Tin Openers

(17th January 2021)

Liz

Hello and welcome to Bread and Thread, a podcast about food and domestic history. I’m Liz

Hazel

And I’m Hazel. We are two friends who studied archaeology together and love history, (laughing) I’m sorry I’m still cracking up about Bean Dad

Liz

It’s so much! I’m just gonna put it out there before we do the making and baking, this episode is on can openers because of Bean Dad

Hazel

That just...every time I hear the words “Bean Dad” (laughs). So what have you been making?

Liz

Well, for insert-midwinter-celebration-here I got Nick a brewing kit

Hazel

Oh wow

Liz

So we currently have some bitter ale in a big bucket, turning into beer, in the kitchen

Hazel

You have life in your kitchen

Liz

We’ve named it Steve at the suggestion of Pencil from Probably Bad

Hazel

And when would one get to taste Steve’s juices?

Liz

Theoretically it should be done tomorrow, but because our house is not a consistent 18 degrees celsius, because that would be incredibly expensive, it might take a few extra days

Hazel

Ok

Liz

But the kit came with a hydrometer so I can keep an eye on it

Hazel

Oh excellent

Liz

Yeah, which means I can also calculate the ABV, which is very exciting because I like science

Hazel

I was gonna say, yeah, that sounds a lot more efficient and high-tech than my brewing process which is just, like, put sugar and yeast and fruit in bucket, leave for some time, hope there is alcohol

Liz

We did the dump everything in a big plastic bucket thing

Hazel

Mm-hmm

Liz

But, you know, the hydrometer’s useful so you know how much of it you can have before you’re drunk, and also so that you know if it’s done

Hazel

I feel like it is a good idea to know the ABV, like, that’s good

Liz

But especially because we’re planning to save some of it for the after times, whenever that is, so it’d be useful to be able to, like, inform other people how alcoholic it is

Hazel

I look forward to the day when I can taste Steve, I am very excited

Liz

We have post-Steve plans

Hazel

(laughs)

Liz

It sounds very ominous but I just mean trying to make mead and stuff

Hazel

Oh, that’s really exciting. I’ve never had homemade mead

Liz

I think Nick also found something where you can make beer with a sourdough starter, and you know we have one of those

Hazel

Ok

Liz

So that would, that would be a fun experiment

Hazel

Yeah, that’s like a whole new world of alcohol

Liz

I mean it is the classic though, isn’t it, because, I mean, bakers used to give brewers some, like, leftover yeast or starter and stuff to make their beer in, like, the olden days. The industries were entirely connected through sharing yeast

Hazel

And it developed into one of the most important industries of Britain today, the marmite industry

Liz

Oh, I don’t like marmite. I just...I don’t like it

Hazel

Yeah, I mean a lot of people don’t. I for one am a devoted admirer of marmite. I love it so much, which, now that I think about it, there’s absolutely no reason that I should, apart from...I dunno. I just...like something deep inside me likes the marmite

Liz

Unrelated, but we seem to be on a bit of a tangent spiral, found out that cats really like yeast, and apparently that’s why they steal bread? They like the smell of yeast, so now I want to give a cat marmite

Hazel

I’ve never felt more related to a cat than right now. Like, it’s something we can all enjoy, the smell of fresh bread

Liz

If you’re listening and you have a cat, please offer it marmite. I need to know what happens

Hazel

For science. Let us know

Liz

So what have you been making? You been continuing to finish off things?

Hazel

Yeah, I finished the hat, I can’t remember if I finished it last time. So I finished the hat, I am working on this jacket, and...what else? I’ve been doing a fair amount of cross-stitching things, because that’s very satisfying right now, and I think my next project will be making a dress-form, because I have a little bit of Christmas money, and Bootstrap dress-forms are apparently fairly relatively cheap to make, so I’m going to go down that road and finally have a dress-form and then I can drape things.

So, for anyone who doesn’t know Bootstrap...I think they’re called Bootstrap Fashion? Or...let me just check...yeah they’re called Bootstrap Fashion. So, you can send them all of your measurements, and they will send you, like, a custom pattern for a dress-form. So you have to make it yourself, so, like, you do need to have probably a sewing machine and, like, know how to sew and stuff, but for that reason it is a lot more affordable than, like, buying a custom made dress-form from, like, from...that’s already made. So I’m gonna go for that, and we’ll see how it goes

Liz

That is very cool

Hazel

Yeah, I kind of feel like, like an actual person who sews things now. I mean, I still kind of don’t really know what I’m doing, but it makes me look like I know what I’m doing if I have a dress-form in my room, plus I can dress it up in things and put it right in front of the door to scare people

Liz

If you’re ever home alone, you’ll be sorted

Hazel

Yeah, I can also scare off burglars with it. I might give it a face, how terrifying would that be?

Liz

Very, considering most dress-forms don’t have heads

Hazel

Yeah, but I could just stick one on

Liz

(singing) torso face! Face on a torso!

Hazel

No. No. So what are you gonna tell us about today?

Liz

Well as I said, I have been reading about can openers. I realise when this goes up this will no longer be a thing people are talking about

Hazel

At the moment, we’re topical

Liz

We are. That’s how we work. We’re topical when we record, not necessarily when the episode goes out

Hazel

But, you know, it counts. So do you want to explain the whole Bean Dad situation, for anyone who doesn’t live on the internet?

Liz

Ok, so basically internet dweller and musician John Roderick spent 6 hours telling his daughter to figure out how to use a can opener rather than teaching her how to use a can opener, and, yeah, turns out that’s bad parenting? And so “Bean Dad” trended on twitter for 2 days

Hazel

It’s…you know, as one of the first notable internet happenings of 2021 it’s...oh gosh. Like, I didn’t see this one coming.

Liz

No, but I mean, the internet year is off to a start

Hazel

It certainly is. I mean...that’s just taking the Socratic method way too far, it’s a valid technique for helping people learn stuff but like…

Liz

It’s a valid technique until the child doesn’t eat for 6 hours

Hazel

I mean, it’s not like...that kind of teaching method is not saying “oh just figure it out” it’s like…

Liz

Helping

Hazel

Asking the right questions in order to guide somebody towards something like…

Liz

Yeah...I hope he doesn’t teach her to cook because she will burn the house down while he sits doing a jigsaw, presumably

Hazel

Oh gosh. “How do I drive this car?” “Oh just figure it out, you know?” Gotta learn sometime

Liz

But anyway, outdated internet trivia aside, can openers, tin openers, whatever you want to call it, the tool for opening food sealed in a special metal container

Hazel

Yeah, so they’re...I mean there’s never one when you want one

Liz

Absolutely not

Hazel

But I haven’t really thought much about their history before so I’m interested

Liz

So, I will talk about canned food another time, ‘cause I want to just focus on the opener this time, ‘cause there’s a surprising amount to say

Hazel

It seems like there would be a lot there

Liz

But basically tinned food originally was basically opened with a hammer and chisel including...yeah, instructions actually on cans of food saying quote “cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer”

Hazel

What?!

Liz

Yeah this was the expected method. Bear in mind that at this point the cans were heavier than the food inside them, because it was the late 18th/early 19th century

Hazel

Ok. Wow

Liz

And it was a relatively niche thing, because it was mostly for the military at this point, and we didn’t have industrial warfare yet so it’s relatively niche

Hazel

Yeah, I feel like as a way of preserving food, like, people had kind of, other methods at this point and I mean, it is effective, but I don’t know how effecting early canning would be as a way of preserving food

Liz

Yeah, and a lot of what we now refer to as “canning” even now can be putting stuff in glass jars with metal lids. Like, I know in the US there’s a thing of canning homegrown produce by putting them in, like, a mason jar or something similar, which is a glass jar with a metal lid

Hazel

Ok, so stuff like kilner jars. Like, it’s...oh no, wait, I’m confusing, so kilner jar guess I’m referring to the glass jar with metal lid but they can also be, like, the hinge-sealed ones. The rubber sealed ones

Liz

Yeah, I believe kilner jars and mason jars are the same, and then, yeah, there’s also the ones with the hinged handle

Hazel

Ok

Liz

Which are also made by kilner but the kilner jar tm is the same as a mason jar, just clarifying for listeners in different places

Hazel

Oh I see

Liz

It’s the thing where you have a jar, you put a circle of metal on top, and then you screw something on

Hazel

Ok, I know what we’re on now

Liz

Yeah. But yeah, an inventor called Peter Durand was making these iron and tin alloy cans, but yeah they were very thick, but eventually different industrial technology meant that you could make thinner tins, so you develop on to the can opener that looks kind of like a crab claw, where you basically go round the edge of the top of the tin, cutting into it, which is the kind that you get in a swiss army knife

Hazel

Oh I see

Liz

So crab claw is just the...the way that it looks to me, ‘cause you’ve got the long pointy bit and then the shorter less pointy bit

Hazel

Yeah, so it’s not cutting out the top, it’s kind of like piercing it so you just have to go all the way around doing that

Liz

Yeah piercing all the way ‘round. Yeah, so that was invented in 1855 by a surgical instrument maker which, I guess there’s a lot of overlap, it’s something handheld that cuts things

Hazel

Yeah, that makes sense. Can surgery, who knew

Liz

They did surgery on a can

Hazel

I mean it does sound a bit more efficient than the hammer and chisel

Liz

Mm. But like I said this was only doable because they managed to invent thinner-walled cans, but interestingly, yeah, that kind of opener was popular during the American Civil War, but it was also deemed too dangerous for domestic use

Hazel

Ok!

Liz

I will remind you that this is the normal kind of travel tin opener that you get in a swiss army knife and similar stuff

Hazel

Yeah! I mean...

Liz

But I guess those are for manly men out in the world who don’t have time for the turny things

Hazel

There are knives in the kitchen! Surely that’s also dangerous for domestic use

Liz

I believe it’s something to do with…’cause the...I mean I’ve used this kind of tin opener, they do have a tendency if you don’t exactly know what you’re doing to kind of slip off and there’s a potential of slicing your arm open

Hazel

Ok, yeah I can see that, but…

Liz

Like I definitely see why, but at the same time like…

Hazel

It doesn’t sound more dangerous that other kitchen implements

Liz

Or a chisel

Hazel

Yeah!

Liz

So a safer version of that was then developed for...specifically for pickled beef, known as bully beef

Hazel

So that rings a bell, is that to do with military supply as well?

Liz

So it was a general preserved meat thing in the US but it was also part of military rations, which is why we have that association, ‘cause it was with the army longer than it was in domestic use

Hazel

Ok

Liz

Have you ever bought a tin of corned beef or spam, and it has that turning key on it?

Hazel

Oh, not for a long time, but I know what you mean

Liz

So the guy that patented this, I love his name J Ousterhout

Hazel

Excellent

Liz

I probably said that wrong. But yeah, in 1866 ‘cause, yeah, the lever tin opener wasn’t really a big thing at this point still, so he invented this key that you could just attach to a flap of metal on the tin and then basically just slowly rip the tin open, which, yeah, you’d have to have a different kind of key for different shapes of tin though, ‘cause different foods were sold in different shapes of tin, like they still are. I mean some things like canned milk you still had to puncture, which I guess isn’t as bad when it’s liquid ‘cause you just need a hole rather than to open the whole thing

Hazel

Yeah. I mean, I guess you’re still going to need some kind of can opening tool because you don’t...not every can you can buy is gonna be the same

Liz

Yeah, and I mean when you’ve got places like, yeah, there’s an account from Connecticut not long after the American Civil War, which basically states that clerks in shops would open the tins for customers because people just found that safer, which I feel defeats the point somewhat ‘cause I understand, you know, you’re canning food at the source and then shipping it around, but if you’re then getting it opened at the shop you’ve got a very limited timeframe where that food is food

Hazel

Yeah and then it has to survive the journey to your house without getting everywhere

Liz

Yeah and I feel like there’s a reason that the, that sort of claw shaped opener never really became a big hit

Hazel

(laughs)

Liz

And then eventually, very eventually, in the 1890s you get a can opener with a serrated wheel mass produced - it was patented like 20 years earlier but the mass production took a while to kick off. And then in 1920 they figured out adding a second wheel to hold on to the can might be a good idea

Hazel

I was gonna say, it sounds like, equally as dangerous without that

Liz

So we’re talking almost 150 years between canned food and a reasonable can opener

Hazel

That’s got to be one of the most long-awaited inventions

Liz

Yeah, it’s the one that meant that you could open the can without also having to hold on to the can which, I mean even modern can openers leave kind of a sharp edge, so I can imagine that was quite a useful innovation

Hazel

Yeah you still have to be careful, like it’s quite easy to injure yourself on an opened can today, so I guess the invention is still out there, like the perfect can opener has not yet been given to us, the one that, like, renders the can completely safe at the same time as opening it

Liz

Yeah, I guess cutting thin metal and having it not be sharp is beyond modern technology

Hazel

Yeah, I mean I see how that would be difficult but like…

Liz

But if you want to go in the other direction, there is the combination can opener and knife sharpener

Hazel

Ok…

Liz

You know, if you just live for danger in the kitchen

Hazel

Can I open a can and sharpen a knife at the same time?

Liz

But there is a modern can opener that I enjoy, which is the One Touch, invented by Mark Sanders, which basically it clamps on and you press a button, and it turns itself around and opens the can

Hazel

Ah nice

Liz

Which is so good from like, an accessibility standpoint, it’s a one-handed can opener

Hazel

Yeah, you don’t need both hands to operate it

Liz

Yeah, and also you don’t need like, hand strength

Hazel

I guess even the pull-top ones, yeah, you need two hands and you need to be able to, like, peel the thing off

Liz

Because there are a lot of modern can openers that a 9-year-old, to pull an example from the air, might struggle with using, just from a physical strength standpoint

Hazel

Yeah, and then also like, as we have just pointed out, can lids are sharp and, for example, a nine-year-old who hadn’t opened a can before might not be aware of that, and potentially bad things

Liz

But, I mean, you don’t need a can opener to open a can nowadays, do you, because a lot of them do come with ring-pulls/pull tabs/whatever you want to call them, especially drinks cans

Hazel

Now those are great unless you get one of the ones where you pull it and the tab comes off before you’ve opened the can

Liz

Yeah those aren’t ideal

Hazel

You’re just like “what am I gonna do now? My options are limited.” Although I will admit to being, like, one of those very very foolish people who occasionally opens cans with a knife

Liz

Just going full circle there

Hazel

Sawing into it, yeah. I know it’s not a great idea but sometimes I just really want soup

Liz

But yeah, the ring pull seems to have been invented actually in the 20s, but is still being perfected now, I would say, different companies experimenting with different shapes of hole, different shapes of ring-pull. You can find online, and if I can refind it I’ll, ‘cause I forgot to bookmark it, I’ll tweet a link to it, there’s a typology of ring-pulls that someone has painstakingly put together

Hazel

Our future

Liz

And I love people. I’ve said this before, I love people

Hazel

I know, future archaeologists...

Liz

There are people out there who will do that

Hazel

Future archaeologists are gonna love this

Liz

Yes!

Hazel

Like, they will be all over it. Can you imagine if we had that, like if someone had gone through and done a really accurate taxonomy for…

Liz

Anything

Hazel

For like, early viking belt buckles or something

Liz

Yeah

Hazel

And we had that now? Like, at the time that they were made? Oh my god

Liz

So yeah, the final step in can-opening technology at the moment seems to be Cogito Can

Hazel

The what now?

Liz

Which is a resealable drinks can

Hazel

Oooh

Liz

Like, you lift the top off, and then you put it back on

Hazel

Wow

Liz

Used for a casino’s private label energy drink

Hazel

Ok, so the only…

Liz

It’s not a casino, it’s just a company called Group Casino, but it is a private label energy drink, premium energy drink with a resealable can

Hazel

I mean that makes a lot more sense, ‘cause I was imagining that you could only get this drink in a specific casino, which seems a lot to invent something completely new for

Liz

I mean the concept of a premium energy drink is still wild to me, ‘cause I grew up with kids chugging Red Rooster, which just tastes of fizzy apple juice

Hazel

I-I’m not sure what’s supposed to set premium energy drinks apart from the others

Liz

Resealable cans, apparently

Hazel

I guess, yeah. Wow

Liz

So yeah, that is a brief history of can-openers, tin-openers, all that jazz

Hazel

I mean all of this confirms my theory that it’s the trickiest kitchen device

Liz

I mean apparently. It took them that long to just get a usable version

Hazel

Like, “we’ve invented this incredibly efficient and fantastic method of preserving food, the only problem is we can’t get it out again”

Liz

Yeah, if people take 50 years from a problem presenting itself to finding literally any solution other than a hammer and chisel

Hazel

I mean, I guess, you know, that can be the solution to anything

Liz

Maybe? This podcast does not condone chiselling random objects

Hazel

But I do

Liz

(laughs) 50% of the podcast does not condone…

Hazel

The opinions of individual podcasters may be different from the official line

Liz

Hazel’s views do not represent Bread and Thread Incorporated

Hazel

Cowards

Liz

What are you going to teach us about?

Hazel

I thought, given that we’re still in a wintertime mood, I might talk about sloe gin, which is regional for our local larder, because sloes don’t grow everywhere. Yeah, so, sloe gin, if you’ve not heard of it before, is a type of flavoured spirit that is really traditional in Britain, and it’s made of gin, sugar, and sloes, which are the berries of the hawthorn...sorry the blackthorn plant

Liz

Yeah don’t eat hawthorn berries

Hazel

No, although you can. You wouldn’t want to eat them raw, but you can make a fruit leather out of them, apparently, which is a bit of effort, but in ye olden days you wouldn’t want to waste any of the fruits or things that you found, even if they weren’t immediately edible

Liz

Yeah, that makes sense, but also don’t pick hawthorn berries and eat them please

Hazel

Yeah, don’t. And sloes you can’t eat as they are either, really, I mean you could try but it wouldn’t be a great time, they’re notoriously tart and astringent, but you can flavour alcohol with them. People are nothing if not inventive when it comes to food and, you know, people don’t want to waste a berry harvest, you’ve got to use it somehow, so this is how sloe gin developed and it...I really like it. It can be drunk neat, as opposed to, like, normally, you wouldn’t want to drink gin neat, but sloe gin is sweeter ‘cause of the sugar, and it has a really nice flavour I think, and it’s, it’s kind of getting popular again now

Liz

Yeah there’s kind of a resurgence of the whole hedgerow food thing generally I think in the UK, which is quite nice

Hazel

Yeah, I guess it’s related to foraging becoming, like, a bit trendy again, and..and the resurgence of some of these more traditional crafts and foods, which is nice, and it’s this beautiful ruby-red colour as well, which is nice. Yeah, it’s really nice, I like a sloe gin. But there’s a lot more to it than I realised at first. So, sloe gin goes back quite a long way, but not a massively long way. So, it became, it became a Thing, really, in the 18th century, because of two things. Firstly, because of sugar becoming a lot cheaper, because of colonialism, I guess, and secondly because of the enclosure acts

Liz

Boo!

Hazel

Passed by Parliament. The notorious enclosure act passed by Parliament to enclose common land into private land owned by the gentry, and that meant a lot of hedges being planted to close off the land, and one of the most popular plants to use in those hedges was blackthorn, because it’s very spiky and dense, and keeps people out and livestock in, and so there was this sudden abundance of sloes everywhere, and people were like “oh we’d better use these” because people are great. So sloe gin became...it was kind of like a...it was something you made at home. You wouldn’t really go out...I don’t think there was anywhere that was making sloe gin. Gin was very popular in this period as well

Liz

Yeah, I think we’ve talked about Mothers’ Ruin before

Hazel

We’ve gone over that in a previous podcast, but not all the gin that was being made was, shall we say, great quality. I mean, some of it was what we might think of as moonshine today, some of it would just be kind of poorly made gin, so basically the cheaper stuff, which is what you would be buying if you were not rich, wasn’t, like, the greatest tasting, and so sloe gin kind of was a way to improve the flavour, especially now you could get sugar, and you had all of these free sloes that you could use to improve the flavour. So it’s something that would be made at home, and it got a bit of a reputation for being the poor man’s port, or like, this spirit that was associated with the working classes

Liz

I guess that makes sense

Hazel

Yeah it does, and I think that’s, to an extent, still true today because a lot of people, I think, especially if the family is from the countryside will remember like “oh my grandma used to make sloe gin” or something like that. And it never really caught on as a more mainstream thing until the early 20th century so...Oh, just in case anyone’s interested, as well, an ancient hedgerow is defined as a hedgerow that was in place before the enclosure act, so you can kind of tell which one it is, because a hedgerow that was planted as part of the enclosure act, or was planted since, will contain a lot of blackthorn, and a lot of these kind of woody shrubs that were used, you know, that were planted for that purpose of, like, enclosing the land, whereas ancient hedgerow, a hedgerow that was in place before that, apparently the definition is it should have 5 or more native species in it, so a lot more diverse

Liz

Nice

Hazel

Yeah, it’s cool. A lot more, kind of, different plants, rather than more the same stuff that was, like, put up quick to enclose things quick and efficient, and sloes are actually, it can be difficult to...lot of D’s. It can be difficult to differentiate between sloes and damsons, because sloes, damsons, and bullaces, which is a great word, are all kind of similar looking small blue-ish, black berries, but…

Liz

They all kind of look like baby plums

Hazel

Yeah, yeah a little bit, but damson trees don’t have the spikes on them that blackthorns have, and they do...they look a bit more like mini plums because they’re got, like, a stem coming from them, whereas sloes are more close to the stem of the plant, so that’s how you can tell. So it wasn’t until the late 19th century that this homemade spirit started to be produced in, like, commercial distilleries, and started to, I guess they were picking up on it being quite a popular thing by that point to make at home, although it should be...it’s interesting that there was also a large temperance movement in this period, particularly in the late 19th and Edwardian periods, so there’s...yeah there’s a lot of temperance, a lot of anti-alcohol sentiment going around, but people are still making this, so it makes you wonder how many people were like “ah yes, I support the temperance movement” and then secretly making this sloe gin back at home

Liz

Are you saying that people might be hypocritical sometimes?!

Hazel

Absolutely not! So, it got a bit more fashionable, a bit more well known in the 20th century, particularly the 1920s, I guess the golden age of cocktails, the sloe gin fizz was invented. So that’s a cocktail that involves gin and champagne, and apparently in some cases egg white, which doesn’t sound that appealing, but

Liz

Yeah egg white is in a lot of cocktails to make it just kind of fizzy and frothy. It’s a thing

Hazel

Yeah, it produces, like, a big froth, right?

Liz

Yeah

Hazel

I dunno, maybe, it’s on my list. I’ve got to try a sloe gin fizz. And that remained popular up until about the 1960s when it kind of fell out of fashion, I guess, with a lot of things that were seen as more traditional and stuffy, kind of fell out of fashion, and it’s only now that it’s starting to come back, because now it’s seen as something nostalgic and natural, which is kind of the trend at the moment, and I guess because it’s getting more popular to do stuff yourself at home, and it’s something you can do if you live somewhere there’s hedgerows

Liz

Yeah

Hazel

So if you want to know how to make sloe gin, you identify your sloes, and you’re supposed to pick them, traditionally, after the first frost, but that comes quite late now in our modern days of global warming, unfortunately

Liz

Yeah I think it’s just happened for us

Hazel

Yeah, not that long ago and it’s...so it was late December, which given that sloes are ripe around October time, is quite late, so what you can do instead is pick them when they’re ripe, in October, and freeze them, because the whole point of picking them after the frost is that the skins will be a little bit cracked, and so the juices will come out better into your alcohol

Liz

So like ice wine?

Hazel

Ooh, what’s ice wine?

Liz

You pick the grapes when they’re all frozen, and it makes, I think it’s supposed to make the wine sweeter? It’s like a German dessert wine

Hazel

Ok, that’s cool, I’ve never heard of that. I’m gonna go look up ice wine. Yeah, so you do the same thing with sloes, freezing them achieves the same effect, and then you put your sloes into a jar, you add sugar and then, depending on your taste, that can be anything from a few spoonfuls to half as much sugar as sloes, so if you like it sweeter you can put more in if not, I mean...there’s recipes for differing amounts that you can find, and then you just fill it up with gin and you leave it for a good few months, and every so often you can sort of turn the bottle or shake it up a bit to let things, sort of, diffuse and dissolve, but after at least three months you will have a drinkable sloe gin. They do say it get better if you leave it longer, but not having done a lot of experimenting I couldn’t comment on that, but you will definitely have something that you can drink and will be sloe gin after three months

Liz

Nice

Hazel

So there you go

Liz

That is very cool, like, I had a vague idea that sloe gin existed and it was made of stuff from hedgerows, but I didn’t...I didn’t know that

Hazel

Yeah, it’s sort of...I didn’t until I sort of looked into it a bit more. I knew how to make it, I knew it was a traditional thing. My grandma made it. I’ve made it a couple of times, but I didn’t know the reason why it became popular I guess, like I didn’t know the enclosure acts and that sort of thing, and why there are so many blackthorn hedgerows, so yeah that’s really interesting, and it’s interesting how something that I thought was just a traditional rural thing actually came about because of bigger events. I guess we tend not to think about that, or we tend not to look into our traditions that much perhaps

Liz

But that’s what we’re here for

Hazel

That is indeed what we’re here for

Liz

We look at things we do with food and go “why do we do that?” In exactly that intonation

Hazel

So I guess we’ve achieved that pretty good today

Liz

So thank you for listening, we have a twitter if you want to, I dunno, show us pictures of your can openers, that’s just @breadandthread

Hazel

We also have a patreon, breadandthread, if you would like to hang out with us and get some recipes and things, and if you have any ideas or subjects you want us to cover, you can send us an email at breadandthreadpodcast@gmail.com

Liz

Yeah, the next episode is gonna be another one where we do a deep dive into a person or a book, so if you have any suggestions for that, do let us know, otherwise I’m probably going to go the obvious route and do Mrs Beeton

Hazel

Oh, and I...I received an original 1960s copy of Bull Cook for Christmas, so I am gonna be making some of these recipes and putting pictures on the twitter, and it’s gonna be great, please join me for some interesting recipes and their stories

Liz

Please make the Virgin Mary’s favourite spinach

Hazel

I’m gonna make Virgin Mary’s favourite spinach. I will also be making...oh I guess I won’t because duck is kind of expensive, but there is a recipe for Genghis Khan’s favourite duck recipe in there so…

Liz

Oh I wish I’d known that before Christmas, we had duck

Hazel

I’ll send it to you

Liz

But are you gonna make martini verboten?

Hazel

I’m not sure I’ll go as far as to make the forbidden martini, it’s forbidden for a reason

Liz

It really is. Yeah, listen to our episode on the Bull Cook if you want to know why the martini verboten is verboten

Hazel

Also the cover is gold. It’s shiny and gold

Liz

Do you mean like it’s really good, or...oh it’s shiny gold

Hazel

It’s shiny gold

Liz

Amazing

Hazel

It’s a shiny gold cookbook

Liz

Please tweet out a picture

Hazel

I will do

Liz

So yeah, thank you for listening, and we will be back in a couple of weeks

(end music)