In our latest edition of Holiday Trivia, a rundown of some of the quirky food, drinks, and celebratory ephemera at the White House during the most wonderful time of the year.
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Transcript
This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors
Hannah McCarthy: This is Hannah McCarthy. You're listening to Civics 101.
Nick Capodice: This is Nick Capodice.
Rebecca Lavoie: And this is Rebecca Lavoie.
Christina Phillips: And this is Christina Phillips. And folks, it is barely noon and the sun already looks ready to set. There is a run on peppermint extract, probably because so many normal foods now have peppermint in them at the grocery store, and everyone seems to have stopped responding to emails, including us. Which means it's time for our annual holiday themed episode on Civics 101. So this year we are talking about food, specifically holiday food at the white House, because there is an absolute treasure trove of historical documents about how presidents past celebrated the winter holidays. Now, most of our presidents were Christian or followed Christian traditions, so this trivia is a bit Christianity centric. But as usual, the president is only our starting place, so we will be branching off from there. Now I have divided this trivia into four courses. We have drinks, appetizers, the main course and dessert.
Nick Capodice: Yes.
Christina Phillips: And before we begin, I just have one question. A little icebreaker for you. What is your opinion of fruit in chocolate? I'm thinking the chocolate orange. The cordial cherries. Rebecca, I'm getting a thumbs down.
Nick Capodice: I'm a massive fan of the chocolate orange. I think that's one of the greatest creations of humankind.
Hannah McCarthy: The chocolate orange. Especially when you leave it on your parents dashboard. And then it gets all like melty.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's so specific.
Nick Capodice: And don't you have to crack it?
Hannah McCarthy: You smack it. Yeah, well, that's if you don't leave it on your parent's dashboard. So if you before you let it melt, you can you can smash it and it'll break into slices.
Nick Capodice: So good. That was such decadence when I was a child. Like you'd get that once a year.
Christina Phillips: Oh. I'm sorry. The way you looked at me. As though I would know Hannah what you meant. You're like, you know, the way you leave it on the desk.
Hannah McCarthy: I think people universalize childhood experiences that happen more than once to them, they're like, oh, this is what kids do.
Christina Phillips: But I only asked because I hate them, and I think they're disgusting.
Rebecca Lavoie: Same. Every time I bite into like, a Russell Stover. Like one of those, like, waxy, hard things and it's like fruit flavored inside. I just like I can't.
Christina Phillips: It's like a betrayal.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's like, this is not what I consented to. When I bit into chocolate, I wanted chocolate or chocolate adjacent flavors. A chocolate covered cherry I can do only because I know it's coming.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: What about, like, chocolate covered pomegranate seeds?
Rebecca Lavoie: Nope.
Nick Capodice: What? No. Where are those?
Rebecca Lavoie: It's basically just a fancy Raisinette.
Hannah McCarthy: That is composed of granite seeds.
Christina Phillips: Speaking of cherry chocolate, actually, that's a great transition to our first course drinks, we're going to talk about the favorite holiday drinks of presidents past. This will be a free for all round, meaning the first person to shout out the answer gets the point. Have any of you ever heard of something called the Cherry Bounce?
Hannah McCarthy: No, no. Is it a beverage?
Christina Phillips: It is a beverage.
Christina Phillips: Beverage. This is a favorite of George and Martha Washington. And we know that because there is a recipe from Martha's surviving papers at Mount Vernon. So here is your question. The Washington's cherry bounce was made of three main ingredients cherries, sugar, and this liquor, which is made by distilling wine.
Rebecca Lavoie: Distilling, distilling wine.
Nick Capodice: Brandy. Yes.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oh nicely done.
Nick Capodice: I like boiling it in Ireland before the snakes left.
Hannah McCarthy: Port is just fortified wine, right? Nicely done. Yeah. Well done.
Nick Capodice: I only know it because of the lion in winter.
Hannah McCarthy: Distilled wine.
Nick Capodice: Yeah.
Rebecca Lavoie: It is. It's liquor made of wine.
Nick Capodice: They used to call it Brandywine.
Christina Phillips: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And actually, whiskey was more popular as a spirit back then. But the Washingtons really loved brandy. And the recipe specifically called for ten quarts of an old French brandy, and then the juice of 20 pounds of ripe morello sour cherries and white sugar to your taste, as well as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ground fermented cherry pits.
Rebecca Lavoie: That sounds great. Wow.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. How many people that's for?
Rebecca Lavoie: One!
Christina Phillips: I'm not sure.
Hannah McCarthy: I do think it's kind of cute that they call it bounce. Bounce feels like a more modern word that you would apply to food. Like to name a beverage. The bounce. What is it, the 60s. You know, like that's. Yeah. 1960s.
Nick Capodice: Everybody doing the cherry bounce.
Christina Phillips: I wish I had looked up the etymology of the word. I didn't look it up. Okay. So here is your next question. Cherry pits, along with the pits and seeds of other common fruits, are known to contain a compound called Amygdalin, which can turn into what? Poisonous substance in the body.
Nick Capodice: Arsenic?
Hannah McCarthy: No.
Hannah McCarthy: Cyanide.
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Rebecca Lavoie: Nice.
Christina Phillips: I was gonna say, Nick. You can guess again if you're.
Nick Capodice: No. I knew the second I said it. It's also like peach pits. When I used to eat them as a kid, I.
Hannah McCarthy: That's what I was thinking, too. The peach pits can be really dangerous because of cyanide.
Christina Phillips: The key here is that a lot of people think that they've been poisoned because they've eaten the stone of many stone fruits. Like if you eat a cherry pit and you crunch on it, it will release amygdalin, which is the compound that when it gets into your body, your body breaks it down and turns it into cyanide. But if you swallow a cherry pit whole, it just goes through.
Rebecca Lavoie: It just goes through you.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. And if you ferment the cherries or you cook them, that removes - that inactivates the amygdalin.
Nick Capodice: No cyanide in that cherry bounce.
Rebecca Lavoie: Amazing.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. Also, this is one of the more common calls that they get at the poison control center is for people who think that they or their children are going to be poisoned by cyanide because they just, like, swallow swallowed the pit of something whole.
Hannah McCarthy: Second only to is a watermelon gonna grow in my belly.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, exactly.
Christina Phillips: Now we are moving on to a cozier but still somewhat risky drink. So here's your next question. Several sources mentioned that this president, former secretary of State, and founding father from Virginia, loved a cocktail known as a yard of flannel.
Rebecca Lavoie: Thomas Jefferson.
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: That's what I was gonna say.
Hannah McCarthy: No. Andrew Jackson.
Christina Phillips: Mhm.
Nick Capodice: 11 presidents were secretary of state.
Christina Phillips: Founding father, former secretary of state and from Virginia.
Hannah McCarthy: They were all from Virginia.
Rebecca Lavoie: I know right? Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Madison.
Hannah McCarthy: Ah.
Christina Phillips: Okay, so now I need you to all. I gave you all a piece of paper and a pen for this one. I'm going to give you 10s to write down three ingredients you think might be in a yard of flannel. Don't start yet. You'll get a point for each correct guess, even if multiple people guess the same thing and your timer starts now. Stop. Rebecca, I want to start with you.
Rebecca Lavoie: Mine is so dumb.
Christina Phillips: Give me your ingredients.
Rebecca Lavoie: Whiskey, rum and cider.
Hannah McCarthy: Mhm.
Christina Phillips: All right. You got rum? No, none of the other ones. So rum? Yes. You get a point. All right. Nick.
Nick Capodice: I wrote creme de menthe, creme de cacao, gin and vodka.
Christina Phillips: I'm sorry to say you got zero.
Hannah McCarthy: I wrote whiskey, apples and cloves.
Christina Phillips: Oh, that was so close. But you also got zero. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: So in a way, it wasn't close at all.
Christina Phillips: So you had, like, the spices. You were getting there.
Rebecca Lavoie: I just covered my bases with old timey liquors. I was just like, I'm not going to guess any.
Nick Capodice: Rum and shrub.
Christina Phillips: Nick went for four things that never should be combined together.
Nick Capodice: I would have creme de menthe with gin.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, dude. Creme de mel.
Christina Phillips: All right, so here are the ingredients of a yard of flannel, which is not the same thing as a flannel shirt, which is also another cocktail that's more common nowadays. This is specifically the yard of flannel ale, eggs, sugar, nutmeg, ginger and rum or brandy.
Hannah McCarthy: Ooh.
Christina Phillips: So this is sort of like an old, gross version of an eggnog.
Hannah McCarthy: Honestly, I think without the ale, I would like it. But maybe the ale lends it some effervescence.
Rebecca Lavoie: Maybe the ale makes it so you don't get poisoned.
Hannah McCarthy: Maybe that. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Speaking of eggs. Cooking eggs to at least 160°F before consuming them destroys this bacteria, which causes an estimated 26,000 hospitalizations and 420 deaths in the US a year.
Rebecca Lavoie: Salmonella?
Christina Phillips: Yes, it is salmonella. Okay, we're gonna give it to Rebecca.
Hannah McCarthy: The thing that I think I have three times a week.
Rebecca Lavoie: This is what happens when you have a paranoid Italian mother. You know, all the poisons, all the ways that your food could kill you. You're gonna get trichinosis.
Christina Phillips: And on that note, we have reached the end of our drinks course. Hopefully still alive.
Hannah McCarthy: It's so good.
Nick Capodice: Okay.
Hannah McCarthy: All right.
Christina Phillips: And the score is Hannah has one, Nick has one, and Rebecca has two.
Rebecca Lavoie: Despite knowing none of the presidents.
Christina Phillips: We are moving on to our second course, which is appetizers. So our next question will be a first to guess style question. I'm going to read facts about this food and the first person who correctly guesses it gets the point. Clue number one the Sherwin-Williams paint company color known as this Food white is described in the following way. Float into any room painted with this creamy white. It's soft green beige undertone makes this hue both stylish and calming.
Hannah McCarthy: Sorbet.
Christina Phillips: No.
Nick Capodice: I have one. Yeah. Potato.
Christina Phillips: No.
Christina Phillips: The largest of this food ever found was described by NPR as the size of a man's shoe. It was found in Denmark.
Rebecca Lavoie: Truffle?
Hannah McCarthy: Nope.
Christina Phillips: It was found in Denmark in 2014. Next clue. It is not recommended that you consume more than a dozen of this food in one day.
Rebecca Lavoie: Oysters?
Christina Phillips: Yes. Yeah.
Hannah McCarthy: Yes. Wait.
Nick Capodice: Who doesn't recommend a dozen oysters in a day?
Christina Phillips: I feel like a lot of, like health websites recommend it, like collect.
Rebecca Lavoie: All the filters. I mean, I can eat 12 dozen of them.
Nick Capodice: I had I had five dozen in one day.
Christina Phillips: One day.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Well, you and Thomas Jefferson, who was rumored to have eaten more than 50 in 1 night while traveling to Amsterdam.
Rebecca Lavoie: No problem. For me.
Christina Phillips: The other facts I have are that humans are considered to be one of the greatest predators of this food.
Rebecca Lavoie: Which makes sense because we are the only ones who can get to get into it. You ever tried to open an oyster?
Christina Phillips: And even so, it's a relatively common food to be allergic to. I am allergic to oysters, and I also find them disgusting. So I'm like so baffled by this delicacy, which actually is not. It's sort of seen as a delicacy now. It was extremely, extremely common in the 18th and 19th century because they were everywhere, especially on the East coast. Our next questions are going to be about oysters.
Nick Capodice: Hurrah!
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah!
Christina Phillips: Woo hoo! Who doesn't like oysters here? I knew you wouldn't.
Rebecca Lavoie: Nick, I know what we're doing for our next after-work activity.
Nick Capodice: Yep.
Hannah McCarthy: Gulp. A chewy salt water. Who wouldn't want that sometimes? Sorry. I know the rest of the people on earth love them.
Nick Capodice: No, no, you're in the majority, I think.
Hannah McCarthy: Mm.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca, this question is for you. Hmm. This river on the East Coast, once home to the largest supplier of oysters in the world, shares its name with a fictional university and a long running crime television series. Name the River.
Rebecca Lavoie: Hudson! Where the bad guys go to school.
Christina Phillips: Yes, the Hudson River. Also, the Hudson University of Law and Order and Law and Order SVU. Right.
Rebecca Lavoie: And other television shows. For instance, the governor of Montana in Yellowstone had a degree from Hudson on her wall. Wow. Interesting. It's a whole television trope.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, it's become like an Easter egg in other TV shows.
Nick Capodice: Yeah, I know that Henry Hudson, when he landed in New York, he reached and he lifted an oyster the size of a dinner plate.
Christina Phillips: Wow. Oh my goodness.
Nick Capodice: It's like a thing that happened.
Christina Phillips: Question number eight. This is for Hannah. For the low, low price of $425, you can purchase an oyster shucking knife described as, quote, unapologetically handsome, with a, quote, old world looking blade and bi color, bone and horn handle from this website, created and curated by an A-list actress who named her daughter after a fruit featured in the 1961 Harry and David Fruit of the Month Club.
Hannah McCarthy: That would be Goop.
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. What's the daughter? Fruit.
Hannah McCarthy: Apple.
Nick Capodice: Oh, I didn't know Gwyneth Paltrow.
Hannah McCarthy: Famously, everyone was like, how dare you? And now everyone's like, that's the simplest name we've heard in three decades.
Christina Phillips: It has actual letters of the alphabet in it. So, Nick, this question is for you. This bay, the largest estuary in the contiguous United States, was the location of a series of conflicts between pirates and river workers starting in 1865 and continuing for almost a century, known as the Oyster Wars.
Nick Capodice: Give me a second. Pirates. Did you say pirates and river workers? Yeah, and it's a bay. Yeah. I'm gonna ask one question, cause I'm having a tough time here. Does it have the word bay in it?
Christina Phillips: Yes it does. Do you want.
Hannah McCarthy: Me to give you one more hint?
Nick Capodice: I'm gonna do one. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna throw one out. I'm gonna say Chesapeake Bay. It is the Chesapeake Bay.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: Only Bay I know.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. So what's funny about this is that once the New York harbor started to be polluted and the Hudson River was no longer a great place to get oysters, all those people started trickling down to the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland. And then later, Virginia tried to outlaw anyone fishing for oysters or harvesting oysters, whatever it's called, off of Chesapeake Bay. And then it led to a bunch of pirate conflicts that lasted almost a century. So. Wow.
Rebecca Lavoie: Incredible. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: Well, you said oysters are tremendous river cleaners, and they used a ton of oysters to clean the Hudson. Yep. And what happened is the water got so clean that all the worms which had been dead from the pollution, ate all the piers and all the wooden piers just collapsed into the Hudson because the water was clean again.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, you always regret cleaning things up. All those sharks. You know, everyone's like, why did we make the water habitable again?
Christina Phillips: We're done with oysters.
Rebecca Lavoie: All right.
Christina Phillips: We're moving on to eggs.
Rebecca Lavoie: Ooh.
Christina Phillips: Because I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the absolutely strange and chaotic activity that is the white House Easter egg roll. Have any of you ever been.
Hannah McCarthy: Not to the white House? Have you? No. Oh, you said it like, don't we?
Christina Phillips: I wish. I can't.
Nick Capodice: Go every year, but I try.
Rebecca Lavoie: Every time I see it on TV. And it's like all these hundreds of kids. And I was like, whose kids are those? And they're just like, going to hang out with the president.
Christina Phillips: I know the answer to that. It's a lottery. You have to apply to a lottery to get in with your kids.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, that's way cooler than just like the child of a diplomat.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, it's a lottery system. So, families, I was reading on Reddit, there's like, all these strategies, and people have applied many, many years to get into this lottery system.
Nick Capodice: You're going to tell us, but is it where you like, you roll an egg or do you just lie on the ground and roll around yourself?
Christina Phillips: So egg roll is literally you have a spoon and you roll an egg across.
Rebecca Lavoie: Like a race.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, it's a race.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, yes. Actually I've seen I've seen...
Nick Capodice: It's like a boy with a stick, but instead it's.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, yeah. An egg. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: So stick in the hoop. The little urchin boy running around.
Christina Phillips: I had to like, type into Google. I was like, why do we roll eggs? Does anyone want to take a guess at the Christian centric origin of this tradition?
Nick Capodice: Easter. Easter rebirth?
Christina Phillips: Sort of. Okay.
Nick Capodice: So resurrection, what is the egg.
Hannah McCarthy: But the roll? You're talking about the actual rolling away the stone. Are you serious?
Christina Phillips: Oh my God, I wish I had your camera on your face, because the way you looked at me, like I know what it is.
Rebecca Lavoie: That's wild.
Nick Capodice: Three days.
Christina Phillips: Yeah. So the simplest explanation is that the egg symbolizes the stone rolling away from the entrance to the tomb where Jesus was buried during the resurrection.
Nick Capodice: Little did we know. A little boy with a spoon that got our Lord and Savior out of the cave.
Rebecca Lavoie: That is some serious pagan washing going on with that tradition.
Hannah McCarthy: That's wild. Wow.
Christina Phillips: So I'm going to ask you each a couple of questions about the Easter egg roll. And Nick, this question is for you.
Nick Capodice: All right. Here we.
Christina Phillips: Go. So the white House egg roll involves using a wooden spoon traditionally to push a hard boiled egg across the grass. However, one recent president chose plastic spoons instead. I'm talking like the plastic spoons that you get in a set when you eat at a picnic. Like the small ones. Not like a nice plastic ladle that you'd use on nonstick cookware.
Nick Capodice: Put in your kids lunch?
Christina Phillips: Yes, yes. So was it George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
Nick Capodice: Plastic spoon.
Christina Phillips: Mhm.
Nick Capodice: I'm gonna say Donald Trump.
Christina Phillips: No, it was George Bush.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, man. Yeah. I feel like that was the last time you could get away with using plastic in public was George Bush. That's over now. Let's all pretend we never did it.
Christina Phillips: It was George W Bush.
Nick Capodice: Did he just forget the wooden spoon? Oh, geez.
Christina Phillips: Well it happened several years in a row because I went back and I looked at some of the photos from the white House Easter egg rolls and like, at least three of his were like these small spoons, these plastic spoons that kids were trying to roll with. And then the other presidents had, like these nice wooden spoons, you know, some of them were slotted, some of them were just like a regular old, like, long wooden cooking spoon. So, yeah. Plastic spoons. If you went during George W Bush's presidency. Rebecca. Yeah. The next egg related question is for you. Okay. This is multiple choice. Oh, first lady Grace Coolidge brought Rebecca her pet. What, to the annual Easter egg roll in 1927. 27. Was it Rebecca the parrot? Rebecca the pig or Rebecca the raccoon?
Rebecca Lavoie: It was a raccoon,
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Rebecca Lavoie: Yeah I know. Yeah. The Coolidges had a lot of animals. They were super into animals. They had a farm. They made cheese.
Hannah McCarthy: Like a cow. Wouldn't it have been funny if it was a mongoose? Because they eat eggs?
Christina Phillips: Yeah, well, actually, one of Rebecca, the raccoon's favorite foods was an egg. So I'm imagining it was, like, the most exciting time. But the story of how Rebecca became a pet of the Coolidges is that there was for years, this guy known as the Poultry King from Rhode Island, who supplied the turkey at Thanksgiving to the presidents. And then he died. And I think there was sort of a power vacuum of like, who gives the president turkeys? And so other people would send other things to be like, well, maybe now the tuition will be, you know, quail or chicken. And so one year Coolidge received a raccoon and he was like, I don't want to eat this. And then First Lady Grace Coolidge was like, well, now she will be my pet.
Nick Capodice: Oh, wow. That's a nice little tale.
Christina Phillips: Hannah. Yes. This question is for you. Okay. There is something called the American Egg Board. Are you familiar with this?
Hannah McCarthy: I am now.
Christina Phillips: It is a commodity checkoff program, so it's like, sort of like a lobby. But it's promotes one type of product. It's not supposed to be.
Hannah McCarthy: Promoting the Cotton Board or like. Yeah, wear cotton. I always thought that was so interesting.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Nick Capodice: The touch, the feel of cotton.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's beef. It's what's for dinner.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah, well.
Christina Phillips: The American Egg board had the incredible edible egg.
Archive: All you do is heat and eat eggs. Don't run out. The incredible edible egg.
Christina Phillips: And they were also in charge of overseeing the donation of over 30,000 hard boiled, dyed eggs to the white House egg roll every year. So they got into a little bit of controversy when, in the early 20 tens, the American Egg Board launched a secret two year investigative and marketing campaign against a company making a vegan version of what condiment that traditionally contains egg yolk mayonnaise.
Hannah McCarthy: Yes.
Nick Capodice: Wow.
Hannah McCarthy: So we've launched an investigation. How dare they? Yeah, or like, they can't call it mayonnaise. Maybe.
Christina Phillips: Well, yeah. So they they investigated. And then they also sent out a marketing campaigns about how great mayonnaise is with eggs. And they also were like, you can't call it mayo because it's not mayo. And this was a company called Beyond Eggs and it was just mayo. That's the name of the mayonnaise.
Hannah McCarthy: Milk. Big milk is like you can't call, you know any nut milk. Milk. Mhm. You spell it with a Y.
Nick Capodice: Really?
Hannah McCarthy: Really.
Nick Capodice: Oat milk is oat milk.
Hannah McCarthy: THere's a whole thing opposed to any company making nondairy milk being allowed to call it milk with an I.
Christina Phillips: Well, apparently the Department of Agriculture, which is supposed to oversee this board and how they're spending money. They launched an investigation against them, and they found out that there were email exchanges putting hits out on the guy who invented just mayo. Wow. And they were like, oh, no, no, we were just kidding. It was just a joke, a funny joke.
Hannah McCarthy: Wow. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: We have reached the end of the appetizer course, and our scores are as follows. Hannah, you have five. Nick, you have two. Yeah. And Rebecca, you have five. Wow.
Hannah McCarthy: Yikes.
Nick Capodice: Is it going to be possible for me to make up this deficit?
Christina Phillips: Yes, I believe so. But before that, and before we get to our main course, we are going to take a quick break.
Christina Phillips: All right, we're back. This is Civics 101 we are doing holiday meal trivia at the white House and we have reached our third course, which is our main course. So I had this idea to talk about different ridiculous meat courses served during the holidays, and then quickly found that there is nothing like wild and exciting about meat courses during the holidays. It's usually like ham or turkey. So I decided I would go with something else that's a staple of dinner at the white House. And this is the humble potato. So we are going to trace the potato through three presidencies. And I will ask each of you questions individually, starting with you, Rebecca. All right. In a celebration for Saint Patrick's Day, a dinner hosted by this president and his first lady, one of the things on the menu was new potatoes with sour cream and chives. Invited guests included Faye Dunaway, who had recently starred in The Movie Network and would next year go on to star in Mommie Dearest with actress Joan Crawford. Who is that? President?
Rebecca Lavoie: Um. Mommie dearest. I know, I know, it came out like in the 70s. Late 70s, I think. Um, I am going to say Jimmy Carter.
Christina Phillips: It is Jimmy Carter. Yes. Yeah.
Nick Capodice: Well done.
Christina Phillips: And my other clues were this president is the longest lived president in U.S. history, and also the first to be born in a hospital. Huh? Go, you. Jimmy Carter. So this meal was called America's Irish Experience. And it also included creamed oysters and a pastry shell, sliced sirloin of beef and Irish soda bread. My next question. This is for anyone. What are new potatoes?
Hannah McCarthy: I used to know my father would be so ashamed.
Nick Capodice: Oh, did you harvest them earlier? And is that why they're.
Christina Phillips: That's exactly right. They are new potatoes because they have a thinner skin, smaller size, and are moister and have a sweeter flavor. So you got that one, Nick?
Nick Capodice: Nicely done. Well, that was generous of both of you to let me have it.
Hannah McCarthy: You know, you had it.
Christina Phillips: All right, Hannah, next question is for you.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay.
Christina Phillips: Jimmy Carter's home state is Georgia, which is where this fast food restaurant known for, among other things, their waffle fries, was founded.
Hannah McCarthy: Uh, well, I know a place that serves waffle fries. That would be chick fil A.
Christina Phillips: It is chick fil A.
Nick Capodice: Okay. All right.
Christina Phillips: Yes. So chick fil A didn't actually introduce the waffle fries until 1985. Which brings us to Reagan. The next president in our little history of potatoes and three presidencies. Now, on Christmas Day in 1981, Reagan wrote a note in his diary that said the following. Earlier, a letter arrived from Brezhnev. It seems we're intervening in Poland, and he's upset about it. I suggested that in our reply, we remind him that we are only suggesting the Polish people be allowed to have a voice in the kind of government they want. Now, of course, Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union during this time, and the US had released a number of pro-democratic opposition messages in support of the Polish people. Reagan and Brezhnev never met in person, but they exchanged a bunch of letters that are all kind of interesting and funny. Nick, this question is for you.
Nick Capodice: Sure.
Christina Phillips: Reagan, who also made an effort to cultivate relationships with the Polish American community, proclaimed October National Polish American Heritage Month. Another person Reagan exchanged letters with for a number of years was this Polish and Italian American pianist, singer and actor who, at the height of his fame, was said to be the highest paid entertainer in the world.
Nick Capodice: Wow. This is fascinating. Polish singer and pianist.
Rebecca Lavoie: I think you said Polish, Italian.
Christina Phillips: Polish and Italian.
Nick Capodice: Polish and Italian. American. So this person was born in the United States, but he's of Polish and Italian heritage.
Christina Phillips: Mhm.
Christina Phillips: He was played by Matt Damon in a movie on HBO a while ago.
Nick Capodice: Wow. Do you guys know who this is?
Rebecca Lavoie: And I have a I have a feeling I do.
Nick Capodice: Is there one more clue?
Christina Phillips: One more clue?
Hannah McCarthy: I think I know who it is.
Christina Phillips: Uh, I don't know if this helps, but my other clue is that he gave the Reagans a chocolate piano one time.
Nick Capodice: Oh, yeah. Liberace?
Hannah McCarthy: Yes, yes. Nicely done.
Nick Capodice: Good job, you guys, for knowing that before.
Rebecca Lavoie: Nicely done.
Hannah McCarthy: My. Like most of my young life, I thought Liberace was a composer from, like, the 18th century.
Christina Phillips: I wonder if he did that on purpose.
Hannah McCarthy: Well, now I know. Though we.
Nick Capodice: Though he hoved his mother.
Hannah McCarthy: He really did. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: So we're still in the Reagan era. All right. This question is for anyone. Reagan was invited to the American Polish Festival in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 1984, and a statue of him and Nancy. Doing what? Stands in Doylestown today.
Rebecca Lavoie: The mashed potato. The dance.
Christina Phillips: No, no. Oh, I wish it was. Wouldn't that have been great?
Hannah McCarthy: Mashing potatoes together?
Christina Phillips: Nope.
Christina Phillips: Eating potatoes.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, just eating. Eating potatoes.
Nick Capodice: That's it. It's just eating a potato.
Christina Phillips: Eating a potato pancake.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay, so specifically eating a potato pancake.
Christina Phillips: But what's funny is that the sculptor did not want to put the potato pancake in the statue because he thought it would block Raegan's face. So it's just them sitting at a table, and Reagan is holding up his fingers as though he's about to eat a potato pancake. But there's no potato pancake there.
Hannah McCarthy: There's no potato pancake there. It's the absence of the pancake that calls you to put it in there with your mind. Right? The potato pancake.
Nick Capodice: That he did.
Rebecca Lavoie: Theater of the mind.
Nick Capodice: It's the notes they don't sing. Ceci n'est pas une pomme de terre. Pancake.
Christina Phillips: We're moving on to Bush, H.W. Bush, to be specific. This is our third president in this presidential potato history. President George H.W. Bush apparently loved potatoes and couldn't get the quality potatoes he wanted at the white House, to the point where the first lady, Barbara Bush, apparently complained to the governor of Idaho at the time, Cecil Andrus, and he coordinated with the white House chefs to send a bunch of Russet Burbank potatoes for the president to enjoy. Idaho, of course, is the largest producer of potatoes in the United States. For this question, I'm going to go around and ask each of you to name one of the four other states that round out the top five in potato production. Rebecca, you waved your hands, so you first.
Hannah McCarthy: Maine. No. Oh.
Christina Phillips: Nick.
Nick Capodice: California. No. Oh, it's so big.
Hannah McCarthy: Uh. Uh. Ohio.
Christina Phillips: No.
Rebecca Lavoie: New Jersey.
Christina Phillips: Nope.
Nick Capodice: Washington state.
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, nice. Yeah, I can, like, see it on a bag of potatoes.
Rebecca Lavoie: That's Idaho.
Hannah McCarthy: No no no no no. It's not Idaho. It's not Idaho. Vermont?
Christina Phillips: No. Wisconsin. Colorado and North Dakota. Oh, Vermont was so far off.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm sorry. Rebecca thought it was me, and I was like, maybe it's close to me.
Nick Capodice: Grew five potatoes last year and the Green Mountain State.
Christina Phillips: Okay. And finally, what potato related gaffe did Bush's vice president Dan Quayle make in 1992?
Rebecca Lavoie: Spelled it with a e.
Nick Capodice: Misspelled it.
Christina Phillips: I think it's Rebecca. What?
Rebecca Lavoie: I was specific, I said, spelled it with an e.
Nick Capodice: I said misspelled.
Rebecca Lavoie: Okay.
Nick Capodice: I didn't know the answer. Technically, he added the e.
Rebecca Lavoie: That's right. Yes.
Christina Phillips: So he was at a spelling bee, and he told a student that the student had spelled potato wrong and corrected him by saying it was spelled p o t a t o e.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, dear.
Nick Capodice: He drew it on a chalkboard. He went up and he said, no, you're missing a letter. And he drew.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh, that's even worse.
Nick Capodice: Oh, that's really bad. Isn't it? Our state vegetable in New Hampshire. I'm potato. The white potato.
Christina Phillips: Our state food is boiled dinner.
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Rebecca Lavoie: Wow. Don't get me started on that.
Christina Phillips: Hannah, you have six points. Nick, you have six points. Nice. You have caught up, Rebecca. You have seven points.
Rebecca Lavoie: This is unprecedented.
Speaker6: No.
Christina Phillips: Heading into a very close final round, we have reached our fourth and final course, which is dessert. This is my favorite part of the meal. And also my favorite part of every trivia I write for Civics 101. This or that?
Hannah McCarthy: Are we ready? Yeah. Yeah.
Christina Phillips: Nick looks thrilled.
Nick Capodice: I love this and that.
Christina Phillips: This or that.
Hannah McCarthy: Say it.
Nick Capodice: Isn't a thing, is it? I don't even know what it is.
Rebecca Lavoie: This or that. You can get with this, or you can get with that.
Hannah McCarthy: Exactly.
Christina Phillips: Over the years, many first families have had desserts named in their honor. They may be recipes that the first family became known for enjoying. Or maybe they had a recipe for or it reflected the political attitude of the time. So a dessert that evokes a presidency. I have examples of both, but given that it is the holiday season, I would be remiss if I didn't sneak in one of my favorite seasonal joys, which is the absurdity of perfume marketing. And I know that fragrance is a year round business, and it's a very complicated and historically important one, but for some reason, the marketing around perfumes in the holiday season always reminds me of how weird our preferences for what we want to smell like are, and how we try to sell those smells, especially when you can actually sniff it. So I'm going to read you a list of ingredients, you need to decide if the things I list for this or that describe the ingredients of a presidential dessert, or the fragrance notes of a perfume.
Rebecca Lavoie: Okay.
Christina Phillips: And I will go around the room.
Hannah McCarthy: Okay.
Christina Phillips: Hannah, this one is for you. Vanilla. Pineapple. Apricot rice.
Hannah McCarthy: I'm gonna have to go with that as a dessert. Yes. Nice.
Christina Phillips: It is a dessert.
Nick Capodice: Some sort of rice pudding.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's the Condoleezza Rice pudding.
Hannah McCarthy: Ooh.
Christina Phillips: It's actually. The name is a little lamer than that. It's Jefferson's apricots and rice.
Hannah McCarthy: Plus pineapple in parentheses. Pineapple, apricots and rice.
Rebecca Lavoie: You can say a lot about Jefferson, but you can't say that he's good at naming desserts.
Christina Phillips: Actually. So what's funny is it wasn't named by him. It was actually created long after his death. But it was named by a guy who was sort of famous for putting certain foods on the map by naming them after people. So this was created by Chef Charles Ranhofer, who once worked at New York City's famed Delmonico's restaurant, which is like a huge legacy in the United States. It's been around since 1837.
Nick Capodice: First restaurant in New York City.
Christina Phillips: And Ranhofer is credited with putting the dessert baked Alaska on the map. Yep, I've always wondered.
Hannah McCarthy: I thought that was going to be one of the questions.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, well, actually, so I do have a bunch of facts about Baked Alaska if you want them. Yeah. So it was originally called the Alaska. Florida people thought that was because it was like hot and cold. Do you guys know what a baked Alaska is?
Rebecca Lavoie: It's like a basically a fried ice cream situation. Like ice cream inside a thing.
Hannah McCarthy: They light it on fire.
Christina Phillips: Yeah, yeah. So it's ice cream. It's like an ice cream cake. And then it's frozen super solid, and then it's covered in meringue, which is egg whites, and then it's blowtorch to give it.
Hannah McCarthy: A burnt so you don't light it on fire. I mean, you.
Rebecca Lavoie: Cherries Jubilee, Jubilee, Bananas Foster.
Hannah McCarthy: That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, but I want some tableside flames. Yeah. Me too. I never had that in my youth.
Christina Phillips: Tableside. Like mini blowtorch work?
Hannah McCarthy: No.
Nick Capodice: I want something to just light the sky.
Christina Phillips: So the recipe can be traced back to a thing called the Norwegian omelet, which was created at the 1867 Paris World's Fair as a way to show off the discovery of low thermal conductivity of eggs. Part of the key of the baked Alaska is you can heat up the eggs, and they still retain their shape. And the guy who discovered that Benjamin Thompson actually lived in Bavaria, but the chef who created the dessert thought Bavaria was in Norway instead of Germany. So that's why it's called the Norwegian omelet. And by the way, Thompson, who was born in the Massachusetts colony and eventually married a woman whose family owned most of what is now Concord, New Hampshire. He was a loyalist during the Revolutionary War. And so he went to Europe, and he was living and working in Bavaria, where he helped cultivate potato farming there.
Hannah McCarthy: Nice.
Wow. Full circle. Nick.
Christina Phillips: This one is for you. Is it an ingredient to a dessert or a fragrance? Molasses. Ginger. Cinnamon. Sugar. Beef drippings.
Nick Capodice: Mhm. Now, I would eat the heck out of this. And I'm trying to think of who would want beef drippings in a scent besides me.
Hannah McCarthy: I didn't say.
Christina Phillips: It was perfumes. It could be colognes.
Hannah McCarthy: It could be a Cologne.
Nick Capodice: Right. Mhm. Just because the beef drippings and all those delicious things and like a big dessert with some beef in it, I'm just going to say it's a recipe.
Christina Phillips: It is a recipe. Yes.
Nick Capodice: Kevin what is it. I want to eat it.
Christina Phillips: This is Dolley Madison's gingerbread.
Nick Capodice: She would use some beef drippings in a gingerbread.
Christina Phillips: Rebecca. Mm. Cinnamon. Tonka bean. Vanilla praline.
Rebecca Lavoie: Praline.
Christina Phillips: Praline.
Rebecca Lavoie: Praline. Is that how you say it?
Christina Phillips: Yeah, that's how it's said.
Nick Capodice: I wondered how that was going to get.
Hannah McCarthy: I thought it was praline praline. I also said raccoon. Everyone in this room says raccoon.
Rebecca Lavoie: I say raccoon.
Nick Capodice: I believe in New Orleans, they say praline.
Rebecca Lavoie: I think it's like pecan praline. I don't know, but I say praline praline.
Christina Phillips: Huh? Cinnamon.
Rebecca Lavoie: Huh?
Christina Phillips: Tonka bean and vanilla.
Rebecca Lavoie: Well, I'm gonna just throw this out there. A praline is like a made up thing that, like, you make. So I don't think that that's a perfume smell. So I'm going with dessert.
Christina Phillips: It's a perfume. Oh.
Hannah McCarthy: The tonka bean was a dead giveaway. Tonka bean? Tonka is only in perfume. I think.
Christina Phillips: You also. So the praline is like a baked food, so it almost makes more sense that it would be described as a perfume note.
Rebecca Lavoie: I don't I don't agree.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Sort of a caramelly.
Rebecca Lavoie: Textural note for ice cream is what it is.
Christina Phillips: Exactly, exactly. No, I disagree with you.
Nick Capodice: If we do a call out to ask listeners if it's pronounced praline or praline, I'm gonna bet you guys five bucks. Linda. Monk, are you listening? Tell me how we messed up properly, please.
Christina Phillips: So this is a perfume called Angel's Share by Kilian. And here are the scent notes. Opening with cognac oil upon a bed of oak. Absolute, cinnamon essence and Tonka bean. Absolute. The scents long lasting notes of sandalwood, praline and vanilla. Make for a delicious finish, a rare concoction only angels should experience.
Nick Capodice: Okay, well, the Angel's Share is a booze making term. It's for the whiskey that evaporates from the barrel. And then. So the angels drink it.
Christina Phillips: Hannah? Yes. Pistachio. Cardamom. Peanut. Saffron.
Hannah McCarthy: I was with you until you said peanuts. Mm. Peanut?
Christina Phillips: Yeah.
Rebecca Lavoie: Perfume known as Jif.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. I'm gonna say that's a food.
Christina Phillips: It's a perfume.
Hannah McCarthy: Oh a perfume.
Nick Capodice: Who wants to smell like a peanut?
Hannah McCarthy: All right.
Christina Phillips: Luscious Perfume by French Avenue opens with a vibrant and captivating fusion of bergamot, pistachio and cardamom. The creamy, subtly sweet aroma of peanut adds an enticing gourmand element. Nick. Mm. Salt. Caramel.
Nick Capodice: All right.
Christina Phillips: Popcorn. Vanilla.
Nick Capodice: This is hard. I am. I just. No one would want to smell like popcorn. I'm gonna say a food because I don't want anyone smelling like popcorn.
Christina Phillips: Okay, so if you had to describe what food this would be. Salt, caramel, popcorn and vanilla.
Nick Capodice: Like a like an old fashioned caramel corn kind of dish. Like you'd get for Christmas.
Rebecca Lavoie: Is it a popcorn ball.
Christina Phillips: Or it's House of Ode's what about pop! Unveils a crunchy salted popcorn that is then enveloped in delicious caramel. This is the magic of an encounter rendered sublime by a woody signature, which bestows an unprecedented persistence upon the fragrance.
Rebecca Lavoie: God darn it!
Hannah McCarthy: An unprecedented persistence.
Rebecca Lavoie: Nevertheless.
Nick Capodice: Yeah. Don't want it there. And it just keeps showing up.
Hannah McCarthy: Wow.
Christina Phillips: All right. Rebecca? Yeah. Pineapple. Pistachio. Marshmallow. Vanilla.
Rebecca Lavoie: I'll tell you what that sounds like. It sounds like ambrosia salad. So I'm going to say it's a dessert.
Christina Phillips: Well.
Hannah McCarthy: Did you make it?
Hannah McCarthy: I haven't had this since my grandmother was with us.
Christina Phillips: With us? I have brought us all ambrosia. Ambrosia salad, aka Watergate salad.
Rebecca Lavoie: I love it. Wait, this.
Hannah McCarthy: Is what the Watergate.
Rebecca Lavoie: Well, Watergate salad is the green version of this.
Christina Phillips: Yes.
Rebecca Lavoie: The Watergate salad has the has the pistachio pudding in it. You are from.
Hannah McCarthy: Normal, so that makes sense.
Rebecca Lavoie: And ambrosia salad does not have the green, but it is one of my favorite holiday foods. People will say it's so gross, but I love it.
Hannah McCarthy: No, I love it too. It's so nostalgic for me. Christina, thank you.
Christina Phillips: So here's the thing. So first, yes, this is ambrosia salad, but it's pistachio pudding. Marshmallows, pineapple. I got the wrong pineapple. It's like shredded pineapple. So okay. It has the texture of hair. So. I'm sorry.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's still real good. All I taste is a very marshmallow forward.
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Oh my God. Wow, that. Whoa! Oh, wow.
Christina Phillips: So while you enjoy, do you want to hear the history of the Watergate salad, please?
Hannah McCarthy: Yeah. Okay.
Christina Phillips: It was not prepared at the Watergate Hotel, as some people think. But it can be traced back to a woman named Christine Hatcher in the Hagerstown, Maryland. The Morning Herald in September 1974. It was getting really popular. People were calling it the Watergate salad. And some people theorize that it was a way to keep the memory of Watergate alive, since it was such a popular dessert during that time period. So it was named the Watergate salad as like a hey, don't forget about Watergate. Eat this pistachio.
Nick Capodice: Wow.
Christina Phillips: Marshmallow pudding.
Rebecca Lavoie: Is it a salad or a dessert? That's the question. Some people put mayonnaise on that. Nasty. Why? Because they do. Because people are gross. That's no offense, gross people who hear me say that.
Christina Phillips: I wonder if it would be better with just mayo.
Christina Phillips: All right, so the final score is Hannah, you have seven. Nick you have seven. Rebecca you have eight. Yes.
Hannah McCarthy: Very well done.
Rebecca Lavoie: It's like I'm like a golden retriever, I'm very food motivated.
Hannah McCarthy: What's it like at the top. Rebecca.
Christina Phillips: That brings us to the end of our holiday food at the white House. Trivia. Thank you all for being here.
Rebecca Lavoie: Especially me.
Christina Phillips: And some parting advice. Make sure to ferment your cherry pits. Cook your eggs. Don't eat more than a dozen oysters in one sitting. And of course, don't break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to plant listening devices unless you want a pudding named after your actions.
Hannah McCarthy: Well done. Christina. That was so fun.
Nick Capodice: The perfume I wear. They don't. They don't say. You can always have maximum confidence in the original odor protection of Speed Stick deodorant.
Christina Phillips: This episode of Civics 101 was produced by me. Christina Phillips, Nick Capodice and Hannah McCarthy are our hosts. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer and the one who edited this episode. Music in this episode from Epidemic Sound and Civics 101 is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio, NPR. Richard Nixon ate cottage cheese with ketchup. There we go. That's my tongue twister. Um, okay.