GASTROPODHOSTED BYCYNTHIA GRABER AND NICOLA TWILLEY
Food with a side of science and history. Every other week, co-hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley serve up a brand new episode exploring the hidden history and surprising science behind a different food- or farming-related topic, from aquaculture to ancient feasts, from cutlery to chile peppers, and from microbes to Malbec. We interview experts, visit labs, fields, and archaeological digs, and generally have lots of fun while discovering new ways to think about and understand the world through food. Find us online at gastropod.com, follow us on Twitter @gastropodcast, and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/gastropodcast.
Growing up in the northeast in the seventies eighties, there was a chain, like a micro chain called beefsteak Charlie's, and it advertised an unlimited shrimp bar. I'm beefsteak Charlie, and I'm warning you my free shrimp and salad bar. Could ruin your appetite. I found the old commercial, and it's this couple comes into bee stitched Charlies, and they go, oh, shrimp. Oh, shrimp. Shrimp. Shrimp. A shrimp shrimp. And they get themselves into a lather, and all they're saying is shrimp again and again. Strimp. And then beefsteak Charlie arrives with the steaks. Your steaks? And he goes, and here's your steaks. And he goes, steak. Shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, shrimp, it's what makes America great. Or at least it's certainly what Americans think is great because Americans eat more shrimp than any other seafood at all. It is the number one seafood in America. Shrimp is the most beloved seafood in America. We are obviously the most beloved podcast in America. It's an episode made in heaven. And we, of course, are gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. I'm Nicola and I'm Cynthia Graber. And I've always wondered, why is a tiny little bug like crustacean so incredibly popular? Forget crab and salmon and tuna, Americans are really into shrimp. Why? And also when? Because Hard as it is to believe this hasn't always been a land of all you can eat shrimp. There was a time when you couldn't add shrimp to your salad or pass for just a few dollars. So what happened? How did shrimp explode? We've got this story behind that shrimp explosion this episode and what you need to know when you next enjoy America's very favorite seafood. This episode is supported in part by the Alfred Peace loan Foundation for the public standing of science, technology, and economics, and, of course, by you, our fabulous listener supporters. Gastropod is part of the VOXX Media
To the point at which, hopefully, if they're in clean water, we can eat them, which is, of course, is not their sole purpose on on earth, but that is certainly one purpose that humans like them for. It's helpful to us that oysters grow in reefs so we can find a good meal all in one place, But the oysters like to grow in reefs because it actually helps them feed more efficiently too. As oysters increase the size of the reef and the height of it, that displaces water. And so the same volume of water has to run around the reef. Funnel water around an obstacle, and the water will move faster. That's physics. And like we said, oysters feed by drawing that nutrient filled water through their gills. So the faster the water moves, the more nutrient filled water flows by for them to draw in and feast on. Basically, a reef is a nutrition optimization scheme for oysters. But reefs help us too, and not just because they serve as a great buffet. The oysters keep piling on top of each other with all this hard shell, and that shell helps stop waves from crashing into the shore. And that helps protect the coast when there are storms, and it also helps prevent erosion. Honestly, oyster reefs, they really help everybody. Not just the oysters in us, but all kinds of other creatures. The other thing oysters do is they provide a lot of cover for microorganisms and forage for macroorganisms. Microorganisms and macroorganisms, that means little tiny creatures and the bigger creatures that feed off them because an oyster reef isn't just home for oysters. So we've got fish feeding off of the the algae that's growing on the reefs. We've got barnacles and mussels and clams. Sometimes we even see, like, crawfish that that enjoy the reef habitat. Birds land on the reef, so it's part of the flyway, you know, system. So oysters are really important for for ecosystems and habitat. Oysters are really kind of like a magic multi tool because it's not just the reef structure that's so helpful, it's also that a reef full of oysters is basically a giant Brita filter for the ocean. Mature oysters in the lab can
You might have heard some buzz lately that maybe you need to be eating food that's different from what your spouse or your friends or even your sibling should be eating, you need a different diet to be healthy. This idea is called personalized nutrition. It's a growing trend and already a super lucrative industry. But what's the science behind it? Nikki and I took part in one of the very first human trials of personalized nutrition a few years ago, and thanks to our friends at American Express, we're able to share that experience with you all once again. Enjoy this encore presentation, and we'll be back in a week with another brand new episode for your listening delight. 5432, 1, enjoy. Wow. Enjoy was, a little bit of an exaggeration. They're even bluer inside. Like, look at that color. It's not found in nature, I'm gonna say. Okay. My it's oily and sweet as my response. It's left a little blue oil slick on the plate, which is charming. Yes. We ate muffins the color of a Smurf, just for you, dear listeners, and for science. It wasn't a muffin. It wasn't a meal. It was a metabolic challenge. And our goal was to find out how our bodies, mine and yours, Cynthia, responded differently to that challenge, how we handled those bright blue muffins. We, of course, are Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. I'm Cynthia Graber. And I'm Nicola Twilley. And this episode, we are doing an experiment alongside several 100 other people. It's the world's largest, nutrition study of its kind about personalized nutrition. Tim Spector is the scientist running the study and, of course, you're going to hear a lot more from him this episode. He wants to know and we wanna know, do we each respond to different foods differently? You've heard of personalized medicine. Will there be such a thing as personalized diets? And should there be? Will figuring out the nuances of how my individual
Gambia. And then a few decades later, many enslaved Africans were brought to the region from the Congo in Central Africa. And then, of course, you had also enslaved Africans from all over during the transatlantic slave trade from Nigeria, Benin, different parts of Central Africa, and Cuba as well because New Orleans was a central point and a port city. Zella Palmer is director and chair of the Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture at Dillard University in New Orleans. In the early 1800, the US government outlawed bringing in enslaved people from overseas, but they didn't outlaw slavery. So then enslaved people were just moved around from state to state within the US. After the end of the transatlantic slave trade, enslaved African Americans were brought to Louisiana to work in the sugar canes, but to also work in urban enslavement as well. New Orleans was the largest slave market in the US, and 1 in 3 people living in the city were enslaved. That Saint Louis Hotel and other hotels, were auction blocks, and there were slave pens all throughout the French Quarter and the Frenchman Street as well. So this was a bustling economy, but unfortunately, it was a bustling Remember, the land around there is super fertile. That's because of the Mississippi, Remember, the land around there is super fertile. That's because of the Mississippi, which was also a major way to ship those goods out of New Orleans. The rise of sugar in the Delta is a story we're coming back to in a future episode. But the point is that much of everything in this region was built by black people, from infrastructure to culture to, yes, of course, cuisine. And in an unusual twist for the US at the time, there was also a significant group of black people in the region who were free. That was because Louisiana had different rules about slavery left over from the French. Well, it was because of the black codes, the Louisiana clothes that were instituted here and they had particular ways for you to
I mean, there's a there's a noodles with chili crisp or there's, cauliflower or just ricotta cheese and and lemon zest. There are, like, a lot of different kinds of pasta preparations that do appear. So you're saying I should just abandon my whole concept? No. I I think it's it's gonna be a a challenge. Oh, here's dad, so now the dogs are gonna go crazy. Alright. Well, I'm gonna go, but thanks for the vote of confidence. No. I'm not if you look, it does remind me that so many people who saw you on the Today Show, everybody wants to make the mushroom ragu because they don't think of putting mushrooms on pasta like that. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You just validated the concept of my book. Well, I don't know if that's gonna sell a book, though. I could sell a pamphlet, but not necessarily a book. That is more skepticism than I was expecting from my mom. But it occurs to me that these are the same doubts I heard when I set out to invent Cascatelli. It's all been done. There's nothing new to add. Fortunately, I feed off the doubters. So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna make this cookbook. Because of the success of Cascatelli and Sporkful's long history. I'm able to get a literary agent, who helps me write a book proposal that includes some sample writing and a list of proposed recipes. But we quickly hit a bump. The first publisher I go to is Simon and Schuster. They published a book I wrote 10 years ago called Eat More Better. Because that book didn't do very well, the editor there says the higher ups won't approve a solid offer. Basically, they're not willing to take another chance on me. Other publishers didn't have a front row seat to my literary failure, so some of them do make good offers. I sign on with William Morrow, part of HarperCollins, one of the big publishers. In spring 2022, I'm ready to actually start writing my cookbook. There's just one small issue. While I have lots of opinions about what I like and don't like to eat, and I often
