Exotic Tastes

in smoke, well almost everything. As the firefighters tramped through the home, putting out the last of the smoldering embers, something caught their eye. Hanging on the soot blackened wall was a perfectly pristine painting of a young street urchin with tears rolling down his face. Upon seeing it, one of the firefighter's side the curse of the crying boy painting had struck again. In the fall of nineteen eighty five, a strange phenomenon was tearing across England. One by one,

houses were going up in smoke. Now, this in and of itself wasn't unusual. Every one of these fires had a perfectly normal explanation, like faulty wiring or a smoldering cigarette. What was strange were the paintings left behind. In nearly every case, the only thing left untouched by the blaze was a framed print of a crying little boy. The crying boy paintings weren't uncommon at the time. In fact,

they were hugely popular with working class Brits. As the story goes, after World War II, a series of tearful portraits of children started appearing in Italy, and they were attributed to a few different artists like Giovanni Braggoline or Franchoiseville, but in truth, these were both pseudonyms for one individual man, Spanish painter Bruno Amadio. Bruno supposedly began painting street urchins as a way to bring attention to the plight of

children orphaned by the war. Cheap prints of his paintings were sold all across Europe, proving especially popular with British tourists, so much so that an estimated fifty thousand of Bruno's prints were sold in England alone. While this explains why Bruno's paintings were popular, it doesn't shed any light on why they were at the heart of so many mysterious fires, that is until the newspapers brought a little known story

to light. According to the Sun, a British tabloid, one of the most popular crying boy paintings was of a young boy named Don Bonillo. Don had been dealt a tragic hand and was orphaned when his parents perished in a fire, and supposedly wherever Don went, mysterious fires would spontaneously appear. Despite the rumors, Bruno adopted Don. All was well until one day when a fire broke out in

Bruno's studio. Angry the boy, Bruno accused him of arson and kicked him out, and he never saw Don again, but stories of the boy trickled back to him seven years later, when a car crashed in Barcelona and burst into flames. The driver's remains were burned beyond recognition, but a driver's license in his wallet identified him as Don Bonillo. This backstory, coupled with the blazes, was enough to convince

many Brits that the crime boy paintings were cursed. So when a tabloid called The Sun offered to help people get rid of their unwonted art, hundreds of prints came pouring into their London office. On Halloween nights in nineteen eighty five, the Sun built a bonfire of crime Boy paintings and set them alight, and with that they put an end to the crime Boy curse, which was very poetic, as after all they had started it in the first place.

You see, the Sun was a tabloid that was not above in belishing a story to sell a paper, and in nineteen eighty five it was a paper that was in a war. Its chief rival, the Day Mirror, was threatening its circulation, so when the first Crying Boy story proved popular, they leaned into it. Yes, the fires were real, as were the crime Boy portraits, but since it was such a popular series of prints, there was really nothing unusual about them being present at multiple house fires. Oh

and about Bruno, the enigmatic painter. While he was a real painter, it's doubtful that he ever adopted a young fire starter street urchin, especially not one who wanted to haunt his paintings. That was an invention of the Sun as well. And as for the paintings themselves, well, even at the time, the firemen believed that they knew why the prince survived the fires. The cheap prints many people had in their homes were made of high density hardboard.

This material is very tough to burn. In fact, when a BBC presenter tried to set one on fire in twenty ten, he was barely able to singe the boy. With that, any last lingering beliefs in the Crying Boy curse suddenly went up in smoke. We eat a lot of meat. The average American consumes two hundred and twenty five pounds of animal products each year, the vast majority

of which is beef, pork, and chicken. Specialty meats like veal, lamb, and bison are reasonably easy to get your hands on, but for the most part, we restrict ourselves to a tiny corner of the animal kingdom. At least most of us do. In the nineteen twenties, a group of students at Cambridge University set out to expand their diets by sampling what they called strange flesh. They dubbed themselves the Glutton Club, and they more than lived up to their name.

Their mission, as stated, was to dine on and I quote, birds and beasts which were before unknown to the human pellet.

at least one member stayed true to the cause. After leaving Cambridge, the Glutton Club's president was offered a spot on an oceanic voyage around the world. It was the perfect opportunity to encounter and devour species of animals that had never been tasted by an Englishman before. His mouth

was watering before he could say yes. For the next five years, he traveled the globe, eating his way across one continent after another, and technically he was the expedition's naturalist, brought along to study and catalog the various species they encountered during the voyage, and he did do that. But once he was done studying the specimens, each one found its way onto his plate. He filled his research journals with descriptions of the exotic meats he tried, commenting and

compared ring flavor and tenderness. He sampled everything from pumas and armadillos to iguanas and giant tortoises, and while he did enjoy many of them, it was the South American agouti that proved to be the most memorable. This large rodent weighs upwards of twenty pounds, is typically slow roasted over a fire, and is closely related to the guinea pig. According to the Gluttons Journals, it was the best meal

he had ever tasted. His appetite almost got the better of him one winter when he sat down for Christmas dinner with the crew. He was halfway through what looked like turkey when he realized it was something else. The meat came from a Rhea, a large flightless bird similar to an ostrich. The glutton had been tracking rhea for weeks, trying to catch one, with no luck. Apparently, the ship's

cook had beaten him to the punch. Realizing that he was about to devour a priceless, unstudied specimen, the glutton leaped to his feet and shouted for everyone to stop eating. He quickly gathered up the remaining bones, skin and flesh and hacked them into a crate and had them ship back to London for examination and storage. Christmas Dinner was ruined, but the science had been mostly salvaged. The Glutton finally returned to England in eighteen thirty six, but his work

was far from over. He spent several more years examining the specimens and the notes that he had brought back, and then finally, in eighteen fifty nine, he published a book on everything he had learned during his voyage. This time, he didn't focus so much on the flavor of the animals he encountered, but his beliefs about how they had

come to exist in their habitats. From his observations, he extrapolated a theory explaining how organisms changed over time, suggesting that all life on Earth could be traced back to a single origin. His book rocked the scientific community to its core and is still considered one of the most significant works of modern science. The Glutton, of course, was named Charles Darwin. His book The Origin of Species is famous for introducing the theory of evolution that changed our

understanding of the natural world forever. And Darwin might not have ever devised it at all, if not for his voracious appetite for discovery. 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.