Behind the Scenes Minis: Mixed Bag of Bananas

Published May 10, 2024, 1:00 PM

Holly and Tracy discuss George Heye using his senior thesis to drink beer and how his collection was almost purchased by Ross Perot. They also discuss Maria Orosa and the types of bananas used to make banana ketchup. 

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about George High this week, the mixed bag that is George High. Yeah, he's a mixed bag, as I said, but I have fun things to start with. So early on in talking about George High, we talked about his senior thesis being about organic oils used as lubricants.

One of the.

Things that George and his collaborator Paul did as part of their tests, and I am doing the air quotes, was to lightly coat the inside of a growler keg with oil and fill it. And they realized that when they did this, they could fill the keg with more beer because it didn't get as sudsy okay, And they apparently ran this test a lot okay. So I love the idea that these these two college seniors had figured out a way to game the keg system. It sounds very very much in line with the way you would think that two college students would operate, but I liked that they applied science to do it. There is also a funny question mark right up about his wife Blanche, as all of the bad press was happening during their divorce. Blanche really did like smoking, like there's there's obviously smoking is bad, don't smoke. But like they were they were noting how much she spent on cigars and and cigarettes as like this big gotcha thing, and she there's one article where it's a picture of her and she's talking about how smoking seems perfectly delightful and sensible. She'd only started doing it recently, but to her, the reason that you should smoke is that it's the polite thing to do. Because you're in someone's home and they offer you, okay, such a thing, you should always take it. You're just being polite. And I'm like, uh, that is a At the time, I'm sure it seemed very interesting and delightful and exactly in line with social morase. But today it's like reading that, I was like, that's not polite. One of the other things that came up that was just like a weird factoid, yeah, was that after George's death, like that period between when he passed and when the Smithsonian acquired the museum was really fraud like they were there was a lot of fancy footwork going on to keep the finances to a point where they could keep it existing at all. I keep the collection together. And one of the things that they did that almost happened was that ross Perrot might have been a potential buyer. What on the one deal point that the collection would have to move to Texas. Okay, which of course was in George's will, that they couldn't right, at least a significant part of it had to stay in New York because I wanted to serve New Yorkers. Granted, rich white businessman new Yorkers. But yeah, so that fell apart. I have absolutely zero surprise with the idea that if Rossboro was gonna buy it, it had to be to Texas. Yeah, none whatsoever. But what a weird, strange thing. You and I had talked about a little bit, like the legislation about repatriation. So we've talked about NAGRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. I might have gotten some of those letters mixed up. We've talked about a number of different episodes, most recently on On Earth we talked about the new final rule on how it's to be implemented in all of that if I realized that nagra didn't apply to the Smithsonian, that didn't stick into my head.

Well, I have more information for you.

Yeah, it's I know, there's different legislation. That's the legislation when they bought it, like that that this other legislation applies to the Smithsonian.

You go ahead.

Though my understanding reading about that legislation was that that was part of what catalyzed NAGPRA. Oh really, and so it's kind of a matter of, like Smithsonian has this this setup already, uh huh, we need to legislate to make sure other museums kind of fall under it. So I'm not sure if it's a case where the language of it excluded the Smithsonian just because it seemed like they were already on top of it, uh huh, or for some other reason. I haven't read through that legislation closely in a long time. I can see it potentially causing confusion or problems. Oh yeah, if newly written legislation applied to the SMITHSONI that already had specific legislation about the same subject. I have not been to the museum. So there's still a Museum of the American Indian in New York that's still there. I did not know until this episode why that was, because if you've been to, like that's where all the Smithsonians are, and that is where there is a museum of the American Indian that I've been to a couple of times, and I did not. I was always like, that's weird that there's also another one in New York. And that's why we've just talked about. Yes, now, you know, I will say at this point, and I'm just going to say, I know there are people who were at the end of their patients before I was born, but it for me, having worked on this podcast now for eleven years almost I'm just like super at the end of my patients regarding museums and their repatriations, and I'm just like, give it back. And I have very little, uh.

Flexibility in that.

I'm like, if if if a colonized people who were subjected to an attempt of genocide says that's ours, give it back, then give it back. And I have no, like really no arguments of like, oh but our study, I'm like, I don't give it back. It wasn't yours. Give it back, right, And also some of the things that we talk about on on Earth that are like new research that's being done and it's like unclear whether there's permission involved of like the indigenous people whose history this is about. Sometimes, you know, we'll get emails hoop from folks who are like, well, yeah, the the researchers have a plan to give this nation everything once they're done with this research, and I'm like, well, but this nation, I might want that to stay in the ground, right, So anyway, that's my frustration with all of this. Yeah, we might get angry letters from museum curators and anthropologists and I'm still like, like, we had guests on the show some years ago from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and this was a great They were very kind to us, they were generous with their time and all of that. And then it has seemed like in the years since we did this, there's just been a series of horrors and announcements about things in the Peaberty Museum's collection. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm so tired of this. Yeah, it's stopped doing it and give it back. Yeah, It's really interesting. It's one of those things. I this is an exception to one of my personal life rules. Huh, because I have a personal rule to never tell anybody else how to do their job, okay, because it happens to us all the time. I have everybody where some random person who doesn't understand the way like somebody's industry works, who is like, you could just do this, and it's like no, yeah, I also find this very frustrating.

So I, like I said, I have a personal rule.

I don't presume I know more than like you know any anybody, but like, you know, you see it a lot in fandoms of various flavors where they think like my favorite entertainer should just do this, or they should or this movie should have done this, and I'm just like, none of you have the right to do this, or they'll get like the imagined backstory that a person has made, what do you think is happening? But it doesn't actually have to do with that person's work reality at all, one hundred percent. But this is the one place where I'm like, Nope, yeah, this is a problem you especially because when you read about many of these it's like, uh, there's no urgency, yeah, you know what I mean, Like a repatriation request has been made by a nation or a people, and then it seems like that gets taken in and there's an initial statement given about like we're working on this project, and then it's.

Like years go by.

Buck. I'm like, yeah, I understand you have a lot of things going on, but surely righting or wrong of this magnitude would get pushed to the top of the list. So maybe I'm I'm wrong and I'm being completely contradictory in my own policy, but this is the one space where I feel like, no, I'm with you.

Give it back.

There's stuff, Oh, you stole my thing because you want to study it. Neat, it's still my thing.

Give it back.

I mean, if you simplify it that way, and and you know, let's say for the sake of argument, it's some random possession of a person that they love or has meaning to them and someone just took and they're like, no, but I'm gonna study it. And it's like, well, yeah, but you stole it, right, Like this would be an open and shutcase. Yeah. Well, and some of the like this is this is why that so much work was done to like reissue this new the new rule about nagra, which again does not apply to the Smithsonian with this whole episode is about Smithsonian. But like one of the reason was that there were so many loopholes and so many things that museums could do to be like, oh, we're evaluating this and like not actually take action. And some of the things that would come up as reasons to not repatriate things were actually dealt with in the legislation. Like sometimes, especially when we're talking about like human remains from very very long ago, there might be more than one nation that feels a tie to this these remains, right, Uh, there was already language.

About how to deal with that.

Uh. But sometimes the response would be sort of like, well, there's two different we don't know what to do. We'll just keep it. And I'm so I'm very tired of it. Do you want to shift gears to a history mystery that's let's do that. It's gossiping, because I feel like I'm just ranting now, and a rant that's gonna upset people. This won't upset people. I don't think, Oh, it's like I said, it's gossip. So this is very interesting because I ran into this weird stumbling block where I was I knew George High had been married three times, and I was trying to find information about his third wife because Blanche obviously is documented. Thea is pretty well documented because she was so involved with his work and was really like a collaborator. His last wife is like this blip and I'm like, okay, but who was she? Where was she from?

What is this?

And like part of the problem I think is that there may have been some confusion and maybe a cover.

Up about their relationship.

Ship who because in that nineteen fifty eight biography we read several passages from by Mason, who was a friend and like new George High personally, he mentions that his third wife was Jessica Peeble's Standing, Okay, And I'm like, okay, I'll look for that name.

Now.

It's possible too that he just got some things conflated or wrong, because when I started looking for variations of the name Jessica Peebles, Jessica's Standing, Jesse Standing, et cetera, I found several news articles that list her as George's sister, okay, including one that is from the Los Angeles Times when he is out in LA and it says doctor George G. Hih and his sister missus Jay standing were among the Easterner sojourning at the El Mirador Hotel, having a dinner dance, and I'm like, was he traveling with the woman he was romantically involved with and just telling people it was his sister because yuck, for a variety of reasons, like you know what I mean, Like I think about divorce ranches where they would be kind of doing a similar thing, but they would go a little farther removed than a sibling, So like, there's just something really icky about it. Or did he have a sister that was I don't know, It's unclear to me. I never found enough info. Maybe his sister was married to someone related to this part. I don't know, okay, but I was like, this woman is a bit of a mystery and she kind of vanishes in after the Nevada divorce ranch time. Yeah wow George, Wow. And he was quite you know, he was he was on in years at that point. So part of me wonders if she, who was a good bit younger than him, maybe married him thinking she would get financial gain out of it and then found him to be a work obsessed pain in the neck and was like not worth it. I don't know what happened. There's not a good marriage anyway. That's our gossipy history mystery. What was the scoop with George and Jesse? Why was someone who sounds like her being introduced as his sister? Damn anyway, anyway, George, high you complicated thing. The other thing I didn't put in the outline, but I mentioned it to you off handedly, is that and because I couldn't corroborate it obviously, was that he apparently would tell his chauffeur that he wanted to drive and he was a very reckless driver and it scared everyone. And sometimes this has been mentioned in articles where it's like, oh, he's a wacky, flamboyant, rich guy, collected a lot of cool stuff, and it's like that could kill people. I don't I'm not into that. I don't know if I'm just too This is the one place where I'm I play a very safe but yeah, drive responsibly and be careful with traffic. Anyway. This week on the show, we talked about Maria Arosa and Banana Ketchup. I have a number of stories to tell with for this episode. The first one is because Banana Ketchup is the thing that she's just I think most associated with today. And banana ketchup also a thing that has a place in the hearts of a lot of people from the Philippines, or a lot of people who are like Filipino American or you know, have family who are from there importance of banana ketchup. I want to see what banana ketchup was like. And so I had a whole plan where I was going to get on the train and I was going to go down to h Mart and buy some banana ketchup. Turns out our commuter rail was being replaced by shuttles over the weekend, so I made a different plan, which was to a different place called Super eighty eight in Malden, Massachusetts. And in addition to buying banana ketchup at Super eighty eight, I bought like two big bags full of other stuff. Yeah, some of which was stuff that we legitimately needed, and some of it was just stuff that I like, I know, we like and we haven't had in a while, or stuff that just looked good. So the variety of banana ketchup that I bought was labeled spicy, which I didn't notice when I got it, and I don't know offhand if there was also a regular version Dear there on the shelf. If there had been, I would have bought them both and compared this spicy. And though I really liked a lot, I was a little concerned when I saw the ingredients on it because one of the ingredients was artificial banana flavoring. And when I was a kid, my dentist the the thing they would use to topically numb your mouth before giving you novacane for a procedure, oh, was fake banana flavored, And I was like, Oh, is this is this gonna? It did add it did not have fake banana flavor, and it really didn't have anything that I would describe as like cavendish banana flavor. We said in the in the episode that the bananas that Maria Rosa was using were saba bananas, which are like a denser, a more flavorful banana. I think, so this to me had a sweeter flavor than tomato ketchup.

Okay, that was the first question.

The banana element, to me was closer to like a green banana, like an unripe cavendish banana, than like a bright yellow cavendish banana from an American grocery store, gotcha. And it also had a tanginess that I really like, and of course spicy, with a spicy level that I would say about as spicy as se roches sauce, which I know these are too totally different, two totally different sauces, but like that was to a comparable spicy level to me. And I ate that on some skylet potatoes that Patrick made, and I ate it on some French fries that I got with my dinner, and then Patrick used it last night in a sauce for what he made for dinner. All of these things were very good. I was very into it. It is thicker and more gelatinous than tomato ketchup, the one that we got. Anyway, how would you compare it to the flavor, because this is a thing I have never had. Did you compare it to like the flavor of like a plantain? Maybe some plantain similarities. It's hard for me to conceptualize because most of the plantains I have eaten have been fried, right, which is just a very different mouth feel, right of the thoughts, But yeah, I thought it was very tasty. Patrick was also very into it. Patrick actually lived in Manila for a month when we were first I remember, and he does. He does not remember having any banana ketchup while he was there. I think it's possible that, like that there were bottles of banana ketchup in restaurants and things that he didn't necessarily notice that that was what he was getting. But anyway, I was very into the banana ketchup. I did not try to make any Filipino spaghetti, but everything about the Filipino spaghetti recipes that I have seen, I'm like, all, I'm on board with all of this. So at some point in the future, there may be a little Filipino spaghetti experiment at my house.

I love an experiment.

I love a food experiment. One of the things that tickled me at the very beginning of this episode, and it tickles me only because it has come up in my brain a lot lately, is when you were mentioning that there's a lot of overlap with other stuff we have done. Oh yeah, and I feel like we have reached a point where we have done, you know, more than ten years of this of just us. It's almost impossible anymore to find a topic that doesn't interlock with other stuff we've talked about. I'm sure there are some out there, but in a way, I kind of love it because we're putting together. I have often talked with people talk about like how we put episodes together, Like when we're doing live shows or whatever, that's a question we get a lot about how. To me, it's almost like, you know, shaking up a puzzle box and throwing it on the table and then you figure out how the pieces fit together. But I feel like I'm kind of a meta version of it, and the bigger level of world history, we're doing this same thing with all of the episodes we do, where we're seeing all of the connections in nexus points throughout history, and I just like it.

That's all.

Yeah. When I was writing the introduction to the episode, originally I was naming the prior episodes that this seemed particularly closely connected to. And then the intro was so long that I was like, this episode is already trending toward the longer side. I got to take some of this out. We don't need to name all of the past episodes.

Yeah, it's.

It grows and grows. So the other little adventure I had was a telephone adventure. So we mentioned that this collection of her recipes was published first back in nineteen seventy with a niece spearheading all of this, and I had a scan of what I think was the nineteen ninety eight reprint of that gotcha. I went to try to find the twenty twenty, the fiftieth anniversary one, so that is called Appetite for Freedom, the Recipes of Maria Lyle Rosa, and I did not get a copy of this book. I was not finding number one note ebook of it, no like US seller that seemed to have it. I looked in WorldCat, and when I first looked in WorldCat, there were three libraries in the United States that had a copy of this book. In a weird coincidence, when the weekend passed and I came to work on Monday for the next step of this story, and I went back to WorldCat, there were four copies of this in libraries in the un United States, one of them not processed enough to be able to check it out yet. So when I first loked at the three libraries in the United States that had copies of this book were the Library of Congress, Yale University, and Moral Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Wildly enough, that library is part of the minute Man Library Network, which is one of the library cards I have.

So I could have.

Requested a copy of this book and had it delivered to a branch that's actually close to me. Norwood is not Norwood is like an hour in the car, two hours on trains from my house, and it was if I had requested it, it would not have arrived in time for me to still do the episode. I would have had to find something else to talk about and move this one until later. So I called the library and I talked to the reference librarian because I was like, hey, there's at that like four there's four copies of this book in the United States in libraries, and one of them is your library. Do you know if there's a story there, like is there maybe a book plate inside saying that somebody donated it to the library. And this very gracious reference library and put me on hold and went to the shelf and looked at it for me, and there was not a book plate in it, but there was a handwritten note saying that it had been a gift to the library. So I am assuming that there is someone locally to Norwood, who either has connections to the family, connections to her an interest in the Philippines. Is Filipino interested in Philippine some reason, you have donated this book to the library. I don't know what that interested. That reason is bless this librarian for humoring my curiosity to go look at a book on the shelf for me. Thank you very much for doing that. I'm curious about what the story is there. And I don't know.

They may also just be like a foodie totally.

That's the thing that yeah, or I know from my days of working in libraries that cookbooks are one of those things that can often appreciate in value in a case that other books may not because most of them get kind of trashed because there's them covered in you know, drips of broth and flower smears and butter and whatnot. Some of in my head, it's possible that someone maybe had had it as part of a collection and then you know, yeah, there was there are also, like there are folks who have a particul killer interest in something who sometimes will leave their local library in their will money to do something with. And I don't remember which episode it was, but there was an episode that we did that involved an artist, and it was not as uncommon in this book which you know, four copies according to WorldCat in American libraries, but it was one that did not have many copies. But there was one in my actual local branch that I was able to just go walk down there and pick up. And it had a book plate in the front that it had been paid for by somebody who had, you know, been local to the town where I live, who had specifically left money in their will to the library to acquire art books. And I was like, I love this. I love this whole. The fact that somebody felt move to do that in their will I really liked. So. Yeah, if people want more catch up history, there is an episode of the podcast Sabas that is all about ketchup. I think it's from about a year ago. I did listen to it when it first came out. I did not re listen to it when writing the ketchup part of this. Uh this episode, Yeah, it made me think about all the wild flavors or the not flavors, the wild colors of ketchup, yeah, that have been tried by Hines. Yeah, green ketchup not made from green tomatoes just green ketchup. Yeah. I also found reference to Hines actually doing a banana ketchup at one point, and I did not. I was like, when exactly was this and where? So yeah, I also love tomato ketchup. I will just say that, uh ketchup, tomato ketchup on some really good French fries I'm excited about. No, not for you.

I mean, I don't hate it.

It's not like I'm like that, but I just doesn't do a lot for me. I'm like, can we mix this with some manaise? Please?

Could we? Which?

I bet banana ketchup mixed with mayonnaise might be interesting. Banana ketchup sounds more interesting to me because I do not care for tomatoes. Okay, it does not taste like tomatoes at all, so right, and really tomatoes and the one that I got really tomato ketchup doesn't really taste like tomatoes, but not very much anyway. But yeah, I am not I'm not a big tomato anything person. So yeah, I eat them because they're good for me, but I don't like them and I'm not gonna choose it as a condiment.

That's fine.

Banana ketchup, I will take your little ketchup packets the next time we are traveling together. Oh, this is this is dangerous. I'm going to just bring you a suitcase full and I have a suitcase of leftover ketchup packets from Holly. Speaking of traveling, Yes, we do have two things coming up. One is a live show yeah in Indianapolis, which I should have opened anything about the details of this, I have them handy great. That is going to be on July nineteenth, which is a Friday, at the Eugene and Maryland Glick Indiana History Center. It starts at seven point thirty. We are also offering a version of the ticket. You can just get a ticket for the show, or you can get a ticket where you can do a meet and greet with us beforehand. You can get more information about that at Indianahistory dot org slash events.

Yeah.

And then the other travel is a little bit farther down the road and farther away from us, yes, which is that in November we are going to Iceland. So excited another group trip for listeners of the show. That is November two through eighth, twenty twenty four. There is also an optional add on to that that includes an attempt to see the Northern lights, which we may see the northern lights during the regular trip, but this is sort of like a northern lights chasing event and I think also a whale watch. Yes, so those are things that can be added on, so you can find out about that trip at Defined Destinations dot com. We are very excited about that, so you'll probably hear it again. Yeah, yeah, So Happy Friday. Whatever's happening on your weekend. I hope it's great. If you love banana ketchup, I hope you have access to it where you live and you know that you can make delicious things to eat with it. You can expect a Saturday Classic from US tomorrow and something brand new on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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