Pasta Pranks

we see on the Internet. Deep fakes and doctorate images can look very real, which is why it's so important to know which news sources are trustworthy and which should be taken with a grain of salt. Back in the mid twentieth century, though, things were a lot different. People didn't always view the news with such skepticism, but maybe they should have. You see on ape of nineteen fifty seven, a BBC news program called Panorama featured a story that

left its British viewers perplexed. The black and white broadcasts began with a series of images from the Swiss countryside, trees covered in blooming flowers, bees pollinating the buds, and women admiring their gardens. As these idyllic frames flashed on screen, a British journalist named Richard Dimbleby narrated. Richard was a respected reporter known for his in depth coverage of World War Two. His voice was serious as he discussed the

recent weather conditions in Switzerland. He said, and I quote the past winter, one of the mildest in living memory, has had its effect in other ways as well. Most important of all, it's resulted in an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop. As soon as he said those words, the broadcast cut to video of a large flowery tree with hundreds of spaghetti noodles hanging off its branches. Women in traditional Swiss dresses harvested pasta from the trees. Meanwhile, Richard discussed the

differences between Italian and Swiss spaghetti production. According to him, Italian spaghetti farms were much larger, while Swiss pasta cultivation was a smaller, family affair. Of course, Richard explained the temperate weather was helping the spaghetti trees thrive, but so is something else. He said, quote Another reason why this may be a bumper year lies in the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weavil, a tiny creature whose depredations have

caused much concern in the past. Now I don't think I have to tell you that spaghetti weavils do not exist and pasta does not grow on trees. But here's the thing. Back in nineteen fifty seven, not all British people knew that. At the time, spaghetti wasn't a common dish in the UK. If people ate it at all, they probably got it out of a can and they didn't necessarily know how it was made. In the wake of this bizarre broadcast, the British public was split into

two camps. Most people thought that they had just learned something new and interest about spaghetti. Some gardeners even called in asking where they might be able to get their own spaghetti trees. However, a small minority those who knew how pasta was actually made, were furious. The BBC received a flood of calls from people demanding an explanation. Panorama was supposed to be a serious factual program. Why on

Earth with someone like Richard Dimbleby purposely spread misinformation? It turns out it was all one guy's idea, and that guy was not Richard. It was a freelance cameraman named Charles Dijeger. Charles wanted to create a prank segment for April fool's Day. He pitched the idea to David Wheeler, the producer of Panorama, and David thought that it sounded funny, so he agreed to give the cameraman a meager production

budget of one hundred pounds. Charles found a good location in the Swiss countryside, cooked a whole bunch of spaghetti and hung the noodles off the tree's limbs. He even hired actors to quote unquote harvest the crop. The whole thing was staged as a joke. Unfortunately, the punchline didn't really land for British audiences. Nevertheless, in a two thousand and four interview, producer David Wheeler said that he didn't

regret pulling the prank on the public. He said, quote, I think it was a good idea for people to be aware they couldn't believe everything they saw on television, and that they ought to adopt a slightly critical attitude towards it. In this way, David was ahead of his time, and his advice is even more important today. Whenever you watch TV, read the news, or scroll through social media, make sure to use your noodle, whether it's baked onto a pizza, poured over a plate of nachos or sprinkled

on top of a salad. The culinary world just wouldn't be the same without cheese. The practice of fermenting dairy goes back thousands of years. It all probably began when a herdsman noticed some milky'd been carrying had separated into kurds and whey, And in the many years since, cheesemaking has become a skill that humanity has refined, giving us grocery store aisles full of every variety you can imagine. However, in the early nineteen forties, the United States military found

itself in a bit of a predicament. America had just entered World War Two, and feeding the nation's troops proved to be a challenge. The biggest problem was that fresh food was expensive to ship and it went bad quickly. Ideally, rations would be relatively cheap and would remain safe to eat for years. Now. When it came to calorie dense, shelf stable foods, one item stood out, processed cheese product.

Think about Valveda, invented in nineteen eighteen. It's not cheese so much as it is cheese adjacent, but it was inexpensive and it stored well, and that's what the military neededment N officials contacted Kraft, the company that owned Velveta. They purchased twenty five million cans of cheese like product, along with five hundred thousand pounds of cheese flavored spread. These foods became staples of US military rations. But still

the government wasn't completely satisfied. These products were long lasting and cheap tobai for sure, but they were also heavy, and that meant that they still cost quite a bit to ship to troops around the world, and they were cumbersome for soldiers to carry around. Now, the obvious answer was to dehydrate the cheese. Removing the water from foods makes them exponentially lighter. However, at the time, the only way to dehydrate food was to expose it to prolonged

high temperatures. This worked for cheese, but it also melted out all the fat, reducing the calorie dense food to a pile of dust with very few nutrients. The military needed a way to take the water out of cheese while still keeping the fat. In nineteen forty three, they found the perfect man for the job. His name was Georgie Saunders, and he worked as a dairy scientist for the United States Department of Agriculture. George set to work

testing out new methods of dairy dehydration. After lots of trial and error, he found something that worked, splitting the drying process into two distinct steps. Instead of just blasting the cheese with high heat right off the bat, he started with low temperatures, which trapped in the fat and proteins. After that, the cheese was broken up into smaller pieces and dehydrated at a high heat. This resulted in a cheese powder that was ultra light but still nutrient dense.

George packed these into round disks that were perfect for storage and shipping, and he called these cheesecakes, not to be confused with the dessert. Now. I know this might not sound particularly exciting, but the military wanted to get people pumped up about cheese powder. In nineteen forty three, they released a war bond advertisement in which a shirtless soldier fed his comrade a puck of dehydrated cheese. Suddenly,

dairy dust was all the ray. Fast forward two years to nineteen forty five, when World War II came to an end. After all this work to create the perfect rations, the US military faced another weird problem. They had mountains upon mountains of dehydrated cheese powder and no soldiers to feed it to. Once again, the government officials contacted Craft. This time, instead of buying cheese, they offered to sell

theirs at an extremely discounted price. Basically, they were willing to take a huge loss just to get all of this dairy powder off of their hands, and for Kraft it was a no brainer. They took the military's leftovers and used them to create a brand new snack. The first bags hit grocery store shelves in nineteen forty eight, and they were an instant hit, bringing in millions of dollars of revenue each year. Today, they're the second most popular salty snack in America. So what did Craft create

with that government cheese powder? The iconic snack that leaves your fingers coated in orange colored dust Cheetos. 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.