Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Tuna!

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by writers/comedians Kandice Martellaro (Stan Against Evil, 'Hanging With Doctor Z') and Valerie Tosi (Conan, new stand-up album 'Beach Trash') for a look at why tuna are 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 1 exclamation point)

Hey folks, this is Alex with a quick personal note, because this episode of the podcast releases on March 21st of 2022. Fun fact about March 21st, that is my birthday. I think I can share a personal thing like that, right? March 21st is my birthday. Anyway, I'm sharing that it's my birthday to share it, and also because I have a gift in mind. I would love it if we had the financial foundation to pay guests of this show for their time, and we are

almost there. And I really mean we are almost there. That's our next group goal on Patreon. We're aiming for a collective level of support that would make guest pay possible. I think that would be an absolutely wonderful thing to do. Very, very, very few podcasts are able to do that. And so it's always been a goal of mine. It's always been a priority of mine. And if you visit the Patreon for this show at SIFpod.fun, if you visit that Patreon, you will see that we are about 10 patrons away from getting there, you know? So like good news, the show has been growing and we're getting close to that thing. So I would be overjoyed if we can get there, especially if we get there on my birthday.

I would love to receive the gift of, you know, have enough show with the Financial Foundation to do that good thing, to pay guests for their time, to pay them in more than exposure. And that's the message. That's it. If you go to SifPod.fun, you can join the Patreon, help make that thing possible, and get a bunch of other benefits, too. I'm going to go eat some babka as a special treat, and I hope you enjoy the treat of this episode.

Tuna. Known for being fish. Famous for being food. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why tuna are 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.

My guests today are Candice Martellaro and Valerie Tossi. Candice Martellaro is an old pal of mine from Sketch Comedy in LA. She's also a comedy writer with TV credits such as the very funny show Stan Against Evil on IFC. And Candice is a producer on my favorite like returned YouTube comedy show. I loved season one, and they are now releasing season two of Hanging with Dr. Z. Hanging with Dr. Z is a very special comedy show. It is a late-night show hosted by Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes, like the ape character. He's also a swinging Hollywood actor and late-night talk show host in the world of this. Amazing real guests on it. I just watched one with Ron Funchess. They also have Maria Bamford, Dave Foley, Dana Gould, wink, wink, wink. Tremendous show. It's free on YouTube, Hanging with Dr. Z, and Candace is

working on that. It's great. And then Valerie Tossey is a comedian, actor, and writer, and she has a new stand-up album that I really, really enjoyed. It's called Beach Trash, and it was recorded at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Indiana, which is an amazing club out there in Bloomington. Just a really funny hour. Please listen to it. Please check it out. And I'm so glad Valerie and Candice are here for this podcast about a topic we're all pretty stoked about, as you'll discover. 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 Canarsie and Lenape peoples. Acknowledge Candace recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva and Keech and Chumash and Fernandinho-Tataviam peoples. Acknowledge Valerie recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva

and K'iche' 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 tuna. A self-explanatory topic. Also, one quick thing to say about it. We talk about tuna biology, but we aren't comprehensive about every species of tuna that exists. We're going to focus on a couple key ones that are super common or have super amazing stories about them.

Also, here's an early number for the show. Stats, numbers. Fifteen. Fifteen is the number of tuna species the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says you can call tuna on packaging or on a menu. Otherwise, it's another kind of fish. So this show is about the most common and most amazing members of a large set of fish. There's 15 within just those restrictions, and there's more that other people call tuna and stuff. We're going to focus on the most amazing ones. Only other note, if you've heard the episode of this podcast about

jellyfish, you know that I have a phobia of many sea creatures, especially jellyfish. I really white-knuckled that one. If you haven't heard it, it's quite an experience to hear it. But anyway, I am not phobic about tuna. For some reason, I'm pretty good with what I think of as the fish-shaped fish, which I know is a silly way to put it, but they, you know, they're really fishy fish, the tunas, and I'm cool with them. It's good. And there you go. So, please sit back, or stand over the sink where you opened your can of tuna and are proceeding to eat your can of tuna, too.

Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Candice Martellaro and Valerie Tassi. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Candice, Valerie, it's so good to have you both. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Ivory can start, but how do you feel about tuna? Oh, well, I am a sushi idiot, so I love tuna. I will eat it.

I mean, if you're willing to eat it raw, I feel like you're pretty down with tuna. I love to eat tuna. This is going to sound so deep and so stupid, but when I was little, my grandma taught me how to make this really good tuna salad, and it was so easy to make. It was something I could make for lunch for myself as a little kid. Wow. And so that began my relationship with eating tuna. I don't know if I necessarily love tuna like

in a fish tank or something, but like, yeah. In a fish tank? That's, I think that's called an aquarium. I mean, I can't just put it in my like fish tank in my bedroom and have my pet tuna. No, I don't think it works like that. In fact, last night I was like, I'm going to eat tuna tonight in case whatever we talk about today ruins it forever. I saw that.

Yeah. And I don't think we ruin it. They're just very exciting and keep eating them if people like it. But yeah, tuna, I, I think I always thought they were small because the picture on the can is small, but they're very large. You can't really have them at home so much, as far as I can tell. They're very big. Yeah, objects on can are larger than they appear.

Yeah. Actually, I have kind of a fun tie-in with canned tuna. That might be the saddest sentence I've ever heard. But my grandfather used to be the creative director at Leo Burnett back in the 60s, the big ad agency. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. It's a pretty exciting thing. But one of the big accounts that he oversaw was Starkist.

Wow. So I have, this is going to sound so insane. I have a ton of Charlie tuna merch from the sixties in my apartment. How did you bury the lead on this one? I know I was focused on the tuna salad that my other grandparents taught me. And I forgot all about Charlie the tuna oh my god Candace are you are you a tuna heiress yes I'm swimming in all that sweet sweet tuna money okay you did say swimming so I think you I think I think that it's obvious that you have family that worked in advertising I yeah I now I want to know if the merch is worth anything, right?

It's, it's gotta be some kind of Mad Men era, priceless chicken of the sea or whatever stuff. Or it's Charlie Tudor, so it's Star Kissed, but you know what I mean? Like, yeah. I should look it up. Are they, um, are they, are they dolphin friendly or are you a monster? No, it says, it says dolphin friendly on the can. Dolphin safe is what it says. I like friendly better.

I want them to high five on the way by. I missed the net again. Good job, bro. And just plop. You know, just a really wet high five. A really wet high five. Cleaning the glasses glasses after both of them Dolphin has glasses it's fine

yeah they have to match and a little hat a little beret type it's not a beret it's a like a driver's cap man wow this is amazing I yeah because I will talk later about kind of the rise of tuna in the U.S.

I'm very excited, Candice, that your grandparent was involved and in like a Don Draper way. Great. Yeah. Good. Yep. Good. Keep it up. I don't want to go too down this path, but Don Draper comes from the name Draper Daniels,

which was my grandfather's boss. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So yeah, very Don Draper. Yeah. So your grandfather is Peggy Olsen. Okay, that's cool.

Yeah, great. Yes. Makes sense. Illegitimate baby and everything. Oh, dang. God, that's so cool. I'm joking. My grandfather was never pregnant. Wait, that's so cool. I'm joking. My grandfather was never pregnant.

Wait, what? I said I'm joking. I love that you thought I was serious in that. You were like, I said. No. Valerie, it's a joke. I don't know if you're awake. What are those?

I've never heard of them. We're about facts. Get out. Yeah. When I, yeah, I know some people don't like tuna in the world, but I also, I really enjoy eating tuna, but mainly as like canned tuna. And also every time I open a can, our cats think it's for them and they get really mad. Oh yeah.

That's my main tuna situation now. Yep. Same. Yeah. Oh, okay. Do we all have cats? I don't have a cat. I wish I had a cat.

I think, does Drew count? Yeah. Yeah. Drew's my live-in cat. He's your rescue. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm 99% sure that's a human. That's a human, right? Yeah. He's my boyfriend. Yeah, yeah. Cool. That's pretty sure. I've Yeah. He's my boyfriend. Yeah, yeah, cool. That's pretty sure. I've seen him eat stuff out of the can. It's fine.

Yeah. Well, and from here, I think we can get into facts about tuna, this wonderful food and animal. And on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week, that's in a segment called Like a Statistician Counting for the hundredth time

Like a Statistician Sums and totals start to align That is the best one. No, no. Oh, sorry. Did I just cut you off?

No, you're good. Yeah, it's cool. Wow, Candace. He was coming in for that hook and you really dropped it. Yeah. I'll put my guitar away. It's fine. It's whatever.

The show's not ruined. Frown, frown, frown. No, it's cool. Man, never did I think that Statistician and Madonna would come together, but here we are. I know. And that name was submitted by Adam Miller. Thank you, Adam. You did it.

And we have a new name for this every week. Please submit them to SifPod on Twitter or SifPod at gmail.com. Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. And yeah, we're going to just start big with the tuna numbers here. The first number is 1,496 pounds. 1,496 pounds. That's over 678 kilograms. It's the weight of the largest tuna ever caught. We will, of course, have a picture linked. I've shared it with the guests. Very excited about this. There's like an all-time tuna.

We know. I have no, I don't know even what to say. Because when you sent me that photo, I was like, this thing is Jaws. Like, this isn't, like, this is not. It's so insane. I was like, that thing is going to, that's going to ruin someone's life. It's so insane. I was like, that thing is going to ruin someone's life.

I would be alarmed if I encountered that in the wild. It's kind of not okay how big it is. I didn't GMO tuna. It is a thing, apparently. Do you think, how many cats do you think it would take to eat that thing? How many people would it take to eat that thing? Candice, I'm a little more interested in the cats. If we just bring Drew in.

Drew? Drew. Either way. That are just a horde of white women for sushi happy hour. And we'll wipe it out real fast. sushi happy hour and we'll just wipe it out real fast. And I think it's partly like the tuna market egg in America. Like Charlie Tuna is a little guy.

And then this is an Atlantic bluefin tuna. In October of 1979, it was caught by fisherman Ken Fraser sailing out of Port Hood, Nova Scotia in eastern Canada. And it's nearly 1 pounds after they dehydrated it. So when it had water in its body, it was even heavier.

It's it's it looks like a shark or a car or something. It's huge. Oh, my. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Upsetting. Upsetting is the word that comes to mind. I mean, honestly, I can't believe that there aren't like, like, like monster stories that

people tell their kids to scare them with tuna. Like it's big enough. Yeah. Also, they're carnivorous. I feel like they're sort of like a shark, but for stuff that's smaller than us. Like, I don't know of any cases where a tuna tried to eat a person, but it's eating the stuff smaller than us for sure. Oh, man.

If it knew what we did to it, though, it's eating the stuff smaller than us for sure oh man if it knew what we did to it though it would for sure be eating us and i don't know that one was so big that i'm like if it encountered a person would it eat it like probably it doesn't know any better like true yeah that thing would have eaten a golden retriever at least like yes someone get air butt in here That thing would have eaten a golden retriever at least. Yes. Someone get Air Bud in here. Yeah, and they're usually not that big, but the average size for an Atlantic bluefin, which is one of the world's largest fish in general, is a weight of about 550 pounds, a length of about six and a half feet. So, you know, kind

of as tall as a tall person and the weight of, you know, three people probably. It's a really massive thing out in the water there. Just really big. Wow. Big guy. Well, and speaking of a lot, the next number here is two million two million and that's the amount of eggs that one female skipjack tuna can release in one go oh one female of the skipjack tuna species two million eggs boom that's so hot i'm just kidding i'm sorry i feel like it's just showing off like why do you need the idea of that many children? I would sooner, I will all drown myself.

Thanks. It sounds gross, but at the same time, like, well, that does mean more tuna and we eat a lot of tuna. All right. No one can fight with your logic, Marta Lello. What did you just say? I had a stroke when I said your last name. I said Marta Laro. Why am I saying it wrong?

No, Marta Laro is right, but you said Marta Lalo. I was drinking coffee, and I think it's kicking in. Candace, if you're going to logic us that hard, we won't be able to say your name anymore. Our brains are going to short circuit. This is on you. Fair enough. Yeah, that's essentially what's going on with this animal.

There's several tuna species, but the skipjack tuna, it turns out it's the most fish tuna type in the world. Over 60% of canned tuna in the US is skipjack. They usually label it chunk light or some other name like that. And it's about half of the entire world's tuna catch by weight. Even though it's, you know, like a couple feet long, it's not the size of these like shark shaped tuna. Can I ask a question what who decided that chunk and chunk light would sound better than skipjack yeah yeah hey that's way better branding skipjack yeah it sounds like a fun pal it sounds like skipjack tuna like i know it sounds like a snack like yeah this goes on a cracker. Yeah.

Maybe he panned for gold back in the day. I don't know. Instead, we got chunk and chunk light. Chunk. It's so gross. It sounds like a cartoon name. Oh, God. Skipjack. I mean, it sounds like Cracker Jack, even though they're two different, completely different things.

But yeah, I would do that. Yeah. Yeah. Just the name Jack. Feeling good about it. Jack Kennedy? Yeah. Great president.

Cool. Skip? I mean, has there ever been a bad Skip? My piano teacher was named Skip. He was a great guy. Fun dude. I can't imagine having a piano teacher named Skip. That's very funny to me.

It's like, here we have Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, and Skip. What if all of them were nicknamed Skip? Like, Skip Amadeus Mozart, and i'm here to do the show where's the green room he's a comic now he's a comic and uh the the fun skip jack tuna here so the main reason humans catch so many of these is that they're amazing at reproducing and again one female can release up to two million eggs in one go they just spray them out into the water and then the male skipjacks spray their sperm out into the water and everything just mingles and that's how the spawning works this is the least

sexy thing i have probably ever heard also this gives me reason 199 of why I'm not going in the ocean. You're like, ah, pools are just fine, thanks. Yeah. I'm not swimming around in that. In Skip's sperm? Yeah.

Oh, God. That's so gnarly. I guess we don't have to feel guilty about peeing in the ocean anymore. Like, you know what? We're putting everything else in here. We might as well. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah, we're cleaning it when we do

that, right? Like, we're sterilizing it in a lot of ways. Sanitizing. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. If if anything we're probably preventing tuna from reproducing so maybe it is bad to pee see i've brought it full circle i'm not gonna lie every time i pee in the ocean which i do frequently uh i always have that moment of like is this the moment where i'm gonna get eaten by something is while i'm peeing like i'm like, what an awful way to go. Like, you know what I mean? You're just in the middle of like taking a nice relaxing ocean urine.

And then all of a sudden stung by a man of war eaten by a great white. I mean, but that's my fear. That's the fear that lives in my head. Valerie, I'm laughing. Cause you're treating it like, know, that thing we all do where we pee in the ocean. All of us. I've done it. Thank you. I don't need this harassment from you. The logic will wear off. We will say it right again someday well uh the next story here speaking of the news uh the next story our next number here is 2021

the year 2021 that's the year when U.S. national newspapers investigated the tuna in Subway sandwiches. And people might have heard about this. There was a scandal around tuna in Subway sandwiches. There's a great breakdown of the timeline over at Mental Floss because it's several newspapers, really two newspapers. In January 2021, the Washington Post covered a lawsuit in California where two subway customers alleged the restaurant lied about its tuna, and in particular that all of their tuna is either the yellowfin species or the skipjack species. And they said, it's not actually the fish you think we're suing. The way, yeah, the way you said that, I thought you said that we're suing the tuna. Oh.

I was very confused. I was like, I don't know where they think this is going to go in court, but. Right, right. Yeah, apparently they went for a really broad lawsuit and then their lawyers had them condense it down to it's not these exact species of tuna. But, you know, that lawsuit apparently didn't go anywhere. But then in June 2021, a New York Times reporter investigated California subway tuna and they ordered. I don't know why they bothered. It's across the country.

But they ordered 60 tuna sandwiches from three different Subway franchises in Los Angeles. And they had a laboratory run PCR tests for five different tuna DNA types. Including the two Subway says it uses. So this was a laboratory. It was like running footlongs, you know, through whatever. Can we just talk about the fact that we're getting PCR test results for tuna back faster than we are for our covid tests i was just about to say i was like i am so upset in the year 2021 that resources went to this what right also no need for that then also what i didn't know tuna connoisseurs existed like is it are

they a tuna sommelier like how are they able to look at that tuna and be like absolutely not yellow jack you know what i mean like that's crazy to me who cares i know it's tuna i said yellow jack yellow tail and i can't i'm just well yeah yellow fin yeah you know like whatever it is some you made a hybrid yeah i mean honestly it probably it's in the next year or two it'll probably be something we're growing in a lab anyway yeah just bigger and bigger tuna like it's just the movie deep blue sea but oh it's gonna be it's gonna be the meg only with tuna the tune yeah the movie Deep Blue Sea, but... Oh, it's going to be the Meg only with tuna. The tune, yeah.

The tune. For some reason, I'm more upset about the thought of being devoured by a giant tuna than a giant shark. Yeah. Getting eaten by your middle school lunch, that's like the saddest one. like like at least a shark

is like bad. Oh I can't say that. Sorry. I'll take that again. At least a shark. I know I did it. I said the thing. I'm not supposed to say. I also just want to point out the irony of you swearing before I did. No.

It's true, though. It's like if you're like, help, a tuna. No one will come. They're not interested. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like, at least a shark is tough.

Like, it's intimidating. A tuna just sounds like you're a dork if you got to buy a tuna. What happened to Jason? Oh, man. did you not hear? The great tuna incident of 2022. Yeah, in 2021, this laboratory doing PCR tests for DNA tuna. And this is when the story became famous because the lab

said they could not amplify any tuna DNA in the sandwiches of any of the five kinds they looked for. And so then the headlines became subway tuna is not tuna was the news story. And that's not probably true, which we'll talk about. But this was a scandal in the middle of last year was that it's some kind of fake paste instead of tuna. I don't care. It was, it's the year 2021. I have real problems. I'll eat whatever Subway is putting on the sandwich as long as it doesn't kill me.

Imagine trying to explain to somebody that is, I don't know, maybe in Europe currently about what we're dealing with in America. You guys don't understand. Are you kidding me? This one fast food outlet maybe doesn't have legitimate tuna like crazy right i know right we're limited to their 17 other kinds of sandwich it's awful i i can't even eat there except for everything else yeah oh god and then the the science of these tests is the the lab said there were two possibilities because there was no dna they said either the tuna is so heavily processed that they

couldn't id the dna or it's another fish like they did get dna and they're wrong subway responded and said that they cook their tuna before serving it, which everybody knows. But that causes the DNA to do something called denaturing, which is where the two strands split apart and break down, and that makes it not detectable in a PCR test. And the New York Times affirmed that's possibly why there wasn't DNA in the tests. So we still don't really know. It's probably tuna, or it's another fish mislabeled. I have a question. Yeah. So when you open a can of tuna, isn't that, I mean, is it cooked or not cooked? Because it looks like it's cooked, right?

Because of the color? Yeah. Yeah, it's cooked if you're a human eating it. Yeah. So then if you did a PCR test on a can of tuna, would it come back as tuna? Because that's my question. It's like up in the air. Because also when because also when this will get to the bottom of this Valerie don't leave for your lab no come back no beakers explosions

yeah because because also when this was happening, the TV show Inside Edition separately did DNA testing of tuna and did find DNA in the subway tuna. So I think it's kind of a shoot. I think it's whatever happens, happens. You know, there are serial killers out there we still haven't found. Why are these resources? The only thing I could see with this tuna paste situation is if you have a very specific food allergy, maybe then, but even then I feel like nothing's going to be that specific.

Well, maybe, but, um, that's right. But that's like the only thing i could see because there is that's a kind of the main concern people have with it because apparently sometimes fish is labeled as tuna but it's a mislabeled other fish and one of them is a fish called escolar that has really high quantities of oils that can give people stomach problems and digestive problems it's not lethal or anything but you know, if it's mislabeled, it could do different stuff to your body, but otherwise it's just kind of fish. Like it's probably fine. Okay. Yeah. I can kind of see that argument, but especially if it's not lethal,

it's like, I don't, don't eat tuna that I don't know. Get get star kissed where you know it's gonna be chunk life Candace has absolutely no empathy for these people that happens but it is yeah like like the Washington Post and the New York Times were monitoring California Subway sandwich restaurant tuna. I don't know why or how this happened. It's a waste of everyone's time. This is why the insurrection happened. We were too busy IDing tuna.

Wow. The lawsuit was January 2021. What if it was like across town, you know? I'm just saying, man. I am just saying. look at the facts. I'm just asking questions. Okay. I'm just asking questions.

I'm also laughing at like what reporter was on that of like, no, no, I got the scoop over here. Sorry, I can't go over happy hour. You guys, I'm on the tuna beat. here. Oh, sorry I can't go over happy hour, you guys. I'm on the tuna beat. 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. 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, I think there's there's one more number here and it gets into a whole nother thing about people eating tuna and the first takeaway the last number is 333.6 million japanese yen so that's about a third of a billion japanese yen which is about three million dollars u.s that was the price paid for one tuna bluefin tuna in tokyo in. Somebody paid that money for the one fish. What? Why? Yeah. Yeah. It's a luxury fish.

And that takes us into takeaway number one. Across modern history, tuna has been one of the most popular human foods and one of the most popular human foods and one of the least popular human foods. It's been super popular luxury, super canned, and then also something people thought was basically waste. And we'll talk in particular about the U.S. and Japan being countries for that. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because this $3 million fish, it was bought by sushi chain owner Kiyoshi Kimura at the famed Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo. And it's like partly a publicity thing for his restaurants, but he talked to reporters and said, quote, the tuna looks so tasty and very fresh, but I think I did pay a little too much. End quote.

How big was the tuna? but I think I did pay a little too much. End quote. How big was the tuna? It was 612 pounds. So it's big, but NPR says that's over $4,000 per pound of fish, and it's not going to sell for that price, even though it's nice tuna. Wow. You know, listening to this, I realize I'm part of the problem.

Go on. I think our, our love of sushi and, and fish is just too, too high. Like it can't, no amount of anything is worth that much money. Can I make a really stupid joke? Would you say, would you say it's not sustainable? I'm so sorry. Candace is politely laughing. I can see it in her eyes.

Fish jokes, folks. It's a tuna episode what'd you expect what's coming we love to see it so dumb i guess yeah but this there's like high high-end luxury. This was a Pacific bluefin tuna. It's similar to the Atlantic one. It's that big size of fish. The Atlantic magazine says it's considered an honor to purchase the first bluefin at the first auction at this Tokyo market every year.

That same guy in 2013 spent $1.76 million US on another tuna. It's kind of a thing of, this is the center of our sushi industry and fishing industry. And if you're amazing at business, you do almost like buying art, like a flashy purchase to let people know. I was going to say it almost feels like an art auction, except it's fish. Yeah, that will just get eaten. It's not going to be put on a wall. You know, in a way, I'm kind of for it.

Because at least that's being put to a very concrete use. I just want you to say that you're saying that you're not going to put it on a wall is a big mouth Billy Bass erasure. erasure the tuna's just going like a statistician it's just it's heard the episode so yeah but uh but yeah so this this tuna people have eaten tuna for millennia but in modern times there was kind of a flip where it became super unpopular as human food and then super popular again but also like like historically it goes way way back fishing tuna one source here is a book called tuna a love story by science writer richard Ellis. And he says that in particular in the Mediterranean, there's an old practice in Sicily called Matanza, which is where gangs of fishermen use nets to kind of round up tuna and then use big hook spears to hack them up. This was also

called Almadraba in Spain. It's based on tuna fishing techniques from ancient Phoenicia. So thousands of years, people have been like fishing, hauling out, eating tuna. It's based on tuna fishing techniques from ancient Phoenicia. So thousands of years people have been fishing, hauling out, eating tuna. It's a very common food. I always wonder who was the first person to eat it. Who was like, I'm not going to do it. Are you going to do it? For when it's around that long, it's always fascinating to me hearing how long people have been doing certain things. Yeah. And what the circumstances were around. What made you decide to try it? Yeah. always fascinating to me hearing how long people have been doing certain things yeah and like what

the circumstances were around like what what made you decide to try it yeah yeah and it's also and it's a saltwater fish and it lives in most parts of the ocean so like most world cultures that were near saltwater they have like you know tuna in their food and cuisine and stuff yeah like after you know the first person made that leap, everybody was like, great, I'm in, let's do it. But, uh, and then there's like a weird flip where, especially in the 1800s and 1900s, tuna was easy to catch, but not popular. It was not this luxury thing we think of with sushi and everything else. And one big example is in japan smithsonian says that in japan in the 1830s and the 1840s fishermen introduced new techniques that caught lots more tuna but it was sold as like a cheap

street food it was not popular it was also called a japanese phrase which is neko matagi and neko matagi means fish that even a cat would disdain. Oh, no! Which is silly. My cats love it. It's not true. Yeah. I can't. Yeah.

Oh, man. It's just inaccurate. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe people are just bullying tuna. Yeah. Less than 200 years ago, for some reason, everybody was like, this is trash. Don't want it.

Stupid fish. It's like with lobster, too, how they would just give it to prisoners and stuff. And now it's like this is trash don't want it stupid fish it's like with it's like with lobster too how they would just give it to prisoners and stuff and now it's like this massive like delicacy it's so funny how it just shifts and changes yeah exactly yeah because valia you're from new england right so like oh i sure am you couldn't tell yeah i was like if you couldn't tell by absolute aggression i am from new england yeah because i i'm from outside chicago and other than some lake stuff we just didn't have like seafood seafood you know it seems like growing up with it it must be very different oh yeah and even like whenever i travel and people will be like, oh, we should get sushi or something

while we're here. And I'm like, no, we're in the middle of the country. We're not getting sushi in the middle of the country. I'm like, we're nowhere near water. Absolutely not. What are you doing? I tried to warn people that when we were in Arizona, like in Phoenix. And I was like, we're not.

Absolutely not. And then they got it. And guess what? Got sick. I was like. Yeah. Yep. absolutely not and they and then they got it and guess what got sick yeah yep and candace probably loved it she's probably like so excited to see it my favorite thing i love when when people have upset stomachs it makes my day you know what's sad though in this specific circumstance i am kind of happy because i'm

like valerie was right you should have listened yeah thank you thank you for being my hype man i appreciate it good advice good advice what you do yeah uh and uh and yeah and then in in japan these these street vendors did develop some recipes for nigiri sushi and some of the first tuna-based sushi. But apparently it took a lot of decades for that to become popular. And there are also like old-timer sushi fans who think that tuna is like not traditional enough. Corna Smithsonian quote, actually like squid and and and that type of like that even clams i'm not a big fan of which i know is sacrilege meat as i just aggressively told you for the east coast but it's very like it's the texture that i can't i can't do it it's like not i i do like i will say i like mussels but they're really the only one that i mean usually because they're like in a broth or something that they're

like really tasty but clams oysters yeah and. Yeah. And yeah, no. Yeah. There's such a range of seafood textures. Yeah. And these, these old timer fans are like, tuna is too mainstream and easy. Like, no, not, not for real. Even though a lot of people that's their go-to sushi, like that's it. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the other hand, nowapan has gotten so into tuna as a food there's now a delicacy of eating tuna eyeball they saute it or they braise it you can get it

in an izakaya restaurant and then there's also a cocktail called tuna's tears which is alcoholic soju and then you put a raw tuna eyeball lens into it oh my god why oh god yeah well atlas of scary has a page about it but yeah that's like a snack you can get is like a blue fins eyeball with you know cooked and some other stuff on it listen as somebody with an astigmatism in both eyes i feel like this is just flaunting wealth and i don't like it oh but yeah that's really super flipped in japan like these blue fin tuna now sell for millions of dollars individually and they're an absolute delicacy of steaks and sushi and everything else yeah and then the other big example is the united states it was tuna was pretty unpopular here before the 20th century as recently as the 1960s bluefin

tuna would sell for pennies per pound and then also on the atlantic coast of the u.s in the mid-20th century there was a craze for tuna fishing but specifically as sport fishing like it was people competing to catch the biggest tuna and win a contest and then apparently after they waited and took the picture and everything, they would just get rid of the tuna that they killed. Oh, no. Like, best case scenario, it either got thrown back in the ocean or turned into pet food.

But sometimes it just went into a landfill. Like, they fully did not eat it or use it or anything because they were like, this is just a trash fish that we hunt. Like, this did not eat it or use it or anything because they were like, this is just a trash fish that we hunt. Like this is not for people to eat. So wait, the one that you showed us, the huge one, do you think that that one ended up in the landfill? I would say no, because it was 1979. By then they knew it was worth something. Yeah. Okay. So that's good. That's such a waste.

That's a good question. Yeah. Yeah. Because I guess like in the forties and fifties, they would be like, I'm smoking around a baby and I'm going to catch a tuna and throw it out. Like that's, that is stuff that makes sense. That's what I do. I'm going to, I'm going to drive to the boat yard. Absolutely wasted. Without a seatbelt. And like, yeah.

Oh man. Yeah, it was. And so there's been a obviously massive change. We really like tuna. And there were several factors that changed it in the U.S. One of the biggest is that California had a bunch of canneries for sardines. Sardines were hugely popular here. And then the sardine population was overfished and crashed. And apparently this was particularly

in California. They had all these canneries that were like, well, if there's no sardines, we're out of business. But in 1903, a cannery owner named Albert P. Halfhill started just putting tunas in the cans. And then that sold okay and saved the canneries. People did that. See, now based off of what happened with Subway, this would never fly now. Oh, right. People would be like, I wanted sardines. What is this atrocity?

Oh, man. Well, they obviously came replenished at some point because there's not a sardine shortage now. You can buy them. Is it because people realize that they're gross? Probably. I

am a gross weirdo that I like pickled herring. I'll do that. You're out here throwing stones about people not having tummies that can support certain kinds of fish, and you're just flaunting that you're like, pickled herring? I eat it every day.

Where do you even get pickled herring? Like, what? Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's just has pickled herring? Yeah. Oh, God. What kind of mildly racist name do they have for it? This one is just straight up pickled herring.

They didn't mess around with this one. It's just like Trader Gross Guy. It's not even a different culture. Yeah, it's Trader Gross. And I'm the weirdo buying it and be like i like this sorry i'm late on my rent i went a little overboard with the pickled herring this month it is i like it on crackers so you can't tell that it was once you can't it's not like in its true form. That's what I'm trying to say. It doesn't.

Okay, this is. I'm only making this worse and it's only going to get more gross. It's head and its tail are gone. But like the shape of the fish body is still there. Are you kidding me? So, oh God, why? See, this is. Because I'm not that. It'm not that stump of herring

yeah it's it's a herring torso is what i'm eating awesome yeah traitor torsos pickled herring come on down you should you should maybe put a disclaimer on this this episode that this is not vegan friendly. I am phobic about jellyfish. And months back, patrons picked jellyfish as a topic. And then I had to like grip my teeth and get through it. And I'm not phobic about fish like tuna, but sea creatures are gross. And this is really just bringing this out.

Like the sea is full of nightmares i don't like it okay so like long ago back when i was engaged why uh back when i was yeah gross even grosser to a tuna no go on might as well have been uh ironically well i don't say i don't need to say his name. So this was back when I was like 23. And I went to, his parents had like a property on Hawaii. And so we went. And so we were there and we were swimming in the ocean, like a very secluded beach. And while we were in the water, he got stung by a man of war. And it was so gnarly that, talk about peeing in the ocean because guess what we had to do and also we had to like rush him to like driving around sea cliffs to rush him to get to like a

fire department to get like attention and stuff like they had to give him oxygen all this crazy stuff and the marks that he had on his body from the jellyfish were there for a year. And he looked like he had like some, yeah. Because he like, he felt it and he tried to get away from it. And then it just like kept hitting him all over. And so it was because I think it was their breeding season or something. And we just didn't know. And it literally, he looked like he had some weird skin disorder for like a year. We like, people would stare at him in the grocery store.

It was like wild. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. I'm right about jellyfish you're welcome yeah i'm right yeah and this backs up this is now reason 200 of why i don't need to be in the ocean yeah land is going great up here oh baby oh oh you think land is going great up here. Oh, baby. Oh, you think land is going great? Well, good point. Land and sea aren't going so great, which is why all the millionaires are like, we're going to try space. Yeah. Good point.

You know, speaking of land stuff. So another reason tuna got popular in the U.S. is World War I. Not a great time, but the American troops sent there, they got fed a lot of tuna because it was a cheap protein and easy to transport in cans. And then also Americans at home ate a lot of it because of food rationing. Like other stuff they were used to was rationed more. They could get tuna. So like 1900s and 1910s is really when Americans start bothering to eat tuna. You know, that seems to track in my mind. If I had to say like, what time period do you think Americans started eating tuna?

I would have picked the 1910s. For no like valid reason. It just feels like that seems like canneries were in business. And yeah. Yeah. Whenever you see photos of like old, like old timey shops and stuff, it's like mostly cans. So yeah.

Yeah. And, uh, and also like tuna marketing in the early 20th century, they really did a good job. And in particular, the brand name Chicken of the Sea started in 1930. And then also that concept was just a really big hook. Like just comparing it to chicken. People were like, well, now I like it. Obviously.

Great. Isn't that so funny? It's like all it takes is like one rephrasing of something and suddenly people are like, oh, great. And then they just are on board. What do you think we could, what's the hook for pickled herring, do you think? There's not one. Pickled herring is just only Candace and another friend of ours eat this.

And that's it. No, you're trying to keep it for yourself. We're going to crack this. We're going to figure it out. I mean, I would appreciate it if I wasn't the only sicko eating pickled herring pickled herring if sardines were hot that's i don't like sardines yeah sardine's wish. So stupid.

Also, the chicken of the sea, the whole chicken of the sea thing, it also comes back to that thing of how we say everything tastes like chicken. Yeah. I don't know why chicken became like the universal, like this is okay. This is okay meat to eat. And if anything relates to it, then it's fine. I wonder if maybe because it's like meat that if you think about it, like kids, it's like a kid-friendly meat even too. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. Like most kids are like, I don't know, maybe that's part of it. Can you imagine if we had steak McNuggets? I am cutting that from the show so we can make it. Nobody's going to beat us to it. That's too good of an idea. I mean, steak McNuggets. Oh, God.

Yeah, it's like, oh, God. My dad's like, my dad, he calls McNuggets beaks and combs. I'm like, it's so gross. He's like, oh, you like those beaks and combs? I'm like, oh, it's so gross. Yeah. Not anymore. Thank you. Yeah. The other last trend that made tuna more popular in the U.S. is sushi. Like sushi became a practice here, became something that became popular. There's kind of a two-way exchange of sushi fish between the U.S. and Japan because Smithsonian has a story where in the 1970s, there were whole cargo planes of Japanese consumer electronics being delivered to the United States. That was really taking off.

And then it was like, what do we put in the planes going back? And one of the things they picked was Atlantic bluefin tuna. So a lot of bluefin caught in the Atlantic are like packed up and shipped to Japan to be served in sushi restaurants there. Oh, that's cool. Very cool. And the whole scale of the system has just really grown, especially the last few decades. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, between 1970 and 1990, bluefin catching in the in the atlantic ocean went up two thousand percent and the average price of bluefin in japan went up ten thousand percent oh my god so it truly went from being considered fully worthless to being the biggest delicacy and and luxury thing you can get because

we changed our minds it's the same fish can Can you imagine if you had some cheap food item that's your comfort food, that's just the thing you eat all the time because it's your favorite, and out of nowhere, suddenly everyone decided, no, this is now a delicacy, and now you can't afford it. Oh, no. I'd be so upset. That happened. Wow.

Yeah. That also sounds like just any food that claims to be organic. It's like, sorry, we've decided that since it's grown in a different way, you no longer can have it. Sorry. Yeah. This is no longer for you. Candice, is this your way of telling us that they've raised the price on pickled herring? Now it says, like, all I picture you eating.

Okay, to be clear, I eat it once in a while. I thought you were going to say once a day. To be fair, I stopped eating it so we could tape. Okay, I put it down. And it's out of frame. Okay, I put it down and it's out of frame. If you hear a knock on your door, it's because I'm sending a case of pickled herring to your house. Like I can't. I don't.

I don't want that much pickled herring. I'm going to door dash you so much pickled herring. It's a once in a while snack. I buy one can that sits in my pantry for like a few weeks and then I eat it. One can that sits in the sun for so long. My pantry is not in the sun. Oh, God. Well, there's just one other takeaway for the main episode.

So we'll get into it. Takeaway number two. Bluefin tuna have unique swimming superpowers. This is pretty quick, and it's about the Pacific, especially bluefin tuna, this huge, amazing fish. It swims in ways that are mind-boggling. And there's a couple sources here. It's National Geographic, a piece by Ed Yong, also the Smithsonian Ocean and Atlas Obscura. The first thing is just that they're really fast. An adult Pacific bluefin tuna can swim at a speed of over 30 miles per hour, which is over 48 kilometers per hour that's crazy so they just rip through the ocean yeah

is is there like a reason why they can do that or it's just uh yeah there's uh they have like a few abilities and also i'm sure they developed it to be more effective predators because they're carnivores they're eating other animals in the sea so they are catching them that makes sense but the most the most amazing swimming ability they have is that they are a special type of warm-blooded like part of their body is if people know they're warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals um a warm-blooded animal can use internal processes to keep its body temperature warmer than its environment and then like humans are warm-blooded mammals are warm-blooded. Stuff like reptiles is

cold-blooded where it takes in heat from outside. And almost all fish are cold-blooded, but tuna species and a few shark species are able to selectively warm up parts of their bodies. And they use this for their swimming muscles. So they keep those warm and then they swim faster. I can't believe that a tuna swims faster than most of our grandparents drive. That's truly insane. Yeah. It's also terrifying because in my mind, I'm picturing these like super tuna to be the size of that huge one that you sent us at the beginning.

Kind of. And so I'm like the idea of that thing going like 40 miles an hour is terrifying. That is a car. That's, that's driving a car through the ocean. So when are you, when are you going in for a dip,

Candace? This is reason 201 of why I'm not going in the ocean. Yeah. High speed tuna. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. High speed tuna. Oh amazing oh god yeah i can't go in there i'm gonna get run over by a bluefin yeah yes and they these pacific ones they also have a thing where their blood vessel network is specialized so a lot of fish lose heat through their gills because that's sort of an opening to lose it. And then Pacific bluefin, the warmer veins are toward the inside,

the cooler arteries are toward the outside. So it's sort of hard to understand. I'll link about it. But like the heat leaves the veins on the inside and goes to the arteries on the outside and more of it stays in their body than other fish they're just freaks temperature wise that's so crazy yeah did they did these fish go through like mk ultra or something or like develop special powers yeah is this is this fish like in the avengers like what's going on yes yeah and then the the last thing is they do it feels very unnecessary to me but there must be a reason they do a humongous migration back and forth across the entire pacific ocean pacific bluefin tuna spawn in east asia swim 5 000 miles which is over 8 000 kilometers to california and then they make the trip back to east asia later in life and spawn swim 5,000 miles, which is over 8,000 kilometers, to California. And then they make the trip back to East Asia later in life and spawn again.

They're just going back and forth across the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, if you can go that fast, why not? That's true. Yeah, right? It's like a flight. Like, oh, I'll get there soon. Great.

I love that these tuna are like tourists. They're just like, you guys want to go for the winter? I'm just kind of over it here. You know what I mean? It's a little too cold. Yeah. And yeah, it's like for different stages of their life, apparently they start the trip when they are one year old from East Asia to California. And then the several years off the coast of California, they're just eating and growing. And then they go all the way back to breed. And then also some of them continue after breeding, go down toward New Zealand and Australia, which is another huge distance and a

whole nother trip they do. They're just like constantly moving all over the ocean for some reason. Do you know what their lifespan is? Oh, great question. I know they go to California age one, come back around age seven. But I don't know how long they live. Let's see. Yeah. How many trips to Greece are these things making? This average lifespan is about 15 years. Wow.

And they can live up to 26 years if they're lucky, I guess. Wow. And they can live up to 26 years if they're lucky, I guess. Wow. So, yeah, just a long for an animal life of constantly crisscrossing the biggest ocean in the world. I mean, what else are they going to do? True. Wow, Candace throwing shade

over the tuna right now. Get a job. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Candice Martellaro and Valerie Tossie for being so down for this topic. Right? Like, such connections to it. Candice's entire family. Like, what a tuna group. Really felt good.

Anyway, 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. This week's bonus topic is an uplifting environmental and political story about tuna from the Pacific Ocean, and then another story like that from the Atlantic Ocean. Two stories of tuna politics, they're both good news. Visit sifpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than seven dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring tuna with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways.

Takeaway number one, across modern history, tuna has been one of the most popular human foods and one of the least popular human foods. Takeaway number two, bluefin tuna have unique swimming superpowers. Plus incredible humongous numbers about fish and Subway sandwich mysteries and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Candice Martellaro is producing and working on the new season of Hanging with Dr. Z. Season two is airing on YouTube right now. Maybe airing

is not the right word, but it releases every Monday on YouTube. It's free. You can go check it out. And again, Hanging with Dr. Z is a late night talk show with incredible guests and a house band hosted by Dr. Zaius, the character from Planet of the Apes, the talking ape who is a doctor. Also, separate thought about Hanging with Dr. Z. It's a show you might enjoy if you like the comedian Dana Gould. This is a very separate thought from my enthusiasm about Dr. Zayas, the very real Ape Who Is a Doctor. But also, if you're a fan of Dana Gould, I think that just aligns, you know, somehow. Anyway, enough about that show. Valerie Tossie, my other guest today, has an amazing new stand-up comedy album that you can hear. It is titled Beach Trash. You can search that where you stream things and ideally buy it. We

will have links for both. It's recorded live at the Comedy Attic in Bloomington, Indiana. That's Valerie Tossie's album. And then please follow both these wonderful people on the social medias. Candice Martellaro is at Candice Mart on Twitter, and she's Candice underscore Martellaro underscore on Instagram. Her name is spelled Candice with a K. Valerie Tossie is at Valerie underscore Tossie on all the socials. That last name is spelled T-O-S-I, Tossie. And of course, like always, all that stuff is linked at SifPod.fun.

Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article in Hakai magazine written by Christopher Pollan. A great book titled Tuna, A Love Story by science writer Richard Ellis, plus tons more resources from National Geographic, Atlas Obscura, Smithsonian Magazine, NPR. Find those and many 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'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Thank you.