The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week - Old Bay's Secret History, Midwestern Hells, Mad Gasser of Mattoon

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Ologies' Alie Ward hops on Weirdest Thing this week to divulge the incredible underdog story of the guy who created Old Bay. Jess returns to talk about how Chicago and the greater Midwest has been suffering from corn sweat, and Rachel explains the (literally) hysterical story of Mattoon's mad gasser. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week is a podcast by Popular Science. Share your weirdest facts and stories with us in our Facebook group or tweet at us! Click here to learn more about all of our stories!  Links to Rachel's TikTok, Newsletter, Merch Store and More: https://linktr.ee/RachelFeltman  Rachel now has a Patreon, too! Follow her for exclusive bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/RachelFeltman Link to Jess' Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/jesscapricorn -- Follow our team on Twitter Rachel Feltman: www.twitter.com/RachelFeltman Produced by Jess Boddy: www.twitter.com/JessicaBoddy Popular Science: www.twitter.com/PopSci Theme music by Billy Cadden: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LqT4DCuAXlBzX8XlNy4Wq?si=5VF2r2XiQoGepRsMTBsDAQ Thanks to our Sponsors! This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off your first month at: https://BetterHelp.com/WEIRDEST Get cozy in Quince's high-quality wardrobe essentials. Go to https://Quince.com/weirdest for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door? I'm talking about mood.com. They have an incredible line of cannabis dummies and a lot more. And you can get 20% off your first order at mood.com with promo code Weirdest. It's third party lab tested and ships directly to you in a discreet box. Best of all, everything's backed by Mood's 100 day satisfaction guarantee. And like I said, you can get 20% off with code Weirdest. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to mood.com. Get 20% off your first order now with code weirdest.

That's code weirdest for 20% off. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your ocean front room.

Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or The Hilton.com. Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. At Popular Science, we report and write dozens of science and text stories every week. And while most of the stuff we stumble across makes it into our articles,

we also find plenty of weird facts that we just keep around the office. So we figured, why not share those with you? Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned this week from the editors of popular science. I'm Rachel Feldman. I'm just Bodie. I'm Allie Ward. Allie, welcome to the show. So excited to have you. Thanks for having me. It's exciting. I've been listening to the show. I've listen to the show since you guys premiered. So this is exciting to be on the other side of it. An honor. We are huge fans of ologies, of course, as are, I think, many of our listeners. But for anyone who is somehow not aware of you and your wonderful show yet, would you say a little bit about it? Yeah. It's actually a bit humiliating because I'm wearing my own merch right now,

but that's just... No, that's... I don't think that's humiliating at all. I think that's relatable. No, it just means it's extreme laundry day right now, like absolute. I hear that, dude. DefCon 5 Laundry Day situation. But yes, so I host a podcast called Ologies, and it's a different ology every week. So it might be geology or it might be kinetic salacidology, which is the study of the dances that spiders do. So it's all over the map.

And so we do Spooktober and October, which is all like, you know, bats and candy. and all kinds of stuff. So yeah, I get to learn weird stuff every week, just like you. Amazing. Well, we're super excited to have you bring some of your, you know, weirdness expertise over to the weirdest thing I learned this week. So let's get into it. On the weirdest thing I learned this week, we start by each offering up a little tease about some kind of fact or story we found in the course of reading, writing, reporting, et cetera, decide which one we just absolutely have to hear more about first. Then once we've all had time to spin our little science yarns, we reconvene

and decide what the weirdest thing we learned this week actually was. And I'm never going to rewrite the intro, even though there's not a winner anymore. At this point, yeah. Now it's a bit, and I love a bit. Just thanks for coming on this side of the mic today. Always pleasure to have you shared a fact. What's your tease today? I'm going to talk about a lot of the.

hellish weirdness going on in the Midwest lately. Oh, it could be anything. Really? Anything. Weather, politics, cheese. That's true. Honestly, oh, I should have expanded to cheese. Lactose intolerance, all kinds of things.

That is the real crime if you're lactose intolerant in the Midwest. Yeah, that's tough. Allie, what's your tease? I have a little bit of an enraging but also heartwarming tale of spice and crabs. Oh, great. Which is big, but you're just going to have to trust me. Listen, the curiosity gap is wonderful.

I'm going to talk about something I've had on my list of potential topics for a long time, and today I decided to just do it. I'm going to talk about the mad gasser of Mattoon. What? Were those words? What was that? Okay, great. Yes, the mad gasser of Matun, which is.

I think would be probably would have gone down in history if only for that phrase. But I think is also, you know, a fascinating, kind of a true crime historical tale. I can go first. I think I just, I'm already in it now. So I'll just keep rolling. My first, I do have a question. Yes. What gasser's, what gassers aren't mad?

If you're gassing someone, you're already. It's true. You're in trouble one way or another. Very extremely fair. But who was the Madgasser of Mattoon? What was the Madgasser of Mattoon? All questions that remain to this day, but we're going to get into it. So this starts on September 1st, 1944, when a young mother of two named Aline Kearney

noticed what she described as this like sickeningly sweet odor coming through her bedroom window. She was in the town of Matun, Illinois, which had like about 15,000 people. Yeah. Midwest. A Midwest tale. Near, not far from champagne, I have been told by the internet. Also, Matun considers itself the bagel capital of the country, and I think a lot of people probably take issue with that. My dog growled, so she's also...

Yeah, Flo's like... Flora says, that's not true. New York is like, I'm sorry? Yeah, I am now morbidly curious about the bagel fest they hold every year, but maybe you need to go investigate. notably, like, our biggest gap in our food culture, which is, I think Chicago's perhaps one of if not the best food cities in the country. For sure.

But we do not have good bagels, and we know it. Not in Mattoon. Yeah, perhaps worth investigating. But so, anyway, Matune is known for believing they are the bagel capital of the world and the Madgaster. And that's what a combo. So, yeah, this young mother of two, she smells this sickeningly sweet odor. And then she's like, the smell got stronger.

And she says she felt her legs and lower body become paralyzed. So things have escalated. And now many men in Matun were off fighting in World War II. Kearney's husband wasn't, but he was out working as a cab driver. But luckily, her sister and nephew were staying the night. And so they came when she screamed for help. The police were called and they didn't find anything. And her apparent paralysis also resolved within half an hour, luckily.

But then later, when her husband got home, he clearly. named, he saw a mysterious man lurking near the bedroom window, who then evaded capture and the police found no sign of him. And thus began the saga of the mad gasser of Matun. People went a little nuts about this. The next day, the Matune Daily Journal Gazette, everything with this town's name and it just sounds funny. They ran the headline, quote, anesthetic prowler on loose, And then a Mr. and Mrs. Urban Reef saw the report. And they claimed that they'd actually been hit the night before the Kearneys. They were called waking up around 3 a.m.

Or at least the husband did. It's unclear whether the wife was then just like, yes, that did happen. Or they both experienced this. But around 3 a.m., he said he woke up. He smelled something sweet. And then he was unable to move, which to me kind of sounds like a sleep paralysis, just like waking up in the middle of the night. But we'll get more into all of that kind of stuff later.

Some other folks chimed in to add their own September 1st experiences, so saying like this guy was on a spree the night he hit the Kearney House. Another pair said, hopefully, that they'd experienced something, quote, a few months ago that was similar. So just, yeah, reports were piling in. There was one woman just identified as the wife of George Ryder that came up a lot, this kind of thing. It was 1944. Yeah. And she said, and this is, again, getting into some of the, like, maybe sort of suspicious circumstances that we'll talk about later.

She was like, I had been up drinking, quote, several pots of coffee. And then she heard a noise, like a plop, and then a strange smell. And she said her hands and legs tingled and she felt dizzy like she was floating. And I'm like, that sounds like drinking several pots of coffee in the middle of the night. You're right. But so people are feeling weird. They're on notice. And then things escalate on September 5th.

when Carl and Bula Cordes come home around 10 p.m. Who knows what they were out doing? Crazy kids. And they noticed a piece of white cloth stuck to their screen door. And Bula picked it up, said it felt damp, and then apparently put it on her face to smell it, which, come on, Bula. She said her throat was so badly murned that she bled from the mouth, which, whoa if true.

I don't know that that actually happened. And then she said she felt a feeling of paralysis. Again, I don't really know what that means. but the police investigated, they analyzed the cloth, they found no chemical traces on it that could have explained anything, literally any of this. They did note in the paper that they found a well-worned skeleton key and a tube of lipstick on the sidewalk near their home. This is a Nancy Drew. Right? Very Nancy Drew. And I'm also like, that is also just trash. That's just trash that could be on the sidewalk. But I understand, listen, I get why it was included in the news report.

So what could it all mean? Again, they analyzed the cloth. They were like, it means nothing. We have no idea. And meanwhile, during the first two weeks of September, the Matun police received 25 separate reports of strange symptoms and like smelly sense and people thinking. Often people were like, there was a guy. There was a guy by the window. There's a guy doing this.

Around the same time, and this comes from an Atlas Obscura article, a fortune teller and board. house owner named Enna James said she had followed a strange odor and then spotted, and this is a quote, an ape-like man with long arms, reaching out, holding a spray gun. And then he had apparently spritz her and it made her arms and legs go numb. So at this point, the Journal Gazette is basically claiming that the city is in peril and the police are useless. There is an article where they said, we suppose it is natural for the pride of policemen to be stung a bit when a crime is committed. And for this reason, there has been a tendency in Matun police circles recently to conceal from the public the fact that certain crimes have occurred. So cover-ups now.

Yeah, exactly. Things are getting intense. So at this point, the Matoon chief of police, C.E. Cole gets involved. You know, things have gone all the way up the chain. And his first attempt at making people chill out. about this is that he pinpoints that there's a factory nearby called the Atlas Imperial Diesel Engine Company plant. And they are doing things involved in the war effort. They're working with carbon tetrachloride. And he was like, that odor could be like carrying through the city on the wind and maybe, you know, disturbing people. Then Atlas officials were like, hey, the police didn't inspect the plan and none of our factory workers are sick. So, like, do not put this on us. So the police chief rescinds. But yeah, people are continuing to report this supposed mad gasser.

It's like so common for it to be in the papers that there was actually a headline one day that was mad prowler takes it easy for night because no one had reported any gases that night. Out of office reply. Yeah, exactly. And people are, panicking. Apparently the army actually brought in a chemical weapons expert. And because, you know, again, this is during World War II. So there was a lot of anxiety about chemical warfare. And they had some hypotheses about various poisonous gases, including one that was used by exterminators for rodents. But they never found any traces of that gas. And the symptoms didn't really match it. So they were continuing to just kind of spitball. And meanwhile, like, there's,

started to be armed gangs of vigilantes going around trying to catch the mad gasser of Matun. The police are looking into various suspects. They had several theories. Unsurprisingly, there was some concern that this might be like a literal Nazi or an escaped prisoner of war. Of course, at this time, there were horrible Japanese internment camps and, you know, most Americans did not see those as being hard.

They saw them as being a place dangerous people could escape from. So that was one potential theory. Then there were people like, was this a disgruntled like high school chemistry teacher or a prankster of some kind? Walter White. Yeah, seriously. And apparently it seems like perhaps this was just a coincidence, but there was a guy in town who was like a millionaire eccentric who was known to have a base. lab where he like tinkered with stuff. Come on.

I kind of get to Matun, man. All the red. Yeah, exactly. So he was an obvious potential suspect, but like they didn't, it didn't seem like it was actually him. They were calling mental hospitals being like, do you have any people who are really into gas who have escaped recently? As if like they wouldn't be aware that someone had escaped from, you know, people, they were

just really like, explain. exploring every avenue because this one person at the Gazette was like, the police are bungling this and our women are in danger. So we do know of at least one case where people freaking out about the Madgasser of Mattoon led to at least some property damage. A woman was loaning her husband's shotgun for protection from the Madgasser and accidentally blew a hole in her kitchen wall. Thankfully, just the wall. But yes, people were like, we got to find. what's going on, the Chicago Herald on September 11th said, State Hunts Gas Madman.

And that was the vibe. And yeah, meanwhile, the local paper is saying, like, the police aren't taking this seriously enough. And then the paper also started to come around to the idea that, like, and now people are getting hysterical. Like, the paper started to come around to, like, not all of these reports can possibly be true if this is a guy doing this. and now people are just freaked out, and so it's going to make it even harder to find the actual, definitely real Mad Gasser of Mattoon.

The state attorney, William Kidwell, actually blamed a reporter with a, quote, vivid imagination from the journal Gazette for, like, creating this situation. And the commissioner of public health said that someone was going to get killed and it wouldn't be from gas. He was like, people have lost control of themselves in a manner which is almost unbelievable in a modern world. I wouldn't walk through anyone's backyard for $10,000. What's the equivalent of that in today's dollars? Was that like 50 million? Probably like at least like half a million or million dollars.

So he, yeah, he was like, people are just, I don't know, hide your kids, hide your wife. They're all looking for the bad gas room in a tune. and it does seem like once local officials and the media were like it seems like maybe there's like an aspect of hysteria to this reports stopped so this very quickly went from being like a huge news story about a potential madman on the loose to being a new story about how wild it was that matune had gotten into such a a tizzy. The Decatur Herald said, our neighbors in Mattoons sniffed their town into newspaper headlines from coast to coast. And it actually became, yeah, a lot of, you know, 40s and 50s newspaper writing, really nothing else like it. The headlines, very like Parks and Rec style headlines. Yeah, that Midwestern charm, baby. Yeah, it's so true. So, yeah, it then became actually like one of the most classic textbook examples people gave of like mass psychogenic illness or mass

hysteria. Like it's right up there with like the dancing plagues we've talked about on weirdest thing before. People were just kind of like case closed. Everyone just was really stressed out about World War II. A lot of the men were gone. People were reading about chemical warfare in the newspapers and then this very, very headline happy writer at the Matun Daily Journal Gazette really got into everything that people were reporting and that this just sort of like fueled this cycle. But one interesting thing I found about this is that some more recent academics like the sociologist from Illinois, David L. Miller, have like looked back at the press reports and But like there are some interesting things about this.

Basically, there were several newspaper men who like went to cover what was happening. And they reported that they had headaches from like residual gas. And they weren't counted as victims. Miller also found that in several attacks, there were husbands who were with their wives, but only the wives were counted as victims, which, you know, really just kind of builds this case for like, epidemic hysteria that might not have happened if more men had been counted in the like, you know, supposed victim tally. And there's an interesting article I'll link to on pottside.com slash weird that talks about like the difference between mass hysteria and

like mass delusion. And basically, you know, even though we tend to use the word delusion to mean, you know, like a hallucination or a psychosis. The way that sociologists use these two terms, like mass hysteria implies like a conversion disorder, like everyone's sort of reacting to this same psychological stress and it's manifesting these physical symptoms and then it like seems to be catching. Whereas there's this like slight nuance where it's a collective delusion is more about like people hear about false information and it spreads. And so they're looking out for something bad that might be happening.

So it's like there's nuance there. And I think it is interesting to be like, you know, there's a difference between people all convincing themselves that they are sick because they're so stressed out about the war. And people genuinely being like, I'm being told by the newspaper that I should be afraid of the mad guy. of Matun and I heard a twig break and smelled something weird and what if it was the mad gasser of Mattoon? So sort of like the people of Matun maybe deserve a little bit more credit than they

they got. And we also don't know for sure that there wasn't some real instigating event here, whether it was a man with a gas canister or it was some kind of, you know, environmental contamination. Like, we don't know. So, yeah, there's a lot here. And I actually found there's another website I'll link to on Popside.com slash weird that was made by Leslie Mio, who I think now is like a museum worker and like a sort of like archivist researcher. But when they were at the, when they were at Eastern Illinois University in the historical administration class of 2001, they made a website that was basically like, here's all the information about. the Mad Gaster of Mattoon and like come to your own conclusion. So it's like a map of where all the

supposed incidents were and all of the headlines. And there's a great little like bar chart of the reported symptoms. And very notably by far the most reported symptom is just like quote sickness. Like it just like vague like not feeling good. So yeah, the I think the takeaway from the bad gas rate of Matun is that there definitely was an element of like social contagious. paranoia, you know, misinformation spread. But there is still this mystery of like, did something trigger the initial reports? And what was it? At one point, I think in like 2003, a local guy wrote a book going back to the argument

that like, no, this was actually that rich guy with the lab in his basement. Like it was definitely him. And that was a controversial take. But, you know, the truth is that we don't. really know. Maybe somebody was gasset in Mattoon. I'm so curious. And just to to wrap it up, to give you a sense of like how big of a story this was at the time, guys who were stationed overseas, like, wrote home to be like, I read about this in the newspaper where I am. One guy who was stationed in England, he wrote his mother back in Mattoon and he was like, why is a British newspaper writing

about Mattoon? And he said it sounded like something out of a dime novel, which I think is extremely fair. And he said, you know, it's wild that, like, we're in the midst of a global conflict. And halfway around the world, I'm reading about, quote, a nut who went about in Mattoon with a spray gun knocking out his victims with a strange gas. And he was not the only soldier who rode home similarly being like, why is Baton in the news? So, yeah. I love that they're like, why is Matoon trending?

Yeah, exactly. Like hashtag Mattoon. Hashtag Mattoon. Hashtag Mad Gasser of Mattoon. So yeah, I think this gets mentioned a lot in sort of like unsolved mystery spaces. And, you know, there are definitely people who, you know, bring it in like a potential paranormal element. But, you know, I think even with totally natural causes, it's still like a fascinating

little mystery and a little like microcosm of American paranoia. in 1944 and the power of the press. I love the idea of like Mattoon having a like a plaque or a memorial, like some sort of memorial to it, but it's just an empty square because they're like, we don't know shit. We don't know. So it's like this is pretty much all we know.

But does Mattoon have like a mad guess or diner? Do they capitalize on the lore? Are there tourist dollars coming in? Oh my gosh. To hopefully get gassed. Like, come to the tune. It's a gas. I don't think so.

It seems like they put most of their tourism dollars into the bagel thing, which I think is a mistake. I think they should be pivoting to Mad Gasser of Mattoon merch. But, you know, that's just my thought. I find out it's just off gassing from yeast or something. It's on a bagel related. It was like a sweet smell. Like, is that from the bagels? Weird reactions.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Could be, probably not a good sign for the bagels, though, if you're experiencing those symptoms. All right. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back with some more facts. Did you know that there's an online cannabis company that ships federally legal THC right to your door?

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I also can't have dairy right now. So the idea of having a caramel that also me me out and sends into Dreamland sounds very nice. And speaking of fun edibles, Mood.com has Delta9 THC freezer pops. So if you're looking to try some new cannabis products, head on over to Mood.com. Get 20% off your first order now with code Weirdest. That's code Weirdest for 20% off. Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot. It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the next grill,

four-burner gas grill, on special buy for only $199. And entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set for only $499. This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, price invalid May 14th or May 27th, U.S. only exclusions. apply see homedepot.com slash price match for details. Okay, we're back and let's make a nice Midwest sandwich and Allie can go next. Italian beef. I assume the crab story is not about the Midwest. Yes. Yes. Not Italian

beef in this Midwest sandwich, rather crab. Lots of crab, lumps of crab. Okay, I'm from the West Coast. I'm neither Midwest nor eastern seaboard. So the lore very much exciting to me. So this is a story that for some reason I started going down a rabbit hole, finding weird old news articles, looking up cemeteries I'll never go to. And I found myself just sucked into this vacuum of the story. And the other thing is, is I know it's the weirdest thing I learned this week, but right now I'm working on an episode about suicidology. And I was like, you know, maybe we'll stick to crap. And so I was doing this episode. I'm working. I'm working on this episode about crabs, right? And people start asking me about crab cakes. And I don't know,

are either of you allergic to shellfish? Nope. And I'm from the East Coast. So I, you know, I f*** with a crab cake for sure. Okay. You're down with it. What kind of crab cake do you like? I like, you know, I know that people will say that like a fancier crab cake is like all crab, but I like, you know, I like a crab cake with some filler. Like, you know, I don't want a meatball. to be entirely meat. I don't want my crab cake to be entirely crab. I want some breadcrums in there and, you know, lots of, some nice spices. So yeah. So you're like dress it up a little. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're like, accessorized the crab. Okay. Absolutely. Is that, what about you, Jess? I didn't know there were different guys. Welcome to the weirdest thing I learned. Yeah, I mean, I love

seafood. Like, I love sushi and I love, like, shellfish. But I, yeah, I was not familiar. are with the intricacies of crab cakes. Neither was I. I knew of like maybe like a Costco box of crab cakes and then the ones that are more expensive that are like market price or whatever. I'm like, okay.

Got it, yeah. So I shoot all over the country for CBS, the show that I worked on for like 10 years. So we get to go to all these little towns and people like if you're going to Baltimore make sure to get like a blue crab cake, it's a special thing down there. And I was like, how special could it be?

So here's the deal. So most crab cakes, they have a bunch of things that Rachel would like, for example. Yeah. They have breadcrumbs. They got eggs. They got mustard. So the crab proportion lower because you've got all these extra wingdings in there, let's say.

Now, Maryland crab cakes, Baltimore style, they're like, we don't do that. They got blue crab. They got minimal binder. They're like purists about it. And a dash of old bay seasoning, right? You got to have a little bag cake. That's all that can go into a Baltimore-style crab cake. And you're like, how does it stick together?

They figured it out. They chill it. They firm it up. And before being cooked, so they don't add eggs, they don't add anything else. And before they cook them, right? So everyone else, you put your breadcrumbs, you put your croutons, gummy worms. I don't care what you put in there. Baltimore is like, don't even think about it, Old Bay or nothing.

And I was like, what, why does Old Bay seasoning have like this VIP pass into a Maryland crab cake? Like, why do they get past the VIP line, right? Like, why do they get backstage? So I was like, let's find out. So, okay, Old Bay seasoning. Are you familiar? I'm so familiar. Yes.

Yeah. Being from the part of like South Jersey that's like weirdly Appalachian, it's firmly in Old Bay territory. Yeah. I actually went, my parents now live in Maryland and every once in a while we will get like crabs from somebody on the roadside, which is a phrase that sounds like it's about something else entirely. And one of the classic ways you can get them is covered in old bay. But the thing is that when you get the crabs in the shell and they're covered in old bay and you have to like dismantle them, it really stings your hands. It's a very painful process. So delicious.

but punishing, torturous. It's the Cheeto dust of the Eastern Seabor is what it is. It's just, it's on things, it's going to get in your fingers. Always welcome, though. Yes, delicious. Part of the price of admission is you're going to get maybe covered in Old Bay. So Old Bay, beloved, right? So this is, it's a local favorite along the Chesapeake Bay, and it was created by this

guy named Gustav Brun. So I was like, what's up with Gustav? So he was a German Jewish immigrant, and this is in 1938. So we're going back to, oh, you know, another 80 years. So he was German. So 1938, he was arrested in Weimar, Germany. Sucks, along with 30,000 other Jews, it became known as the Night of Broken Glass. It was called Crystal Knock.

A horrible, horrible event. He was sent to Buchenwald, which is a concentration camp. It's one of the first, one of the largest. So this is, again, back in Germany. So he had been in the spice business previously and saved up some money. And so Gustav's wife was able to take part of their savings, a huge amount of their savings, pretty much a lot of what they had, and give it to a lawyer to get Gustav released because their family had already gotten American visas. They were planning to come to America. And so they were able to get him out and immediately they came to America, right?

As you can maybe guess landed in Baltimore. It's 1939, right? Now Gustav and his wife, they had been in the spice business. So they took with them like a small spice grinder because they're like, this is what we know how to do. We're going to need this, right? And little company called McCormick. Have you heard of it? Yeah.

Of course. I don't know about you guys, but my mom still has spices in like the old tin jar. Right? Like when you're like what like vintage print on everything? Because it's like from the 60s. Yeah. Like relics. Absolute relics.

Like you don't need that much all spice in your life. And so you have this tin of McCormick's going to last you until your death. Like your great grandkids are going to have to figure out like, do I put this tin on eBay? Do I inherit it? Do we pretend like this still is flavorful? Because it's probably not. So McCormick, old-time spice company, right? He gets a job there.

This is amazing. He's a spice guy. He's in America. He and his wife are safe, right? And he was quickly fired because he was an immigrant and English wasn't his first language. So the big sad trombone. Big mistake, huge. Huge. Huge. So he's packing up, right? And he's, what's he going to do? He has to start his own spice business, right? He's like, I know spice. He starts out these, he makes spices for a sausage shop. He's their spice dealer, right? He comes in. Now, so fishmongers come in and they want to buy stuff in bulk, right? Because they want to make some seafood blends. So much fish and seafood Chesapeake Bay.

At the time, there was much more than there probably is now, I'm going to guess, because people love to eat crab cakes. But either way, a lot of fishmongers out there. And so he starts working on this blend that the fishmongers were like to sell more spices. And this is just a little secret recipe here, but there's celery salts, there's black and red pepper, there's paprika, there's maybe some laurel leaves. No one else really knows exactly what's in the spice blend. But what I love about the story is that rich people were had your taste, Rachel. They were like, I want my seafood with butter. I want you to put some French bread in there.

I want to put all kinds of fancy herbs. They're like, dress it up. And people who were poor, who had less money, who were fishing for crabs, they were like, we'll take the crab is fine. You know, we don't, butter, hollanda sauce. Have you seen my shoes? No, that's not happening right now. I'll just take the crab.

And so the poor folks, they're going to eat like simple steamed crab, right? But after Old Bay comes on the scene, people start using it. And they like the simpler ingredients, including the old bay, they start to take off and those start to become trendy. So suddenly it's like, oh, our crab meat is pure. We don't need a lot of filler in it. And so it reverses. So instead of being like we can't afford butter, it's like, we don't even need butter. Are you kidding me?

This is perfect. And so I'm guessing they did transatlantic accents. I don't know. They must have. They, I'm sure. Especially if they've wearing a lot of pearls and things like that and feathers. I don't know. And gesturing wildly.

Of course. With a champagne glass in their hand at all hours. So Gustav is like, this is great. This is taking off. So he names it the deletreuxie. delicious brand, shrimp and crab seasoning. And a friend is like, Gustaf, you're amazing, that name sucks.

The delicious brand that says nothing. And so it's a success. His friend helps him with like a rebrand. Essentially, he's like, we've got to change your handles on everything. You need a new logo, Gusuff. Come on. And so they change it to the name Old Bay after this ship that would often be in the Chesapeake Bay.

And so it was a passenger ship. So it's a success. And Brun continues to hire immigrants, refugees. He teaches them English if they don't know it well and trade skills. And at one point, they referred to his company as the United Nations in miniature because they had so many people from different places. No way. I love that. Right?

He got fired from McCormick for being an immigrant. Imagine being the guy that fired Gustav. Like, come on, dude. Watch an old. become a old bay yeah right i mean old bay is in every kitchen and so he's like oh yeah watch this you're a refugee coming over here i got a spice blend you can work on and he's successful obviously this starts to get bigger and bigger everyone's got old bay people use it in their seafood and all kinds of stuff he lives to the age of 92 right god and good for him all that crab maybe i don't know and this was in

1985 and a few years later the old bay banner the brand was sold for the equivalent of 24.3 million dollars. Oh my goodness. This is a man who came to Baltimore with a spice grinder and a dream. 24 million dollars. Wow. You know who bought it? McCormick? McCormick. Oh my God. Oh my goodness. Where is the movie? Big mistake. Huge. Huge. So now McCormick definitely egg on their face, crab in their bellies, is like, you're right, Gustav. We've fucked that up pretty bad. And Gustav and his wife, they're buried in Ryers Town, Maryland and in the Baltimore Hebrew Cemetery. And I found that out because, again, I feel like it's not creepy or stalking if the person is no longer alive. Sure. A little bit. Like, I'm like, Gustav, I want to know.

I have like a parisocial relationship with Gustav. Yeah. Where I was like, where's he buried? I was like, where's he, what happened? Where is he buried? Where is he? Find a grave, found his grave. And I was like, I was going to say, did you find it?

Yeah. Of course. I was like, hats off, Gustav. Just paying my respects digitally. So if anyone's in Ryerstown, Maryland, I'm like, grab some old bay, sprinkle a pinch. Yeah. He's a real one.

The idea that people would know your story and then just like tap out a little old bay on you. I don't know what that does to the grass if too many people think of that. You know, but I will say my father passed away two years ago. And his birthday was yesterday, but on his, the first birthday that he wasn't around, my dad was a big fan of like Folger's Coffee and Powdered Coffee Creamer and spilled a little on his grave was like morning coffee pop. I love that. That's so sweet. pouring some out for those who we've lost. So when I see Old Bay, when I used to see Old Bay, I was like, okay, it's a spice. I don't give a shit.

And now I'm like, Gustav, good job. And also, the older packaging was metal, like those metal canisters we were talking about, but they had to switch it to plastic, and some people are really pissed about that. So if you have a metal canister of Old Bay, keep the metal canister, just refill it because that's like. But yeah, so that's, that is. That's my emotional connection now to Old Bay, which happened when I was researching a crabs episode. Also crabs pee out of their face. Oh, my God.

They do. It's true. Wow. I love that story. And I feel like we say this so often on weirdest thing. But truly, where is the movie about it? I'm like, you know, so many people we could put in that role. Daniel Radcliffe.

I think he's right. I could see it. He'd love to play. the Jewish refugee who created Old Bay. The idea of someone in like a tattered tweed boarding a ship and there's just a spice grinder in his pockets as he looked at the horizon. You know what I mean? Like just tasting things in a basement and seeing a montage of his sweet wife going too spicy

or not spicy enough, you know what I mean? Having, again, having grown up in solidly in Old Bay. territory and being, you know, in part of German Jewish descent. I had no idea. I had no idea the connection. People, listen, they're not a lot of other Jews down at Old Bay territory. I got to say, so it never came up. Spread the word. Spread the word that Old Bay made by a friend, made by someone who gets our respects. Incredible. That was great. We're going to take one more quick break and then we'll be back with one more fact. Peak pollination season and my business is scaling fast.

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No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks co-pilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs to help him see if he can afford it. Co-pilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work.

Now, Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M365 copilot.com slash work. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsored jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more.

Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Okay, we're back. And Jess, what Midwestern catastrophes are we talking about exactly? Yes. Okay, so there's a few. I will get into them. So, yeah, lately a lot of weird stuff has been happening here in the Midwest. As I mentioned previously, I live in Chicago. I love it here. And yeah, so you guys might have heard of this. But a couple weeks ago, we had this big Mondo heat wave, like heat index of like 115, like, You know, it gets hot here in the summer, but usually caps out at around 150 degrees.

It's warm. And, you know, we're recording this episode in early September, and that heat wave happened like end of August. So luckily that heat wave is broken now. It's still hot, but just kind of like normal hot. Occasionally we'll get a little cool breeze on the wind. And I'm like, oh, fall? It's right around the corner.

That's very exciting to me. But anyway, yes, this heat wave was not an ordinary heat wave. It was like more of a humidity wave. And it was perhaps the hottest, stickiest weather we've had in a very, very, very long time. I would walk outside and my glasses would fog up. I would be like immediately glistening in sweat. I could only take my dog like halfway around the block and would loop back. Just, just horrible.

And the cause of this heat wave, it is corn sweat. Ah, corn sweat. What? Yes. Corn sweat? Corn sweat. Those aren't words that go together. Yeah, and this isn't just like a new buzzword like spawned on TikTok or anything.

Like this is a real term used by farmers, used by meteorologists. And basically, corn sweat is how corn can add moisture to the atmosphere. And it turns a hot summer into a hot, wet, unpleasant summer. And I will explain how. So the way it does this, it has to do with this thing called, and this is a way. word, brace yourself, evo transpiration. And this is a thing that plants do. It's one of their favorite activities. So plants take up water from the soil. They do what they need to do with the water and their little plant bodies. And then they spit the rest out into the atmosphere. It's kind of

the way that water is processed from the soil through the plant to the air. And obviously when they do that, it makes things a little bit more humid. But when temperatures are already high, corn ends up needing more water to survive and thrive and do corn things. So that means it takes up more water, uses more water, and spits out more water into the air. So obviously that means the air gets more humid, hence corn sweat, humidity phenomenon. And so when you think about a place like the Midwest that grows quite a bit of corn, that's a lot of corn sweat. Yeah, we got a lot of corn. And so like, you know, the country that grows the most corn in the world is the United States.

And the states in the U.S. they grow the most corn are Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Minnesota. So yes, I am living in the corn sweat capital of the world. And I did find some numbers. This is kind of hard to put into perspective because the numbers are so big. But for example, in 2022, Illinois planted corn

over 10.8 million acres. And that translated into 2.27 billion bushels. And apparently a bushel on average, contains, I just love that word, bushel. A bushel on average contains 112 ears of corn. So that means that Illinois grew like over 250 billion ears of corn in one year. So consider the sweat capacity. We use too much corn. Yeah, it's a lot of corn. Yeah. So yeah, this is just another way that humans are doing something that's affecting Earth's overall weather patterns. This is humans' fault, of course.

Indirectly, you know, it's the corn's fault, but who planted the corn? The corn didn't choose to live. No. And as climate change continues to progress and temps continue to go up, as will the amount of corn sweat. So we are doomed to continue existing in a world of corn sweat, you know, unless we are able to do what scientists begging us to do and, you know, reduce that global temp. So yeah, that's the big one that I've been dealing with lately is the corn sweat. Luckily, that's kind of subsided lately. But there have been some other hellish goings on in my great city.

Just two more quick things that I would love to tell you just to cap things off. So the first thing I learned about is something I've been calling cicadamites. They aren't actually cicatamites. They're actually oak leaf itch mites. That sounds bad. I don't like it. It's alarming. They eat cicada eggs.

So they parasitized cicada eggs. and they live up in the trees, they nibble on those cicada eggs, and when they're, when they're nice and full, they dive bomb off the leaves and they land on humans and they nibble us. No, no. So, and the bites are kind of like red and itchy, like kind of like a more aggressive mosquito bite. They can last for up to like two weeks. And obviously this is more of a problem this year for us Illinoisans because we just had our double cicada brood emergence. We had our 13 and 17-year broods. They were out to play together this year.

So lots of eggs to nibble on, lots of mites descending from the skies. The reason I learned about this, I don't actually think I was bitten by one, but I had fear for a moment that I was. So the reason I learned about this is I was streaming, if you guys don't know. My other full time besides this podcast is streaming video games on Twitch.

I'll put the link to that, you know, in the description, pop site icon slash weird, et cetera. But I was streaming and I kept getting this like shooting pain on the right ball of my foot. And I'll be like, out, what is that? And one of my mods, Vanessa, hi, Vanessa, she was like, you probably stepped on a cicatamite. Like, it probably flew from the tree and you probably stepped on it. It probably bit you. And I was like, I stepped on a what? And so she sent me an article about it and I was like, this is, I can't believe this is real.

So then I was, yeah, I was horrified. In the end, it resolved in a day or two. So I don't know what it was. I don't think it was a cicatomite. But now I'm like, they're out there, like looking around. out there. They're lurking in the trees or perhaps on the ground because I do walk around outside. Sometimes I let my dog outside. You know, I walk around. But yeah, bodies are, bodies are just weird. Sometimes you just get a shooting pain in the ball of your foot, I guess. Anyway, I learned about the horror that is cicadamites descending from the skies. And then finally, one more weird Midwestern experience for you that has to do with weather again. So I'm in this beach volleyball league over the summer in Chicago. And for those of you, there's so many

people that are like this that are like oh Chicago doesn't have beaches you know that's that's a lake there's no beaches fuck you we have real beaches okay those lakes are so big it is a full beach it is and we have open water there's tides you know

it's like it's really just like a freshwater inland sea yeah it really is the one time I was on I don't even remember which which of the Great Lakes but I was on one of them and I honestly got like I felt like very unsetely settled because I was like, I am at sea. I was told we were going out on a lake and everything

in my body is telling me we are in the open ocean. So yeah, a lot of fear, fear, respect, healthy fear and respect for the great lakes. Yes, I agree. I agree completely. So many shipwrecks too. Oh, yeah. Yes. So yeah, in that similar vein, you know, I was, you know, just to continue to illustrate the fearsomeness of these Great Lakes. Because if you're new to the geography of the Midwest, Chicago is on Lake Michigan. And so we're playing a beach volleyball during the corn sweat heat wave, mind you.

And it was so, so hot and sticky. It was not good. We had all brought like extra water, extra Gatorade. We were shocked if they didn't cancel the volleyball. And all of a sudden we just feel this cool breeze coming in off the lake. And I was like, oh, that's nice. And I turn around and I see these. dark ominous clouds like like like you don't even see like a shelf of like just and you see them like

kind of roiling and moving and you're like oh we're about to experience weather and you know we're kind of looking at each other like should we stop playing like should we go take shelter should we leave and we kind of kept playing a little bit and the wind would really pick up and it was like not only blowing the ball around but like kind of kicking up little whirling dervishes of sand little sandstorms. And then finally we see the teams on the courts that are like really close to the water. They're like running off the beach. And we were like, okay, yeah, let's call it.

So we ran back to our car a few blocks through the old town neighborhood. Tarrantial downpour. You know, we did take shelter for a little bit. We were checking the radar, rain blowing sideways. It was crazy. And it was one of those storms where like you see bright sun in one part of this guy. And then like totally, yeah. It was a really cool summer rainstorm.

But it was wild. It was one of the quickest on. coming storms I had experienced in Chicago ever. But it was only later that I saw on Twitter what actually might have transpired on the beach when those teams close to the water were evacuating. So this is just a hypothesis because I am no meteorologist, but it was seemingly something called a Seish, which is spelled S-E-I-C-H-E. This is a thing that happens in lakes and seas where water levels suddenly rise by as much

as five or six feet in mere moments. And usually this means water does rush up onto the beach very, very quickly. It's kind of like a, you don't want to compare it to. a tsunami, but like it's, it's, the tides are changing very, very quickly. And they can be dangerous for sure. And seemingly that's why all those players, volleyball players that were on the beach, ran off the beach as quickly as they did, because there was a sudden change in atmospheric pressure and then the incoming storm and then, you know, the tides changed so fast. And then later that day, my best friend Lindsay sent me this tweet from just like a local Chicagoan. They had

tweeted three hours before the storm that shows a sudden drop in the tides. And then, And they say it receded 20 feet in five minutes. No. And that was three hours before the sache before the storm. So it was like and people were like, is this normal? And they were tagging like the Chicago news weather people. Like what's the deal? So it seems that it was a sache that's like a, it is especially a Great Lakes phenomenon.

So yeah, I think this is to say that corn sweat kind of fueled this super storm. And that storm created these kind of dynamic. conditions on the lake. But yeah, this, you know, if this doesn't convince you, you know, like Lake Michigan is real. We have beaches and weird little tsunamis. I'm being hyperbolic, obviously, you know, but don't talk shit on Chicago beaches. I will find you. We will have been. She will. But yeah, that's my trio of Midwestern Hells. Wow. I love that. I love, you guys are in your plague era over there. Yeah, we really are. It's kidding. It's giving plague for sure. Oof.

Wow. You know, I will say Chicago, do you take advantage of the free mulberries that happen in Chicago in the summer? The what? The free mulberry trees. Okay. Well, I will be looking this up. I was not aware. Check out I Naturalist.

Lincoln Park has several. And I was marooned in Chicago for a while over Fourth of July. My husband got COVID. And so we were on opposite sides of a friend of a friend's empty apartment. wearing K-95s for like 11 days or whatever. Oh my goodness. I would wear a mask, I would escape, wear a mask, walk in the park. And I was like, what are these berries?

And I looked them up. Turns out they're not poisonous. And they're free. I just sat there, just pick and pick and picking. And then I started looking like on a, like a Pokemon Go kind of a hunt for more mulberry trees and found everyone on I naturalist. Dear Drew Barrymore, that is what you should do. You see a bear you're interested in on the street.

Right. Or no, it was Alicia Silverstone. Oh, you're right. It was Alicia Silverstone. Oh, I remember. Chicken and turkey. Different lady. Yes.

Drew Barrymore, I'm sure I would Google the berry first. Yeah. You would hope. Alicia Silverstone, please don't eat street berries anymore. You're a national treasure. Right. We need you here. Yeah.

Wow. I love that. I need to do more foraging this fall and next spring. I did my college and my undergrad and I did a bunch of mushroom hunting back in the day. And fall is such a good time for it. But the last few years I haven't been out. But I also just in general in like spring and summer, want to, I don't know, be more capable of like finding edibles and harvesting them. Well, Allie, thank you so much for coming on.

This has been great. And Jess, thank you as always for bringing your Midwestern sensibilities. Always, always. An honor. An honor. The weirdest thing I learned this week is produced by all of our hosts, including me, Rachel Fultman, along with Jess Bodie, who also serves as our audio engineer and editor extraordinaire. Our theme music is by Billy Cadden. Our logo is by Katie Belloff.

If you have questions, suggestions, or weird stories to share, tweet us. at Weirdest underscore thing. Thanks for listening, weirdos. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items, then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up

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