NYU, he says, quote, the object was the pocket watch of its day. Fixed sundials were everywhere in ancient Greece and Rome, but only

25 other portable sundials from antiquity are known, end quote. So we only have a couple dozen portable sundials from the past. And one of them is this one that we'll have linked that is beautifully carved like a like it is definitely a ham folks. It looks exactly like it. They worked really hard. This is some Indiana Jones. If I was one of those gentlemen, digging things up, I would here's what I would say, I'd pull it out. And I would say, Okay, guys, tell me if I'm crazy or not. This is a ham pocket watch, right? And my friends would say, you're 100% crazy. That's absurd. You're fired. Get off the dig set. They'd go through all the stuff that I dug up that day and they're like, no, this is not

a dinosaur toothbrush. This is not a big booty squeegee. Ridiculous. You're just playing mad libs with science here. Yeah, that's how I would get fired. But also, Sean, like if you get fired for correctly assessing that it's a ham sundial, then you do like main character of the Da Vinci Code the rest of your career. Like I will fight for the truth. I will break through the establishment. How vindicated would you feel if you got fired from your job as an antiquities digger for saying something was a ham sundial? Turns out a few years later, a microbiologist shows up and says, not only is it a ham sundial, but you can eat it. I'd be like, I'm the smartest man that's ever lived.

It's one other fun thing about it. A professor at Wesleyan University named Christopher Parslow, he saw the ham sundial artifact and then 3D printed a new one so he could on his own test whether it tells time. And it totally does. It just works. It's sundial function and the point of the ham casts the light and then you know what time it is. We potentially say it's the best way to tell time. That's true. That's why they chose that shape. It just happened to be a ham. I would just like to announce that I feel like making a 3D printing of a ham sundial to see if it works makes you the biggest nerd who's ever lived. In your face, professor.

Yeah, that's a hard one to beat. That's going on a belt. Yeah, you's a hard one to beat. That's going on a belt. Yeah, you gotta get that, yeah. Yeah, we're giving that guy a belt. We're sending it to him. Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. 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. I think we're ready for the next takeaway here. Here we go. Takeaway number two. The U.S. Senate is so obsessed with eating ham and bean soup, they've made plans to keep eating it in the apocalypse. I'll say that one more time, because again, this is a long one. The U.S. Senate is so obsessed with eating ham and bean soup, they made plans to keep eating it in the apocalypse.

Now, is this something that's like still on the books from a time of antiquity? Or is that like something that every year they talk about? Like, the esteemed gentleman from Georgia would like to declare we are keeping the ham and bean declaration, even in times of hardship or even apocalyptic. That's my senator voice. Okay, I got to ask what the plans are. Before I delve into this, elaborate on what those plans are.

So it turns out the Senate has a dining room and a restaurant. And every day since 1903, except for one war situation, they've had what's called Senate bean soup on the menu. And according to senate.gov, the recipe is one and a half pounds of smoked ham hocks, like hocks specifically, and then two pounds of navy beans and an onion, water, butter, salt and pepper. So like it's just ham and beans as a soup, basically. That's red beans and rice. It's hot ham water. That's a real, that's a real thing. Yeah, yeah. Hot ham water is as a soup, basically. That's red beans and rice. It's hot ham water. That's a real, that's a real thing.

Yeah, yeah. Hot ham water is exactly what I thought of. Yeah, it's basically that with beans in it. Yeah. Hot ham water with beans is what you got here. If it's made fresh for them, do they have like a canner or something that is building them a stockpile or are they training special extra hardy chefs to survive the apocalypse so that they can continue making this for them? They're breeding six legged hams in a bunker.

Right. Like what are what are the preparations that you're taking? Yeah. So that's great, because with the apocalypse here, have you guys ever heard of something called Project Greek Island? No. So Project Greek Island. I island i mean yes but not the one you're talking about oh yeah right your plan yeah um project greek island very erotic no ladies allowed sorry lots of greeks uh project greek island was the code name for a now declassified, now known about U.S. government plan to, it's not like nefarious or anything. They wanted to build an emergency bunker for Congress. So the idea is if Washington, D.C. is captured or destroyed or struck by a nuclear weapon, there's a bunker Congress can flee to to continue to be like and take votes and everything. And I love that foresight suggests this is tied in to the ham soup. It seems like this story is going to go to a place where part of Project Greek Island includes a large stockpile of ham soup.

Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, I was promised. So what happened is there's a place, it a town called white sulfur springs west virginia it's near the virginia border and there's a hotel there called the greenbrier hotel that was built in 1913 but then in the late 50s early 60s they did a fake thing where they were like hey the hotel is adding a conference center and it did that that. But while they built that, they built a secret underground chamber with three foot thick concrete walls. Apparently, it's about the size of a Walmart. And the ventilation system is designed to keep out radiation. There are rows of bunk beds for

Congress to sleep in. But there was a whole underground bunker for Congress to survive in if stuff goes wrong, like they flee to West Virginia and that's where they do Congress. And according to historian Derek Liebert, who wrote about it, he said that while they were planning this, one thing they did is when they were setting up the dining room, they made sure to have stockpiles ready

to continue making the ham and bean soup that's been on the Senate menu every day since 1903. They said, we will still have our Senate ham soup no matter what. Got their priorities. God, they're so weird. That's just so weird. So they have to re-up that stock continually. Somebody, you know, supplies, especially food supplies, don't last forever.

So however many years, you have to have somebody, a contractor that i'm assuming is making millions of dollars right just restocking and throwing away old hams and beans so that our senate can have hot ham and ham water and beans in the apocalypse yeah and also burn the system down burn it down was it. That was my last straw. I was holding on. Because also this weird bunker, the Washington Post discovered that it exists in 1992. And once they discovered it, the government immediately said, OK, it's declassified and we're not using it anymore because it's no longer a secret lair. Now it's useless. Because you know about it.

Yeah. So how many others are there? Yeah, right. We have a new hot ham water and bean stockpile somewhere else that the taxpayers don't know about follow the ham follow the ham water they'll lead you to the ham well and also uh according to the washington post this um the senate dining room apparently you need like somebody to kind of let you in but every day they're serving food every day the ham and bean

soup is on the menu uh it's been on there since 1903 because a minnesota senator named newt nelson requested it he and he loves bean soup because he ate it a lot while fighting in the union army in the civil war so this is really like civil war ham and bean soup that they eat every day in the Senate, if you want to. In honor of Newt Ham Boy Wilson, what was his name? Nelson. Hello. Newt Nelson. These old-timey names are great.

Yeah, I know. They're the best. Yeah, thanks. What's the other dude's name? A pomegranate guam tar? I can't remember. That's about right. I think it was Pembroke Gwaltney.

That's great. Pembroke Gwaltney. That's what it was. Yeah it was Pembroke Waltney. That's great. Pembroke Waltney. That's what it was. Yeah. I was close. Peabody G-Spot. That's a ham name. Good old Peabody G-Spot.

And there's also, as far as like stockpiling and preparing to make the ham and bean soup, the Washington Post says that on September 15th of 1943, so one day in 1943, World War II rationing was going on. And between that and a mix-up, the Senate kitchen did not have enough Navy beans to make the soup. And they found a new supply the next day, but there has been one day since 1903 where the soup was unavailable to the Senate. You'd remember all the flags were at half-mast. The ham flags were at half-mast. 1943, September 15th. So this is when they were like, that's enough.

We're doing nuclear bombs now. That this spurred the nuclear attacks. Yeah. They said, we've now lived through the unspeakable. We can deal with it. That's it. This war has gone on too long. We end it today, gentlemen.

Today. Well, and I think from here, we can go into the third takeaway of the episode. Here we go. Takeaway number three. Green Eggs and Ham has a very strange kind of dare-based origin story. Green Eggs and Ham, of course, the Dr. Seuss book,

which I have not read lately, but it's very popular. I don't like read them every year. I feel like you read them once and you're good. So it was written on a dare? Like someone said, you could never write a book about Green Ham. Yeah. So this Green Eggs and Ham, it was published in August of 1960. Now there's now more than 8 million copies sold. And Dr. Seuss, Theodor Seuss-Geisel, was doing pretty well as a children's author. And then there were two different dares that led to a first book and then to Green Eggs and Ham. And what happened is Seuss is working with William Spalding, who's the director of Houghton Mifflin's education division. And William Spalding gives him a challenge.

He says, quote, write me a story that first graders can't put down. And then the other part of the challenge is you have to do it using only 225 different words. So you can write whatever you want, but you can't use more different words in the book than 225. That was just old school Twitter. Yeah. but you can't use more different words in the book than 225. That was just old school Twitter. Yeah. And his third challenge was, I bet you can't make love to my wife while I watch Seuss.

And Seuss is like, this is your thing now. He's like, no, what? It's books. Look, if he's lured in by the first two, he's like, oh, I can do this. And then he's done the first two. And now for the third part of my challenge. Like, you got to follow through. He knows he's got them. When also the the words were coming from a list that was created by a group of teachers. And the

list were all words that supposedly like young kids can understand very easily. And, you know, it's simple for them to learn. And according to Dr. Seuss biographer Brian J. Jones, it took him about a year of struggles to labor and work and finally figure out a book that only uses that few words. He also cheated. He ended up using 236 different words. But the resulting book was The Cat in the Hat, published 1957. So The Cat in the Hat was from a dare too, which is... It was from a failed dare. It's true. He didn't accomplish it, but he ended up with Cat in the Hat and it went great for him. Yeah. I like that there's a lot of effort that went into something that's such a, you know,

cultural thing that, you know, we all remember. And it's nice because at our website, we look at a lot of stuff, including some children's media that is obviously the work of like lazy grifters. And so when you see something enduring like green eggs and ham, it's nice to know that wasn't the work of just a very lucky grifter. It was like a group of educators and it's very sexual dare and a hardworking man. Again, folks, we put in the sexual part. It was a normal dare. I mean, it's easy to misremember stuff.

We read between the lines. That's my bad. You're right. That's my bad. We didn't put it. We deduced it. Oh, you're right. Just like how I deduced that stuff about the stuffed groins in ancient rome in ancient rome

you can just assume right but yeah so the cat in the hat came from this like challenge and then also uh cat in the hat was an immediate massive success from 1957 and it was so huge seuss and his wife worked out an arrangement with a husband wife team uh, Bennett and Phyllis Cerf were their names. So basically it was so huge, he left that company and went to Random House because they let him start an entire imprint called Beginner Books. And then while they were setting up Beginner Books, his new publisher, Bennett Cerf, heard about the Cat in the Hat story, and so he called Seuss and said,

hey, I will bet you $50 that you cannot write a book from that list, but only using 50 of the words. Like, oh, you used hundreds of them before. I'll bet you can't do it with 50. Here's a $50 bill, like bring it on. But he's the best. which was enough to buy a house back then right this is a high stakes bet in that economy it was like like putting your the deed to your home and car and everything on the table yeah you get a 75 year old ham for that pretty good deal and apparent and this is more brian j jones he said quote green eggs and ham would be its own kind of misery requiring seuss to create complicated charts, checklists, and multiple word counts as he struggled to keep track of the words he was using. He also imposed on himself a requirement to stick with one syllable words, though he would make an exception for anywhere, which was made up of two short words that young

readers would know. What a coward. I didn't know that about the anywhere. Well, I'm glad to know he tortured himself. He suffered and it was for nothing. And that's why we know him today as one of history's greatest failures. Right. That's why Seuss is shorthand for somebody that just bombs it so hard they actually die from it.

There's a real quote here from him. He says, quote, this is Dr. Seuss himself, quote, the agony is terrific at times, and the attribution is horrible. If you're doing it in quatrains and get to the end of four lines and can't make it work, then it's like unraveling a sock. You take some of your best stuff and throw it away, end quote. That is the hardest part about being an artist and a creator is knowing like what to throw away. And you, I think that's probably the best advice you could give like a

young artist or writer is to tell them that every single time they write or make something, they're going to have to make some very painful cuts. That's right. Like, for example, if you're writing a book and everything's one syllable and you have the word anywhere in there, cut the word anywhere. You've got to lose two pages to do it. Do it, you coward. You failure. I do love this idea, this quote gives of him as a tortured writer. I'd like just... Right. They're in black and white and sepia tone film, just nursing a bottle of whiskey while the storm rages outside, hunched over his typewriter. His wife comes in. Get out!

Get out! I don't want you to see me like this. Wait, wait, come back. What's another word for anywhere? Do you know any words for anywhere? Then you're useless to me! Somewhere? That's even more letters.

Oh, God. Yeah, he... That's how we'll picture him from now on. Yeah, because also, apparently, Soos was often asked later in life like green eggs and ham what's it a metaphor for like what's it part of and he would openly tell people i did it to win a bet like he did not keep this secret and he just labored brutally to win a bet and then it ended up being like probably the biggest hit of his career and that's why all children's book authors of the time think he's an asshole.

Oh, you did this great book that everybody loves. And it's just like a bet with you and your friend. That's cool. I worked really hard on mine to like, you know, try to tell children how the world works. Yeah, I'm glad you made 50 bucks, pal. Hope you enjoy the house it bought. Like a child asked Dr. Seuss what it means.

And he's like, nothing's fun. Like, he just ruins the whole thing. Right. This means nothing. It means hell is other people. It means hell is yourself, kid. But yeah, what other fun thing? Apparently the rest of Dr. Seuss's life, whenever he was at like an event or a big deal where

people knew he was coming, everyone thought it was clever to serve him a plate of green eggs and ham. Like if there was any kind of kitchen or system nearby and he says you're not gonna not do it of course yeah yeah it's like the move but he said it was quote deplorable stuff the worst time was on a yacht in six foot seas end quote so all situations he's just being plied with like uh food coloring ham and eggs that he doesn't want all the time. So he didn't have a good time on his yacht that day.

It's true. Yeah. Bad yacht day. Some other great advice for creatives is try to think when you're making something, has the world's dumbest a**hole done this before? And so if you're making eggs for Dr. Seuss,

think to yourself, am I the first person to think of this? And then you may be hopeful you'll come to the conclusion that no no somebody's done this before if you if you have no means of looking it up just ask the dumbest guy you know if he thought that was funny right say what would you serve for dr seuss and he'd say i guess i'll serve him green eggs and ham i won't do that you're like yeah you're right with a side of my wife. Oh, boy.

It's just because everybody knows. Dr. Seuss's predilections towards the polyamorous lifestyle that we've deduced simply from that one ham story. Deduced and proved. Case broken. I mean, no judgment. Good for you, Seuss. It's not for me. Right.

Deduced, proved, accepted. We're in favor of it. It's okay. They couldn't accept him at the time but we're ready. We'll bring you in. I still kink shame a little. I should warn him.

I might make fun of him a little. I do not like it, Sam I am. And then he figures it out from there yeah folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to Robert Brockway and Sean baby for hamming it up. An easy pun,

a low-hanging pun, yes, still fun to do. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode and this week's bonus topic is space ham and if you're not interested in hearing about space ham we are very different people okay like that is just a thing you need to stop your day for and check out you know what i mean so get some space ham, visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than a dozen other bonus shows,

and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring ham with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, across history, a few guys have found weird reasons to carry hams around with them day to day. Takeaway number two, the U.S. Senate is so obsessed with ham and bean soup, they've made plans to keep eating it in the apocalypse. And takeaway number three, Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham because of an elaborate series of dares and bets. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests.

1-900-HOTDOG is very easy to get to. Type 1-900-HOTDOG.com into your browser. You're there. They're also on Patreon, but a bunch of the site is free to read. And then if you'd like to be a hot dog hero and support it, you can and you get even more stuff. So please go there. They're also on Patreon, but a bunch of the site is free to read, and then if you'd like to be a hot dog hero and support it, you can, and you get even more stuff. So please go there. Please go to 1-900-HOT-DOG. Have a nice time. The name is very exciting to me because it is as funny as the website, and it is as fun. It captures that spirit of finding the most comedy and joy that you possibly can online. We're also linking Robert's latest novel. It's

entitled Carrier Wave. We're linking Sean's amazing mobile game entitled Calculords. And we're throwing in a 1-900-HOT-DOG article link because I have written an article for them. So if you want like me to be a bridge into the site, that's an option for you. There you go. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article in National Geographic, it's entitled, Ancient Sundial Shaped Like Ham, was Roman pocket watch. And that's by Tracy Watson. A great article from the Washington Post entitled, Hill of Beans, it's by Jennifer Frey, and it's all about that Senate ham and bean soup. And an amazing write-up of the story of the book Green Eggs and Ham.

It's on the website of Dr. Seuss biographer Brian J. Jones. 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

about Space Ham. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that that talk to you then