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Simon Majumdar Interviews Plimoth Plantation Culinarians
Kathleen Wall & Alex Cervenak, and Wampanoag Homesite Cultural Programs Manager Kerri Helme
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Plimoth Plantation Interview Notes

The Plimoth Plantation Living Museum is one of New England’s most popular tourist attractions, and there is no better place to find out about the living conditions of the early colonists and the Wampanoag tribes they co-habited with. In this episode, our host, Simon Majumdar, revisits the museum to speak with their culinary historians and a member of the Wampanoag community.

 

Find out more about the beginnings of the food history of what would be the United States of America and tune in now.

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TRANSCRIPT

EAT MY GLOBE: THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT FOOD

An Interview with Plimoth Plantation Culinarians Kathleen Wall & Alex Cervenak, and

Wampanoag Homesite Cultural Programs Manager Kerri Helme

INTRO MUSIC

 

SIMON:

Hi everybody. It's Simon Majumdar here. And welcome to a brand new episode of Eat My Globe. A podcast about things you didn't you didn't know about food.

 

And this is a very special episode because the Eat My Globe podcast team have come on the road all the way from Los Angeles to New England.

 

What a wonderful place to come to particularly in Fall when everything is changing, and all the colors are magnificent.

 

But I'm here for a very special reason. I have come to revisit one of my favorite places in the whole of the United States, Plimoth Plantation. A wonderful living museum where you can come to explore the lives of the early colonists and the Wampanoag community with whom they coordinated when they first arrived. Very, very special place.

 

And I thought I would come here today and interview a number of the people here about the ways that the colonists and the Wampanoag ate, and how they would've shared food together. And I thought it was a unique opportunity while we were in this part of the world.

 

I’m joined by two very special guests who know all about this and I've worked with them before here. Once during a show for the Cooking Channel, called “Back in Time for Thanksgiving.”

 

Also, I came here to write for my book, “Fed, White, and Blue,” still available in all great bookstores.

 

So let me ask my guests first to introduce themselves.

 

KATHLEEN:

My name is Kathleen Wall. I’m Plimoth Plantation’s Colonial Foodways Associate. Um, and I've also. . . I see my job as a culinarian. So I'm not a historian. I look at all aspects of food, not just the history.

 

SIMON:

Which is fascinating stuff. And we have one more guest.

 

ALEX:

I’m Alex Cervenak. And I’m the Colonial Foodways Specialist.

 

SIMON:

So great names as well. I love it. Great titles as well as everything else.

 

So before we go on and talk some more specifics about the first, you know, colonial settlers and how they would have eaten, which is really fascinating to me. Um, tell me a little bit more about what the museum does. I'm sure most people around the United States will know about this museum. It's very famous. I know you get many, many visitors. A lot of school children obviously come here on field trips.

 

But for those who may not know what happens here, Kathleen, why don’t you start and tell us about what the museum actually does and what its mission statement is, what it’s trying to achieve.

 

KATHLEEN:

So we're a living history museum of early Plymouth Colony. But that also includes the Wampanoag people. So we have shown all the people who live on this land, um, since we opened it.

 

Um, and we're kind of unique among museums that our founder was an archaeologist. And so he started by digging in the dirt to see what were the actual fragments of the past left behind and how do we build on that. So we have people who practice trades from the 17th century. Our native staff practice traditional trades on their site. So it's establishing a context for history, not just a bunch of words.

 

SIMON:

Which is, which is one of the reasons that I love it some more. And I was saying though, the main visitors here . . . I said a lot of people are school children. But who else would be the main people to come and visit as well? What do people get out of it when they come here when they interact with some of the live action that you have going on?

 

ALEX:

It's true. A lot of our visitors, especially going towards Thanksgiving and Fall, our school children, I think every third grader in Massachusetts probably comes here on a field trip.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

ALEX:

Um, but we also get school children from around the world. We get, you know, teenagers that have come from Quebec. We get teenagers that come on an East Coast trip that are coming in from California. But we also get groups that come from Japan. We get families that come from Germany. We get people from all over.

 

SIMON:

So if you do get the opportunity to come, it really is a wonderful experience and I love that live action. The people who are in character, as it were, really portray the people with a lot of historical reference.

 

But given the. . . . Obviously, there are two culinary specialists here at the museum. Food obviously plays a really significant part in that first story. I mean, apart from the fact that if they hadn’t eaten, they would have died. And many did.

 

Um, so Kathleen, why don't you start and tell us why food is so particularly important to that early story of the settlers?

 

KATHLEEN:

So, um, part of it is the food and their concepts of food that they brought with them. These are, um, English farmers for the most part. Some of them also lived in Holland though. So they have this layer of sort of foreign city food on top of what they grew up with. And then they come to New England and it's not quite as much like England as some of them might've thought it was going to be. So within the course of their first year, their diet changes significantly. Um, and, but they're always trying to make you English. Um, but the thing is their diet is making them New English.

 

SIMON:

So there's a tension there between what they thought they were going to eat, what they brought with them to grow and what they ended up eating.

 

KATHLEEN:

Absolutely. Um-hm.

 

SIMON:

So, Alex, perhaps you could expand on that with. . . . Give us some examples of that where they had things that they thought they were going to first eat, they brought with them, they thought they were going to be able to grow here. And either the terrain was difficult or whatever else happened. That'd be a really fascinating insight, I think.

 

ALEX:

We do you have writings, uh, that survived today from people that were here that came on the Mayflower. And one of them talks about the very first harvest that the Pilgrims had. And it says that they grew peas that weren't even worth gathering. And they grew barley, which was indifferent good, which was so-so. Um, so those were the things that they were expecting to grow. But what really took off for them was maize or Indian corn. And in the end that becomes their real sustenance.

 

SIMON:

That becomes the staple diet. As I, as I, I guess it remains in many ways since for a lot of people.

 

KATHLEEN:

For a very long time.

 

SIMON:

For a long time.

 

So before they arrive, let's, let's think about what they would have been eating, as in England primarily. Although, obviously, you've talked about that layer of people from Holland. And what they would have had on the ships when they came over before they actually set foot here and realized that things weren’t going to be quite as they expected.

 

Alex, why don’t you start with that? Why don't you tell us a little bit about what they would have been eating in England at that time. You're talking about kind of the middle of the 17th century. What they would’ve been eating in England and what they would have brought with them on the ships in terms of, you know, some. . .  you know, rations, as it were, on the ship.

 

ALEX:

And some things that they would have been eating in England, maybe made fresh, like beef, you could also bring on a ship if you, uh, salt it. So that would be something that they could transport with them. And a lot of the common grains. Like I was saying earlier that they expected to grow here, but they would've had in England -- besides barley and peas, there was wheat, there was rye. All of that too could have been dried and taken on a ship.

 

Um, on the Mayflower, too, they probably had biscuit, which is really just flour and water and sometimes it's baked twice together. So it makes a very hard sort of cracker. . .

 

SIMON:

Hence the name, I guess, biscuit – twice cooked.

 

ALEX:

. . . will last a long time. Um, and we also know that they brought on the Mayflower, cheese. Specifically, Holland cheese. And so like Kathleen was talking about earlier, people were living in Holland. So obviously cheese is a very big deal there. So that's something that they brought with them as well.

 

SIMON:

Let’s talk about the, the early settlers to begin with. We talked about the things they brought on the ship and the things they had as rations and how they can survive on the crossing and how that reflects what they ate back in England. And I think the, the average kind of person in England or certainly the ones who came here as settlers wasn’t particularly  a meat heavy diet. Tell us a little bit more about the notions of their diet?

 

KATHLEEN:

So what they actually ate and what their ideal diet was were kind of not always together. So some of it depended year to year, depending on the economics of the situation. They thought the ideal diet was beef, bread and beer. Um, and so the barley nut farming here kind of put beer out of the equation. Um, so that was a sort of a hardship for them.

 

Um, the beef in. . . for many people in England was actually pork. Bacon was what poor people ate. Um, and you were pretty poor if you couldn't afford a little bit of bacon. Um, but they brought pigs with them when they came here. But then they had the hunting.

 

So they have venison here. They have wild ducks of different kinds. They have wild turkeys. Turkeys are wild to New England. That's huge. And they're big.

 

Um, and fresh fish. And fresh fish is expensive. If you don't live on the coast, you don't have a lot of fresh fish or you have fish that are freshwater fish, which are nowhere near the size of a 50, 60 or a hundred pound Cod fish from the Atlantic Ocean.

 

SIMON:

So there were elements here that the early colonist found. . . where they really started and you know, beguiling that they got to eat far more than they did back in England.

 

KATHLEEN:

Yeah. Absolute selling points. The fish, the fresh fish is a selling point. The venison is a selling point. The turkeys are a selling point. Almost everybody writes about how big the turkeys are here in New England. Um, and make jokes about them.

 

One man says they fly by our doors and salute them with our guns. . .

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

KATHLEEN:

. . . and invite them into dinner. So you know, it's, it's not to be believed.

 

On the other hand, the corn, the maize is a much coarser grain than they're used to. So they’re eating flatbread and they're cooking water, which are what the poorest of the poor people have back in England. So it's very uneven in terms of what their actual diet is in terms of their concept of it.

 

SIMON:

Perhaps you could just tell us that from the moment they opened their eyes to the moment they closed their eyes at the evening, let's talk about how their meals were structured and then perhaps Kathleen, as well, we could add in some of the dishes that they ate. Cause I think that'd be really fun to find out what their daily diet was like.

 

ALEX:

And as Kathleen touched on. . . a lot of it depends on the time of year. Um, so in the Summer, no matter what, you're eating a lot of fish. And then towards the Fall things are going to start to change and they would have been eating more wildlife like ducks and geese and so forth.

 

Um, but meals in general, they would have a small breakfast usually. And there's this Dutch paintings from the time period that represent they had fish on the table for breakfast. So that's a possibility here too, since they have so much fish.

 

And then they would have a big meal in the middle of the day, referred to as dinner, and then they would have a smaller meal towards the end of the day called supper. Um, and I read a 17th century medicinal book, I guess you'd say, and it says that your supper should not be very big because your body doesn't have the heat anymore to decoct and digest what you've eaten. So you want to keep that mostly simple and small.

 

SIMON:

So those three meals then. But the biggest meal of the day. . .

 

ALEX:

Is your middle.

 

SIMON:

. . . is your middle meal of the day.

 

I know we've talked about fish, but what else would a breakfast consist of, say?

 

KATHLEEN:

So every meal has bread in it. So bread's the first component of every meal. And then. . . so it might be fish left from the day before. It might be roast meat left from the day before. So, it's usually whatever your protein was for dinner the day before. A  portion of that is put aside for the next day. So it's not a big meal because your sleep refreshes you. So that's what sustains you in the morning. Um, and in fact, in winter time when the days are shorter, they often don't have breakfast because they get up late and then they'll have dinner at mid day. So you don't need to eat at that time of day. Um, again, dinner is bread, which is the first thing on the table. And then whatever meat you have, if you have that, and, and then, um, often meat mixed with grain to make a dish, they call a pottage. Um, so they call it spoon meat. So porridge or pottage.

 

Um, and there's a saying in the time, no spoon meat, no belly full. So hardworking people want to have that porridge cause it fits into their stomach and it fills it all up. There are no empty spaces and that's the best thing you want to have.

 

Um, and supper. . . it um, you would have bread with broth on it, again, probably made from the meat you had at dinner. So that same meat is going through all three meals. Um, and so a sop. . . or a s. . ., uh, a sippet is bread that has broth on it and the word supper comes from that same broth.

 

SIMON:

That's supper.

 

KATHLEEN:

Yeah.

 

SIMON:

That's, I mean again, those are the things that I know listeners to Eat My Globe love. Those kind of origins of words that we often take very much for granted, but have a real. . . got a rooted history and you can see that, that, that notion of supper.

 

Alex, what. . . I know earlier Kathleen talked about beverages and beer. So I want to talk about. . . One of the kind of. . . Maybe it's a myth, I don't know. When I, when I looked at the history of beer for more general history right through the Mesopotamians up to the American craft brewing. Um, one of the stories that came out is that the captain of the Mayflower kind of threw everyone off, as it were, off the ship because they were running out of beer and they wouldn’t have had enough and they would have had to go and drink fresh water because it was all. . . they were all drinking beer on the thing. Now is that one of those great myths or is there some truth in it?

 

ALEX:

There's a kernel of truth in it? It comes from one of the books we have that survives and people. . . that they're running low of their beer. But that's not the reason why they necessarily stopped at Cape Cod.

 

The Mayflower was actually headed towards modern day New York, New Jersey, the mouth of the Hudson River. But then it got cut off on some bad shoals and some bad winds around the underside of Cape Cod and had to turn around. Which is why the Mayflower eventually stopped at where Provincetown is today.

 

And they were out on Cape Cod for just over a month. And then the Mayflower finally came to Plymouth, um, in the middle of December, 1620. And even when the Mayflower came to Plymouth, we know they still had a little bit of beer. . .

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

ALEX:

. . . because they mentioned that. A lot of people that were ill. . . there's a story about a sailor that was sick and all he wants is a can of beer cause he’s asking for it.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

ALEX:

Um, so they do run out of beer, but that's not the sole reason why they stopped.

 

SIMON:

So one of the earliest things that I read about the colonists is they were in pretty constant contact back with England. Uh, with letters and everything else.

 

So we often think of them being these settlers as so far away and their completely blocked off from their Old World. But many of them are writing back and they're writing stories and they're telling their tales. And one of the things I've found were advertisements in British publications for brewers and for other farmers obviously to come out, but particularly for brewers. And I was really interested in that, from a historical point of view, that they were actually writing back and asking for people to come here as they began to grow things from which they could make beer.

 

KATHLEEN:

And they're definitely doing that. And they're trying to make beer with the grain they have available with them here. So they write about maize. So they say it's no good for malt because it's sprouts on both ends. Um, so it just has a different component than barley does. So they are trying to brew with what they have.

 

And throughout the rest of the 19th century they’re brewing with all sorts of things. There's a man, John Joslin, in the 1650s up in Maine and he's making beer from maize, wormwood sassafras. I don't know. He has a few other things thrown in.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

KATHLEEN:

It doesn't sound like any kind of beer, like even craft beer, even strange craft beer.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

KATHLEEN:

It sounds like nothing.

 

SIMON:

There’s plenty of that.

 

KATHLEEN:

It just, um, and so it's like, I have no idea at all what this, what this came from, but they were calling that beer. And so I think their definition of beer might be slightly different than what we think of today.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

I often get asked by people to help define what American cuisine is and obviously that's a very hard thing to do particularly in the United States now with so many different communities.

 

But at what point do you think with the colonists, do you think you could point to a period where you go, well now this is a completely unique cuisine that has some roots in Great Britain, but it's now completely its own. So someone, if they've come from England, they would go, this is completely alien to us. At what point did that begin to happen? How soon after the first settlement? When do you think?  Do you, do you think that's a fair question even.

 

ALEX:

No, I think it is. I think it happened pretty soon, if not immediately. As you were talking about the modern day America, we have a lot of different communities and that was even the case for these first settlers. There was people coming directly from England, there was people that maybe grew up in England but then lived a lot of their life in the Netherlands. And they already have that influence and they’re off traveling on the same ship together. And then they get here and there's new stuff that they're growing. There's maybe some things that they recognize but didn't eat a lot of back home. Like the fresh fish we mentioned earlier. So even from the beginning they had to synthesize all of that together to feed themselves.

 

KATHLEEN:

I think it's interesting you think there's one British cuisine in the 17th century. Because a lot of these communities are pretty rural. And so even if you say, I was looking at oatcakes, which are really common in the country. . .

 

SIMON:

Yeah.

 

KATHLEEN:

. . . they have a different name at almost every town. And so they're tharf cakes, they're riddle cakes, they're jannocks, they're bannocks. And how you make them changes from town to town. And everyone knows how to make them.

 

It's not until later on that they say, “Oh, my grandmother did it this way,” that we start to get those clues. And we start to see how different they are. It's almost like Italy is, you know. My mother's from Italy and every town uses the same raw ingredients. But you go from one village to the next and they have different names for all of the sauces and different combinations. Um, and so I think that was actually much more true in England in the 16th and 17th century than you think of now.

 

SIMON:

So it's, I guess there's that danger of imposing a kind of modern view of everyone having much more communication. Whereas it’s much more small pockets as they did here. So they would have just. . . People who came here from Great Britain would have come here just thought it was a totally different regional . . . variation of British cuisine, I guess, using one of the ingredients.

 

KATHLEEN:

But I also think their response was individual. And so Alice Bradford who grew up in the West country and lived in Holland is going to have a different response to this food than Mrs. Standish, who was probably from Lancashire and 20 years younger.

 

SIMON:

So I know we're going to wait. We're actually going to be joined in this episode later by one of the culinary specialists from the Wampanoag community here. But I want you just to tell me about the first connection with the colonists with them, and then we'll also ask that question, as it were, not to take a side, but to get the full view.

 

Tell me about that first connection and how it helped because you know, again, one of the kind of stories, whether it's a bit. . . is that without that connection, the early colonists would not have survived here. It's now. . . Alex, perhaps you could talk about that and begin telling us whether that really is, again, the, the s. . . the case.

 

ALEX:

I mean, of course, the most famous story is the first Thanksgiving. But it even happened before that. So, um, in the Spring after the Mayflower arrived, one of the first native men that came into Plymouth was named Samoset. And it's. . . in the story that's written about him, they mentioned food a lot. So, uh, he stayed the night with the colonists and they fed him beer, biscuit, a Mallard, pudding. So this is even for one of their very first interactions, they're sharing food with each other.

 

KATHLEEN:

And I would go back a little further. When they're on Cape Cod, they found corn buried in the ground and they take it. Um, and they defend themselves later and saying, “wait, there, no one was around. We didn't see anyone there or we would have paid for it.” Um, on the other hand, this is two dozen men wearing armor marching on the coast so that nobody came out to say hello. Probably shouldn't be surprising. Um, and they did pay for the corn later on. But they would have planted that corn much the same way you plant peas or barley. They would've turned ground over and broadcast it. They didn't seem to realize those bigger stocks of the corn that they would just chuck it all out and it wouldn't have grown to anything. So it was that same Samoset who brought Squanto, who showed them how to plant the corn in hills at a distance apart from each other that gave them that opportunity. So there's a lot of. . . there's a lot of things going on here.

 

SIMON:

So that relationships, that was very important to the early colonists.

 

KATHLEEN:

Yes. Um-hm.

 

SIMON:

Let's, let’s touch on Thanksgiving because obviously that was one of the things that I came here to talk about and when people think about Plimoth Plantation, it's, it's many ways the most famous story, particularly with the connection between the two communities.

 

It's such. . . Obviously for me coming from, from Britain, I, I wasn't as aware of the kind of scale of the Thanksgiving holidays until I moved here and realized just how important a part it is in American culture. Um, but let's talk about that first Thanksgiving and the meals that they would have had there. Um, Kathleen, perhaps you could start telling us about why they had this meal and what it was. Uh, and even though I know it didn't really get to develop as a holiday until much later, what it comprised of.

 

KATHLEEN:

Why they had the meal, we don't know. What they had on the meal, we don't know. Um, and that's my historian hat talking. Um, but the meal became important later on. So it became a retrospective look about these two peoples sitting down at the same table. A lot of what we see as traditional Thanksgiving is actually a 19th century interpretation of what is the meal that brings families together. So we're still eating the menus that Sarah Josepha Hale decided in Godey’s Lady’s Book long before Thanksgiving was a national holiday that we should be having together to celebrate. And sort of they've added the harvest to that and they've added the first Thanksgiving to that. So the meal came first and the history came later.

 

SIMON:

It is based then on a myth of a, of a meal that two people had together. Although I'm certain they had meals together, the holiday that we have now.

 

KATHLEEN:

Well, there, there was one they had together. So in September of 1621, we know that Massasoit came with 90 of his men and they brought several deer and they stayed together for three days. And there were certain entertainments. And this is in a letter and it's hard to tell if that letter was supposed to be published. But because it was added to a book that also went back on the same ships sort of as an afterword. We have this information. But we don't have any context for it. And we don't even know about the treaty until papers that are published in the 1660s here on New England. So this is information that doesn't go back to Old England. This is part of the New England story. Um, but remember they’re an English colonist even in the late 17th century. So you know, should a hundred people who come to New England be making treaties and recognizing foreign nationals, question one. Um, but they had this event. They had these men. They had the deer. Um, we also know that their harvest being in, they celebrated because the harvest was good. So we've had these two different elements who were there altogether on the same weekend.

 

SIMON:

If you were to try and recreate the first meal that you thought that the community here had with the Wampanoag, what do you think would have been on the table over a variety of things – so it wasn’t obviously just one meal – what do you think you would have expected to find on that table?

 

ALEX:

Uh, venison, certainly because that is one thing that was mentioned being what we consider the first Thanksgiving. Um, and other meals that the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims shared together venison also played very prominently. A few years after the first Thanksgiving, the governor, William Bradford, was married and Massasoit came again, bringing even more people and they also had venison then. Um, and that's very significant. So the English people that. . . here is a King and he is bringing them venison because in England venison was considered the King's meat.

 

SIMON:

Absolutely.

 

ALEX:

Um, and of course there probably would be maize on the table because we do know that first Thanksgiving they were celebrating that the harvest had come in. That’s what was the best for them was their maize. Um, they also mentioned that the governor, when Bradford sent four men fowling before the first Thanksgiving, so there probably would have been fowl on the table. Uh, whether it was ducks or geese or pigeons, we don't know. There probably would have been. . .

 

SIMON:

Do we know if there were any turkeys?

 

ALEX:

Well, turkey is a possibility. Um, but we don't have anything listed specifically saying that there was turkey. But like Kathleen mentioned earlier, they're very abundant here, so it is a . . . possibility.

 

KATHLEEN:

I’ve been called. . . I’ve been called a turkey denier. . .

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

KATHLEEN:

. . . in terms of history. I can't say there was turkey on that table. But I can say they ate a lot of turkey in those years. Um, but also pigeons, passenger pigeons are extinct now, so we forget to put them on the table. And I suppose what I want to add is it's not just one turkey. It's not just one bird. There were lots of birds on the table and they’re eating over three days. And so how you're eating this food is going to vary over the course of three days. Lots of roasted meats that then get boiled up into stews and pottages. Um, so we have lots of roast for day one and day two and then lots of, um, what I would call spoon meats for day three. Sort of wrapping it all up. So there's a change in how they're cooking. And there's also things available on the shore. Mussels, lobsters, crabs, clams, all of those sorts of easy to take shellfish to kind of fill in the empty places on the table.

 

SIMON:

Sounds like it’d be quite a nice few days, by the sound of it. Particularly if they'd started brewing some beer at that point as well, then that wouldn't be quite so . . . But probably not by then.

 

ALEX:

No.

 

KATHLEEN:

No.

 

SIMON:

Water to drink for everyone.

 

KATHLEEN:

So, William Bradford says they have Springs in the country of excellent water, but they have yet to find a Springs that carry beer and wine.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

KATHLEEN:

Because there are people who complained in 1627. So we know about that point. They're not seeing a lot of beer there.

 

SIMON:

So they, they were sober curious, I think they'd call it that. Poor things.

 

Well this has been. . .

 

KATHLEEN:

[Laughter]

 

SIMON:

. . . this has been so much fun. I really appreciate that.

 

But I'd also like to ask a few fun questions. So I hope you prepared for this, but I did ask you in advance. So for each of you, in turn. Kathleen, we'll start with you and we’ll come to you, Alex, for this one.

 

So Kathleen, if you were a meal, what would it be?

 

KATHLEEN:

See that stumped me.

 

[Laughter]

 

Because if you are what you eat, I am a lot of different things and so I don't know if I could pick just one meal.

 

SIMON:

 

Now what about you Alex, could you, could you, can you give me any, any solace here since I'm not getting any from the other side of the table?

 

ALEX:

Uh, well, my favorite food is pierogi. So, I would just eat like a tableful but that would be a different story.  

 

[Laughter]

 

SIMON:

That would, that would be, that would work for me. Right, let's get back see if you could, see if you could bring yourself back into my good books now.

 

If there was any single meal or any period in history to experience it, Kathleen, what would it be?

 

KATHLEEN:

See there's, I want to eat all the food all the time.

 

[Laughter]

 

I’m, I just have a hard time. . .

 

SIMON:

You’re no good at this game.

 

KATHLEEN:

No, I’m not good at this game.

 

SIMON:

I just expected you to say the first Thanksgiving and I would have gone, thanks very much.

 

KATHLEEN:

Oh. I should have said.

 

SIMON:

Yeah.

 

KATHLEEN:

Darn.

 

SIMON:

You’ve lost it now. You've blown it. We might have to edit you out of the episode, you've just disgraced yourself.

Alex, you’ve been playing this really well so far. You’re, you’re one in zero so far. So let’s see if you can make it two in zero. . . If you have to have any period in history having a single meal, what would it be?

 

ALEX:

I guess, go through some personal history. Um, growing up my grandparents had a farm and so there's things that they grew there that I like I haven't been able to taste in years. So I remember my grandparents had a great farmer and my grandma in the summer would make grape juice, like it was so good. But since the farm doesn't exist anymore, you can't have that. So I guess I would go back to my, my childhood.

 

SIMON:

Definitely two and zero. I think that’s. . . you're just blown out of the water.

 

Okay. Let's. . . last chance. We’re dining in the last chance saloon now here, Kathleen.

 

What would you argue is. . . now, this is right up your street. You've got to get this right. What would you argue is the most important food invention in history? You're going to tell me all of them, aren’t you.

 

KATHLEEN:

No, I'm not. I think salt.

 

SIMON:

Excellent answer. Excellent answer. Okay. I think you've saved yourself. Congratulations.

 

KATHLEEN:

Well, fermentation was my second choice.

 

[Laughter]

 

SIMON:

Both things you can use to preserve food. So perfect answer.

 

KATHLEEN:

. . . so you can harvest it today and eat it later, but also make it good.

 

SIMON:

Absolutely. Improved flavor. And so that was a great answer. As for your final answer, what would you argue is the most important food invention in history?

 

ALEX:

Uh, I guess this is a little more modern, but what came to mind was baking soda and baking powder. So how it changed how we bake. I mean, takes a lot of 17th century cakes and stuff that's done with yeast. And so it's a little more like bread, so to, you know, eat chocolate cake I like. . .

 

[Laughter]

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

Oh great answers. Fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this. This was so much fun.

 

KATHLEEN:

Thank you very much.

 

ALEX:

Thank you for having us.

 

BREAK MUSIC

 

[SIMON ADVERTISING: Hi everybody. If you're enjoying these podcasts, you may want to check out a fun series of videos I did with my friends at Pureflix dot com. In “Simon Says,” I cooked dishes from around the world and give a little bit of history about how they were made. It's a lot of fun. So do go and check them out. Streaming exclusively on Pureflix dot com.]

 

SIMON:

Well, thank you to Kathleen and to Alex. That was a really fascinating look at the lives of the first colonial settlers here in the United States.

 

But what I think is really important is to recognize that long those colonists came here, there were many communities operating and thriving here. And I really want you to find out more about that. So I'm delighted to introduce my next guest, Kerri Helme.

 

And Kerri, perhaps you could give us a full introduction to who you are and what your role here is at Plimoth Plantation.

 

KERRI:

Okay, well thank you for having me. My name is Kerri Helme and I am an enrolled member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. We’re the largest surviving Wampanoag community nowadays located on Cape Cod, which is about 45 minutes from here. I'm also the Guest Experience and Cultural Programs Manager for the Wampanoag Homesite. I've been here on and off for about 16 years.

 

SIMON:

And perhaps you could tell us about the Wampanoag Homesite, because I believe that from certainly the earliest history of this museum, it's been very important to recognize that community as part of the museum’s kind of offering to everybody.

 

KERRI:

Yes, absolutely. So we represent, um, you know, a family of Wampanoag people. Um, the museum has gone back and forth, um, to be historically accurate on the time period that this museum portrays – 1627. There was only one Wampanoag family living this close to the English. Uh, this was once a thriving Wampanoag community.

 

Patuxet is what we call Plymouth. It means place of the little falls in our language from the National Springs. Because it is so rich in water, it's a safe. . . sustained a huge community of Wampanoag people. Unfortunately, this community was one of the hardest hit of the plague of 1616 to 1618.

 

SIMON:

Oh.

 

KERRI:

So by the time the English settled here, you know, it was pretty much with, you know, decimated, you know, and an abandoned community. So Massasoit. Or, his real name was Ousamequin, which means yellow feather.

 

He was the Sachem or chief that signed a peace treaty with the colony. He actually lived 45 minutes from here, so he was a good distance away. So he actually sent one man, a man named Hobbamock, a Wampanoag man and his family to live by the English. You know, watch them and make sure that they’re upholding their end of the peace treaty. Was like an ambassador for Massasoit. He could speak broken English. He was a guy. . . intermediary between other native people who might want to trade with them, or do business with them. And so if we were representing a family, it would be Hobbamock.

 

So we've gone back and forth Hobbamock's Homesite too, you know, just Wampanoag Homesite. Now we're kind of just trying to portray the people of Patuxet. Um, and we've changed, made some changes on the Homesite too, which kind of gives the guests a feel of how my ancestors lived and how we were seasonally migratory going from a Summer, Spring and Fall site moving inland to a Winter site.

 

SIMON:

Tell me about that. Because I think people, again, don't realize quite the breadth of communities that existed across here on the East Coast. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about the history of the Wampanoag. When they started, when they first came to this area and up to the point where they first encountered the colonists. So then perhaps we can talk about what their reaction was when they saw these new people coming across from another land.

 

KERRI:

Of course. So, um, my ancestors, you know, place here in Massachusetts had. . . they’ve been here an extremely long time. The oldest archaeological site in Massachusetts is the Bull Creek site. It was dated to about 12 point 8 thousand years.

 

SIMON:

Oh.

 

KERRI:

Um, you know, roughly like 515 to 520 generations, you know, of Wampanoag people living on this land. Prior to that we were. . . would be standing on a mile and a half. . . chunk of glacial ice. Um, so when the ice retreated and big game started to move up into Massachusetts, my ancestors were following those animals. Um, so we are still here, you know, we have thriving communities. My community is the largest surviving or sovereign nation. Federally recognized. And that's Mashpee on Cape Cod. There's another sovereign Wampanoag community on our Martha’s Vineyard. That's the Aquinnah Wampanoag. They're a little smaller than us. I think there's about 1800 or 2000 of them. And then there's three small state recognized bands of Wampanoag people. So you know, there's over 5,000 of us now, I’d say.

 

SIMON:

So a thriving community now.

 

KERRI:

Absolutely.

 

SIMON:

Which is wonderful.

 

KERRI:

Yes.

 

SIMON:

And in terms of the traditions. . . and we’ll talk about the history up to where the colonists first arrived.

 

But one of the questions I always like to ask people, particularly from communities that have existed for many, many years when traditions weren't often written down. But they were oral, there were lots of other ways often through song, I know. How, how'd you go about learning the history of your community going back through time?

 

KERRI:

So we rely on a lot of different sources. Most important to us is our oral, oral history. You know, this is how we learn, you know, this is, you know, we learned from our clan mothers, our grandfathers, our parents, aunts, uncles. It is very important. Uh, but we also, you know, read period sources. And we’d read all the writings, letters from the English, French and Dutch. Sometimes we’re mentioned in writings from Spanish, Portuguese, Italian. You know, there is a lot of information we can draw from them. You know, sometimes it's difficult because they were, you know, we're looking through their eyes. . .

 

SIMON:

Yes.

 

KERRI:

. . . their lenses, so, and they often did not understand what they were seeing. So misinterpreted a lot of things, but reading between the lines, you know, we can get a lot of information out of those, which, which is good. We appreciate that.

 

Also archaeological evidence. Um, you know, I worked for my tribe that actually paid for a few years doing cultural resource management and archaeology. So there is a lot of information to get, you know, through the archaeological background, certainly. Um, and you know, as far as reading and writing, um, no we didn't have a written language prior to contact with Europeans, but we did report history. You know, like petroglyphs, pictographs and wampum belts that we would string 13 feet long and three feet wide with figures of man, beast, birds, florals, you know, that would represent pastries, creation stories, family lines, marriages and also, but a lot of people don't realize is that my ancestors have been reading and writing in both English and Wampanoag since the 1630s. The English wanting to convert my ancestors to Christianity so they taught us how to read and write very early on. Institutions like Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale were all founded, you know, with the, for the purpose of educating, Christianizing our ancestors.

 

SIMON:

So I think there's this notion sometimes that we think of as, you know, communities that have been around for a long, long time, not having a history that you could look at. It's often a truth. So I mean, I think you've proven that, that from a number of sources. You might have to work harder and look at a lot more sources than just books, as it were. But what you've shown is, particularly the Wampanoag, you can show that long history.

 

Let's, let's take that history up from when they first encountered the colonists and let's talk about some of the food. Because what would it mean. . . the reaction, do you think, of that first community, when they encountered the colonists. Did they know anything about them at first? How did, how did they find out about them? And then, the reaction was quite a benign one. And I'd love to talk about that initially. It was. . . yeah, it was quite a benevolent one. They wanted to help them. So perhaps you can talk about that.

 

KERRI:

Seeing that the Mayflower pull up wouldn't have been any. . . it wouldn't have been something that would’ve surprised my ancestors. They had been interacting with Europeans for a hundred years already. Over a hundred years. 1627, the time period we represent here is over a hundred years because 1524 was the first time Europeans wrote down contact with my ancestors. That was Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian sailing under a French flag.

 

But you know the English, French, Dutch, occasional Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, slavers, traders, [inaudible], fishermen. What was different about these colonists is they came and they stayed. And they brought women and children with them. Which you know, would have shown that they weren't coming to start trouble or to make war. You know, that’s not usually something you do.

 

Um, and how they felt about the colony. . . you know, there was 69 Wampanoag communities. You know, when everyone felt differently. It really depended upon prior experiences with the Europeans. So my. . . some communities might have had, you know, amazing interactions and you know, exchanged goods and information and language. You know, some communities might have had terrible experiences and got on the ships to trade and they'd pull up anchor and take them, sell them off into slavery, or you know, put them on display as a curiosity. So, you know, everyone felt differently. I think that, you know, it really depended upon prior experience.

 

SIMON:

So the . . . the response that they had then that week has gone down and kind of myth, as it were, of that initial response, isn't perhaps quite the true one. It's just one representation of that.

 

KERRI:

Interesting stories. Our oral, oral history and it was later recorded in period sources talks about why Wampanoag people actually first, first, very first laid eyes on it and an English ship. And how they perceived it was they thought that they were mountains, moving mountains. And that the sails were clouds.

 

SIMON:

Oh.

 

KERRI:

And that the people climbing the, the, the posts were bears. And they got in their boats to go paddle out to them to pick strawberries. Um, so the. . . If you're referring to the first initial interaction on Provincetown where they were kind of chased out, um, those people had had bad experiences with Europeans.

 

We know that there were several that were kidnapped from there. Um, so you know, they weren't. . . they, they did fire upon them with brass and arrows, which shows prior contact with Europeans. . .

 

SIMON:

Yeah.

 

KERRI:

. . . cause the only metal that we did have was copper. . .

 

SIMON:

Oh, okay.

 

KERRI:

. . . but it wasn't shoot to kill. You know, they were firing. . .

 

SIMON:

To scare them.

 

KERRI:

. . . to coats that were hanging up. And as they got there. . . Like, um, Kathleen has mentioned earlier, you know, they immediately looted the families’ corn storage pits. And my ancestors would have left half of their dried corn in storage pits on the coast. That way when they came back from the Winter site, they would have food, they would have seed. Um, so the English, um, took that corn. So you know, that doesn't really. . . probably. . . is . . . but you wouldn't be too welcoming after that.

 

SIMON:

Sure.

 

KERRI:

They also looted graves too.

 

SIMON:

And let's talk now. . . this is a food history podcast. So let's, uh, let's talk about what the kind of diet would’ve been with these communities. And again, recognizing what you said, that there were many different communities that they would have eaten different things, but there may be some general trends of what they would have dined on during different parts of the year. And I'd love to hear about that. And then how they began to show some of those skills for. . . or trends, and some of the great ingredients to the colonists as well. So perhaps you could just tell us about going back to that period, what would have been some of the general diets that we could have expected with the Wampanoag communities?

 

KERRI:

Um, so most communities were on the coast. Um, our territory went from just South of Boston all the way down the coast to Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island to the tip of Cape Cod. All had Wampanoag communities, including Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, the Elizabeth Islands. But we did have some communities as far inland as 40 miles. So those communities might have had a little less seafood. But all in all, you know, we'd say the majority of what people were eating probably close to like 70% was actually coming from what women were growing. So lots of corn, beans, squashes, nuts, roots, shoots, berries, eggs, shellfish. The other 30% or so divided up between what the men would be hunting for or fishing for. So having our own fish and shellfish in the Spring and Summer. Big game like deer, and wolves and elk in the Fall and Winter. Not. . . non-carnivores of course. And year-round, small non-carnivores and lots of fowl.

 

SIMON:

So quite a wide, you know, nutritious varied menu.

 

And tell me about some of the cooking techniques. And, I’ll, I'll just drop it here. My story about how I first experienced the time at Plimoth Plantation when I was invited to a Wampanoag clambake.

 

And we went out and harvested seaweed to, to lay over. And then we had lobsters and clams. We set fire, you know, to the stones and heated it up and they came back a short while later. With all the steam piling up. And I have to say, one of the best meals I've ever had because the lobsters were so amazing, and the clams were so good.

 

So it kind of. . .

 

[Laughter]

 

I, I ate very well that day when I came here.

 

So. . . but perhaps you could tell us about some of the techniques because some of those again would have been new when the colonists saw them. Uh, techniques in growing. Techniques in, uh,  preparation.

 

KERRI:

Of course. So we can start with growing. You know, certainly the way we grow corn, beans and squash all together was something new to them, and something that ends up benefiting them.

 

So what we do is we start with the fish, fertilizer. And this is one of the techniques that we show the English. It was Squanto, specifically, showed them how to use fish as fertilizer. So herring is what we use. Where they run. . . back then can get millions at a time. So we dig a hole, put two or three fish in the hole, cover it up, leave it for a couple of weeks. We actually watch the Oak tree. When the Oak trees leaves are about the size of the squirrel’s ear, we plant the corn. We plant five seeds right at the top of the mound. So the mound should be the size and shape of a woman's stomach when she’s about to give birth.

 

SIMON:

Uh-huh.

 

KERRI:

It's spiritual and it's practical.

 

SIMON:

Absolutely.

 

KERRI:

And it gives that little bit but. . . . We plant one seed for each of the four directions and one for the crow. And we watch the corn. When the corn is hand high, we plant the beans around the corn and the squash around the edges. So corn is sucking nitrogen out of the soil but the beans replace the nitrogen.

 

In turn, they’re climbing beans, so the corn stalk lets the beans climb. Um, and then the squash that's planted on the edges, the big prickly leaves what keeps small animals away, but also keep the mounds moist. So we don't have to practice irrigation or anything like that. Um, mounds retained moisture too. So there are practical reasons besides spiritual reasons for planting in mounds. But we get triple the yield versus modern planting techniques. Uh, but I will say that fish, the herring, was only used after the first five years of planting, and then my ancestors would have used it for about five years, and then burned everything. The frames of the house, the shade, arbors and fields and moved to the next plot. Because each woman was kind of sanctioned off three plots of two to four acres that they would rotate every 10 years. That way each plot is allowed to lie fallow for at least 20.

 

SIMON:

It’s actually an incredibly sophisticated system of planting. What I love about it is this notion of spiritual and physical that goes into this planting. But it all comes down to techniques that scientists now would recognize all half purpose.

 

KERRI:

Synergy.

 

SIMON:

This real synergy. This kind of symbiosis between the different plants and how they work together. It's really fascinating.

 

And did that, that kind of spiritual physical preparation go into, uh, of the crops. . . Did that go into the preparation of the food when that was harvested as well? Where there certain times. . . Obviously certain times when crops would have been harvested obviously when they were ready. But in terms of how they were stored, how they were treated, how they were respected.

 

KERRI:

Everything was, you know, ingrained with spirituality. It was very much ingrained in everything we did. From the second we woke up to the second we went to sleep. And that's one of the reasons you see in a lot of early trade sources. . . con. . . colonists say that native people were without religion or godless. Just because you know, when they pray there's a certain day of the week, certain place they went, certain attire. You know, because ours wasn’t a separate thing and they didn't recognize it. But certainly, you know, the act of preparing food for someone you love, the act of feeding, you know, all was very much ceremony. Um, and that's one of the reasons why we didn’t share bowls and spoons. You know, it's very much considered, uh, it's a ceremony. You know, killing an animal. Taking its life. You know, prepare the food for your family. Eat it. You know, everything was, was ceremony for us.

 

SIMON:

Let's talk about the first connection with the colonists and sharing with them some of these techniques. Which again, I know from my time here having filmed, is a big part of the story because without that, without that benevolence, without that guidance, mentoring, whatever you want to call it, the colonists wouldn't have survived. . . here. So tell us about some of the records, or some of the knowledge you have about that. How they shared that with the colonists.

 

KERRI:

Um, there's actually very little written record. The concern that, um, the old reference I really can think of is to Squanto, you know, showing them corn planting techniques. But you know, we were living alongside now, you know, for 50 years that peace treaty lasted. We certainly would have been showing them what plants to use, what time of the year where they’re poisonous, what time of the year they're practical. How. . . what to fuse them with to make different concoctions for medicine, or for food ways, or for dye. You know, these would have been interactions that were happening all the time, they just weren't recorded.

 

SIMON:

So it would have been a great kind of rhythmic kind of pattern with the English and the Wampanoag working together, there just throughout that period.

 

KERRI:

They would have had to have been. You know, most of the plants that they brought with them wouldn’t grow here. You know, a lot of these were just foreign species to them and um, they would have to learn how to do it. We had 13,000 years to figure out how to utilize everything here. They had to learn it very shortly.

 

SIMON:

Yeah, otherwise they wouldn’t.

 

And their survival obviously, you know, owed a lot to that Wampanoag community. And they decided to celebrate it and at one point, obviously, we talk about the meal that we now look at as the first Thanksgiving.

 

So Kerri, tell us about . . . [inaudible] came in into the colonist community with a gift of deer and 90 men, I believe, uh, to celebrate what we now think of as the first Thanksgiving.

 

What would have been the purpose of him coming in to do that. Was. . . he was making a statement, he was. . .

 

KERRI:

Very much so. Um, you know, our oral history says that. And it makes sense, if you think about it. The English, when they would celebrate, they usually have their. . . like a showing of arms. They fire their guns and do military exercises. That’s. . . that was how they were celebrating back then. . . one of the ways they were celebrating back then. Um, we have our allies. You know, we had a peace treaty with them. You know, so Massasoit would have had to been notified if they were preparing for war. So I think what was happening was someone notified Ousamequin that the English looked like they might have been preparing for war because they were doing military exercises. And so that's why Massasoit or Ousamequin would have shown up with 90 armed men. Um, and he didn't originally show up with deer.

 

He actually sent them out after. . . after they found out there wasn't any war happening. . .

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

KERRI:

. . . they were just celebrating. Um, but when he shows up with 90 men, it's basically to say, you know. . . do you need us to. . .  what's going on? You know, and say, is there trouble, basically. And when he found out there wasn't trouble, you know, the English at this time, were still kind of living by Wampanoag customs, you know. Their knuckles were really low and our knuckles high. So by Wampanoag custom, if someone shows up at your home, you feed them. You know, you have to ask them to stay. So. And we didn't have a formal invitation to this harvest celebration. You know, he showed up and that he was asked to stay.

 

SIMON:

He was asked to stay.

 

KERRI:

So he sent back to get deer, at that point. They did stay for three days to feast.

 

SIMON:

It sounds like they had a good time particularly when you talk about the wonders of the diet that they had with all the seafood and everything having experienced it.

 

Let's, let's talk, uh, a bit now before we ask you some of our kind of, fun questions that we also ask at the end of this, about, uh, the Homesite.

 

So if people were to come here and spend time – which I really recommended they do because it is one of my favorite places to visit, where you can see some amazing things – but perhaps you could tell us what people could experience if they'd come and visit you and your colleagues here on the Homesite.

 

KERRI:

Um, so on the Wampanoag Homesite, we’ve built a lot of new structures and things like that to kind of give a better representation of how families would be living year-round and as opposed to one season. So you'll have the opportunity to see our Summer, Spring and Fall site where families will be living with an individual family planting sites. Um, and also you'll be able to see what a home. . . uh, village Winter site would look like. You know, when families are moving into their clan houses, they live in with the wife's whole family clan. So we have a clan house, which is bigger, and we have a small Summer, Spring and Fall house that visitors are welcome to go in. Um, we also do cooking demonstrations. You know, how to cook, preserve, growing techniques. Um, we have toys and games. Traditional 17th century [inaudible] for the children to play with.

 

Uh, we have a really exciting project going on right now. We're burning our mishoon or a traditional dug out canoe. It's the biggest one made in over 300 years. It's, uh, Eastern White Pine, and it's 45 feet long. So the, the men have been working really hard to burn that out. Uh, but we have lots of native people who you can learn from and talk to. And the best way to learn history is to learn from the people. So we have people from our Wampanoag communities on the Wampanoag Homesite and people from other native nations across Turtle Island, which is what we call [inaudible] who work here and represent my ancestors. But we do speak from the modern perspective. So you're more than welcome to ask about their ancestors or how other native people live here anymore. Or you can also ask us questions about events and things that happened after 1627. That's something you can't do in an English village, cause its the future.

 

SIMON:

[Laughter]

 

But you really can tell, you know, the, the ongoing story of the Wampanoag, which I think is a wonderful thing to recognize that this isn't a historical community. It's still a very thriving community that has a great history, which is a very different thing.

 

KERRI:

Yes, that's important for us. That way. . . Cause our history ends at the first Thanksgiving sometimes.

 

SIMON:

Yeah. Yes. And I think that's why it was important for me when we were doing the Eat My Globe episodes to have this conversation with you. Not separately because I'm sure we would have great fun with Kathleen and Alex here, with the other one, but to really focus and be given its kind of due deference, as it were. Because it was so important. . .

 

KERRI:

Thank you.

 

SIMON:

. . . with those. . . with the first people there.

 

Now we always like to finish this with some fun questions. [Inaudible] And you probably heard this one when we did the last episode

 

So if you were a meal, what would it be?

 

KERRI:

I would say succotash, which is a Wampanoag dish made from corn, beans and squash. And I say that because I'm one of. . . I have two sisters and my dad used to call us that. . . the threes. That's what we call corn, beans and squash. The three sisters.

 

SIMON:

Oh.

 

So that’s a brilliant answer. I love that.

 

Now, if you could select any single meal or period in history to go and have a simple meal, what would that be?

 

KERRI:

So my ancestors for thousands of years, we celebrate Thanksgiving. So we still do and we have many more Thanksgivings than Americans do. Certainly. Cause we celebrate our calendar it's not 12 months, it's 13 moons, 28 days in each moon. And each moon’s associated with a Thanksgiving and a theme. And one of our most important, um, Thanksgiving is the Strawberry Thanksgiving. You know, we celebrate strawberry was the first fresh berry every year. So that would involve huge, um, social, singing and dancing to all communities coming together. Um, storytelling. Feasting for several days. Um, to go back and participate in one Strawberry Thanksgiving. You know, pre-contact. I think that's the meal.

 

SIMON:

Wow, that's amazing. That, and then what would you argue is the most important food invention in history?

 

KERRI:

I'd say that most certainly fire because it aids in digestion which saves human’s energy. Which is why we developed big brains and were able to be the people we are today. So I'd say fire.

 

SIMON:

Fantastic. Now before we go, if people want to come and find out more about the Homesite, uh, and on social media, where should they go and look?

 

KERRI:

Well, Plimoth Plantation does have its own website. It's www dot plimoth with an “i” dot org.

 

SIMON:

That's a wonderful invitation. If we have people really fascinated, as I am, with what happens here at the Wampanoag Homesite and the communities here, you should definitely reach out.

 

Also, don’t forget to go and look @ Plimoth Plantation on Instagram where you will see lots of the events across the, this wonderful living museum. And @ Plimoth with an “i” – always remember with an “i” – on Twitter where you will again find out all the things that go on day to day here.

 

But if you do get the opportunity, do come here, and do spend a great deal of time at the Homesite. And I've been spending a lot of time there myself over the past few years. It's a really, really wonderful resource for somebody who wants to know about the communities that were here pre-contact and I think that you should definitely take the opportunity to come visit. Thank you very much.

 

SIMON:

Do make sure to check out the website associated with this podcast at Eat My Globe dot com where we will be posting the transcripts from each episode, along with all the references and resources we used putting the episodes together, in case you want to delve deeper into each subject. There is also a contact button, so please do let us know if there are any subjects that you would like us to cover.

And, if you like what you hear, please don’t forget to subscribe, recommend us to your family and friends and give us a good rating on your favorite podcast provider.

Thank you and goodbye from me, Simon Majumdar, we’ll speak to you soon on the next episode of EAT MY GLOBE: Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know About Food.

CREDITS

The EAT MY GLOBE Podcast is a production of “It’s Not Much But It’s Ours” and “Producer Girl Productions” and is created with the kind co-operation of the UCLA Department of History. We would particularly like to thank Professor Carla Pestana and Nicole Gilhuis from that department for their help with this episode. We would also like to thank Sybil Villanueva both for her help with the research and in the preparations of the transcripts.

 

 

Published Date: November 25, 2019

Last Updated: October 1, 2020

 

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