9 Somewhat Tasteful Facts about Salad!

it's so weird how much the industry has changed. Like if you look at those ads from the fifties, Pan m and whoever used to serve these big meals with steaks, and they'd have pianos on board, and they've had these like free flowing cocktails, and every ad was about luxury and people having a party. And now it's definitely not a party, certainly not with a piano or they're really

pianos some of these planes. Yeah, definitely, that's unbelievable. I was reading about some mothers and one of the most legendary cost cutting measures came with salads. At least it's legendary in the business world if you're looking at various case studies, and this guy, Robert Crandell, he was the head of American Airlines in the nineteen eighties. He was looking for different ways to cut expenses. So he thought, what if I removed just one olive from every dinner

salad I served my passengers. It was thinking, you know, would anybody even notice this, And so, hoping they wouldn't, he made the change, and the effect rippled out and it wouldn't seem like they would save this much money from it. But American Airlines saved forty thousand dollars from making this one little change, and in today's money, that's actually about a hundred thousand dollars. And it kind of makes you wonder, though, why didn't he just take away

two olives? Because obviously, like taking away two olives would have started a riot, You're probably right. Instead, they just took away our leg room. That's God's good point. Well, May is National Salad months. So for today's nine Things, we're digging into a whole bowl full of weird and funny salad facts. So let's dive in a podcast. Listeners,

Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass wearing a T shirt that says you don't make friends with salad. That's our friends and producer Tristan McNeil. I like how he was hiding it at first, and then he took off the hoodie to reveal the big surprise. You know, I love that joke so much, and it's obviously like a Simpsons gag.

If you're a Simstons fan, you know that. But I was reading about that, and uh, there's this episode where you know, Lisa's Asselmer like, why don't you offer some non meat options at a party? And Homer says, you don't make friends with salad, and then Bart goes, you don't make friends with salad. You don't make friends with salad, and they make this congo line and they just go endlessly. They go like through the room, they go out of the room, they come back into the room, and then

it just goes on just like never stops. And I was actually reading about that gag online and I saw the writers say they were trying to create a joke that was funny and then went on for so long it became annoying and not funny, and then long enough there went back to being funny again. It's true, it kind of does accomplish that, and and now it's made its way to Tristan shirt. Well, as we mentioned earlier on the show, Maya's National Salad Month, and oddly, I

don't know who declared it National salad Month. It's it's referenced everywhere from Smithsonian to cooking magazines, but it is kind of hard to PenPoint the creator. Yeah. I was thinking about that too, and I think maybe the Association for Dressings and Sauces might be responsible. I mean, you know, you're gonna sell more dressing if everyone's eating salad. But what's stranger to me is that it's also National Hogie

Day this month. It's like, yeah, May fifth, and it's almost like the HOGI makers looked at the calendar and thought, you know, people are going to need a cheat day. So so Sinco de Mayo is the same as National Hogy Day. Yeah, I guess that's pretty big. Wow, who knew? Well, it's actually it's kind of weird. They didn't try to grab their own Hogi month. I feel like hoagies are worthy of an entire month. But all right, well, I kicked off today's nine things without sacrificing. Just one olive

can save your business. So what's first salad fact of the day? How about a fact about McDonald's. So I'm actually guessing most people aren't flocking to McDonald's for their salads. But according to CNBC, Mickey D's Kale Caesar isn't exactly a healthy option. And while the ads say keep calm Caesar on and talk up the nutrient rich lettuce blends of baby kale, the numbers actually tell the different stories.

So the salads are seven thirty calories and four hundred milligrams assault with each one, and that's actually slightly worse than a double Big Mac, which has just six d eighty calories and milligrams assault. Waits, he're saying of the two of those, that the double Big Mac is the healthy option. Yeah, it's also the vegetarian option, right right, No, I mean I think not going to McDonald's is the

healthy option. But reminds me of that story and uh, Paris, I Love you, but you bring me down, which is this really wonderful memoir. But the author was in shock at how pre Asians eat McDonald's for lunch, because they eat it in a typically French way to actually start with like a chicken nugget course. Then then they'll have like a big mac or two Big Max, and then they'll follow it with a salad course, and then they'll

finish with a coffee and possibly dessert. And I know the average meal at a French McDonald's is supposed to be like twice or thrice the cost of what it is here that is unbelievable. And it's funny to think how different the McDonald's Kale Caesar is from the original Caesar salad, which was invented by Caesar Cardini. I read this account from Julia Child where she talked about the experience of ordering the salad at Cardini's restaurant. Actually, I'm

just going to read the quote from it. It says one of my early remembrances of restaurant life was going to Tijuana in n Or nineteen twenty six with my parents, who were wildly excited that they should finally launch at Caesar's restaurant. Tiajuana, just south of the Mexican border from San Diego, was flourishing them in the prohibition era. Of course, word spread about Tijuana and the good life, and about

Caesar Cardini's restaurant and about Caesar's salads. My parents, of course ordered the salad Caesar self rolled the big card up to the table, tossed the romaine in a great wooden bowl. And I wish I could say I remembered his every move, but I don't. The only thing I see again clearly is the eggs. I can see him break two eggs over that romaine and roll them in the greens, going all creamy as the eggs float over them. Two eggs and a salad to one minute coddled eggs

and garlic flavored crutons and grated parmesan cheese. It was a sensation of a salad from coast to coast, and there were even rumblings of its success in Europe. That's really awesome. It's so awesome to think of like a young Julia child with their parents just being floored by this production. Yeah. Yeah, and and and it's like how chefs at a fancy Mexican restaurant make table side guacamole for you. It almost makes you want to order a salad. Yeah,

that's true. So here here's the story I read in Atlas obscure as news site. It's called gastroid Scura and it's all food related. Ends really good, but they mentioned this Burmese salad, which sounds amazing to me. It's called a lape and it's made from fermented tea leaves along with rock cabbage, lime, finally sliced garlic, green chili, fresh tomatoes, sesame seeds, and peanuts, and I think it has some

other spices in there too. But the description from a New York Times reviewers is that it's deeply savory and strangely addictive. So you know already that has me and

I do love Burmese food. But the key here is the tea leaves, and I'm curious off Starbucks will actually start serving these as morning salads or if people trade out their breakfast cereal routines for them, because the tea actually makes the salad highly caffeinated, and in fact, that same Times reviewers said that the leaves contain quote enough caffeine to twang the nerves like a harp. It actually kind of feels like a salad for like adrenaline junkies

or Wall Street execs or something. It does sound like a weird salad, but but actually caffeinated salad. Well, it may sound like a novelty. We've actually been making them stateside here for a while. Really, I haven't heard of this. Well, this came out of my research and looking up some of those gross and amazing jello salads. You know, people used to bring these to like church potlocks and dinner

and stuff like that. I follow a Twitter account that has tons of these, and I just love seeing pictures of like hard boiled eggs and olives and tuna fish like celery jellos. It's it's just so good. It is amazing but also disgusting. But I mean, there are tons of those nineteen fifties recipes, but one I'd never heard of is called coke salad. And this comes from Mental

Flaws and apparently it's the crown jewel of jello salad recipes. Basically, a coke salad is a fizzy jellow fruit salad that's made with a mix of cherries, pineapple juice, and coke, all cooked up with flavored jellata and if you're up for the Midwestern variation, just add some dollops of cream cheese on the top. Is disgusting, awesome. It's almost weird that you're allowed to call it a salad. It feels

like you shouldn't be. But because it's not. So here's something I hadn't read before, and that comes from that incredible quiz show q I, and it's the perfect come down after you're done doing some coke salad, I guess. But it's a wild lettuce or something that's called Luktuca seiola, and the plant, which was also known as prickly lettuce, was apparently grown for medicinal purposes, and partially it has

this like milksap that has these sleep inducing properties. I've never heard of this before, but the Romans would eat a salad course at the end of dinner with this lettuce and you know, kind of the way the French do, but this was specifically as a sleep aid and that way you could rest and digest. And apparently over the years, both the bitter taste of the wild lettuce and also those sleep inducing qualities were bred out of the lettuce.

But this wasn't before Peter Rabbit got involved, so I haven't read the original Peter Rabbit Tails in a while. But in the early from feasting on so much sleep inducing lettuce, that Mopsy and Flopsy and the whole lot of them all got caught by Farmer McGregor and just

narrowly escaped getting put in the pie. Remember this, But I really hope someone brings back this sleep inducing lettuce, just because I'd love to see people after like a long night of drinking and partying and just wanting to go to sleep, reaching into the back of their fridges and just taking a bite out of a head of lettuce. Like I feel like that would be just such a great scene. Well, hopefully that dream will come through one day. But all right, well here's a quick fact. I think

it's pretty fun. Did you know you can actually buy a fruit salad tree? So I don't know what that means. Well, they're basically the same as when you can't choose a breakfast cereal, so you get that variety pack. Nurseries sell these young saplings with different fruits grafted onto one tree. So you can get a stone fruit salad tree, for example, and you'll get peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots or peach cots

on there. You can get another one that's called a citrus tree that has limes and lemons, tangelos, oranges, grape fruit and mandarin's all growing on the single tree. It's pretty crazy, and that's amazing. So I've heard of people like grafting trees like that together over time. But the fact that you buy them as saplings, you know, or

small fruit salad trees, that's that's pretty incredible. Yeah, you can actually do this with apple trees as well, so you get all sorts of apples all growing on one tree. And it's both actually really pretty to look at but fun that you can make these little peach and plum fruit salads without having to walk, you know, all the way over to another tree. Just kind of safe sometimes second location. Yeah, Well, for those of you listening, don't go anywhere, because you've got a few more salad facts

for you for first quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius. We're talking salads in honor of National Salad Bund. So I feel like every time you say the word salad, I just think of how eat it. Zimmerman at the Hairpin found all those stock photos of women laughing alone eating salad, and I don't know how she picked up on the trend, but it is so absurd, and once you notice, you really can't stop seeing photos of women just like laughing, eating alone needing their salad. Is really amazing.

A little bizarre. All right, So what's your last factor of the day. I'm gonna be so I think I'm going to talk about a study out of Iowa State that's kind of terrific. And this took place in two thirteen, so it's a few years old now, but it was conducted at a Y m C A camp and basically, instead of telling kids what to eat, the researchers used this digital screen to show an image of a bright, fresh salad and then they just have it rotate on

the screen. And there was a salad bar in the cafeteria, but there were also plenty of other camp options, you know, hot dogs and sloppy joes and tacos. But these kids started serving themselves more salad after seeing this digital version, and in fact, the scientists were surprised to see that the digital display had the most effect on hungry boys. They actually served themselves fift more salad when they encountered the display. Wow, that is pretty amazing. I'm curious, So

does it matter if the image is digital? Does it have to be digital or would like a paper ad work just as well? Yeah? I wondered the same thing, and apparently it has to be digital. The scientists tried paper and static versions, but as the salads got more and more realistic looking, and as the scientists added motion for some reason, that's when the hungry kids really took the bait. And of course, after seeing the results of that study, Burger King immediately adopted the technology into their

billboards and ads and got people to eat whoppers. That's a pretty good fact, and it's amazing you can convince hungry kids to eat salads over tacos. But I think you're gonna like this last fact. Have you ever heard of cucumbers? Straight nurse? So this sounds like a fake product or some sort of get risk scheme. I thought

that too, But they actually are a real thing. So cucumbers, or cowcumbers as they were originally called, They used to be super wayward and curvy, but that made them hard to slice up for sandwiches, and that really annoyed this guy named George Stevenson. So Stevenson is also the inventor

of a number of things like a miner's lamp. He also built the first railway to use steam engines, and he was very ritated by these curvy cucumbers, so he decided to invent this cucumber straightener, and it's basically just this kind of this phallic looking glass tube that you put over the cucumber so it grows contained within the shape of the tube. And people went crazy for these things.

You can find all these ads and Victorian publications for these cucumber straighteners, and there's actually one from James Phillips and Company where the ad just says cucumber glasses made to any length twelve inches, sixteen inches, twenty inches, four inches. Those are a lot of inches. Gives you so many different options. But what's funny is that they're not exactly outdated either. And apparently Disney makes cucumber straighteners that shape the veggie so that when they cut a cucumber for

their salads, every slice comes out and Micky shaped. That's pretty wonderful. And I do love that George Stevenson has all these important inventions, and then he really should be remembered for this key car definitely the biggest one. Yeah, well, I think you do take the trophy with that fact. Well, thank you very much, and thank you guys for listening. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow. M