Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Ketchup

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcasters/writers David Christopher Bell and Tom Reimann (Gamefully Unemployed) for a look at why ketchup is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

ketchup known for being a condiment famous for being a condiment made of tomatoes nobody thinks much about it so let's have some fun let's find out why ketchup is secretly incredibly fascinating Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Two guests joined me this week. David Christopher Bell is one of them. Tom Ryman is the other. I am so excited these guys are on the show.

They both have lots of great credits and writing and comedy to their names, and I want to highlight one thing they do together in particular. Dave and Tom's network is called Gamefully Unemployed. And I'm going to say it again because I don't always enunciate stuff right, so I want to make sure I nail it. It is called Gamefully Unemployed, as in games. And it's a podcast network and a streaming channel all at once. It's amazing. In particular, if you like movies or TV, video games, also board games and role-playing games, Dave and Tom are fantastic at making all kinds of fun out of those things. So go enjoy them doing that at patreon.com slash gamefullyunemployed.

Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Thank you. Kutz 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 ketchup. You know, tomato ketchup. A condiment with social ramifications, historical surprises, and an adorable secret puppet master. So please sit back or chow down, my dude.

You know, quick aside, I have been thrilled to hear from folks who are doing something that then comes up on the podcast while they're listening. Like last week, me and Soren Bui, my guest, were talking about Venus, the planet Venus, feeling like the video game Doom, you know, that world. And two of you heard that while playing Doom Eternal, like you were listening as you did it. And that rules. I love knowing that stuff. So please tell me if you eat something with ketchup

while you hear this. I don't know, I get a kick out of it. And either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with David Christopher Bell and Tom Ryman. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. David Bell, Tom Ryman. It's always so good to see you guys. Thank you for hopping on the

old Zoom. Hello, yes, hi. Thanks for having us. Zoom has become a way too familiar tool in these trying times. Yeah. It's weird being seen. Me and Tom, we don't usually look at each other. Not usually when we record.

Yeah. I took a shower for this. Oh, I absolutely didn't. I woke up eight minutes before it was time to record And I'm going straight back to bed I think I Took your energy Tom I woke up

Stepped on my cat's vomit There's a fire outside My apartment's a mess And I was like I feel great And I don't know why. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I may have stayed up until 3.30 playing the Avengers.

Maybe. I won't guarantee that. Oh, yeah. Did you see that the fires were caused by a gender reveal party? Oh, these? The ones that are outside my window? Yes. One of the California fires is caused by an explosive at a gender reveal party.

I just saw that on the news before we started recording. Wow. Yeah. If I ever have a kid, I want it to devastate people. Right. No. That would be the reveal party is I would set most of California on fire and the flames would reveal the the

color of the child i was about to bring into the world whatever you name your kid at that point you need to add the destructor afterwards yeah it's like brayden the destructed or you you could either do colored flames or you could just write the word boy real big, you know, like Ariel. Yeah. And then. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good times.

Yeah. Folks. Well, I'm not going to do any form of segue. Our topic today is ketchup. Yeah. Oh, good. And with every topic on the show, I start by asking the guests what their relationship to is or their opinion of it is. Dave, Tom, what's your relationship to ketchup in your life? Tom, why don't you start us off? I have a healthy fear and respect for ketchup.

No, it's just, you know, it's ketchup. I ate it more as a kid. As I've gotten older, I don't use it as much as a condiment. It's's it's weird but i prefer like mayonnaise on like my hamburgers and things like that but yeah you know it's not it's not a it's just a thing that you would put on hamburgers and hot dogs like that's that's just ketchup you know um yeah it's good for fries see again i use mayonnaise with my fries. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm generally pro-ketchup, but I know what you're saying, Tom, is that as a kid, I was way more pro-ketchup. Yeah, I was way more pro-ketchup as a kid. I think because it's sweeter. Yeah, me too.

It is very sugary, yeah. Yeah. I like ketchup chips. Oh. Like the ketchup-flavored chips. Dave, are you able to get those in California? Yeah, I think they're around here. I think Pringles makes them. I don't know.

There's a few places that do ketchup flavored. I haven't looked for them recently. I did do some research leading up to this. I looked at the ketchup subreddit. Whoa. And I'm happy to report that it gets sexual pretty quick.

Yeah. Yeah. Butcks out. Yeah. But it is generally a love letter to ketchup. It sounds like it's explicitly a love letter to ketchup. Yeah. You can only hope it's a letter. You know what I mean?

Like, come on. Right. Audio, video? No thanks. Dearest ketchup. I write this to you from the front lines. How I wish to taste your tang once again. Your salty tang.

Ketchup is, speaking of tang, like if you mix that with, you do it the British way, you do vinegar on fries, or I guess chips as they call it. Like slather it in ketchup, eat it with a fork. That's delicious. Like you have to lean into ketchup, I think. You have to be like, I'm eating ketchup now.

Yeah, I feel like that's the general relationship with fries. It's like the fries need to be condimented to such a degree that it's like I need to bring a tool into this. I need some sort of small shovel. Yeah, for sure. And then, yeah, you get a fork. Well, I feel like your guys' experiences jive with mine in particular, it being a big thing as a kid, especially, and also like kind of an American thing versus other. Like if I'm having another condiment on something that's usually for ketchup, I'm like,

oh, what am I, European? Right. That's sort of my initial thought about myself. Like, oh, I'm having pommes frites now that there are mayonnaise on it. Yeah. Have you guys done ketchup and mayonnaise? Oh yeah, of course.

Yeah, that's a solid, that's a solid mix. You do a little bit of ketchup and then, because mayonnaise I think is uh we all look we all need a lubricant for our food that's what it comes down to right yeah it's like you can't just eat a dry burger it's just weird right and we need to dip it in other things and i think mayonnaise like i don't cover things in mayonnaise but i i i think that's why a mix of like ketchup for a little bit of flavor and the mayonnaise, because I don't like the flavor of mayonnaise generally, but I use it. Dave, this podcast is about ketchup.

I don't know why you're... Look, we're talking about the marriage between ketchup and mayonnaise right now, Tom. They join at a molecular level. I think they're a good pair is my point. Sure, they're the Harold and Maude of food lubricant yeah that's a weird that's a weird one well Maude would be the mayonnaise because mayonnaise

is for older folks and then you're right Maude would be the ketchup is sugary so that would be Harold Alex we're gonna make this as movie related as possible I'm excited to find out how it's great yeah well I did I actually googled We're going to make this as movie related as possible. I'm excited to find out how. This is great.

Yeah. Well, I did. I actually Googled ketchup in movies as research for this. And I found a quiz of like, which, like, can you name the movies with ketchup in them? So like, I don't know. When Harry Met Sally had a good ketchup scene, a famous scene at a restaurant. Goodfellas has a pretty big ketchup scene dumb and dumber of course has a big ketchup scene where they drink the ketchup uh yeah ketchup's around yeah catch ketchup you can find uh a remnants of of ketchup with throughout popular culture

yes you can see it's you can see its circular foot foot footprint heinz ketchup started an imdb page uh no as a promotional thing yeah what during the oscars they started an imdb page to give themselves like credit for being in the films that were nominated imd I believe, shut the page down because they were like, come on, we're not going to be part of your marketing stunt unless you give us money. Right. We're not going to be, we, an Amazon subsidiary, are not going to be part of your marketing stunt. So yeah, I guess that's it for me and my knowledge of ketchup. Well, I think from here, we can go into our first main segment. On every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics.

This episode has kind of a longer one than usual. There's a lot of fun numbers and stats here for ketchup. But the segment is a set of fascinating numbers and statistics in a segment called I would do anything for love, but I won't do stats. And that segment name was submitted by Christopher Brown. We are going to have a new name for this segment every week, submitted by listeners like you.

Make them as silly and wacky as possible. The less good, the better. Submit your name for the numbers and statistics segment to at SIFpod on Twitter or to SIFpod at gmail.com alex i think oh that's that's that's a fun yeah i think you set a a hell of a precedent dangerous president yeah because i remember listening to your first episode that was it was submitted by you yes and you sang for it and now everybody's gonna be like well what else can he sing and you're never gonna get anything else we got a patreon producer that was like sing this and we're like absolutely yeah we're not singing shut that down right away

i'm not singing this every time but i i i commend you for oh yeah well you know it's uh people are submitting fun ones and i also i picked this one uh this is very nerdy but the artist meatloaf ketchup's king gradated meatloaf it all comes together right it's all a knitted together universe i think yeah it's also the singer meatloaf's primary just bottles of it he's 70 ketchup it's courses through his veins. It's the source of his power. You know how like fancy professional singers,

they'll have that like tea with lemon or like that little spray bottle. If they're really old timey. It's to mug a warm ketchup on his vocal rest day. Oh, almost showtime. Gulp, gulp, gulp.

Puts a kettle of ketchup on. I think it would turn into a glaze, right? Because it's mostly sugar. What, if you heat up ketchup? Yeah, if you heated up ketchup on the stove, it would become like a glaze. I mean, honestly, any of us can figure this out right now. Yeah, this is a thing we can do. We could do a science

experiment we can get to the bottom of this mystery in the edit i just put in a big whoosh noise for and we're back from testing the ketchup heating uh guys didn't go good we have caused three additional california fires i'm sorry i'll just i'll just tell the authorities it was a gender reveal party. It was ketchup. It's less embarrassing to say it was a gender reveal. Like, it's not

a ketchup experiment. My ketchup experiment. I like pluralizing that because it implies many experiments. It's a series. Listen. You don't just do one test to test your hypothesis.

It's got to be thorough. Well, and let's get into the stats here. The first number, really, is the number five, because five is the basic number of standard ingredients in ketchup. And there's a few ways you can count it but the basic five are uh tomatoes and then vinegar salt some kind of sweetener and then any kind of spices you want like pepper or garlic or anything like that but it's a basic five that creates tomato ketchup that's kind of reassuring because ketchup's one of those things that like you could have been like tomato, salt, horse, spices.

And it would be like, oh, really? Yeah, really. It's like, oh, yeah, tomato, salt, vinegar, souls. Yeah, souls. Because it is one of those things that I've just sort of trusted it. The primary ingredient is cricket feet. Yeah. That's what gives it its tang.

The foot is the tangiest part of the cricket. Any connoisseur will tell you. Yeah, it's also, I like that idea of trusting ketchup. I think that's very true for especially Americans. The next stat here is 97%, and according to Smithsonian, 97% of Americans have a bottle of ketchup at home. That checks out. Like it's pretty universal.

Even mayonnaise has some people that don't like it, but ketchup is just like either very normal. I feel like the 3% haven't been to the store in time to get more ketchup. Like that's how that stat happened. Yeah, it feels like salt and pepper, like it's on that level of ubiquity in terms of condiment. It's also one of those condiments that you buy a big bulk thing,

you forget about it for two years. It's like you never check to see the expiration date. It's like it's ketchup. I know it does go bad, but it doesn't go bad. Why would it? It's like vinegar is one of its primary ingredients yeah like really the number two ingredient is vinegar it's very important to it yeah so it's preserved yeah yeah it's borderline botulism as it's natural yeah so like how are you ever gonna know you wouldn't that it goes bad that that takes us perfectly into the next number here is one month.

And one month is the approximate amount of time you can leave ketchup out after opening it without refrigerating it. Like I refrigerate ours and I'm used to refrigerating it. That's what we did growing up. So especially restaurants, according to the kitchen, which is kitchen with no E, they say that, quote, if you use ketchup often, do as restaurants and diners do. Just leave it out. If you don't think you'll finish the bottle in one month, it's best to keep it in the refrigerator. Whoever invents ketchup that can be left out for longer will be a millionaire, right? Because I don't want my ketchup cold. I want it room temperature. We already sort of treat ketchup like it can be left out forever.

temperature we already sort of treat ketchup like it can be left out forever yeah yeah but like i i refrigerate mine but like i get bummed out every time because it's you then you have like a nice hot hot like in my case a veggie burger or uh fries and then you put some like ice cold ketchup down and it's like well that sucks like i want that to also be kind of at least room temperature. Well, that's when you break out the ketchup kettle. Right, that's true. You heat up some ketchup. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be seen heating up ketchup that way. Someone would assume I'm a serial killer.

Right, no, I'm pretty sure the FBI would show up at your house. Yeah, they'd be like, we heard you're doing what with ketchup? We heard you're warming up ketchup, so you've fit 17 different profiles we have right now. Right. Yeah, we don't have an exact law about this, but we'll figure it out. You're coming with us. You're going to need to come with us.

Put the ketchup down. A show idea is being birthed in my mind. Law and order SKU. Folks, we need to watch out for the special ketchup unit and their crimes and victims. That delights me. I would watch that entire show. Yeah, I'm just picturing Christopher Maloney like angrily defending the rights of ketchup. The next number here is 10%, because 10% is the retaliatory tariff that Canada put on US ketchup in 2018.

The US put a bunch of tariffs on a bunch of Canadian stuff because we wanted to fight. And so then this is coming from a Quartz article indexing 229 different products that Canada put a tariff on. And then the other number here is 60% because that's the amount of U.S. ketchup exports that go specifically to Canada. Of all our exports, 60% go there. It's actually like a very meaningful U.S. to Canada ketchup trade. And this was economically important as they did the tariffs.

So, Canada has all the ketchup? No, we export to Canada. Oh, okay. We export. They don't all the ketchup? No, we export to Canada. Oh, okay. We export. They don't have any ketchup? So, it became a thing where, and we'll link a great CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, piece about it, because as this fight escalated, the French's brand stepped in and started ramping up their ketchup production in Canada. And it got to the point where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a speech specifically name-checking French's as the Canadian-made ketchup that they were ready to switch to if this trade war escalated any further instead of Heinz.

Wow. One of my favorite elements of the past four years has been the arbitrary and foolish trade wars we've started with several countries but canada can't they just put gravy on don't they just put gravy on everything can't they just gravy it up that's true they don't need our ketchup they got they got solutions because they love ketchup too i feel like canada's really doing well in the sauce game i'm really impressed now yeah i hadn't even thought of that. Man. So we get, all right.

Yeah, I could see French's being a good alternative. What do we go with? Heinz? Heinz is our number one. This is another number we can jump to. 70 percent, 7-0. That's the approximate Heinz ketchup market share in the U.S., according to NPR. It checks out. And then it's actually higher other places

and it's 77% in Canada, 80% in Europe. And then Heinz also owns the main companies that make what Australia and New Zealand call tomato sauce. But it's basically ketchup. They use tomato sauce as the name for it. And Heinz owns the big red brand in Australia and a company called Waddy's in New Zealand so across the English-speaking world as far as I can tell Heinz is just totally dominant at ketchup somewhere there's a dynasty that's just ketchup right like there's people we don't even know about doing unspeakable things on yachts and because of ketchup like there's oh yeah no it's a what was it's um what's her name theresa hines carry john kerry's wife like that we do like she's the we do know about them that is it that is literally a dynasty oh yeah she actually she married in and she married uh before

john kerry she was married to senator john hines whose full name is henry john hines the third and then their son is henry john hines the fourth that's like actually the dynasty yeah wow do you think at like the rich people clubs they're sort of a joke do you think like i don't i don't know do they care where the money comes from in these societies. Dave, did you listen to these numbers? Like 80% of the ketchup market share worldwide? They probably have. Nobody laughs at that. Yeah, you're right.

They probably have their own ninjas. Like if you get rich enough, you can probably just have ninjas, right? Like on standby, you're not using them but like but they're there they're probably have they're probably to be respected and feared uh people yeah i would i would think that's one of the echelons of these clubs or illuminatis or whatever it's just would you like some extremely flexible fighting gymnasts we have those we got them them. Absolutely, I would. Yes.

Ray, who says no? Come on. Come on. They don't even necessarily have to do anything. I just want to know that they're there. Oh, yeah. They probably end up just gardening for me. You know, like when you have them all and you're like, well, I'm not using them.

So I guess they're going to do housework. I don't need to assassinate anyone today but if you guys want to help me hang some pictures one of the numbers here is half a cup and half a cup is the recipe amount of ketchup that goes into what's called the great canadian heinz ketchup. And this is from the Craft Heinz Canada website because Kraft and Heinz merged in 2015. But it's a cake that you make with an entire half a cup of ketchup

and then you get this like red cake out of it. And apparently it's very popular in Canada to eat ketchup cake. That's dumb. That's entirely too much ketchup. Ketchup cake does disturb me. i want to be open to it but that is that is that is shaking that is at my core because i i saw i saw the photo you sent and it just looks like you know like uh devil's food cake like it looks like looks like red velvet cake.

Yeah. And so I would bite into it thinking it was red velvet cake, and wow, would I be betrayed. That would ruin my day. Yeah. I might not speak for the rest of that day. I'm trying to understand it. And I guess because it's kind of sweet, right?

Yeah. Like you could maybe see a cake. But no, that's the devil's work. Yeah, reportedly it tastes either like carrot cake a little bit or kind of like red velvet cake. Because red velvet cake has a vinegary element too. So apparently that's what you get out of it. But the Canadians have been the ones to get way, way on board with it. And most American sources I could find were like, we tried this weird thing one time in our digital media company's kitchen.

That's weird. But the Canadians are way into it. I feel like we need to pay more attention to what they're up to in terms of culinary stuff. Because every time I hear about something Canadians are doing in terms of food i'm like why do we allow them in the country yeah like what are they doing up there we need to we need to be like the moment i went to canada and i was like why what are these bags and they're like it's milk and i'm like okay you're doing milk wrong um apparently not apparently it's actually very better for the environment and like yeah milk bags are but like still it just i don't know it's actually very better for the environment and like milk bags are, but like

still, it just, I don't know. It's like a, it's like an alternate universe up there. I really shouldn't be knocking Canada right now considering the country we're in. Yeah. But still like food wise, they're like a Willy Wonka factory up there. It's, it's, it's amazing. So like food wise, they're like a Willy Wonka factory up there. It's amazing.

Because also when you were talking, Dave, about ketchup chips before, like I, we have other links here, like the takeout.com saying that ketchup chips are like the national flavor of chips in Canada. Not officially, but it's like, it's a huge thing there. Like I, when I was putting this together at one point, my notes just said Canadians is freaks. They're just that into ketchup in a way that i did not anticipate at all i mean the fact that they're doing ketchup because ketchup chips is hard to find here yeah maybe maybe i'm wrong about them i'm doing a complete 180 right

now and maybe we all maybe we should be eating like them because just that that alone uh we need more ketchup chips they're delicious yeah canada because canada they're so sensible about everything yeah and in so many ways and that's a little bit of a stereotype too like i've seen actual canadian people be like no we have problems too and they're probably lying it's probably great yeah uh but i i don't know like anything they're doing different from us i i tend to give it a shot. Right. I'm like, yeah, that's probably right. Yeah. Like food, health care. Like, you know, just let's give it a shot.

Yeah. Let's bake health care into a cake. Right. Well, and our last couple numbers here take us back to the United States and specifically to southern Illinois. The first number here is 170 feet tall, which is 51.8 meters. 170 feet tall is the height of a water tower that is considered the world's largest ketchup bottle.

And it was built, according to Atlas Obscura, it was built in October of 1949 in Collinsville, Illinois, outside St. Louis at the now closed Brooks Foods plant. So it's a 70 foot tall bottle atop a hundred foot water tower that looks like a giant bottle of ketchup from this old company. Does it contain ketchup? It's a water? They did the actual math and it holds a hundred thousand gallons of water, which would be 640,000 standard size ketchup bottles. So we know what it could do. We know its potential, but the reality is too terrifying.

I have a philosophical question, I guess. If a ketchup bottle never contained ketchup, is it a ketchup bottle? Like, it looks like a ketchup bottle. Yeah. But it never functioned as a ketchup bottle. So like... Yeah yeah that's probably true i'm i don't want to knock them but i'm i'm i i think at some point you need to put ketchup in

that just saying something to think about oh if also i feel like 1949 america was not going to do the foolishness of actually filling it with ketchup like no that's wasteful and right post yeah we're still operating in like rations mentality also they'd never get the ketchup out of it so now it'd be just like the world's largest collection of fly larvae yeah i was gonna say it would be like the world's largest container of dead ants. Yeah. Or you wash it out good and all the town's water has like a tang of ketchup for a long time. They just... This last

number here is 127 gallons, which is over 480 liters. 127 gallons is the size of the world's largest ketchup packet, which according to the Guinness Book of World Records and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was done in Collinsville, Illinois in 2007. It was a collaboration between a church there called Sun Life Church and the Heinz Company, and they actually filled a massive 127-gallon packet with actual ketchup as a stunt.

See, that... What did they do with it? I imagine... I'm glad you asked. They squirted it on the world's largest burger. No, I imagine they got a giant car and they put it under the tire of the car. Whoa.

Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah. They got the Bigfoot monster truck to run over it. Yeah. Well, in terms of, we have a lot of history in the show, but also this first takeaway is all recent stuff. Takeaway number one. One specific guy is the secret global master of ketchup flavor.

Wait. That's a thing going on. Right now, today, as we we speak one guy is in charge of basically the flavor of all ketchup in the world if he extended out far enough it's too much power for one yeah i was about to say that too much power for one man i bet he he wakes up screaming like i like it i i don't think it's i think it weighs heavy on him i like to it would yeah the crown is heavy. Well, I sent you guys a couple pictures of him.

He seems like the guy born to do this to me. He seems very happy about his work. He's the exact person I pictured. I've got to look at this picture again. If you say there's one person in charge of all the ketchup flavor of all the world, this is the exact man you would picture. His name is Hector Osorno, and our two sources here are NPR's The Salt Blog,

which has an article called Meet the Man Who Guards America's Ketchup by Dan Charles. And then our other source is Univision, because their piece is called Meet the Mexican Man in Charge of Heinz Ketchup's Flavoring Quality by Luis Mahid. Because Hector Osorno was born in Mexico, grew up in Mexico, and then became an engineer and started working at the Heinz company 20 years ago. And has risen through the ranks to be the official Kraft Heinz Ketchup master.

That is his job title on paperwork and stuff. He's the master of ketchup. He's guarding ketchup from all enemies, foreign and domestic. I just looked at him again. Like that's a man who's got it all figured out. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if I were to die and he's the thing I see first. It would all make sense. He gives you one of those tiny paper cups of

ketchup welcome my child yeah here's welcome to elysium here's your bottle of ketchup here is your ketchup like oh i don't understand the afterlife at all it turns out it turns out ketchup was way more important than i anticipated it's just pantheon of greek gods they're all just drinking ketchup out of chalices oh that was ambrosia oh drink this whole time these nerds were just guzzling ketchup so hector Osorno, he's been doing this job a long time. In his interview with Univision, he said, and since he is bilingual and was able to, he said, quote, Para mi, el tomate es una fruta extraordinaria.

Which, if people don't speak Spanish, means that the tomato is an extraordinary fruit to him. He also says that before him, other people dedicated their lives to this same job he's not the first one which opens up a universe of like like like that secret spy group in kingsman or something like a bunch of ketchup masters going back in time yeah how is yeah how are they chosen well how do you get selected for this process tomatoes Tomatoes are very powerful. We throw them at comedians that we don't like. Like, we use them to vote, in a way. You know?

They're the voice of the people. They're the voice of the people, exactly. And we also, they're delicious. And we consume them in many different ways. So, I don't know.

Makes sense. Next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll don't know. Makes sense. 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. 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. It's also, I feel like, we'll get into how much he oversees, but part of how he can be the one master is that, like, U.S. ketchup production is really streamlined. They, NPR interviewed Hector Osorno at a Heinz processing plant in the Central Valley of California, in Los Banos, California.

And he said, quote, every day I'm making 18 batches. If we detect something that the factories didn't, we immediately notify them, end quote. And then that stuff is going to just two factories in the entire U.S. One's in Fremont, Ohio. One's in Muscatine, Iowa. And then from there, California also grows 95% of the U.S. tomatoes that get processed into stuff. Like not the fresh ones, but the one for ketchup and sauces and stuff.

So it's basically California farms, two Heinz factories, and then 70% of U.S. ketchup from there and even more elsewhere in the world. It's pretty. So it's like this one guy oversees a lot of the ketchup. I feel reassured by a lot of what you're saying. Well, no, because the ingredient... I feel like after this episode... I was scared this episode was going to make me not want to eat ketchup anymore,

but I'm glad there's one guy who's just really into tomatoes uh overseeing he's looking out for us because someone needs to be really into tomatoes and it's not gonna be me but there needs to be somebody and i'm glad there is somebody who's yeah for sure i am tomato king i sleep i sleep easier at night knowing that hector is out there yeah me too like i feel like he's got our backs yeah i think that's very true like especially the specific standard he wants at npr or he told npr that the flavor of u.s heinz ketchup has never changed on his watch of more than 20 years working there he said it does vary slightly between countries and at one point they tried to do one single

flavor for europe which was a crisis apparently because germans like it uh with more vinegar and the british like it spicier and so then they had to like negotiate and figure out what made the most sense for europe but hector's making the u.s the way it is uh all the time right knocking it out so what i'm hearing is that germans and brit like it better, and we're just like, we want boring ketchup. Because both more vinegary and more spicy sounds delightful. Oh, yeah. And we're just like, put sugar in it. Like ours feels just sugary.

I'm legitimately curious about that flavor profile difference between countries. I'm legitimately curious about that flavor profile difference between countries, because also, according to Univision, Hector Asorno has trained seven other Heinz ketchup masters who were then sent to other parts of the world. Heinz has a bunch of European factories and a bunch of other factories. So he's also like, I feel like between Heinz being so much of the U.S. supply, him watching so much of it, and then him deputizing other people across the world, like he is directly or indirectly controlling all of the ketchup in the u.s supply him watching so much of it and then him deputizing other people across the world like he is directly or indirectly controlling all of the ketchup in the world which is very exciting to know that he exists it's great he's the power behind the heinz throne yeah like he i feel like by i think if he changed the flavor of ketchup in just the right way he might be able to inadvertently cause a world war like through like a butterfly effect like this person does kind of hold all the cards uh he could end us at any point and he chooses not to well it would either be that or he could i feel like he could seize power you know yeah like he could change the flavor of ketchup

and then in such a way that we would make immediately make him like emperor of earth yeah or yeah or he'd change it in a bad way and be like make me emperor of earth don't he would never do that though so don't yeah no he loves hector hector would never do that to ketchup yeah he would only make it better it's yeah it's just shocking how much power there is here. Is there a ketchup villain? Does he have an opposite out there somewhere? Is there ketchup Blofeld running around out there? Yeah, just trying to thwart him. It's just mustard.

Somehow mustard is all diabolical. It's just mustard. It's funding terror and it's really bad. The most evil company. Yeah. I think off of those adventures, let's go into takeaway number two of the show. Takeaway number two. Ketchup is a recent invention with an old Southeast Asian name.

Ah! I think I had no idea until researching it. Yeah. It's a very unique word. Yeah, I just assumed it was like a made-up word, just like a name. So it's a little complicated. The way it breaks down is like what we would consider ketchup talking on here, like this tomato sauce substance.

That originated in the United States in the 1800s. That's really where it came from. But the name ketchup was borrowed from other stuff. And that name is more than 2000 years old. And it's from Southeast Asia. Wow. The great source here is the Christian Science Monitor. Their article is called History of the World in a Ketchup Bottle by Ruth Walker. And she's covering the work of Stanford University linguist Dan Jurofsky, who wrote an entire book about food and food words and where they come from. He said, quote, this book had its genesis in two questions. The first was, why does the label say tomato ketchup? Isn't that redundant? And then the second question came from a friend in Hong Kong who recognized the word as Chinese. And their question was, how do you say ketchup in English? Which we really don't think

of it that way. We just think like, oh, Heinz, it's the Heinz stuff. It's American. It goes on hot dogs, except it doesn't because I'm from Chicago. But, you know, that's the thing. So, yeah, so the word ketchup has East Asian origin. And it's because Professor Jarafsky explains that the word comes from a dialect of Chinese called Hokkien, which is used in southern Fujian and also in Taiwan. And the syllable ke means preserved fish. And then the syllable chup means sauce in Hokkien and also in Cantonese. Because the original sauce called ketchup was a fish sauce. Kind of like modern Vietnamese fish sauce.

That's what ketchup was. Oh. I never knew that. I would have gone the rest of my life not knowing that. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I guess it's just not it's not the same you think about you just like assume it's it's just like a product name like xerox or something like they were they're just like oh they just this is just what they called it and

now that's what it is like zamboni yeah how did it get here i'm imagining some like fast talking salesman came uh from asia and was like we'll name it ketchup ketchup. And it's like, it's just a word he heard. That's almost what happened, yeah. Nice. Because specifically, it's two sets of traders. One is that Chinese and Malaysian traders spread this sauce called ketchup across the rest of Southeast Asia. So it just kept being what it's called. And then what happened is the British Empire.

Ah, every time. Because they started bringing it all the way every time the British Empire every time and apparently especially in the 1700s they started bringing the actual fish sauce back to Europe and they were like we really like this vinegary salty sweet kind of sauce made of fish

and then people were like yes yes, I do like it. Where do I get some Southeast Asian fish to make this? Don't have it. And so then people in Europe started making vinegary, sweet, spicy sauces out of all kinds of other substances. The British got into mushroom ketchup. Jane Austen, the author, apparently grew up with walnut ketchup. And people made it also

out of like grapes and just anything they could find to make a vinegary sauce was ketchup. That's the potential of other versions of ketchup. Like tomato is great, but I didn't even think about the potential of just doing like walnut ketchup and stuff like that. That's incredible. It's a whole new world of ketchup. The other thing with like where tomato ketchup came from is it did not exist in, like tomatoes were famously in what's called the New World. And then in the Columbian Exchange, it came over to Europe and the Old World, so to speak. But ketchup was not being made before that.

to speak. But ketchup was not being made before that. This came from people trying Southeast Asian fish sauce, then trying other sauces in Europe, and then saying, we have tomatoes, I wonder if we could make ketchup out of this. And then the name is, earliest recorded use of it, is around 300 BC, the word ketchup for a sauce. So the name is incredibly old and the sauce is from the last couple hundred years. So ketchup had to go span the globe to become ketchup, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Is it started in Asia and they're like, we do fish.

And then it went to Europe and they're like, nah, we're going to try other stuff. Walnuts. And then they came to America and they're like, there it is, tomato. That's, that's, we didn't have it. Here it is. Yeah, it's like the Elijah Wood film North. Right, it is tomato that's that's we didn't we didn't have it here it is yeah it's like the it's like the elijah wood film north right it is it's exactly like the elijah wood film north

and then it went back to asia and asia's like what the heck did you do to our ketchup what is this yeah what is north the movie i have no idea it's the kid who's trying to find like his real family i think or something i don't know he goes through it's like a he goes through several different parents and it's like it's there's a bunch of cameos in it as the different parents so right i feel like dan ackroyd's in it but i don't know for sure. I'm pretty sure Bruce Willis is one of the parents. It's like, Roger Ebert's review of it became a meme. He hated it so much, like in a singular way. Roger Ebert was so angry with this children's movie.

Great. How does it relate to ketchup? He's like ketchup. He's like ketchup traveling around the world trying to find his home surprising roots after a long journey yeah yeah now i yeah that was a good that was a good connection it was an apt comparison his first yeah his first parents in the movie were fish yeah he had fish parents and there were a couple of walnuts and also another fun thing with these roots of it is that there continue to be new ketchups that are not made of tomatoes and the prime example

is banana ketchup and banana ketchup is made uh in the philippines to this day and it originated there because in world war ii the philippines had a hard time getting shipments of all the things it usually got because of the US and Japan fighting and so on. And so they were low on tomatoes and had a bunch of bananas locally. And so they just started making their ketchup out of bananas. And now they like it. That's what they're into. Right. They're like, all right, screw it. And then they taste it and they're like, that works. Yeah. I can't even imagine what that tastes like i kind of can to be honest and i want to try it because it has like tomatoes it has a sweetness bananas that's not too too sweet right although tomatoes are made the ketchup is made to be sweet but um i i can sort of see dipping my fries in

that dipping my fries and bananas it sounds pretty good if i remember it i think i sent you guys a picture of a bottle that i found you did yeah and i was surprised that the sauce looks reddish like i really thought it would be banana colored but it's not yeah i'm sure it's dyed it's food coloring like i i think the idea is they're just like look red is ketchup uh oh yeah probably yeah i think it frightens and confuses us to do something other than that i remember there was a spongebob squarepants craft mac and cheese where it was blue and that was the most disgusting thing i've ever eaten in my life and it's just because it was blue mac and cheese why even why do that that shrek ketchup that green ketchup i don't think even

kids i think it i think it's haunting. No, that makes total sense. They must have died at, and yeah, we, because I remember, I think it was like the early 2000s, they started doing, and it was because I was watching TV for kids, and they were like, hey, kids, you're really excited about green and purple ketchup, right? And I was like, absolutely not.

Why would we be? That's disgusting. What are you thinking about? I have no politics, and I'm just watching Nickelodeon, and I'm so mad about this thing you told me about. This looks like poison. This looks radioactive. I'm not eating this.

And then one other just interesting thing about that origin of the name ketchup is that's the reason you sometimes see it called catsup or like you know there's like there's that joke on the simpsons where mr burns is looking at ketchup and catsup and and freezes in the store because he doesn't know what's going on oh yeah it's just because different groups of people who speak english like anglicize the the east asian word differently and that's why it's spelled different sometimes wait what like it's different and we we just caught we just decided to call it something different the actual word it's it's like kate shop and it's it's not uh it's in uh you know

a dialect of chinese and so when british traders or american people or other english speakers tried to turn it into a sauce for ourselves as a word. They just spelled it differently sometimes. And so some people were like, that Chinese word is now catsup. And then the rest of us were like, you sound old fashioned. I don't like it. And we never honed it in. We never agreed.

There's just people who are like, no, it's catsup. And it's like, join the rest of the world. If somebody ever corrected me and said, no, it's catsup, that would be the hardest I've ever slapped someone. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, so you're just choosing to call it something different because, like, what, your ancestors didn't call it something different?

And, like, I get it. Like, it sounds like both are valid. But, like, yeah, join us in 2020, catsup people. No, it's ketchup i'm sorry you dinks yeah i'm sorry it's just that's what it is i thought it was like i thought there was like a different flavor to it or it was made differently no yeah it's just it's just a different use of the word yeah that's just like i hate that, Alex. I hate it. It's like if someone was like, these are apples, but some people call them apels.

And it's like, why? I don't know. Because they just choose to. And it's like, well, call them apples. Yeah. Just let's all agree. Let's all sit down and agree. You weird freak.

What are you doing? I think that a little bit takes us into the last takeaway of the episode let's get into takeaway number three for the episode final takeaway takeaway number three ketchup revolutionized and industrialized all of american food and we're specifically looking at especially the heinz company's approach to creating what became modern ketchup, which they did at the turn of the century, early 1900s. And it's mostly a food safety thing and also like a style of industrially producing big batches of food. Oh, like mass mass producing and processed food. Yeah. So they like led the way in the industry behind the scenes.

food yeah so they like led the way in the industry behind the scenes yeah and in in particular with their ketchup product because they uh they made a whole bunch of things um the company f and j heinz started in 1876 and one of their first products was ketchup but also um by the turn of the century they were making uh almost 200 things and that that 57 on the bottles comes from a time when they were making about 57 products and so they were like let's advertise that we have 57 products and then they've just kept that even though they make like everything now like they're a death star of food right what is what a strange advertising point yeah the number of things we make. It's like the only time in history anyone's ever done that strategy. Let's tell them the number of things we make.

Why? I don't know. It sounds good. The weird... Mr. Hines, that just sounds like a random fact. 57 and like rides away, you know. 57 speeds off in his model t how how long do you think their holdout was like they had some developer who had a 58th product and he was like really pushing it and they're like no it says 57 we have to get rid of one in order to introduce your new condiment

or whatever yeah it is that i they were probably the last company to do this stupid slogan of this is how many things we make because obviously that changes pretty fast yeah what an what an old timey thing to do yeah that's really screwing yourself over in the future you know it's like if you're mcdonald's and your slogan is like only burgers and then well you're immediately regretting it because you want to try stuff a bunch of anxious businessmen in 1970 being like we really called our shot here we may have limited ourselves yeah linda and so then this story of of heinz changing ketchup our key source here is national geographic it's an article called how henry heinz used ketchup to improve food Safety. And it's by Deborah Blum, who's a Puls and early 1900s chemist working for the federal government, who was running like the first ever department bothering with food safety at all.

And so his achievements were catching people doing stuff like filling out cinnamon with brick dust, and filling out flour with gypsum, which is a mineral. Like catching just like the really hideous bad food safety stuff you think of with the 1800s. That was his job. But you save money. No, that makes sense. That would be the first. Because like before then, we weren't processing food in factories.

It was just like farm to table, essentially. So, yeah, that makes sense that that would be like the first time that job exists would be in the 1800s. The original food pyramid had sawdust on it i imagine like do you think they just worked it in like you got to get your daily dose of sawdust kids i mean no it's it's it's the tale as old as time it's the same reason drug dealers cut their cocaine with other substances it's like well no we can make this we can make this go farther. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, it's the people, it's, I don't know. It's just constant reminder throughout history that people will do literally whatever they can get away with in order to save money or make money. Yeah.

That's why we have, this is why we have. Yeah, this is why we have rules. Because otherwise. Otherwise you'd be in brick dust in your cinnamon bun yeah and like i would be i would i would do it i would do it like you need if i could get away with getting with uh i was gonna say selling people there's no rules it's like well yeah that seems easy enough you just get some food coloring some brick dust and like just like a little bit of cinnamon and you know you got yourself a product someone will eat it yeah because the uh at least in the u.s like the first

laws preventing that the first key ones were in 1906 and apparently before that a product like ketchup was frequently made from things like tomato scraps thickened with ground pumpkin rinds. They would also use apple pomace, which is like the seeds and stems and like leftover apple parts. They would put that in there, like a lot of red dye to trick people. And there was a French cookbook author who described ketchup as quote, filthy, decomposed and putrid because not only would it be made of junk, but also they didn't really like do things to preserve it and prevent it from spoiling very well. Uh, because there were no laws, there were no rules.

Yeah. I'm surprised they didn't put like heroin or cocaine in there because why not? Oh yeah. Like with soda. Yeah. Yeah. Again, like some product guy at Cocaca-cola like we found that if we put cocaine in it people buy it more oh why is that because it's a drug and they get addicted

to it oh great let's put it in there perfect no i mean you know and if only those days were still alive and well cocaine ketchup it is a thing that has changed a lot over time, partly because apparently also in the past, ketchup was like a lot thinner and more watery and not the like thick redder stuff we're used to. It was like the first squirt of ketchup, what you're describing when you get the ketchup water. Yeah, that fluid. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, when you haven't shaken the bottle. Yeah, the worst part of ketchup. We have modern nice ketchup now, partly because Harvey Washington Wiley was pushing for safe food instead of the crazy stuff we're describing. And then also because Henry John Hines was, he was the son of like very devout Lutheran German immigrants in Pennsylvania. But between his morality and also seeing a market opportunity, he said, hey, I can be like the one guy in America making like safe,

not poison products, right? Like everybody else is doing poison, crazy products. I can be like the one guy in the entire world making stuff that's safe and healthy and like, like made in a way that's transparent. And so that's how he built his business.

You can put it on the label, not poison yeah yeah ark heinz tomato ketchup is the only tomato ketchup on the market that's not made out of metal shavings like more or less yeah metal shavings and muskrat bones it's fascinating that there was a time where like going to the grocery store was like a minefield where like ah god i hope this won't kill me yeah yeah because it could well he also so and then henry hines he got into the food business as a little kid uh when he was 10 years old he started selling the extra vegetables from his his parents garden around. And then he also started making horseradish sauce at home.

And he innovated by making the glass clear. I guess most businesses making horseradish, it was like glass you couldn't see through or it wasn't glass at all. And it was partly to like hide how bad it was. And people were, people's minds were blown. They were like, oh, I can actually see that the sauce doesn't have metal shavings in it. Like this is very, this is very exciting to me as a person. that the sauce doesn't have metal shavings in it like this very it's very exciting to me as a person and then he he kind of carried that forward into his actual adult business yeah it makes me a little

thankful that like our innovations are like the iphone and the internet when they were like oh did you hear about this new glass bottle so you can tell there's not metal shavings in it oh yeah it's great yeah it's all the rave. Cutting edge glass bottle. Because also his ketchup bottle, it was a clear glass bottle. And also they made it an eight-sided base, which was pretty hard to manufacture. But it was eight-sided so customers could see it from a bunch of angles and feel better about the ketchup they were buying. And then basically in the run-up to the food safety laws in the U.S., Heinz was not only making safe food because he thought that was a good thing to do, but according to Blum, quote,

this was not all altruism. Heinz was beginning to suspect that customer distrust of food supply would be far more expensive to manufacturers like him than the cost of improving the food itself. And then she describes him making a point of like going to meetings with Theodore Roosevelt and with other politicians alongside food safety advocates, basically saying like, they're exactly right. And make sure everybody knows I'm like the one guy doing this. According to Blum, when the food safety laws came out in 1906,

quote, H.J. Hines' new preservative-free ketchup was ready to go as the company's advertising campaign proclaimed it was quote recognized as the standard by government pure food authorities end quote and so he had like you basically more or less could claim u.s government backing for being a ketchup business and immediately and permanently took over the ketchup business in the u.s like that was what it took. And yeah, yeah, setting the standard. I mean, good for him. Yeah, it's cool.

All the, like... And good for all of us. I assume all the food people had, like, parties, right? Where they, like, you make food, we make food. Let's have a food party. And he must not have been very popular during those at first because they're like, you've messed it up for all of us. I was putting brick dust in my food

and now I can't do brick dust anymore thanks to you. Yeah, apparently that's a bad thing. Yeah, apparently that kills children or something. Thanks. Thanks. Apparently it kills our specific child workforce. Yeah. Because this is the 1800s.

Yeah, and everything is messed up everything is the worst possible version of itself um except for ketchup apparently except for ketchup good on them well and that and then like ketchup and his company and then also other people working on it and the the work of activists trying to make food safer should not be ignored. But it's the kind of thing where Heinz ketchup was a leading force in us being used to food being normal. And also like expecting, hey, if I buy Heinz ketchup anywhere, it's going to be the same as the other Heinz ketchup. And then once that's in your mind, you're very used to like

all of the rest of our industrialized manufactured food. You're like, yeah, my Cocoa Pebbles should be the same everywhere. McDonald's is the same everywhere. I'm used to everything matching. I don't know. I think that's a good thing ultimately. Yeah, I was going to say we sort of take that for granted or tend to deride it, but that actually,

in terms of food production, that's an extremely good thing. Right. Culinary growth, no, but it's safe safe that's what they're going for every time you know people really value safety especially in a time where you're eating like sawdust and glass and stuff so yeah yeah gypsum yeah where they're like look if you buy a bottle of ketchup yeah if you buy a bottle of ketchup anywhere it's not gonna murder you and it's like oh thank god yeah that was a genuine concern that we had hey folks i put in a sound effect there so i can jump in after the taping this is alex hey uh there was a glitch with my recording system it still sounds fine it still sounds legible it's a totally good show i'm just

saying that so it's it's not weird when my audio suddenly changes. So thanks for rolling with that. Let's finish our catch-up talk. Here's a sound effect to bring us back in. Yeah, there's like a 99% chance it won't murder you. And also today, if your catch-up murders you, I feel like Hector Osorno will avenge you, you know? So that feels good too. Right. yeah. He doesn't, that's, he can't have that. Yeah, he'll go on a John Wick

rampage, you know? Using ketchup bottles, hocking it at people. Although, no, I shouldn't say that, because he would never hurt somebody with a ketchup bottle. No, it's against everything he stands for, Dave. Yeah. He is a saint. He wants to limit the harm of ketchup. He would be nice and use a gun, Dave to limit the harm of ketchup he would be nice and

use a gun Dave come on yeah he wouldn't besmirch the ketchup yeah or it used mustard to make it like a frame job yeah yeah oh you're like how did why did mustard do this yes terrible what mustard does he's actually a super villain now well you either live long enough to see yourself what's the what's the line batman you get it anyway you either die a hero you live long enough to see yourself become mustard yeah become mustard yeah that's the quote folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to david christopher bell and tom ryman for just being great buddies just stone cold great buddies. I appreciate them both immensely and I'm really glad they did this. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more

secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. Also, patrons get all of the catalog of bonus shows immediately when they sign up. This week's bonus topic, Nix V. Hedden. One more time, that is Nix V. Hedden. It's so awesomely weird, that's all I'm going to say. Visit SIFpod.fun to find out what Nix V. Hedden is and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring ketchup with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, one specific guy is the secret global master of ketchup flavor. Takeaway number two, ketchup is a recent invention with an old Southeast Asian name. Takeaway number three, ketchup revolutionized

and industrialized all of American food. And also a secret bonus takeaway from the numbers section, here it comes, Canadians is freaks. Those are the takeaways. Those are the most takeaways, mainly because Canadians is freaks. Anyway, please follow our guests. David Christopher Bell and Tom Ryman are the two heads of a fantastic podcast network and streaming channel. It's called Gamefully Unemployed, and it's one of my favorite internet things. I want to point out three podcasts on there in particular. One of them is called Hypecast.

It's my favorite weekly show about just what's coming next in entertainment. There's also a show called Fox Mulder is a Maniac, which is an amazing show Dave and Tom do about the X-Files through the lens of Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, is a maniac. And you need to notice that all of the time when you watch the X-Files. And third podcast to point out is called Tom and Jeff Watch Batman. It is Tom Ryman and friend of this show, friend of all shows, Jeff May. I love Jeff May. And it's the two of them watching Batman with an incredibly detailed and thoughtful eye toward all of the storytelling and canon things that a Batman show can do. Or a Batman movie. They have amazing, especially

Nolan stuff, if you want to check that out. And I'm going to do more plugs from there. Tom Ryman's excellent writing is available at Collider.com. David Bell's excellent script writing is available at the YouTube news and comedy show Some More News, hosted by Cody Johnston, produced by Katie Stoll, many other pals there too. So you can find both of them at Gamefully Unemployed, and then Tom's at Collider, Dave's at Some More News, and they're elsewhere too. They're just great and very prolific. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article from NPR's blog, The Salt. I also don't know if everybody knows that NPR has an amazing food blog, or it's more like food news and stories. It's not recipes or something. And the article there is called Meet the Man Who Guards America's Ketchup, and it's by Dan Charles, of course covering Hector Osorno. Another great article entitled History of the World in a Ketchup Bottle that is by Ruth Walker for the Christian Science Monitor.

An amazing piece for National Geographic by Deborah Blum titled How Henry Hines Used Ketchup to Improve Food Safety. And more from there. Find those and more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken, unshaven by The Budos Band. The Budos Band's next album is called Long in the Tooth. It releases October 9th. Pre-order your copy at daptonerecords.com. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. See more of Burt's art on Instagram, at Burt 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 the 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.