Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking users coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center at newsstand studios. Not join the Stasi, the hammer Lopez is off this week. But I do have John here with me. Hi doing. I'm doing great. Everything good.

Yeah. Yeah. Good to be back.

Yeah. Yep. Good to be here at Rock Center and not caught. John was spent the last, however long trapped in COVID quarantine in Seattle, Washington, and didn't get to have any fun Seattle stuff. In fact, you got you came down with the COVID. Before you can even go to any of the fun places in Seattle that you were supposed to go?

Yep, can done with it within hours of arriving in Seattle. And then as soon as I tested negative on Sunday about a ticket and got here yesterday after a miserable flight.

Do you wish in retrospect that maybe you had gone out at least gotten like something to eat or drink before you took that test?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Would have been nice.

It would have been bad from a public policy standpoint. It would have been good from a from the John

standpoint, definitely. You know, and I would just have another reason to go back to Seattle. So I like to view that I

you didn't go to Seattle. That was you flew to a room. Yes. Okay. And he stayed in a room and then flew out of the room back home. Yep. I mean, that's like the worst of all the scenarios. It's true, you know, I mean, anyway, we got a chill haze and rockin the panels here in Rockefeller Center. How're you doing? I'm doing great very excited for today's show. Yeah, anything. Anything interesting happened to you in the past week that food wise or not? You know what I got to be honest, I have not been doing a lot of cooking any cooking. I have. I have a six month old son so it's very quite still quite difficult for us to be in front of the in the stove with all the scheduling we have going on in the house. So a lot of quick heating up of things. I remember that it's hard to it's hard to find time to pee or take a shower. You know? Yeah. Oh, no pooping. You don't get to poop. Your poop becomes pee time anyway. And where are you Jackie molecules where in the world is Jackie molecules? We got to start a Carmen Sandiego for you.

La. I'm in LA.

We're not going to have time we could talk about later. But on the over this past weekend, I went up to like way upstate New York like Buffalo, Rochester. All of those places and a lot of interesting food stories. I'm gonna go ahead and say a lot of cool food stuff up there. was hanging out at the Q bar with Donnie Clutterbuck had a good time in Rochester Rochester good place. Good city. I enjoyed it. I will say that their meat sauce we can get into Atlanta, we're gonna have time unless our guests want to talk about it. meat sauce from the famous meat sauce place called Nick Tahoe not spelled Taho spelled like Tahu. But like Nick Tahoes, which started in 1918. They have this thing called garbage plate. And it's a bunch of stuff we get into but they have they have a meat sauce that goes on top like little granular pieces of meat in sauce goop which is like my wife was like that looks on appetizing that looks like it already got ate once. She doesn't talk like that. But I'm gonna say that portion of it viciously under salted but then I was told that that's just because I'm a downstate weasel. But then someone else was like, No, it's, you gotta go get the other garbage plate we can talk about later. When I'm super excited about actually, before we get into John, what do you want to do promote the upcoming before we do what we're gonna do? Yes.

Next week. We got a doubleheader weeks on Tuesday we've got Bob Florence for more me show you at Mystic and then on Wednesday at 1pm We've got the cofounders of maiden cookware. Chip and Jake and then in July end of July, we just confirmed Greg Backstrom, which should be exciting. And then while I've got the mic here, I would also like to kind of shame the Patreon people let's let's work on this Google Maps that we're supposed to be editing it's got some room for improvement. So I'll say that everyone's start adding their stuff

Listen, John takes this whole sharing of information and like super granular detail about places like extremely seriously like if any of you have you already put your Belgium literally right now right? When you see the level of detail that John goes into town by town, place by place and dish by dish in his in his Belgium document you're going to hang your heads in shame for not populating this map better. And I'll also say this I'm gonna do it you gotta do it. Don't do it man. You know what that put on put like I don't know which maps we're doing but go go do Mexico City put on me bucket and put on put on Florida calabaza. Lady, come on, man. And I will I will. And for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about, you want to learn how to what the Patreon is

patreon.com/cooking issues or end up alright,

alright. Alright. And we're gonna give them a discount aren't on the show you are, is that it? Can we do that? Or we're not going to be

determined we will see. It's good show easily. Yes. It's great. It's great.

Even though it's from Connecticut, it's good for you. Hey, look, I love Connecticut. That wasn't a Connecticut date. I apologize. But now. Alright, we're done with all the preliminaries. So today, I'm super excited. This is also the first time we've had half of our guests in studio and half not in studio. So we'll see how this works. But we have John Becker and Megan Scott, who together now are the music QC says 123. Fourth, generate fourth, fourth generation, fourth generation, writer editors of the all time best selling, most important, longest lived cookbook ever, like ever, like puts a patient's to shame because you know what, no one's actually read a specious, okay. I mean, I've read it. I'm not saying I'm necessarily a better person before it. But so welcome, guys. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having us. And just just so you know, John, where are you right now?

I'm at our home in Portland, Oregon, Portland,

Oregon, Portland, Oregon. And Megan's here with us in the in the studio. All right. So how do you how do you want to do is I'm assuming that if you, I'm assuming that if you are listening to this, that you know what the Joy of Cooking is, but maybe not. Maybe you don't know, for people who listened to this show. I love books that have gone through a bunch of editions over a bunch of time, not just because that's an indication that the books themselves are important, or like have some sort of ongoing meaning for a lot of people, which it also does. But because they span a slice of time, especially American books, that I can understand and look at how people and our culture has changed over time. And so this book, which started in 1931, is kind of that or, like, addition chasing book that cookbook, people I think go after, would you guys agree or no?

I think that's true. John, do you feel that?

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure if we, I mean, you can definitely get an inkling of, you know, how culinary arts, culinary culture has changed over time. But, you know, I don't think that we're a perfect reflection. Definitely an imperfect reflection of what was going on? Well, yeah,

I mean, so it's not like, for instance, like there are certain, like nonfiction technical books, like, brought up a bunch of times, but Louise Pete's book, household equipment that went through, I think, like, you know, 15 additions between, like, the early 30s. And the 70s. Like, literally spanned a huge revolution in like, electrification, refrigeration, but the thing is, so the joy of cooking, and it like so it's like, the the ways the recipes are presented and what people eat, spin that thing. So it's not as stark, as you know, Oh, yeah. You don't need to give recipes anymore, for you know how to economize your coal stove, because nobody could come into coal stove anymore. You know what I mean? Or, you know, you don't have to explain electricity to people who've never seen a, what used to be called a convenient socket, I'd like to see what an inconvenient socket is if, for those of you that don't know, like, like, what you just call us, like a wall socket, or a plug or whatever you call it, you know, whatever we incorrectly call it. The technical term for that is a convenient socket, because it used to be you hired someone to come in and wire your equipment into the mains. So yeah, that those are convenience sockets. Wow. Don't you guys kind of wish, by the way that we had 220 as our as our mains power, so that we could run more power off a wall sockets in the kitchen without having to break such a sweat.

I mean, we haven't really run into that as a problem because we're using really, home cook focused appliances, but I can see where you're coming from.

Right. But what if, what if, I mean, what would our culture be like? If the average consumer could pull, like two and a half three kilowatts out of their wall socket? Without without without trouble? What would our lives be like may be different?

Yeah, probably different. I mean, I do feel like I do feel like home kitchens get sort of stuck in a time warp sometimes or just, they aren't very well designed a lot. I mean, I remember when we were looking for a house in Portland, we would walk in and be like, Oh, this is a great house and the kitchen is tiny and dark and hasn't been updated since the 70s. It was kind of like, what is happening. Wow. I want to be in I want to enjoy being in the kitchen when I'm there. So you rip that sucker out? No, you came in. We found a decent a decent kitchen. Okay, okay, that was a deal

breaker now do you but like do you have to have so okay, we're skipping forward to what you guys do now. Maybe we should do that. I don't know. We have so much to get through. I don't know how to do it. So Do you have like three separate kitchens? Like, do you test stuff on an induction? Like on a garbage stove on a gas stove? Like do you like purposely throw your equipment out of whack to see how bulletproof your recipes are? Like, what's the what's the first of all? Okay, let's just start from the end. And we'll go back to the beginning later, so, so people don't know. Right? What happened was is the most popular edition, the one that everyone in my generation grew up with was the one from I believe, is what 75. That's the one that was in my house came out when I was four. And obviously, my mom had a copy, right? Because everybody did. And it was that book was the kind of last one that, you know, the grandma worked on. But also I heard, John that your dad Ethan was helped on that book, but didn't get his name on the spine. In fact, he didn't get his name on the spine until the 1997 edition. So this, this book, had been selling a jillion copies. Let's go through the story now. Right? So in 1931, your great grandma. Irma rombauer, right, she, your great grandfather dies, she has almost no money left, right? She's got and she's 50 like 50 something 52. And she's like, I'm gonna write a cookbook. Am I right so far? In the Yeah.

Oh, yeah. The kids are, you know, her kids are out of the house. And you know, she was left a modest sum. And yeah, she took half of it, and privately, privately printed the first edition.

Well, to hear the story from your great uncle, who, you know, wrote the preface to the facsimile edition. He's like, Well, she kind of asked the kids, are you guys cool with this? And then they were like, yeah, yeah, go ahead. But what's weird is, and this is kind of interesting is that, by his account, she wasn't really a cook. Like she shouldn't grow up being being a cook. You know, she reads this book that I wanted to get a copy of, but I never did called. And so if you want to see what the original Joy of Cooking was based on, it's a book that's really fallen by the wayside. Folks, I guarantee none of you have heard of it. Choice menus for lunches and dinners by Gladys tosic Lang, which, if you want to try to find an original 1931 first edition of, of joy of cooking, better takeout mortgage, whereas you can get a copy of choice menus for lunches and dinners for like five bucks, you know, maybe 10. Editions because they didn't print that many of them. So she reads this book. She's like, I could do this. But what's hilarious about it in the preface to the book is she's like, You know what I really hate. I'm paraphrasing here. She's like, you know what I really hate when people say they're a writer. She's like, I really freaking hate it. When people say, I'm a writer. She's like, anyone who can string two words together says they're a writer. And here I am writing a freaking book that basically to paraphrase that was the right so anyway, so she comes out with this book self published, right, then the publisher that the printer was like, I printed an extra 30 copies in case like something goes wrong hands really sturdy copy. She's like, What the hell am I gonna do with these? So she sends one to her cousin. Am I still right? So far?

You're getting all of this from from Edgar's preface, right.

So you don't trust your great uncle is what I'm telling you. You're what are your thoughts?

Yeah. That's pretty much what I'm telling you. Yeah. Yeah, actually, a food writer named and Mendelssohn put out a bio kind of a history of joint cooking and a biography of Herman and Marion's lives. And she doesn't really give any credence to those to this purchase that particular those those details, but we won't promulgate them. Yeah, no, no, she, she tried to shop around the manuscript, you know, like the shoes, you know, a proposal to publishers for several years. And that's, eventually she managed to convince Bob's Merrill to come out with the first, you know, actually published edition in 1936.

And they had it all the way up to 75. Right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But to hear the story now that I'm not supposed to credence in anymore. Your great uncle, you know, apparently, I won't call him a liar, but you kind of call them.

Oh, no, I mean, yeah, sorry. May he may he rest in peace?

Yeah, May May he rest of May he rest in his lies. But the, you know, to hear his side of the story, like it got really dicey there and it looked like it like she had a deal. And Bob's Merrill was like, You know what? Depression is getting worse than we thought. Anybody buying cookbooks because another thing is that and I didn't get this from the from the preface, but it's like, the blockbuster cookbook wasn't really a thing yet, other than like Boston cooking school, like, you know, family farmer kind of stuff. There wasn't this kind of concept of a non technical All right, not not the way the Boston cooking school was conceived as a technical kind of, you know, coming from the Homeric environment mentality. There wasn't this notion of the blockbuster cookbook yet. And so they were like, Yeah, I don't know. And then like it almost it almost died right there. Right before 36 When the major first blockbuster came out. Does that is that part you agree with?

Oh, yeah. I think that totally tracks with what I've what I've read. But ya know, it was it was definitely a hard sell that she had she had to do. And, you know, she ended up conceding a lot in the, in the on the contract to the point where, you know, Bob's Merrill actually had ownership has like half a copyright. That's pretty, pretty tough negotiating going on.

Yeah, well, well, so see whether this is accurate. Like what I one of the things that I thought was really interesting was that your great grandma, right? They're like, Hey, listen, we're going to do this, but we're actually not going to pay you the royalties that you would normally expect, because we're going to put so much of this crap into promotion that you're going to make it on the back end. And that people told your great grandmother, like, This is crazy. This is a fool's errand. You're nuts. And she was like, Yeah, okay. And then like that made that kind of made it that was like, boom, do you think that's an accurate story?

You know, I should, obviously I should have been studying studying up before this. But yeah, then that sounds sounds plausible to me.

Yeah. So what's cool about this book, if you've never, like seen kind of the old copies, first of all, you should get a facsimile of the 31 edition. But it's a it's a completely different book from the I don't have the 36. But I have the 46. Okay. Not the one with the rationing in it, because, you know, whatever, I don't need that. Because, you know, let's be honest, I don't ration. But the book style kind of changed dramatically. So for, you know, we're all kind of used to conversational writing now. But you know, that the first edition had in it, the, like, it's, it's like line by line, like, innovations that we now take for granted come in, you know, piece by piece and the initial one, it's like this, like, she's telling stories, who, what, who tells stories, and then in the, in the, you know, the addition, the 36th edition, it's this new, do you believe? Do you guys believe in this whole action method as a term? Or like, what how do you like it's a different recipe writing style? Are you guys okay with that? I want to use your term we use? Yeah, yeah, we

use the term all the time, she did not come up with that term, or use that term to describe the style. That's that recipe writing style that she came up with,

right. That's why I didn't necessarily I think we're, whether it's a term you guys approve of, or whether it was when it's added onto. And I know, I know how much I hate when people just apply terms to people without it's okay, if you're okay with it. Yeah. So you want to describe what that is, and why that was different back in the day.

I can take it, I'll take it. Sure. So essentially, in the in the NIT 31 edition, the recipes are written very much like you would see a recipe most recipes written which is that the ingredients are broken out at the top, and then you have the instructions below. In like a paragraph, she did like a paragraph format and like 12345. And then in 1936, her new innovation was that the ingredients and the instructions are interspersed. So you might say, melt in a saucepan two tablespoons butter, and the two tablespoons butter is bold, in bold text and kind of indented a little to separate it out. So it's just like a more narrative format, where you sort of walk through the recipe with the ingredients embedded, which we really love, because it's I mean, there's a lot of advantages. But, you know, you avoid that trap where you might forget, you know, the writer might forget to include an ingredient in the instructions that's called out in the ingredient list. Or, you know, if something's divided, you don't have to say divided, you just put it right in the recipe. So there's, I feel like there's a little less opportunity for confusion and it keeps the recipe writer a little more honest.

And well, and because you both face it, you can still scan for your me's. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But no one

little little extra effort on the front end, just a tiny bit extra. So you

should have to read the recipe. You should be reading it anyway.

Listen, people. I can't tell you how many times I tell Booker, this. index the taxes, do it. Read the whole recipe. He's like, he's like, I'm ready, Dad, I'm like, You're not freaking ready, dude. I'm like, tell me all the steps. You're not freaking ready. It tells you I'm not saying you don't refer to the book while you're reading if you while you're cooking if you need to. Although I don't cook with books in the kitchen. I don't I jot down the meals and I put like I don't bring my books into the kitchen with me. But God read the whole recipe. Oh, by the way, I feel remiss if you're listening on patreon you can call your questions into 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-1507 Okay, so yeah, we think we the recipe, people

Yeah, this Do it.

Okay, can we can we go with this for a second? What was the one you guys on Twitter? Where you just, you wanted to have an eye bleeding emoji, I believe was the one because you're like, can somebody make this eye bleeding emoji? Like because someone was going viral? It's gonna feel crazy. We'll get back the History in a Minute. But it's gotta feel crazy. Like you guys spend at least 1010. I'm not even counted. Let's not even count like the intermediate like the big additions, right? It was more like you worked on it for 10 years, but like it had been 10 years since it had been a kind of updated, right. So it should be like a 20 year wedge, and you're working on this thing. It's like, and then some knucklehead goes viral with poison. What was the thing that you guys were Assos?

It was a pastrami using celery juice instead of nitrates or nitrites. And a couple of problems. Yeah, some problems. And it Yeah, went viral. And you know, everyone, this is a person that a lot of people like, I guess, I don't know. And I'm gonna, I'm like, man, we understand

the original. I'm trying to understand the original motivation for that. I guess he was just like, attracted to the idea of a green Brian was at the St. Patty's Day related thing.

I know what it is, you know what it is? It's this. It's like, not busting on whole foods, but I am here, right. So like Whole Foods decides, like, you know, a billion years ago that they're not going to have anything that is they want everything to say uncured. They don't want nitrates in it. Right? Right. So they're like they put on except for this what naturally occurs you celery, you don't mean. So what they do is is it's somewhere somewhere someone grows a bunch of celery that never sees, never sees a salad, you know what I mean? And they chum up this celery in these giant vats. And then they concentrate the ever loving crap out of it into nitrates, and nitrites, which they then cure your freakin meat with. If your meat is pink, it has been cured, people, if your meat is pink, it has been cured. Right now, it is true that nitrate free hams if they're cured for a year or longer, can undergo reactions where they're naturally pink without by baking that if you're baking pink, it's been cured. And so I think he this guy, I don't remember who it is. So I'm not insulting them because I don't even know who it is. Was like it says celery is fine. So naturally celery, celery, so then puts it in celery. No. But part

of the part of what made me so angry is that I'm not even sure if he was genuinely doing this. Or if he was, you know, just kind of can I use curse words on this show?

I mean, mean family ish family is show.

Okay. Show if he was just posting garbage? Trying to get attention? You know,

I don't think so. I think it

was trying to get attention.

Well, obviously he's trying to get attention, right. That's what social media Yeah, yes. But I mean, I think that the the issue is, is that? Do you guys remember what it was like to start doing something? And how little you knew, but how much you wanted to tell people what you knew, but how little you actually knew. I think it's like, all of a sudden people who are in that area. Right? Have a much bigger megaphone. You know what I mean? And so like, you know, maybe there's not a, there's not some sort of inbred like not embroider but but some sort of learn disincentive that comes with having said the wrong thing so many times to prevent you from being like, No, that's a terrible idea. Terrible. Yeah.

Bobby's, obviously not because this is not Yeah, it's not the first time that he's done, done something sketchy for his, for his YouTube channel. So

also, there's a whole world to communicate without their mean, like, literally, I have, like, I have like five or seven or 10 people like that. I could go on my phone right now and be like, is this a good idea? And he'd be like, No, dude. No.

Presumably, this person has a crew of people helping him assistance researchers. I don't know. I mean, I think he has a lot of resources, because

it's also now that's coming back to me. It was for a nationally known magazine and their website. Yes, yeah. Yeah. YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no excuses. Alright, so let's go back to history before we get to the present, because I gotta get through so people understand what's going on. All right, right. By the way, in that 46 addition, there are some doozies first of all, so So by the time 46 comes out, it's see it was wasn't your your grandma by that time was run was basically running the show, right or No, was it still your great grandma running the show at that time?

So she started Mary and started working on the book a lot in the 50s. And like in the early late 40s, early 50s. So that 51 edition, she did the entire, the entire I think the breads chapter and you know, kind of shows like has her fingerprints all over it because she was very She really tried to do do the homework. I guess Irma was more of a, you know, fly by the seat of the pants food writer, if you will, she really just kind of wanted to, you know, she was chatty, you know, have had a lot of really snarky headnotes Oh, yeah, you know, that was, it was kind of like her as a writer, whereas Marianne was much more I guess, you know, scholarly in her own way, I guess.

Well, I really liked some of those weird chatty things. So for instance, in the section on you know, what's old is what's, what's new is what's old, whatever, whatever we're supposed to go right so like, you know how everyone's having a chicken washing debate. So in the in the 43 Slash 46 edition of so everyone's like, Should I wash the chicken shall not Washington the government's gotten in on this by the way there like when you wash your chicken, micro droplets from the chicken will get all over everything, everyone will die, everyone will die from salmonella with the washing of the chicken and I don't wash chicken, I didn't grow up washing chicken. It's a cultural thing. It's a it literally it's a cultural thing, whether you wash your chickens a cultural thing, not as not a food safety, in my opinion, and Harold McGee has gone through a you know, some next time we get on, I can just I can just push a button that says chicken washing, and he can just take away the rest of the show. But, but like you remember, like it's so in the 40s. Like, she's starting to write things like most of the time, you by the time you get a chicken, it's going to be drawn ie it's going to have its guts ripped out, but maybe not. So there's some instructions on how to do that, right. And then it's like, scrub that chicken inside and out. If it's you know, it's stinky at all, you can rub it with baking soda, scrub that chicken, scrub the chicken, and then an asterix. There's a new school that says don't wash the chicken and rub it with a lemon instead. It's like there's aspects. And I was like, that's very strong. That's very strong. And also like, you know, things that I like, like little things that are in there, that only someone who's interested in things that have changed would be interested. So for instance, they're in the I don't have a 36. So I don't know. But in the in the in the 4346 edition, she talks about the tendon remover for large birds. And she's like, well, if you buy a bird that doesn't already have its legs, you know, broken off, here's how to take the tendons off, you make the cut, you rip the leg off, and the tenants come off with it, which is true, right? So you know, if you can buy a turkey people, and you were strong or have some sort of like a desk, you can do it on, get get it with the feet on because butchers no longer have the tendon remover. But it's right there in the 4346 and presumably in the 36. But I don't know.

I'm not sure about that. Yeah, I

don't know. I mean, I don't have access to that that 36 is kind of pricey, right? Compared to the yeah,

it's just more there are fewer copies. Yeah, it's a little more rare. Have you run into the headnote where I think I think he's in the 40s editions. But Irma says something like people seem to really like this recipe. I don't recommend it.

That's what's so awesome. Like, if you look at it, so like very early, it was separated into like, here's your meats, here's your here's your and for some reason, like up until like, I forget whether even into the current edition, but it's like cakes, and then you go through cookies and everything else before you get the icing. Hell is that? What the hell is that?

Very, very eclectic organization. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. And things move around. So like cocktails were in the beginning, then they were in the end, and they got deleted in public. Okay, anyway. No, I don't remember that had no, but I will go look it out. So but like, it's a joy to read the manga. It's a it's a pleasure to read these kinds of asides, because, presumably, and you guys can tell me, you know, she is, because one of the funny things in all of these earlier editions is there was a lot of, and I guess, you this your grandma, a lot of scholarship of, quote, unquote, what the authorities were. And so like, she'll be like, some authority say this, I don't really know. Right? So it's like, it's kind of really funny. She was clearly like an aggregator, but also a cooker. So or, you know, someone who's testing these recipes, but at the same time, aggregating the state of the art of knowledge at the time, which I think is kind of fascinating. And you can pick up kind of the thought process in the thing. So I don't know I don't you guys think that's a fun thing to read when you're reading those older editions or no?

Oh, yeah. It's kind of an Eastern time.

I mean, yeah. When we first started working on the book, you know, it was basically testing recipes. And we would try to trace them back through the editions and through through that, it was just, I think we were both pretty obsessed just with the differences between the editions, how they've changed, but yeah, Irma's voice and kind of what she had to offer readers very fun and fascinating.

Right so so the last edition that your great grand Ma had input into it. And it was, I guess it was. Yeah, right. The 51 was the last one, right? Yeah. And but basically that was your grandma was made. She'd fully taken over the reins. And she was trained as an artist, right. She was trained, trained art artists. And she did. I know she didn't end up doing the illustrations for some of the later editions. But she did the earlier editions illustrations. Correct.

She did she did paper cuttings, because apparently she could not she was not good at drawing, but she was really good at cutting paper.

Those silhouettes are cool. By the way. They're really cool. If you go look at the facsimile of the 31 edition. They're cool. Okay, so 51 Everyone knows what the most important thing about the 1951 edition is. It's the squirrel. So like, so the, the Becker's are and we'll get into this later, huge outdoorsy kind of family. Right? So you know, we'll get into John, your dad in a sec, right? But like, so there's always like some game and whatnot in it. But in the 1951, and people might not know this, right. So 51 edition, I don't have a copy of the fifth edition. Like, you know, from the 60s, I have the 51. And I have the 75. And there are two different how to skin a squirrel drawings, but they are the same drawing. But whoever did the 1975 edition was like, You know what, you know what, the boot that the person is wearing, when they're skinning This is a little to my three sons. It doesn't, it's a little too stylized. For my taste, I'm going to do a little more of a realistic line drawing of a boot stepping on a squirrel stick because the idea is as you cut through, so you cut through the skin on the back and then you cut through the tail bone like you would if you were going to do a EKG may on on a fish, right? But you keep the skin attached. Got me people, then you cut a line. So you can kind of open up where that they and then you step on. You step on the tail. You grab the body and was that pretty much accurate? Yeah,

totally accurate.

I mean, yeah, I it's it's I don't know I based on like our experience with rabbits. It's definitely not like without them. And we actually,

you don't? We don't recommend that method anymore. Was that why the squirrel

drawing did not make it back? Well, we haven't gotten to the edge of the 97 yet, but

squirrel drawing? Yeah, the squirrel drawing went away in 97. For many, many reasons, our publisher really does not like it at all. We know people who have it tattooed on their bodies. So that's interesting. But yeah, we don't recommend that as the way to skin a squirrel anymore. So we didn't put that back in. But if you go into the book, we do talk about how to scan a rabbit, you basically scan a squirrel the same way, it's really easy.

Do you do it? Do you do the rabbit the same way that you did in the drawing for the rabbit where you cut around the hind legs and you hang it you pull down?

No, we did the thing where you make an incision in the back. Yeah, and then you stick you can just stick your fingers in and pull it off. Pull the skin off. I mean the thing

okay, not to get gruesome, but the thing about the squirrel thing that seems to me to make sense. And the boot is this is an there's there's anti tularemia, like, you know, wear gloves and all this, which hilarious I love it. It's like because it's in a cookbook, right? And you very rarely get that kind of stuff. And that's the other thing I love. That's the amazing thing about the 75 edition is that it just grown to such a size by 1975 that in it, you'll have detailed instructions for how to how to rip the skin off of a squirrel and then like, but like it's just so like encyclopedic. It's still quirky. That's what's amazing about it, right? Which you've kept up, you know, I mean, but like, that's what's kind of cool about. But the thing about the boot is it's very clearly like I just shot this squirrel, I need to get the skin off this thing now. And I'm going to put it skinned already into my bag, right? Yeah, it's not going in the game bag until I get this thing off. I don't have anything to hang it on. What do I have, I have a knife and I have the ground and I have my boot and I'm going to rip the skin off the squirrel. So it seems to me if you're out there, and you take a squirrel down, you want to get into the bag and you don't want all that furl over everything.

It's very pragmatic. Yeah, yeah. But the illustrations in the 75. Those were done by someone named Mickey Matsumoto. And he was a student of Charlie Harper. And if you are familiar with Charlie Harper, he does a lot of like, he did a lot of bird, bird and animal drawings, a really geometric and cool looking. But yeah, so he did those. And then the 60s and 50s, I think was Jenny Hoffman. And those are like the We call those the Jetsons hands illustrations because they have that very, like mid century. Yeah,

the boot does look cool. Yeah, the food is really good. It's really cool in the 50s. So when people have the tattoo, do they have the 50 or the 75?

I think the person we know has the 75 if you're gonna

get a tattoo, I would have gone for the fifth These, although the rabbit looks better and 75, because in the 50s, I don't know, for layout reasons the rabbit is horizontal, whereas in a 75 edition, the rabbit is hanging as it should be, and then says, you know, it's oh my god, you guys, you got to read these recipes because it's like, it's clearly written by a family that has some experience with game meat. It's like, you know, it's like the original pheasant recipes or like, I hope earlier editions before pheasant was something you could buy. They're like, we hope we have I forget the exact quote, but we hope the breastbone of your pheasant is nice and pliant. As a sign of quality. I'm like, I hope so too. Thank you, you know what I mean? Or it's like, if you're if your meat is of a certain age, you might want to hang it a couple of days. Like so these are not things I getting that people really specify anymore. The yield hanging game anyway. All right. So 75 comes out. And it was kind of like, it was like the book it was went crazy. I don't know the numbers, but it's sold like some ungodly number of copies. Right. And, and again, John, your dad worked on that. So Ethan, backwards, it's time to get into him. Right. So like, here's a crazy story people. He's in eastern Becker, born in 1945, same age as my dad, right. So he's part of this joy of cooking thing, but then also like, famous like world famous knife designer sins, send some like, like knives that he made kukri style, which is this like, funny curved blade thing with some to get to his buddies to take over to Vietnam for a deployment comes back. And it's like how they work and they're like, Well, you could have changed this. He's like, Okay, I will. And then he started making these knives. He made what is apparently like the best tactical backpack of anyone in that era. Right? Yeah. Never made it.

You didn't make a kitchen knife. But there

are knives but he didn't. He didn't start making knives until like, the early 80s. So yeah, the whole I mean, I think you know, Ethan has had has plenty of acquaintances who were in Vietnam, but I don't think that yeah, it wasn't like he sent them on deployment

or not me not like no not built ones but he's he made to write and send to his or at least they were in the military using them and they gave them feedback. This is what he says on this on the YouTube things. I've always been fascinated by this but he made kitchen knives. why did why did people not?

Well, he Yeah, I don't know. I think the first time he tried to make he tried to make a line of kitchen knives. He got a whole bunch of prototypes made up and I don't know he just never found the right distribution deal and never found the right the right the right people to collaborate with on it I guess it's a harder it's a it's a harder industry that then while it's maybe it's just he's not familiar with like the kitchen knife industry as much as outdoor knife industry. We actually have been, you know, he's been thinking about he's been definitely thinking about doing a kitchen knife product projects, but more on like kind of the custom end of things rather than mass produced.

I guess he at this point is lifelike. Do whatever, do whatever the hell he wants. You know, I mean, it'd be fun from a consumer perspective to have one that was kind of obtainable. I know that like for instance, Sean did Shawn still doing like, it shouldn't still doing a big business and kitchen knives or No, I haven't shopped for Kinkos

mostly out of William Sonoma. No. They were for

a time they were making big plays. So like they were one of the early people pushing like VG 10 knives to the masses. And they got another famous designer, Ken onions like 20 years ago or whatever, to do a knife but it was kind of so wacky, that I think you know, it. I don't think it got a lot of adoption. You know what I mean? The Kenyan cooking knife. What's the famous one that your your dad did the famous fixed blade? Like? Oh my god, what is it the one that everyone's still buys? Oh, what's it called?

Well, for me, at least, it's the shacks, the kukri style, but yeah,

well, you have a family obsession with cookies my friend. Like they'd like this but like the normal the normal like, like, like seven inch blade fixed guy with like, the like the rugged as hell comfortable like can chop through can chop through a log and still come back and do whatever you need with it. It's my head. It's like 110 bucks. Everyone loves it.

So like the BK seven and it became nine or about, you know, kind of straight straight bladed not kukri style. Have a clip point. Yeah, they're really rugged. So I mean,

what is it with the family and cuckoos used? I mean, what are they good for? What like okay, besides cutting into people's heads, like besides law Like being, you know, like a weapon of war like, are they like, are they better machete style things for like going through brush like what is it? What is it with the Kukeri? Because I have one, but like they're, you know,

those with cable right? They're good for going. Yeah, that's right. They're good for going through brush but primarily, they're really just really, really great at chopping wood. So or, you know Bhutanese through wood. So yeah, that's that's primarily what, that's what I think of them as being best for especially the first kukri style blade that he made the machete because it was, you know, fairly thick. So, you know, just once you get it going and, you know, in a log or, or whatnot, it really does help to kind of split it open.

So when you go out in the woods, you're rocking the kukri. That's what I'm hearing.

Yeah, I mean, we haven't been out in the woods for, like, kind of a field craft situation for quite a while. But yes, that's, that's what I would choose.

Let's see. I mean, you have to I mean, it's in the blood. Right.

So it's also synesthesia, because, you know, he was he started making knives out of his garage. And so, you know, that's kind of when I was you know, whenever I would go to visit you know, just kind of get to see the mistakes is being made. It was so cool. It's cool. Nice. I like it.