It's another peppersode! Just call us The Indistinguishable Professors with Limited Virtues as we push through our rotundone sensitivities to taste these high pitched smells. Molly takes a risk, Matthew can't get it together and Mr. Botany crashes the show before we ask the age old question: what is lop?
Here’s a great blog post from Casa Mascia Apothecary about producing white pepper at home in Belize.
Pickled Cabbage Stir-fry with Pork
Stir-Fried Rice Cakes (Nian Gao)
Matthew's Now but Wow! - Bingsu for Two by Sujin Witherspoon.
Molly 0:04
Hi, I'm Molly, and I'm Matthew, and this is spilled milk. The show, we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can't
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:09
have any. And today we're talking
Molly 0:12
about white pepper. White pepper. That's right, pepper, white pepper.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:17
And this was suggested by us on some recent episode, and I don't remember which
Molly 0:21
one. Oh, no, it wasn't suggested. Was this an episode? What happened is, after we taped an episode, I was standing in your dining room next to your spice shelf. I said, Hey, have we done white pepper? Because I saw this bag of white peppercorns that now, this makes sense now, right here. So we're doing this episode. Thanks, host Molly. Thank you,
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:43
host Molly for suggesting this. You come up with with quite a few episodes like you're probably ahead of several of our listeners. Yeah. Okay. Do you have any white pepper memory lane? Or was that your white pepper? It was my white
Molly 0:56
pepper memory lane. But what I will say is, like most of us, I keep black pepper at home in a pepper mill, the same type that you have here, the Magnum unicorn,
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:07
yeah, the Magnum bonum. And I hate pink peppercorns. Oh, okay. Hate the I feel like I've usually enjoyed pink peppercorns
Molly 1:16
when they ruin everything they touch and I don't want them around. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:20
so your white pepper Memory Lane is about two different kinds of
Molly 1:24
pepper. Okay, what about your white pepper lane? I think I learned
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:28
about the different kinds of peppercorns, like around the time I decided I wanted to be a food writer, like in the late 90s, you know, you would go to Williams Sonoma, and there'd be, like a four peppercorn blend in like, an expensive pepper mill.
Molly 1:42
That was how I first discovered how much I dislike pink pepper.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:45
Interesting. Okay, so there's black, white, green and pink are the common round peppercorns. There's also, like, long pepper. There's other things that are called Pepper, but like those are the round little peppercorns, black, white and green all come from the same plant, Piper nichrome, the pink peppercorns are a totally different plant. Oh, well, then
Molly 2:05
I'll stop talking about No, no, no, it's fine. I mean, this isn't a pink peppercorn episode,
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:11
no. But now that, now that I know how much you hate them, we have to do a pink peppercorn episode, like, how you made me eat egg salad one time. That was literally, like, 12 years it was literally 12 years ago, and since, since then, we've never eaten anything we didn't like. That's
Molly 2:25
right, Matthew, would you tell me some things about white pepper?
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:29
I would love to. And I knew very little about white pepper until I started researching this episode this pepper. So this is one of our pepper sotes, along with chili peppers. We did, yeah, we did peppercorn like, Well, no, we did a peppercorns episode on Episode 252, I didn't go back and listen to it. Maybe we talked about, maybe this is all gonna be rehash
Molly 2:53
Okay. Well, too bad there's no way of finding out. There's
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:57
no way of finding out. Okay, so Piper nigram, the pepper plant is native to the Malabar coast of India, and it's been used in Indian cooking since at least 2000 BCE, wow. However, we are not talking about peppercorns in general. We are talking about white pepper, and like back then, most likely the pepper that was being used as as for the most part today in India, is black pepper. But I mean, it's the same plant, so the history of white pepper is kind of less clear, so I'm just gonna do my best based on reading some historical documents. Oh, great, which is what I call Wikipedia, and like a few links that I followed, okay, okay, so white pepper is clearly mentioned in the historical record in Portuguese and Dutch trading documents by the 16th century, but it was certainly being produced well before that. I have
Molly 3:48
a question. Maybe this is elementary but I bet some of our listeners don't know either, is white pepper a different thing from black pepper, or is it like black pepper that something has been removed from
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:02
it is both of those things, oh no. Like, like, maybe I should have done this in the opposite order. And like, done Mr. Botany first. Okay, let's you know what, hold on. All right. Wait, yep, yep, yep, he's here. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:17
it's me Come in. Mr. Botany's catch phrase. I kind of love this catchphrase. All right, welcome, Mr. Botany, like, next time I come to your house, like, if I don't say it's me come in, like, you should be mad at me, right?
Unknown Speaker 4:35
Okay, wait, let's do it again.
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:38
It's me Come in. Mr. Botany, okay, go ahead. You can't put like it would sort of make sense to say it's me, Mr. Botany, but no, it's gonna, it has to be, it's me, come in.
Molly 4:51
It's because you contain multitudes, so you're saying, all right, it's
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:56
me, Mr. Botany, come into my consciousness, right? No. Oh, okay, no, it's me, Matthew. It's me Mario. So Mr.
Molly 5:06
Botany knocks and he says, It's me, and then,
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:11
oh, and then it's Mr. Botany. But you can't tell, because both of them sound like me, will sound like Matthew. So I mean, or sound like Mr. Botany. I think we've talked about this before, but there's, like, there's a book or movie or play or something called The Postman Always Rings Twice. Every once in a while I look up the plot and I'm like, Okay, this is fine, but like, there's not no plot that could live up to the absolute sheer awesomeness of the title, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Like, it's one of the best titles of anything ever. Yes. Like, yeah, I don't know why. It just, I don't know. It's just got a ring to it, or twice a ring. Okay, twice a ring, yep. Mr. Botany, would like to tell you what pepper, what white pepper is, and how it's related to black pepper. Before we can define white pepper, we have to talk about what a peppercorn is. Oh
Molly 5:56
no, oh yes, oh okay, Mr. Botany, I'm so glad you're here.
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:01
Okay, so a peppercorn is a fruit, and in particular, it's a droop, like a peach, or like a cherry, or like a cherry. So a droop is some, like fruity flesh clinging to a single seed. Okay, all right, okay, so, but like, what's the flesh and
Molly 6:16
what's the seed? Is it often cleaved, or cloven? It's
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:19
cloven. Yep. So the black, wrinkly exterior of a black peppercorn is the skin and flesh of the fruit, and there's a seed inside there, and that's white Yes. But do you get white pepper starting with like a dried black peppercorn? No, you do not. Oh, there are a lot of drupes out there. You probably run into some on the street, such as coffee, almonds, mangoes, olives, you mentioned cherries, those. Those are all some. Those are some of your droops. Okay, the white pepper is the seed, but it is not a peeled black peppercorn. By the time you dry it like the flesh and skin are pretty well adhered to the seed. Plus, even if you could, like, shave off that skin, like, you would be missing an important part of the process that produces the characteristic flavors of white pepper.
Molly 7:08
Okay, so then, is white pepper actually? What is it? Okay, so
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:12
black peppercorns are unripe fruits of the Piper nigra plant. If you've ever been to like, this isn't, still, isn't something you see a lot in North America, although I have, but like, when we went to Thailand, like, you would get, like a curry flavored with or, like, served with a bunch of green fresh peppercorns. So they've been picked a little bit unripe, and you would like eat them as sort of like a garnish, hmm. Those get processed into black pepper those unripe fruits of the Piper nigra plant. Wait, wait, wait,
Molly 7:44
wait, so those so the thing that we know as black peppercorns, when they are harvested, they're green. They're green, unripe. Okay, got
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:53
it. White peppercorns are produced from ripe fruits which are red and look sort of like small like coffee cherries. Is that? What they call them, like coffee, coffee fruits? Oh, okay, and they're red, or at least, like some of the fruits on the bunch are turning red when they're picked for white pepper, and then the white fruits go through a process called retting, which I'd never heard of, and they're soaked in water. Sometimes it's running water, sometimes still water for a week or two, until the flesh gets loose and soggy, but also fermented. Ah, and there's a lot of microbial action going on. And we'll link to a great blog post from the blog Casa Masha apothecary about producing white pepper at home in Belize. This seems
Molly 8:33
like something that would have been an accident at first. Yes, like they, you know, they like a culinary accident, like they left the peppercorns on the plant too long, and they ripened, and then they put them in a vat and forgot about them, and they got soggy and fermented. Why'd they put them in a vat? Oh, I think they were just like, oh, this is garbage.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:55
Just dump some water garbage that, yeah, okay, right. That's and this is how you handle garbages in your home. You put stuff in a vat and pour water on it. Why is there? Maybe they left it out in the rain. There we go. Okay, okay, so you rub the peppercorns daily, like if you're doing it at home, you use your hands if you're doing it in quantity. You might do it by stomping or by machine these days, and the flesh comes off, leaving behind the white seed, and then it's sun dried,
Molly 9:23
nice. So wait a minute, but they aren't sun dried in, like, commercial,
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:27
yes, it's possible they are depending because, like, these are, these are produced in pretty hot, sunny places. And, like, I don't want to say that all of it is sun dried, but like, like, a lot of foods that we eat are still produced by actual sun drying. In some cases, because, like, the sun, the sun is free. And like, I know the labor to, like, lay the stuff out and like, then gather it back up, isn't free. But like, compared to, like, running a machine in a factory, like, sun drying is pretty efficient. In some cases, if you've got a lot of sun,
Molly 9:58
the sun is a mass. Savincandescent gas.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:00
I have been told that as well, and it used to be called Constantinople. Oh, really, go on. Okay, so, so this process produces a peppercorn with a flavor that is somewhat different from black pepper. Yes, the process of the Sun burning and burning gas is that, no, I was just thinking about,
Molly 10:20
okay, being like, what? What we used to
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:24
call this? Yeah, okay, yeah. Until someone came along, it was like, let's call it Stanton. Nope. It was like five that's like five syllables. Could we just call it something catchy, like sun or what about Istanbul? Istanbul, that's, yeah, we go, okay, so wait, so like they, lopped off two syllables. And as as child of the show June, would say, what is lop? And so like, eventually they'll probably lop off a couple more and just just call it like sun or Bull. I forgot about lop. I say, I say, what is lop? Like at least once a month.
Molly 10:58
Wait, that was because you were watching June while I was taking a dance class, that's right, you got them some ice cream, and
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:04
they wanted to get to the point where you bite into the cone, and like eating the cone along with the ice cream. And I said, Let's just lop some of the scoop off for you. And they said, What is lop? They said, What is lop? So
Molly 11:17
cute I can really delightful. Okay, so
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:20
this like the process produces a peppercorn with different flavor. It's not, it's not just an appearance thing, partly because you started with a fully ripe peppercorn, partly because there's no dried peel or flesh that you're tasting, and partly because of the fermentation process, which can produce a variety of aromatic compounds, some of which are pleasant, and some otherwise, and we'll get into that, like there can be a bad batch. But also, some people are more sensitive than others to particular compounds in white pepper, kind of like with the asparagus pea smell thing, or the cilantro tastes like soap thing. Ah, okay,
Molly 11:56
okay. I'm sorry. Is Mr. Botany still here? Or who am I talking
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:02
with? Matthew Matthews back. Oh, I'm back. I'm back. It's me. Okay.
Molly 12:05
So you were gonna say that it seems possible that white pepper originated in Indonesia. Yeah, we don't really know. We don't really
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:13
know. And I think the reason we don't really know is because there's lots of, like, ancient sources of people talking about pepper where it is clear that they are referring to the fruit of the Piper, nigram, plant used as a seasoning or medicinal. It's not always if there's, like, a particular way of preparing that that is, like, you know, standard for your culture, you're not going to mention that every time. You're just gonna be like, we put some pepper on it, and so it's so it's not always clear, like when people are talking about white pepper or black pepper, and historians have to make a variety of inferences. Okay,
Molly 12:51
let's talk about, like, what white peppercorns smell and taste like and when, why we would choose them.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:58
All right, so first of all, we've got some here. I've got some that, like I ground a while back. I've got some fresh ones. Yeah, some whole ones.
Molly 13:06
Does the whole one have? Does it have a fragrance? I don't know. It's a good question. God, it sure does smell that. Mmm, hold on. Do you have any whole black pepper? I do good question, yeah, can I smell them separately? Because these smell extremely I don't think floral is the word, but it's like very complex.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:27
Well, I tried to open the bag of black peppercorns, and I failed. There we
Molly 13:32
go. Okay, well, that's also really complex, but it has a finish that feels familiar to me. Oh yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:39
it's so complex. This is a thing I don't have a vocabulary for. They're very clearly, as I'm smelling these two, there are aspects of them that are similar, and then they diverge in places. And I, you know, I feel like I need some sort of, some sort of flavor ologist with some sort of wheel of flavor that's gonna like, point at, like, you know, make me point at particular adjectives. So
Molly 14:03
for me, so different, the white peppercorn smells high pitched somehow, I think so it's like it's on a higher register.
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:12
I'm getting, I'm getting sort of like funky ocean smell a little bit. Let me try not, not like fishy, but but more like tide salt, saltwater, saltwall, saltwater, tide pool,
Molly 14:24
kind of, Oh, I get that, right, yeah. And then the black fermented smell, yeah, are more sort of like basement. This is a really fermented smell, yeah. This is so interesting. And yet they smell very floral. I mean, these are very good peppercorns. These are, tell a cherry peppercorns. Something I just noticed is this is like just a darker, almost Christmassy smell compared to that. Yeah, the black peppercorns, right? Darker kind of Christmassy smell. It
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:52
says, so I got these white peppercorns from the spice house, an online spice merchant. And I guess it says there's. Cooked in water after a harvest to remove the outer skin. This process gives them the slightly fermented taste prized by Japanese cooks. I don't actually think of white pepper as being a big thing in Japanese cooking, but this could be an aspect of Japanese cooking that I don't know about. I
Molly 15:14
have only thought of it in terms of, like, Chinese, Taiwanese cooking more. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:20
it's, they're big in well, we'll get it, but yeah, like, okay, so Wow,
Molly 15:25
okay, so there we go. We've, we've, we've smelled the whole peppercorns. We've smelled
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:29
the whole peppercorns. So a few years back, food scientist Harold McGee, author of on food and cooking, wrote a column for The New York Times about white pepper, where he explained that white pepper has a much higher concentration of rotundone than black pepper, which is a big deal because it's a very, very aromatic compound, and is also the thing that gives Syrah wines their peppery aroma. That's interesting, okay, and some people are much more sensitive to the smell of rotundone than others, and he described eating like some mashed potatoes in a restaurant that had been seasoned with a lot of white pepper and were basically inedible to him, that rotundone is like, described as barnyardi in higher concentration. So interesting.
Molly 16:10
I can't imagine ever like. So last night, completely randomly, I made Cacio e Pepe, yeah, so you know that has a uses black peppercorns, freshly cracked black peppercorns in abundance. And I can't imagine, I mean, other than the heat that might generate, I can't imagine something that might have too much black pepper such that it becomes offensive. I mean, it might not be to your taste, but, but I can picture that with the smell of this white pepper
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:38
Smell, smell this one that I ground like a few months ago. I think it's even stronger. Maybe it's
Molly 16:44
intense, right? It's like braised cabbage versus kimchi. Yeah, it is. They are both very fragrant, but really different smells, yes?
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:54
So let's talk about cooking with white pepper, because it's something now, now that I sort of like, am, like, I didn't know any of this shit.
Molly 17:01
I And yet, you keep white pepper around, which I don't I keep
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:06
it around just because, like, I cook from the walks of life.com all the time, and I figure if they're calling for it, I should listen, because they're really good cooks.
Molly 17:13
I know you told me about their recipe for pickled cabbage and pork stir fry making this tomorrow, which is so good. And I just left out the white pepper. Yeah, so I'll
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:23
send you home with some like. I think it's worth having like. We will see. We'll see if you like it okay when we actually taste it. Okay. So I associated white white pepper with Chinese cooking for that reason, and that is, that is correct. So China is the biggest consumer of white pepper. About 90% of the peppercorns grown in China or processed into white pepper. I couldn't, I couldn't find, like, a statistic about, like, what percentage of the peppercorns, like, consumed in China, but it's a lot. It's a key seasoning, especially in southern China, hot and sour soup is classically made with white pepper as the hot element.
Molly 17:56
I don't think I've ever had hot and sour soup. We should do an
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:59
episode good hot and sour soup. Like, there's a lot of bad, like, gloopy hot and sour soup. But when it's good, it's so good.
Molly 18:05
No, I was gonna say, when I was a kid, and we went to Hunan, right, that I should specify it was Oklahoma City. Yeah, you got to choose between, like, you know, drop soup or hot sour soup. And I remember the look of hot and sour soup, which is, like, bright orange or
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:22
something. It's kind of brownish problem. Well, it can vary,
Molly 18:26
I don't know. Anyway, I always got egg drop soup. Yeah, I always
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:30
got hot and sour Okay. Well, let's do hot and sour soup. Let's do it. Yeah, I'm excited for this. Okay, so one thing I found fascinating is everybody seems to agree, like freshly ground black pepper is the way to go if you don't have your your Magnum bone and pepper grinder. Like, are you even a serious food person? Many Chinese sources recommend non freshly ground white pepper for added funkiness that develops over time after the peppercorns are crushed. Oh, so you want that like, oxidization, yeah, or, like, some sort of enzymatic action, yeah, okay. In Thailand, white pepper is called prick Thai, oh. It's like the original pepper, like, before Chili's came into Thai cooking in, like, the 18th century, okay, wow. 17th Century, it is much more common in Thai cooking than black pepper. It's used in egg dishes. It's used as a final sprinkle for stir fry dishes. It's used in soup lots of other ways. And it's similarly popular in Indonesian and Vietnamese cooking and in Europe. Like I did know that, like, white pepper tends to be used when you're looking for, like a ground pepper that will blend in with a sauce or like something white so
Molly 19:35
this is, I think, how I first encountered white pepper. I think that it was honestly through making bechamel according to Julia Child's instructions, right? She calls for white pepper so that you don't see it in the sauce, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:49
So, like vice versa in Germany, is seasoned with white pepper. Vichy suaves, that sort of thing. Yeah. One thing I did not know at all that in in Sweden, white pepper is a key flavor. In Swedish meatballs along with all spice. Interesting,
Molly 20:02
okay, wow. I had no idea, me neither, so it's very interesting.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:07
This was, I really enjoyed researching this. I'm glad that they really smelled so different. And now I made some just plain white rice. I figured we could taste some white paper and black pepper. Probably, probably it's gonna be, like, both of them are gonna be too intense. But, like, I figured, if I cooked with both of them, like the differences. Do
Molly 20:22
you think that it would be allowable? I mean, I'm concerned that they're just gonna taste gross. Yeah. Do you think it would be allowable to put a little bit of soy sauce on the rice and but then I might not taste the pepper? Let's play around. Okay, okay. Oh, God, I hate the smell of this. Oh, this is tough for me. I don't think I like the smell of this. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:44
think maybe you're more sensitive to rotundone or something. I like it,
Molly 20:49
oh, oh, oh, I think I don't care. Oh, I do not care for that interesting. That is a weird flavor for me. That is tough for me to take. Man,
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:58
it's so different from the black pepper. Any problem with the black pepper, yeah, but I think, I think you're right. I think, like, more, much more so than black pepper. This is, like, not really intended, like, I'm sure playing. People do like it as just, like, a, you know, sprinkle it on, like, in your face kind of flavor. But I want it, like, mixed in as a, as an element that is playing along with a bunch of other things. Okay,
Molly 21:21
hold on, I'm gonna take a take a risk here and just pour it like a take
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:25
a risk, Tiny. There's a big risk. Molly may not survive this.
Molly 21:29
I may not survive this. Okay, so I have just drizzled some soy sauce onto the rice. Now, I'm going to try a little white pepper again, because I'm trying to be game by God.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:43
So the thing, the thing I was gonna make, and then I was like, I don't know, like, will you really be able to taste the white pepper in this? And I'm too lazy, and we wanted, and I wanted to make grilled cheese. Was walks of life stir fried rice cakes recipe, which is one of my all time favorites. Have I made this for you before? No, okay, it's like a pork and green stir fry with with, like the flat rice cakes, and it has like, a fair amount of white pepper in it, both in the pork marinade and in the sauce. But it certainly is lending, lending a flavor, because you put in like, over half a teaspoon of it. Whoa.
Molly 22:15
So, Matthew, Okay, listen, if I'm listening, if I'm somebody who is apparently really sensitive to rotundone, because it is a flavor that, like, really it like, kind of makes my toes curl, like I feel like I'm having a visceral reaction to it. Well, should I then like it when I'm making a walks of life recipe? Is the white pepper going to sufficiently blend into the other flavorings that I should be using it anyway, or should I just keep doing what I'm doing? I don't know I'm feeling it or doing black pepper.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:45
No. Like, like, the food police aren't going to show up if you, if you substitute black pepper, it's fine. I think it's worth a try, though, because, like, I mean, there, there are plenty of ingredients that both of us use that, like, we don't want to, like, taste straight out of the container, like, when we did like, a fresh herbs episode, we were trying to taste fresh herbs
Molly 23:05
like it was the directly, it was the edible flowers. We did fresh but, yeah, the edible flowers
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:10
were terrible, but we did fresh herbs that, like, we that, like, we really like these herbs, like, try to taste like thyme, like, just directly it is, yeah, which is, which is what we're doing now with white pepper. That's right. So I think, I think it could be a thing that, like, you know, concentrated, no, okay, it's not for you. Well,
Molly 23:28
then I will take some, some white pepper, and when I make this pickled cabbage and pork stir fry, which I already am planning to make again, I will use it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:37
Yeah, I don't think it's gonna ruin it for you, okay? And if it does, that would be an interesting story. It would be an interesting sad story. Yeah, it would be an interesting story that didn't happen to me. Oh, great, perfect. Do you want to say anything else about pink peppercorns before we sort
Molly 23:52
of wondering, like, do pink peppercorns have rotundone too? Because it's like a there are a lot of flavors that I just don't sort of love, and I can deal with it, right? But I remember my mom once bought that mixed peppercorn blend, and the bites of scrambled egg that I put that on were inedible to me. Okay, couldn't eat it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:15
Pink peppercorns refer to three different species. We may have to do a whole pink peppercorn. Oh,
Molly 24:19
yeah, okay. Well, gosh, it
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:23
sounds like they're most commonly the the berries of the Peruvian pepper tree, shyness, moldy, often blended with commercial pepper. I don't know. They're members of the cashew family. We don't have to do it.
Molly 24:34
No, this is interesting to me. You know, I am someone who can smell asparagus pee. You can, you can smell it. Everybody makes it. Not everyone can smell it. Yeah, I love cilantro. No problem with cilantro. But I guess this is a thing I just don't really care for. Yeah, no,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:51
that's fine, I mean, but it's interesting that it's so different, like, despite being the fruit of the same plant as. Black
Molly 25:00
Pepper. Yeah, it is, like, radically different. Yeah, cool. Wow, that was so interesting. Thanks, Matthew, thanks, Mr. Botany, you're
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:08
welcome and you're welcome. Okay, let me let me out.
Molly 25:16
You can let yourself out. Okay, okay, hey, we've got spilled mail. You Oh, this is from listener, Ken. Ken albala, okay, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:32
we're supposed to call Ken when we have a culinary history question, and we never have, oh,
Molly 25:36
so what Ken does instead? Thank you. Ken is Ken sends us information after the fact, which now we can share with you as a spilled mail. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:44
Ken listens to the show on his walk to work, where he he works as a distinguished professor.
Molly 25:50
Oh, it's true. No, no, I'm just I'm feeling stupider. It's okay. Where it's okay episode, like last week, or something where we were extra stupid or something. I can't remember what it was,
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:02
yeah, but I remember, like, I'm, yeah, I was, I was just thinking about, like, what's the opposite of a distinguished professor? Because I think that's what we are. Oh,
Molly 26:11
we're the indistinguishable professors. There we go. That's it. That's how English works. All right. Okay. Listener Ken says, Howdy folks loved your syrup episode, as always, Thursday morning's walking to work. I believe this was the Italian syrups, yes,
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:28
or Italian shout out, as in which we talked about syrups. You were
Molly 26:32
looking for syrups in Italy, and they are definitely there, but not in an obvious place.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:37
We were, we were, like, in Bologna, and the syrups are, like, down in the boot.
Molly 26:42
They're in like, one of those places that has, like, caves where you can go stay in,
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:46
like a cave. Yes, in one of those places, I'll definitely pretend I know that. Know about that. Okay, up
Molly 26:50
into the early 20th century, syrups were primarily medicines. In the 16th century, there are a number of interesting works on the topic of syrups, julips, tinctures, Yes, Cheese elixirs, but in brief, according to humoral theory, the ones that are sour, like pomegranate, lemon and raspberry, would be classified as cold and moist and would be used against fevers.
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:14
I think some of our listeners feel about the word voice the way you feel about white pepper. Okay,
Molly 27:19
those made from warming spices like cinnamon, cloves and ginger, are used for colds and coughs and of course, there are still cough syrups in that category, astringent and bitter. Ones, cold and dry, like quince and rhubarb were used to tighten the body's passages. Wow, wow. Hot and unctuous and sweet ones, hot and moist to loosen the same there are dozens upon dozens, and since drinking fizzy spa water has been considered therapeutic for centuries, it makes sense that it would be mixed with syrup. My favorite source on the topic is Michael cervitos, cereporum universa ratio, which argues against the Arab sources that they should not be used indiscriminately to aid digestion. But following Galen, they each have specific, limited virtues, just like us. That's right. Servituse is also famous for having been the first person burned at the stake in Calvinist Geneva for his denial of the Trinity. Rock on. Wow. Sorry. Best. Ken,
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:20
yeah, I was about to say, Michael, servitude, what happened? Whatever happened to that guy? Oh, he got served. Yeah, he got services. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. As always. Listener, Ken, I'm
Molly 28:32
sorry, being burned at the stake is not funny, but it's very rock and roll. It
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:36
is, yeah, it's extremely metal, yeah, yeah. Okay,
Molly 28:39
Matthew, do you have a now? But, wow,
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:49
I sure do. I'm so excited about this one, like I want to finish up this episode so I can go back to reading it. So this book is called Bing soo for two by Sujin Witherspoon, and is a debut YA romance that I'm absolutely loving. Our main character, river is like a kind of a screw up who's stuck working with his nemesis slash love interest Saran at her family's Korean cafe in Seattle. It is funny. It is charming. The characters are both over the top and believable at the same time, and I feel like this book could use a little attention. So I think a huge proportion of our listeners would absolutely love this book. It is full of food. It's full of like snappy, loving snarkiness and good jokes and and it's set in Seattle, so being sued for two by Sujin Witherspoon. Go buy this book. Blow it up for me, please.
Molly 29:44
Awesome. All right. Our producer is Abby sercatella. You can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can chat with other spilled milk listeners at reddit.com/r/everything,
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:56
spilled milk. Yep, what? What spice makes you go.
Molly 30:01
Hmm, or what spice makes you go,
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:03
yeah, one of those things, either like, we're Amster. Or how do you spell this thing? It's just thumbs up or thumbs down. Thumbs up and thumbs down are pronounced. Like, I learned this from the movie Gladiator. Oh, okay,
Molly 30:18
cool. I've never seen Gladiator. Oh,
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:22
did I enjoy Gladiator? Yeah, it was good. Okay, hi, I haven't seen gladiator too, but until next time, thank you for listening to spilled milk, the show that's gonna take a two week bath and you can reach it every day. Rub it every day. Mr. Burton, you Burton.
Unknown Speaker 30:40
Do.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai