Catching Up

doesn't carry over into the next. People may be aware of the twist and the hustle, but you won't find them busting those moves on the dance floor these days. Our taste in cuisine also evolves over the years. New cooking tools can lead to new ways of preparation, and as animals and plant populations shift, so can our diets. For example, a modern day staple we enjoyed today got its start in China around three b C. At the time, it was a sauce made of fermented fish, like anchovies.

Other parts of Asia enjoyed a similar product made of fermented beans. Eventually, though, fish traders in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries brought these sauces to areas like the Philippines and India, where British travelers encountered them. From there, they were brought back to England by merchants who tried to duplicate their recipes. At first, ingredients that were popular in

the regions, such as oysters, walnuts, and shallots were added. Eventually, mushrooms took over as the main ingredients, pushing out the beans and anchovies from the original Asian recipes. Those new English versions didn't resemble the sauces from China or Vietnam, though they were darker and more running in consistency, and how did folks use them well? People often dumped it into soup or poured it over meat to add flavor, but it wasn't until eighteen twelve when a new ingredient

found its way into the recipe. Tomatoes. Now, tomatoes had been introduced to England back in the fifteen hundreds, but didn't become popular for centuries. Herbalist John Gerald had published a book in fifteen nineties seven called herbal in which he described a tomatoes flavor as rank and stinking. It didn't help that wealthy folks eating from pewter plates had also gotten sick from eating tomatoes, so the fruit gained the nickname the poison apple, even though it wasn't really

to blame. Turns out, the tomatoes high acid content had caused the lead in the pewter plates to leach into the food. By eighteen twelve, though, the tomato's reputation had undergone a considerable overhaul. But it was the American scientist and corticulturalist James Mees who introduced tomato pulp into the mix. He referred to tomatoes as love apples and added spices and brandy into his own recipe, which helped it stay fresh longer. Over the next few decades, tomato based recipes

found their way into cookbooks and newspaper columns. Unfortunately, this new ingredients added a whole new problem to the manufacturing process. You see, tomatoes were a seasonal food and could only be grown during a short period of time each year, and because there was no way to properly store the pulp long term, much of it wound up going bad. To combat spoilage, chemical preservatives were added, such as coal

tar and sodium benzoate. In eighteen seventy six, though, one man came up with a plan to produce his own brand of tomato paste, one that could last on shelves without the need for artificial preservatives. His name was Henry, and his was a whole new recipe. Unlike his competitors, who relied on tomatoes scraps for their base, Henry instead used whole ripe tomatoes. He also incorporated more vinegar to aid in preservation. Henry sauce was simple, natural and delicious,

and it came in a clear bottle. Customers liked scene what was inside before they bought it. Twenty years later, Henry began advertising his company with the slogan fifty seven Varieties, a number seemingly chosen at random. He didn't sell fifty seven varieties of anything, but he did manage to sell five million bottles. By the turn of the century. Henry Heights soon dominated the market, and his condiment became an

American staple. It may not be made with mushrooms or fish anymore, but it stood the test of time as a versatile addition to most meals. But hidden in its name is a hint at those older Asian recipes in China, for example, it was originally called kite in the United States, though it's known by a familiar and similar sounding name

catch up. If you're my age, you have distinct memories of journalists standing outside Bagdad in two thousand three, talking into the camera as the sky behind them lit up with explosions that were part of the Iraq War. If you're older, maybe you'll always remember morally safer accompanying a group of U. S Marines into a South Vietnamese village. The job of war correspondent is instantly recognizable as a dangerous one, usually because the risk is presented right there

on the screen. But when Spencer held the job, there was no such thing as network news, let alone cable television. He had started his time away from home with the British Army, joining up in eight at the age of twenty one. It was a whirlwind too, traveling to places like Cuba, the United States and India. But by his time with the military was over and he picked up a new job, war correspondent for the Morning Post out

of London. In eight they sent him to South Africa to report on the events of the Second Boer War. And yes, I know that term makes it sound like he was battling wild Higgs, but the boar spelled b o e Er were actually the descendants of Dutch colonists who had set up their own kingdoms in South Africa. The British were there to challenge their power in the region, and Spencer was along to write about it so readers back home in England could stay up on the events

of the war. But in October of that year, his journey hit a snag. You see, he was on a British military train, surrounded by soldiers and officers as they headed towards Colenso when an explosion brought everything to a stop. It turns out it was a boulder planted on the tracks by the Boar forces to stop them so that they'd be easier targets for their guns. In the chaos of the battle, Spencer jumped out of the train and

began barking orders at the troops. Soon enough, the tracks were cleared, and entirely thanks to his efforts, the men on board were able to escape the ambush safely, all except Spencer, that is. You see in the confusion, he was captured and taken to a prisoner of war camp run by the Boars in the city of Pretoria, and that should have been the end of his story. In fact, there's a good chance he could have died there, but

he didn't. No. Over the following two months, Spencer and a pair of other British prisoners began to plan their escape. They studied the defenses of the prison, they memorized the landscape around the site, and they became intimately familiar with the timing of each guard shift, making special note of when the changes in shift happened every night when the time was right. In December, the men put their plan into motion, but tragically, Spencer was the only one to

make it out alive. From there, he traveled many miles on foot, a journey of long, grueling days and nights, before reaching the home of a British man who lived in a bore mining town, and that man helped him get onto a train headed to safety. I'm happy to report that Spencer made it all the way to the British consul in Portuguese East Africa, and from there eventually

made it home. The Morning Post got their story and the British public discovered they had a new hero on their hands, on one with courage and the will to press on through despite the trouble he was in. It was courage that they would need two decades later when the world erupted into a deadly World War, and two decades after that when a Second World War arrived, and through it all, Spencer was there, serving his people and demonstrating why he survived his experience in South Africa all

those years before. Of course, I can't blame you for believing that you've never heard of Spencer, because that was his middle name, well one of them. Anyway, his full name reveals him to be a man the entire world has heard of, even if his time as a war correspondent is mostly forgotten. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,