December 2024
Full George Takei Interview, Sugar Plums, and Cats
Hello Tastorians and happy holidays!
This month's newsletter is a little late because I wanted to include the interview I did with George Takei while researching last week's video on the Japanese-American Incarceration Camps. The interview was recorded in less than ideal circumstances as we were both traveling. The poor internet connection made it so most of the interview was not usable for the video which is why I'm releasing it via the newsletter; a little extra Easter egg, if you will.
George Takei Interview about his time in Japanese Incarceration Camps
Also, a huge thank you to everyone who has purchased a copy of the Tasting History cookbook. The reception is still going strong and keeps me motivated to work on the second cookbook; Tasting History: A Recipe for Disaster. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Amazon actually sold out of the book, but it's finally back in stock.
Tasting History: Explore the Past through 4,000 Years of Recipes (A Cookbook) on Amazon
Tasting History Leftovers
While researching my video on The London Blitz, I came across this wonderful video of an English woman describing her experience being bombed the night before. By her dress and demeanor, you'd never suspect she'd been the slightest bit inconvenienced by the experience.
Tough Blitz Victim Interviewed (1940)
One of the first biographers of Alexander the Great, a man named Arrian (92 - 175 AD), wrote of a letter Alexander delivered to a defeated King Darius of Persia after the battle of Guagamela in 331 BC. It's doubtful the words are those of Alexander's verbatim, but they are considered one of the truest examples of what he said following the battle and are definitely worth a listen.
Alexander the Great's Letter to Darius, King of Persia // Ancient Greek Primary Source
New Eggnog Episode!
If you're looking for a festive drink for the holidays, this eggnog from 1887 can't be beat!
For more holiday episodes (including George Washington’s eggnog), check out the playlist here.
Sugar Plums and Poetry
I spent a great deal of my November determining how to make (and then making) sugar plums. Not plums with sugar, as you'll find on the internet, but true Victorian sugar plums. The video will be up next week, but I wanted to share a poem with you that gave me insight into what they are and what they are not. It's from November 1840 and I read a couple stanzas in the video, but here is the full thing.
THE SUGAR PLUM.
How shall I grasp a subject so immense?
No power of human sense,
Not all the vast
Ideas within the Present and the Past -
Not algebra's most unknown quantity could
Of greatness in a sugar plum!
What with its sweetness can compete?
How much it beats the beet!
Shall manna dar,
Wanting in manners, with it to compare?
And honey's liked sweetness, long drawn out, is all a bum,
'Tis nothing to a sugar plum!
Who can deny the sense of truth
It gives the tongue of youth?'
It hath the praise
Of being always candied in its ways,
And stop the carping critic's mouth till he becometh dumb,
Delighted with a sugar plum!
Comfit, come fit my mouth, and I
in thy sweet praise will try
My hand at feet,
With anxious aim to make the metre meet,
Till Arabic, or any other driff'rent sort of gum,
Shall water for a sugar plum.
Muse, if thy musins can prevail,
I'll at it tooth and nail;
I have no nerves
Of taste for syrups, jellies, preserves;
Oh, let them go to pot, may I, as so much worthless scum,
They cannot make a sugar plum.
Bull's eyes may stick within the shop,
And so my loliapop,
Elecampane
Unsucked within its bottles may remain;
And barley sugar, brandy balls, or even balls of rum,
I'd spurn to get a sugar plum.
Plums from the trees I do not find
So plummy to my mind;
Orleans or egg
Unnoticed for my patronage may beg;
And damsons may be da--; ah, I'm in a passion, I say mum,
I'll swear not for a sugar plum.
Last Month’s Videos
And just because they're so cute, here's a photo of Ollie and Milo in front of the Christmas tree which they keep trying to knock over; the little scamps.
Serving it forth,
Max