Bob and Marcia Smith delved into the origins and evolution of various terms and phenomena, including ‘Redskins,’ ‘living room,’ ‘fish wife,’ water scarcity in Arizona, and geese flying in a V formation. They explored historical context and cultural associations, as well as their impact on society and everyday life. Later, they engaged in a lighthearted conversation about food and beverage-related trivia, sharing interesting facts and displaying a playful approach to their topics.
Outline
S’mores ingredients and history, parlor rooms, and Native American terminology.
- Marcia Smith reveals the oldest ingredient in classic summer campfire treat s’mores: marshmallows.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of the term “parlor” in American English, tracing it back to a Canadian Indian tribe called the Beale flux who painted their bodies with red okra.
- Marcia and Bob also explore the history of the term “Redskins” for American Indians, revealing that it originated from a Canadian tribe who painted their bodies with red okra, but later became a derogatory term used by Europeans and Americans.
Etymology, history, and taxation of various terms.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the origins of the terms “living room” and “family room,” and why a “fish wife” was once used to describe a woman involved in the fish trade.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the auditing process, with Marcia revealing that low-income families are more likely to be audited than high-income families.
- Bob suggests that millionaires are more likely to be audited due to the ease of access to their financial information.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the origins of gin, with Bob sharing that it was first manufactured by a Dutch chemist and Marcia wondering why it’s called maudlin to describe someone who is tearful or sentimental.
Insurance companies leaving California and Arizona due to natural disasters.
- Marcia and Bob discuss insurance companies pulling out of California and Florida due to natural disaster risks, with State Farm exiting California and Citizens Property Insurance Corporation emerging in Florida as a result.
- Phoenix uses 2.2 billion gallons of water daily, more than twice New York City’s usage with twice the population.
Geese flight patterns, Ford Motor Company, and job terminology.
- Bob and Marcia discuss why geese fly in a V formation, with Marcia explaining that the lead bird creates turbulence that helps lift the birds behind her.
- Marcia also shares that the lead bird rotates out with another female to rest and avoid exhaustion.
- Ford Motor Company popularized soybeans through margarine development.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origins of the dessert peach melba and the first trademark used to identify a fresh fruit, Sunkist.
Vaccine fixologists, flags, and food trivia.
- Marcia and Bob discuss vaccine fixologists, flags, and Cleopatra’s rose petal-stuffed mattress.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the history of aluminum cans for food and beverages, and the treacherous waters of Lake Michigan.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the theory that chocolate can alleviate the pain of heartbreak due to its sugar content, which stimulates the brain and gives a “rosy high” similar to the chemical released in the brain during love.
- Mick Jagger is quoted as saying “I’d rather be dead than singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m 45,” highlighting the potential negative consequences of fame and success.
Marcia Smith 0:00
What is the oldest ingredient in the classic summer campfire treat s’mores.
Bob Smith 0:06
And why we’re the front rooms of houses once called parlors, answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity. I can’t imagine anything more sane than smores Marcia just relaxing around the campfire and eating those smores
Marcia Smith 0:47
Okay, you got what you got to graham crackers, gooey chocolate and melted marshmallows. Right?
Bob Smith 0:52
That’s right. So what’s the oldest ingredient? Yeah, of those three foods
Marcia Smith 0:56
which has been around the longest.
Bob Smith 0:58
Are you talking about my pantry now? Okay, which has been around the longest. There’s
Marcia Smith 1:04
lamb crackers, chocolate, gooey chocolate, and melted marshmallows.
Bob Smith 1:08
I think the chocolates the longest. That’s the ancient thing. It’s been around for hundreds of years. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 1:13
yeah, I would have guessed that too. But guess what, you’re wrong. It’s The Marshmallow, according to the history of the smore and there is one wow.
Bob Smith 1:23
I didn’t know that.
Marcia Smith 1:25
It is a suite that gets its name from a plant called wait for it. Marsh mallow.
Bob Smith 1:31
Well, there actually is a called that. I thought marshmallows were, you know, some kind of confectionery, ya
Marcia Smith 1:36
know, and it’s spelled if you put the two words together marsh and Mallow, it spells exactly the word marshmallow. Okay. That plant is indigenous to Eurasia and Northern Africa. And for 1000s of years, the root SAP was boiled, strained and sweetened to cure sore throats or simply be eaten as a treat. Really? Yeah, they figured that out. Over the centuries, creation of the treat was very time consuming and could only be afforded by the very rich. And by the mid 19th century when your life began. Oh, shut up. The process became mechanized, and it became penny candy cheap. No
Bob Smith 2:14
kidding. Yeah. Okay, so the marshmallow was an actual plant. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 2:20
It still is. Okay. Yeah,
Bob Smith 2:22
I had no idea. I thought it was a total sugar confection.
Marcia Smith 2:26
Yeah, I don’t even think they use the plant anymore. They use corn syrup and all this other stuff. I’m sure somebody still makes it the good old fashioned way.
Bob Smith 2:33
Speaking of old fashioned Marsha the term parlor, that’s an old fashioned term for the front room of a house. Why were the front rooms of houses once called parlors? And it comes from a word parlor?
Marcia Smith 2:48
parlor Parliament cigarettes? No,
Bob Smith 2:51
it comes from your home country’s language.
Marcia Smith 2:54
Pirated French. Yes, it was we Paulo meant the broom in front of the house. No.
Bob Smith 3:00
parlor or parlor means to speak in French or conversation. Oh, so
Marcia Smith 3:06
that’s where the conversation was. Yeah. So
Bob Smith 3:08
in the 18th and 19th centuries, having a parlor room that was proof that you had high ranking status, you had a room dedicated to just having friends greeted or people gathering to talk, they would rarely venture deeper into your house. So that was her bid. God forbid they
Marcia Smith 3:23
don’t want to go in the back and see the dirty dishes. But
Bob Smith 3:25
all on the parlor. They’re a strictly formal room where the family’s most expensive furniture was and where the most important family events occurred, including wakes. Oh, yeah. Where families gathered to mourn their dead.
Marcia Smith 3:37
They weren’t very big in old houses I’ve seen where they know
Bob Smith 3:41
they weren’t like chambers, which were in huge mansions, the first room and those but this was like a middle classroom. Some people today claim parlour became known as the death room during the flu epidemics of the early 20th century. However, there’s little evidence of that but you can imagine small children calling a parlor the death room not wanting to play there after Grandma 30s funeral not
Marcia Smith 4:04
taking part cheesy in that room. My okay. Did you ever wonder why American Indians in days of your were called Redskins? Like, they never looked red to me and I couldn’t figure it out. So
Bob Smith 4:15
yeah, I always thought that that was probably it. There’s a darker color to the skin. And they were not black, but they were red. They weren’t something like that. But is that where it comes from?
Marcia Smith 4:26
No. Where does it come from? The original natives of Newfoundland Canada was an Indian tribe called the Beale flux. As part of a sacred ritual, they would paint their entire bodies with red okra. Oh, that’s a natural pigment found in the soil. Right. Neighboring Indian tribes called them the red people and Europeans came and called them the Red Indians or Redskins. So that’s how it began. Yeah, although it became a kind of Indian slur on the mainland. It still persists to this day, but it all comes from a Canadian tribe who painted their entire bodies. This was all year round. They covered themselves in okra. Okay. Hey,
Bob Smith 5:05
back to the term parlor. How did the parlor become the living room? I’ll give you a hint it was a magazine.
Marcia Smith 5:13
What’s it like Good Housekeeping who’s said you don’t need that front room monitor make a bigger one room. You’re
Bob Smith 5:18
right. I’ll give you a big Ding ding ding for points even though you got the wrong magazine. That’s okay.
Marcia Smith 5:22
It’s some some women’s magazine Edward Bach,
Bob Smith 5:25
the editor of The Ladies Home Journal. He’s credited with coining the term living room as the name for the room of a house commonly referred to as a parlor. He popularized it in 1910. And he said it was foolish to create an expensive furnished room rarely used, he promoted the new name to encourage families to use the room more frequently in their daily lives. And then he ran articles with design ideas for it. Oh, that’s cool. So it became the middle class name for the room where everybody when everything happened, and
Marcia Smith 5:52
you can never remember which room is the family room and which room is the living room? That’s
Bob Smith 5:57
because the family room was a term that came later, I guess a more relaxed setting than the living room. So So living rooms are more formal overall than right family rooms. family rooms. That’s where you put the beanbag chair. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 6:09
and, and pictures of the family. That’s right. Okay, Bob, why is a vulgar or maybe kind of a crass woman called a fish wife?
Bob Smith 6:18
A fish wife? Does this fish way have anything to do with fish mongers, people who sold
Marcia Smith 6:23
fish? Maybe?
Bob Smith 6:24
Okay, tell me about
Marcia Smith 6:25
it. Going back to medieval times. Titles help to specify job and gender to that have survived are housewife and midwife. Those go back to medieval times? Yeah, but at one time in ale wife on the pub ale being brewski. Right. And oyster wife sold oysters and a fish wife sold fish. The fish wives were perhaps a little more vulgar and speech because she picked up a new vocabulary from a lot of men working on the waterfront. Yes, sailors. Yeah, they spoke like sailors, you know, long Charmin Yeah. Yeah. So they spoke a little harsher than the more refined women who sold ice those sort of oysters oysters in beer.
Bob Smith 7:08
I imagine none of those women were refined. In today’s terms. oysters were eaten by regular people. Yeah, beer was consumed by workers and taverns, right? Those aren’t refined kinds of professions historically, historically,
Marcia Smith 7:20
no. But they, you know, like a Smith. They gave you a designation as what you were and what you did, right?
Bob Smith 7:28
Because it didn’t mean you’re refined. Smith’s weren’t refined either. They were carpenters. We were okay. You married into the family. You have a little more allegiance to the name than I do. All right. What candy got its famous shape because of a defect in manufacturing equipment.
Marcia Smith 7:44
That lifesaver. That’s
Bob Smith 7:45
right. The lifesaver. Clarence crane, that was the man he was a chocolate manufacturer. He had sales fall every summer because chocolate melted in the heat. So yeah, he started a summertime specialty of hard mitts, and he employed a local pill manufacturer to press those mints into shape. But instead of plain round discs, the machinery stamped out little rings of candy with a hole in the middle. Hmm. They look like lifesavers. So that’s why he called him that.
Marcia Smith 8:13
Oh, I didn’t think of that. Yes, of course they do. Yeah. All right. All right, Bob, according to Forbes magazine, yes. Who gets the most audits? What group of people gets audited more than others? People
Bob Smith 8:25
who have money. Next question.
Marcia Smith 8:29
Wrong, low income families. Really? Yeah. In 2021 2.6 millionaires out of 1000 were audited while 13 out of 1000 low income families were audit. Oh my goodness. That’s like more than six times more audits.
Bob Smith 8:46
I suppose it’s easier because they don’t have attorneys and all the people interfering with the audit.
Marcia Smith 8:50
But you think there’d be so much more corruption?
Bob Smith 8:54
There’s millionaires there’s more to go after when you go after a millionaire than a lower income person, that’s for sure. That’s that’s a crime. That’s a shame. I think so too. Wow. Okay, Marshall, let’s talk alcohol. You spoke about it earlier. Right? What alcoholic beverage began as a medicine sold by pharmacists in Holland. Say again, what alcoholic beverage began as a medicine sold by pharmacists? It’s
Marcia Smith 9:17
something in Holland in Holland, was it some kind of whiskey? Or bourbon or none of those? None of those? Vodka gin gin? Yes,
Bob Smith 9:29
that was first manufactured by a Dutch chemist Professor Silvius Oh really? Several centuries ago. It was originally known as Jennifer in honor of the juniper berries used to season the liquid. Jennifer je and EV er was distributed to pharmacies as medicine, but it became so popular. druggist began setting up their own backroom skills, back rooms to meet customer demand. In the 17th century, William of Orange introduced Jennifer to the British who shortened the name to Jen And one reason for Jin’s popularity is that it’s ready to drink the instant it comes down the condenser tube, it doesn’t have to be aged.
Marcia Smith 10:07
Okay, but why do we call tearful, overly sentimental people maudlin?
Bob Smith 10:13
Why do we call tearful, overly sentimental. People say it’s all really sentimental,
Marcia Smith 10:17
you know? So Marlon Yeah, that
Bob Smith 10:21
must relate to maybe a person, maybe a famous poet or an author or something like now you’ll
Marcia Smith 10:27
be surprised at this. Okay? The word is a common British alteration of Magdalene, the surname of Mary the woman who repented and was forgiven in stories from the Bible, oh Ma. In medieval painting, she is often depicted with eyes swollen from weeping, and the use of her name in terms of being maudlin, meaning tearful sentimentality was first recorded and get this 1631 They called it modeling. I’ll
Bob Smith 10:56
be darned. I didn’t know that, oh, I didn’t either Mary Magdalene maudlin. And that’s somebody who’s crying and very, very
Marcia Smith 11:03
weak because in painting, she always looks she’s kind of weepy. And now she’s modeling.
Bob Smith 11:08
I’ll be doing okay. Did you see the news that State Farm the largest insurer that California is now pulling out of the state of California, they insure more homeowners in California than any other company, but they’ve announced they’d stopped selling coverage to homeowners, and not just in the wildfires zones, but everywhere in the state of California.
Marcia Smith 11:30
flooding. And yeah, you know, you gotta go out of business.
Bob Smith 11:36
If you’re insuring California, they said it’s just rapidly growing catastrophe exposure, you know, insurances to manage risk, but when the risk is too great, this is like an empirical measurement of something that it’s not political. This is an insurance company saying there is too much danger in trying to insure people in this state.
Marcia Smith 11:54
Well, every time there’s a mudslide over there and all those big ass houses go down the mountainside there. I always think who insures those people? Yeah. Why would you?
Bob Smith 12:04
Well, State Farm not anymore. And then that’s been the case in Florida few if any national insurance companies insuring homeowners in Florida, apparently back in 1992. After Hurricane Andrew, the storm losses caused most national carriers to pull out of that state. So Florida established a system to help small insurance companies remaining. It’s called Citizens Property Insurance Corporation. Well, guess what? Now they’re the largest insurer. It’s like we don’t want people leaving the state here. So let’s set up an insurance company
Marcia Smith 12:34
basically taxpayers fund that Well, I think
Bob Smith 12:37
they helped it. I don’t know how it works. There’s also a thing like that in Louisiana because of all the flooding and the hurricane damage. It has to be so now Arizona has made it official now. Phoenix doesn’t have enough water one day after StateFarm announced its pulling out of California. Arizona officials are now limiting housing construction and Phoenix because the water table has dwindled to dangerous levels. The question for you, Marcia, how much water does Phoenix use every single day? I don’t know. Is it millions of gallons? Yes. No, it’s billions. 2.2 billion gallons of water a day used by Phoenix. 2.2 billion gallons of water a day. That’s more than twice what New York City uses in a single day with twice the population just Fina? How can that be? Well, because people are using water for swimming pools and desert lawns and desert golf courses and desert
Marcia Smith 13:34
farms when they use more than New York City. Wow, that’s mind blowing.
Bob Smith 13:39
New York City only uses 999 million gallons a day for 9.8 million people. Phoenix uses 2.2 billion gallons a day for 4.5 million people. So that’s gonna make a lot of big changes in Arizona it’s gonna be more expensive to own a home and and they won’t be building as many houses anymore.
Marcia Smith 13:57
Where did they get their water from?
Bob Smith 13:58
They get more than half of their water from the groundwater in Maricopa County. That’s where Phoenix is. And groundwater, if it is exhausted can take 1000s of years to replenish the water the county got from the Colorado River, which is shrinking that’s already been cut significantly as part of agreement among seven states. So some tough tough times ahead, then climate is really changing. I mean, the it’s obvious now it’s not political. Well,
Marcia Smith 14:23
we Great Lakes states have a definite advantage so
Bob Smith 14:26
far. There’s going to be a war over water. Oh,
Marcia Smith 14:29
I think so. Eventually, yeah. Sad. Okay, break time, Bob.
Bob Smith 14:32
I’m, I’m so sad. I’m modeling. Okay, we’ll be back with more in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and
Marcia Smith 14:39
Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 14:42
We’re back with the off ramp. We do this every week for the Cedarburg Public Library and Cedarburg, Wisconsin, which has its own internet radio station. And after that we put the show on the podcast platforms and it goes out all over the world. So we have a wonderful, wonderful people asking quite Students have us
Marcia Smith 15:00
we do yes, we do it. I’m one of those wonderful okay. Why do geese fly in a V formation?
Bob Smith 15:09
Why do geese fly in a V formation? I just said that why do geese? Wait a minute? Let me see if I get this right. Why do geese fly? Why don’t they fly into you formation? That’s a good question. That’s a good I’m sure it’s designed for them to always see the leader everybody can see the leader because the leader is in front and everybody else is on to the side. But I don’t know as they’re they have some idea that they talk to the geese and they got
Marcia Smith 15:34
they haven’t they do ducted
Bob Smith 15:37
interviews
Marcia Smith 15:38
Yes, in the air. Okay, when geese fly in a V formation or a single line, they are drafting off the one in front. In the same way a racecar driver uses each other to pick up speed. I didn’t know that oh, so they’re getting the waves that downwind the lead bird which by the way is always female what begins Wait a minute begins a turbulence wave that helps lift the birds behind her. And so it goes to the back of the line where you don’t need much energy at all to fly they just kind of happy days back there. I
Bob Smith 16:14
had no idea there was a woman. A woman bird to
Marcia Smith 16:18
fight exhausts.
Bob Smith 16:19
Wait a minute, woman causing turbulence on her. You’re walking
Marcia Smith 16:23
on thin ice baby. Okay, okay. To fight exhaustion, the lead bird rotates out her position with another female well, he can only do it so long. And then she rotates out. So
Bob Smith 16:35
then she can coast on the turbulence created by another
Marcia Smith 16:38
female maybe she goes right to the back and rests because there ain’t a lot. So you’re
Bob Smith 16:42
telling me that all these birds are flying because of females causing problems?
Marcia Smith 16:48
Turbulence I’m sorry. See answer. Okay.
Bob Smith 16:51
We have some wonderful people asking his question, wonderful people. This comes from Harvey Watson of San Diego, California. Okay, how can we thank the Ford Motor Company for margarine made from soybeans really?
Marcia Smith 17:03
Forward? Okay. Something to do with their assembly line. They use it as some kind of grease. Well occasion pushing it. All right. What is it?
Bob Smith 17:13
Well, you’re right. It was Henry Ford, because he took an interest in soybeans and the Ford Motor Company developed margarine made from soybeans. They actually introduced it at the Chicago World’s Fair 1933 Something like that. Ford chemical engineer Robert Boyer, who was 34 was developing plastics for Henry Ford made from soybeans, horn buttons, gearshift handles and control knobs. And he started working on ways to substitute soybean forms for conventional foods. So you can really credit the Ford Motor Company with popularizing soybeans in many ways.
Marcia Smith 17:47
Oh, Robbie, Darren, thank
Bob Smith 17:48
you to Harvey Watson. Oh, buddy of mine from San Diego for that, that question.
Marcia Smith 17:53
When someone loses their job, Bob, why do we say they got the sack? Probably
Bob Smith 17:58
because they were put into a sack and taken away in the good old day next person comes along.
Marcia Smith 18:04
Hey, Bob getting the sack. Yeah, that’s right. You’re fired a
Bob Smith 18:06
couple of couple of big bruisers come up with a sack and take you out
Marcia Smith 18:10
of the factory finding one that really no, it went.
Bob Smith 18:14
Okay, that was my thinking answer. And I haven’t thought of anything that’s
Marcia Smith 18:17
better than that. Okay, well, before the industrial era, workers would carry their tools from job to job in a sack when a job was done or the worker was discharged. The boss would simply hand the worker his tool sack probably give him a sack. He was literally given the sack so you later buddy.
Bob Smith 18:36
Yeah. And it was his own sack. It was his own sack, a tool pack
Marcia Smith 18:39
but the boss would put his tools on the sack and say goodbye. Wow. Okay, so
Bob Smith 18:43
that’s interesting. All right. I’m gonna ask you something. I think you know the answer for welding. This desert was named after a singer that a French chef admired. The French Chef was Auguste Escoffier, a, uh huh. He was an ardent admirer of a famous Australian soprattutto from Opera days. Yes, her title was Dame but what was her name? A famous dessert was named after her. Okay,
Marcia Smith 19:11
I’ll get Florentine. No, I now. Tell you the name of the fruit peach. Peach Cobbler.
Bob Smith 19:19
Peach flam. Yes, it was Dame Nellie cobbler. Yes, no. It was Dame Nellie Melba, Melba and peach. Melba is named for her she dined at London sadboy hotel at the turn of the century and a scuffie a concocted a special dessert for her. I love
Marcia Smith 19:36
a dame cobbler.
Bob Smith 19:37
Do you know what peach melba is?
Marcia Smith 19:38
I’m sure I’ve had it’s peach in
Bob Smith 19:40
vanilla syrup in a dish of vanilla ice cream covered with crushed raspberries. Doesn’t that sound delicious? It does. And so when she asked for the name of the dessert, the chef answered he’d be honored if it could bear her name, and it became known as peach melba All right soon became the rage of London and spread throughout the world.
Marcia Smith 19:59
Okay, way better than I thought you would?
Bob Smith 20:02
I thought you would know the answer to that.
Marcia Smith 20:04
I did. No, you didn’t. Okay, I
Bob Smith 20:07
got another fruit question. Oh, yeah. Fruity questions. Go ahead. What was the first trademark used to identify a fresh fruit? Now, I’ll give you another example. Chiquita is a brand of bananas. This is a famous trademark, used to identify fresh fruit and not just one type of fruit. A trademark. It’s the first use to identify a fresh fruit. Okay, I tell me Come on Mark. Sunkist. Really? Yeah, that was first burnt into the skin of a California orange by 27 year old Don Fransisco. He was an executive with the California fruit growers exchange in 1919. Sunkist. This word came from Hmm,
Marcia Smith 20:49
that’s all news to me who fruit questions you failed
Bob Smith 20:52
at? I can’t believe it. Okay,
Marcia Smith 20:56
you know how I often say you vexed me, but that’s
Bob Smith 20:58
right. What is the VEC? Psychologist? That’s a person who’s vexing? That’s right. Often vexing.
Marcia Smith 21:03
I think vaccine fix ologists gets vexed. Well,
Bob Smith 21:06
that could be a person who takes care of vexes, who categorizes them, who studies them or a person who solves them or gets rid of them? No,
Marcia Smith 21:15
okay, we’re so wrong. It’s a person who studies flags.
Bob Smith 21:22
who studies flags? Yeah.
Marcia Smith 21:24
One who designs flags is a Vexcel logger for and one who is a hobbyist or general admirer of flags is a vector file, a vector file. It’s derived from a Latin word Rexella, which meant little sales and flags flying on ships. Wow. Okay. Excellent.
Bob Smith 21:43
Excellent. All right. I seem to have food questions today. It’s good. I’d like food until about 50 years ago. What could you do with magnets and Kellogg’s Frosted rice?
Marcia Smith 21:52
Really? Mean? It was you could attract it with a magnet? Yes.
What the hell?
Bob Smith 21:58
In 1977 The Wall Street Journal reported there was a problem with the iron content of the cereal. You could use magnets and move your rice around in your cereal bowl.
Marcia Smith 22:08
And what could go wrong with that? Yeah, really. The iron
Bob Smith 22:13
content was reduced from 25% of the recommended daily allowance to 10% after consumers discovered they could move the frosted rice particles around with magnets. It’s
Marcia Smith 22:24
good to have iron but I don’t think in that quantity. Okay, Bob. What did Cleopatra have her mattress stuffed with every night?
Bob Smith 22:32
Cleopatra had her mattress stuffed with something every night every night? Every night? Is it a food item? No. Is it flowers? Yeah. Something to give her a sweet smell. Yeah. Okay, what was the rose petals? Oh, wow, that sounds sexy.
Marcia Smith 22:48
That is and she had him stuffed every night. Then just as an aside, she took her first lover at age 12. which blows my theory on bad media cultural influences. Oh my god are on needs at
Bob Smith 23:03
the age of 12. Yeah. Holy cow.
Marcia Smith 23:06
Okay, on the rose battle.
Bob Smith 23:09
There we go. Jeez. All right, Marcia. I have a question about canned food. In the recent episode, you said the canopy wasn’t invented until 50 years after food. Okay, when was aluminum first used commercially for food and beverages. Now, there’s always been cans. Things were sold in cans. Not always. Well, in the last century or two a century and a half. When we’re aluminum cans first used commercially for food and beverage.
Marcia Smith 23:36
I will say 1958. Close to it. 1960.
Bob Smith 23:40
Really? Yeah. Prior to that time, all cans were steel or tin. The aluminum cans had a couple of advantages. They were seamless. They had an edge over steel cans in terms of safety. But of course, they presented an environmental danger over the years because they didn’t break down in the soil as readily as rusting steel. And in that first year of aluminum cans in 1960 95% of all soft drinks. And 50% of the beer was sold in returnable bottles that were each used 40 to 50 times before being thrown away.
Marcia Smith 24:13
Oh geez.
Bob Smith 24:14
We put the bottles now in the recycling. Yeah, nobody reuses glass bottles if there aren’t even the bottles for soda or plastic now plastic and aluminum for most part.
Marcia Smith 24:23
Okay. All right before I get to my quotes Bob No. Okay. What great lake is so treacherous for ships that it’s often compared to the Bermuda Triangle.
Bob Smith 24:36
It’s actually Lake Michigan. Very good. It’s let’s see between I know I’ve seen it on the map and it’s not too far from us. That’s correct. explains a few things I’ve seen around here. And
Marcia Smith 24:47
we did go out on that boat that cost the lake to
Bob Smith 24:50
probably Michigan triangle. Oh my god, I
Marcia Smith 24:53
got I didn’t read this before we went okay, it’s the Lake Michigan triangle and it can Evers an area between Benton Harbor and Ludington and Michigan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Yeah, Tales abound of chips that mysteriously disappeared never to reach their destinations, and many still avoid the area because of superstition.
Bob Smith 25:16
All right, Marcia, one more food question. And this goes along with your Moblin and sad. Yeah, those lovesick people who gorge themselves and get fat on chocolate may just be doing what comes naturally. Why do some scientists believe chocolate might alleviate the pain of heartbreak? Okay,
Marcia Smith 25:32
here’s my hypotheses. Okay, because it’s sugar, and that stimulates your system makes your heart beat faster.
Bob Smith 25:38
According to a theory by doctors Donald Klein and Michael Liebowitz of the New York state psychiatric institute, the brain of a person in love is awash with a particular chemical that gives them a rosy high. That substance is penile lithium. And it just so happens chocolate is loaded with the stuff that might just explain why those who loved and lost sometimes go on chocolate binges. Yeah, it might be just the way to bring back the highs of love in a self medicating way. So it’s no wonder as many of these people when asked why they’re eating so much chocolate answer, I want to treat myself good. Self love. In other words, that’s love chocolate. And that theory might also explain why two famous lovers in history. Casanova and Madame Dewberry, were chocolate freaks.
Marcia Smith 26:25
Are they really? How do you know that? Well, I
Bob Smith 26:26
read this in a Reader’s Digest article. So good. Oh, Reader’s Digest. I get my information from reliable sources.
Marcia Smith 26:34
If everybody is thinking like Bob, then somebody isn’t thinking, that’s a quote from George Patton. I’d like that. That
Bob Smith 26:41
is a great quote. And it’s true, isn’t it is if everybody’s thinking alike. Somebody isn’t thinking
Marcia Smith 26:46
yeah, it’s kind of like the mob mentality thing. Okay, and here’s a quote from almost 80 year old Mick Jagger, who, quote, I’d rather be dead than singing satisfaction when I’m 45. Well, that’s right. He
Bob Smith 26:59
said that years and years ago. I wonder if that ever came back to haunt him. Apparently,
Marcia Smith 27:04
it did as soon as he hit 46 Sure. He laughed
Bob Smith 27:07
it off when the next million dollars came in the door. Very rich indeed. Exactly. All right. That’s it for today. We offer you the opportunity like Harvey Watson to submit any question you might want to have to Marcia or me by going to our website, the off ramp dot show, scrolling down to contact us and leaving your information. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:27
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next
Bob Smith 27:29
time when we return with the next half hour of funfilled facts and tantalizing trivia here on the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
