#016 The Irresistible Italian Indulgence

Another Brother

This Week on Another Brother:

In episode #016, The Irresistible Italian Indulgence, the Brothers (and Sister) go way back in memory to identify the video games that had the most indelible impression on them. But first, a plan is afoot to make genetic copies of Stephen Christian in order to populate the future with never ending versions of Anberlin! You can thank the Brothers later, world. And finally, Alex introduces us to his beautiful mind, and his very cultured past-time delight.

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Transcript:

The following transcript was in part created using the Deepgram API:

[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother
[00:00:46] Another Brother Theme Song
[00:01:05] Stewnerds Segment
Josh: Well, this is a first. We are fully graced with all students.
Jacob: It's all 4 of us.
Josh: We haven't had all 4 on a segment before.
Jacob: Congratulations.
Alex: Yeah. Aside from that unpublished episode.
Jacob: Not even once we like start monetizing and you pay for Patreon.
Alex: Maybe if we get a million likes on this episode.
Josh: Oh my gosh.
Jacob: But with that, I'm dramatically going to interject. So just last night, Heather and I got back from San Diego. We went to a concert where Anberlin performed. And so I'm going to present before the brothers, the first Another Brother Relic.
Josh: Oh, my gosh... That's fitting.
Lizzie: Is that his?
Jacob: Stephen Christian threw this bottle into the crowd.
Josh: And hit you in the face?
Jacob: and I got it.
Lizzie: What? How? Why?
Alex: we have his DNA!
Lizzie: We can make another one!
Josh: We can make more!
Jacob: To be honest, I didn't see if he actually drank from it or not. It was 1 of those things he flung the water on the crowd.
Alex: Oh darn it.
Jacob: And then he ended up chucking the bottle too.
Lizzie: Well his fingerprints?
Jacob: Yeah, yeah, for sure. His fingerprints would definitely be on this.
Alex: I don't think there's any DNA in a fingerprint.
Josh: There's gotta be saliva in that bad boy.
Jacob: So we were like maybe 30 feet from the stage. I made Heather get up there pretty close with me.
Alex: Were you not in the middle of the mosh?
Jacob: No 1 was moshing. No 1 knew Anberlin.
Josh: Who was at this thing?
Alex: Sad.
Jacob: They were there for Yellow Card. It was Yellow Card's tour.
Josh: Yellow Card is so overplayed.
Jacob: So I was like,
Alex: wait, wait, wait, Yellow Card was the headliner?
Jacob: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Alex: I've never... I don't know Yellow Card.
Jacob: They're big though.
Alex: I know they are, but.
Josh: Ocean Avenue.
Lizzie: Yeah.
Jacob: It was their 20th year anniversary of Ocean Avenue, which was a huge album.
Josh: That's sad. I imagine Anberlin just didn't want to do a full, full on tour. They didn't really want to get back together. They just wanted to play for a little bit.
Jacob: No, they're, come on, they just released that whole EP. Anyway,
Alex: maybe, maybe, maybe.
Jacob: I think they're getting back at it.
Lizzie: But you're the only 1 cheering.
Jacob: I was pretty much, no, no, everyone was, was getting into it-ish, but I was like, 1 of the only people around singing. So, but I made her get up close, of course. On the last song, Feel Good Drag, of course.
Josh: Classic.
Jacob: At the end, you see him drawing the crowd in, collecting them right in front of him. And like, I knew, like I had to make a move. So I hit it! I got right up there with everyone and he jumps into the crowd.
Alex: Know way, He did?
Jacob: He did.
Alex: I've never seen him do that.
Jacob: And I had to stop myself before I like full on fanboyed and pushed my way all the way in to touch him. Like, I was so close.
Lizzie: Hold on, you should have... I would have.
Jacob: This is a picture.
Alex: And then taken something out of his pockets.
Josh: Some more DNA!
Jacob: Anyway, this was the real... This water bottle. That was the real-
Josh: Gong Xi Fa Cai
Jacob: Yep. Gong Xi Fa Cai.
Alex: That's how you say cool in Chinese?
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: Oh my gosh.
Lizzie: It just really rolls off the tongue.
Josh: Everything does in that language. Jelly. Never been to an Anberlin concert. Definitely never went out of state to see them.
Alex: Thrice.
Josh: What?
Jacob: I thought it was only twice.
Alex: Thrice, I've been to an Anberlin-
Josh: All in Salt Lake?
Alex: Yes, always been Salt Lake.
Josh: Dang.
Jacob: Okay, the outdoor venue was awesome.
Alex: The free concert was pretty sweet, yeah.
Jacob: Oh. You went to a... Oh.
Alex: Oh What?
Jacob: I meant San Diego.
Alex: Oh sorry
Jacob: San Diego's was an outdoor venue.
Alex: Yeah, right. Yeah, it was.
Jacob: Did they play downtown Salt Lake?
Alex: Gallivan Plaza in downtown Salt Lake for free.
Jacob: Was it the Twilight series?
Alex: On Facebook, the day of- No. No, because Twilight series happens in the park.
Jacob: Right, that's why it's, okay.
Alex: It was in the winter, which kind of sucked. But on Facebook, they were just like, Salt Lake! we're coming to Salt Lake City today! be there at Gallavan Plaza by 6! or something like that. It was again hosted by X96, which sucks. Anberlin, if somehow you guys are listening to this-
Josh: They're not.....
Alex: ditch those losers. Their mixers are terrible. Their audio guys are crap. I could mix it better than that. Well, that was a gauntlet. Oops!
Jacob: Shots fired
Josh: If we get a million likes, we might email them that.
Alex: I actually don't know that I could. I don't think I could mix it that well. I've never done anything that loud.
Josh: Have you ever mixed in the open?
Alex: I've mixed plenty of live music, but nothing rock, nothing anywhere near that loud.
Jacob: Yeah.
Alex: And I'm sure the volume has some unique challenges that come with it.
Josh: Nah, those guys just suck.
Alex: Nevertheless, it's just not good mixing. I've got a friend, Mark. Mark could mix it way better. And now for something completely different. Well, I'm not sure we were completely on the same page about what we were talking about tonight. I hope so.
Jacob: I think so.
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: Okay. My thought was, like, super early video game memories that were like ones that cemented us as gamers.
Josh: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah, those early memories that are like, oh, this game is amazing. I need to be a gamer forever
Josh: yeah I have two.
Alex: Oh.
Jacob: Wow.
Josh: so I guess I'll start
Jacob: yeah do it.
Josh: it's kind of a big amalgamation but I'll say 1 Jacob was there for sure so he'll know. okay so Xbox Halo LAN parties
Alex: of course of course of course
Josh: But specifically, together against Jacob's friends. And 1 of Jacob's friends in particular, Jason, who we've talked about, his character's name was Mr. Parshal. Our high school principal.
Alex: Oh.
Jacob: Oh that's right. So, every year that I went to McNary, I had a new principal each single year.
Lizzie: McNary's awful.
Jacob: Not anymore
Josh: So, Mr. Parshal was the, well, he must have been the third principal. He sucked. Oh, no, the name was Mr. Parshal Sucks, I think. But anyway... So whenever you killed Mr. Parshal you were like, yeah! But Every time, and Jason was a good sniper. He was really good at that game. Every time he killed you, you got so angry. And it's just because of that name, really. Just, and...
Alex: You think you got angry? How much older was I than him I got so mad! because I remember LAN parties where he was playing too.
Josh: yeah yeah he was good
Alex: at the church 4 TVs 4 different rooms extra long cables. Everyone had their own room, but you could still hear down the hall when, "No! We lost!"
Josh: "Mr. Parshal!" I loved it. That... So good. Yeah. Something about... Anyway, that was it. I was like, if this is video games, then this is life. And that turned out not to be true. That's like my number 1, I think. LAN parties.
Alex: Okay, if we've got time for number twos, ew, we'll go back around, but someone else. Me? Okay. My mine is way earlier than that. When I broke my leg, 8 years old. I woke up in the hospital on Christmas morning, because I broke my leg on Christmas Eve. And it was weird. I was disoriented. But you know, there were presents I unwrapped, I think I remember unwrapping a model of a submarine, like a plastic 150 piece model or something like that, that I assume I put together later. I don't remember because I guess video games was what I was all about after this. But I also remember this tiny little Radio Shack Christmas tree that was a PCB.
Josh: Yeah, that sounds really familiar.
Alex: PCB is like a computer board.
Josh: Yeah, printed circuit board.
Alex: Motherboard, circuit board, whatever. And it had giant fatty red LEDs all over it. And a switch. So like a lot of PCBs are green. So the tree was green because it was just a bare PCB with these lights all over it. It had a switch. You just turn it on. I don't know where it came from.
Josh: I totally remember that though.
Jacob: I have no clue.
Lizzie: I wasn't alive.
Jacob: Right. Naturally.
Alex: But eventually, they wheeled in a Toys R Us cart that had a CRT on it and a Super Nintendo. And they kind of had paneling all over it so that it kind of sort of looked like an arcade machine. And it was clear that this was from Toys R Us, so that you wanted to go to Toys R Us later, I guess. But it had Star Fox in it. And I just laid in bed with an IV in my wrist because they couldn't get me anywhere else for some reason. I had bad veins apparently, but I didn't care. I didn't care how much it burned with that IV in my wrist. I played that Super Nintendo game. I don't know how long. Memories are not great from that period of time, but I think that might have been where I learned to like deal with trauma.
Lizzie: Yay!!
Alex: Like, forget what's happening around you and just play this game for a little while.
Lizzie: Well, there is a study that says if you experience a traumatic event, go play Tetris. And that helps you process through it.
Josh: organize it?
Jacob: Yeah, the Soviets would love that.
Alex: They created it.
Lizzie: Oh really?
Alex: Yeah, someone in Russia made it
Lizzie: yeah. Okay.
Alex: Yeah, that was it for me. That game, I was like, oh my gosh, these animals can fly spacecraft and they have personalities.
Josh: That makes so much more sense.
Alex: And there's a story!
Jacob: In case this hasn't been said, we're talking about a Super Nintendo. So like, they were animals, but nothing looked that great, cause it's pretty early gen still...
Alex: Yeah, they looked like really low quality Muppets.
Josh: It had a pixelated frog, right? If the game didn't tell you it was a frog, you wouldn't have known?
Alex: No, I knew. I mean, I could tell that it was a frog. Well, also, there was that iconic cover art for the game where they made these stuffed Animals of all the characters that were like really lifelike
Josh: It makes a lot more sense because I've never really liked the game But you love it.
Alex: Yeah I do
Josh: And when the Nintendo like this was it the switch remake?
Alex: No, Wii U
Josh: Wii U remake came out I knew you were like all over it. I was like, yeah, I'm trying to be excited about it
Jacob: What about Star Fox 64?
Alex: yeah, you didn't like Star Fox 64?
Josh: not really I mean I enjoyed it but it wasn't my favorit
Alex: man I've got a lot of memories of multi-playering that 1 in their little battle arena
Josh: with us?
Alex: well I'm not sure actually I remember playing at the Nelsons. I remember playing at the Nelsons.
Jacob: I do remember playing like in the arena.
Alex: Yeah, well you know, sounds right.
Jacob: Well, I didn't think about mine until just now.
Josh: You mean you didn't come up with it? Surely you didn't come to this recording unprepared.
Jacob: Yeah, absolutely I did. I didn't expect Josh to pick 1 so late in life. So I was trying to think of one of these experiences even earlier, thinking about Duck Hunt at grandma's house. Super Scope at home after we got our first Super Nintendo.
Alex: Which we didn't get until after I broke my leg.
Jacob: Yep, and dad would actually play on the super scope with us.
Alex: That was pretty cool to see
Josh: but the 1 I thought of Smash Bros at Whiteaker middle school.
Alex: Oh At the game club? During lunch time?
Jacob: During lunch hour. Lunch time, there was game club out in the portable.
Alex: Oh, you had to go out and no portable for it? Bummer.
Jacob: No, it was great.
Lizzie: Yeah, I'd rather go with portable than the freaking cafeteria.
Jacob: Because there was nothing in there. Like, it wasn't a classroom. I don't remember it being a classroom. I just remember the TV set up and a couple N64s and some other things.
Josh: I forgot about that.
Jacob: Yeah so lunch you just go out to this portable play Smash Bros on the N64 And I guess similar thing to like the LAN parties where it's playing against your peers, they're right there reacting in real time, you know, it gets heated, people get angry and there's lots of screaming, like, excited screaming, not anger.
Alex: Dang, that would have been fun.
Jacob: Yeah. It was amazing.
Alex: There were no such thing as 4 player games when I was doing that in middle school.
Josh: I mean, I remember it vaguely. I never really partook.
Alex: I don't. There was no 64 when I was in middle school.
Josh: Oh, dang.
Alex: We played NES games like the original Nintendo and a little bit of Super Nintendo and some Apple II. Apple II games on floppy disk.
Josh: In middle school?
Alex: Yeah. That's what we had in our game lab anyway.
Jacob: I'm glad they got a budget increase before I came along.
Alex: Yeah, I'm surprised they did that at all, you know? Why would they have?
Jacob: It's true.
Lizzie: Yeah, I think that was cut I cuz I don't recall anybody ever talking about clubs at all
Jacob: It was during lunchtime so it wasn't after school It really is pretty crazy that they had it at all. Like esports wasn't even a thought. I mean esports were around but nowhere near any kind of mainstream popularity.
Josh: I feel like that was kind of a word-of-mouth thing Because I don't think I learned about it until I knew you were doing it. And then I would go and I would watch during lunches. I'd be like, yeah, it looks pretty fun.
Lizzie: Wait you guys were in Middle School together.
Josh: Yeah?
Lizzie: No.
Josh: No?
Alex: You're 3 years apart so that would have been...
Josh: oh, well, I don't know who it was then.
Jacob: I was just going to let it slide
Alex: Me?
Josh: You should have
Alex: Probably me. I mean, we would have been in middle school together for a year.
Josh: No, no, no, but I was like in eighth grade and I was aware of younger grades that were doing it. So if it wasn't Jacob's grade, I don't know who it would have been.
Alex: I don't know I don't remember seeing any girls there so it might have been sexism that kept you from
Lizzie: yeah I don't think this is a thing
Alex: well I guess that's true That's 12 years after I did it.
Jacob: And 7 years after me,
Alex: By that time people might've been a lot more anti-video game.
Jacob: Yeah. Thanks, Obama.
Lizzie: He was inaugurated when I was in sixth grade.
Jacob: See?
Alex: Dang it. Obama!
Jacob: Michelle's all like, let's make kids healthy again.
Alex: Oh yeah, the we. Stupid open window picture. Are you sure you don't want to take a break outside? Oh, I'm in the middle of Zelda here!
Lizzie: My turn. Okay, Well, Jacob took what I was going to say, basically.
Josh: Wait, Really?
Lizzie: I was going to say melee. But it was mostly watching you guys because I didn't get to play. But I was excited to get older so I could play.
Josh: Lizzie is just like, oh man, I can't wait! I can't wait to be able to play this game!
Lizzie: Yeah, honestly though, I thought all the characters were cool.
Alex: You got to play other games...
Lizzie: Well, and it led into, so I mean, you guys didn't want to play with your weird little sister And so I would play single-player games by myself
Jacob: So weird and so little
Lizzie: So I started playing Ocarina and Alex had helped me
Alex: Yeah I was expecting you to talk about this 1,
Lizzie: but I wouldn't have cared if I didn't think Smash Bros was so cool because Link was in Smash Bros and I wanted to know all the characters that was cool but then yeah Ocarina I guess was like the first video game that consumed my life.
Alex: Well, you didn't have much of a life to consume, so it wasn't very hard
Josh: at that age yeah.
Alex: Because you were like what, 6?
Jacob: Wait a minute.
Alex: Probably like first, yeah.
Lizzie: You said that I beat it on your mission. Is that right?
Alex: I don't remember
Lizzie: I guess I was pretty little
Josh: it's a worthy game
Jacob: not to bring timelines into question again
Lizzie: Well I don't
Alex: Well we're talking about Zelda so timelines
Josh: are off limits!
Jacob: was it Smash Bros N64 or Melee?
Lizzie: Melee.
Jacob: Because we wouldn't have had the N64 in Ocarina. We had it on the GameCube.
Josh: Ocarina?
Alex: Yeah. The Master Quest disc.
Lizzie: I had that thing up until like 10 years ago.
Alex: Which had the original and then the 1 where they reverse and remix all the maps
Jacob: dispute accepted
Alex: Or I guess they mirrored and remixed them.
Jacob: What about Animal Crossing?
Josh: barf
Lizzie: Well, but I was gonna ask Because I was so young. I don't remember what games came out at what point, what I might have played first, but I do remember mom and Jacob, I guess, also teaching me how to play Animal Crossing.
Jacob: Heck yes.
Lizzie: And I know mom was OK with it because she knew that I would be playing new games because you guys did. And so she'd rather her little girl be into something that wasn't violent or anything. So she's like, yeah,
Alex: sexism....
Lizzie: Liz can play Animal Crossing. And that's a problem because I've spent too many hours on that franchise
Alex: Not All of our games that we play were violent just the best ones
Jacob: NoPretty much all of them. except for mario kart
Alex: I mean you've got to worry you're in will crossing didn't Mario Kart Not start belly I mean, you've got Animal Crossing, Mario Kart. I didn't play it. Not Star Trek Valley. The Farm of Harvest Moon. Harvest Moon. That too, I got. Yeah. Wario's Woods. No. And that was on Super Nintendo. Yeah. No 1 played that, but mom. I did. I liked it. But mom did consume that, rabidly. So can I ask if your choice in games or whatever? No, that's a weird way to ask this. Never mind. Okay. What is your favorite family of systems, Jacob? Well, are you talking about brand? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you're talking like Sony versus Microsoft versus Nintendo. PlayStation, yeah. Sony, right. Oh. Other than the Xbox, all I've ever had is Nintendo consoles. So it has to be Nintendo by default. Alex, Nintendo, yeah, sure. And I'm Xbox. And all the memories we chose are also in a line with those. I mean, I was gonna say, I loved watching you guys play Halo. And then when you guys got Fable, I'm not sure if you let me play it. I'm pretty sure I remember sneaking your room often. And playing games. But there's no way you didn't know. I didn't know. I played Fable as a kid. What? In a pro pro. And Grand Theft Auto. Oh, I forgot that we didn't have that. I didn't like it. I didn't play it. That was too far for me. I love Grand Theft Auto. I like it now. I didn't play it as a kid. I like games like it, but not it. And Morrowind? I like games like that. Morrowind? I hate it. That was my game. Coming back from my mission, I think you were like, you gotta get into this game. It was, it was the first like real open sandbox. Like running around. I loved it. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't, I don't even know if I could really read much. It's a pretty lame. Oh boy. You couldn't read for no matter about old school RPGs. So Alex, you said at my wedding, at our dinner, that you said that I beat Ocarina while you're on your mission and you were so proud. Well, I had a better memory at that point in time than I do now. So I was 8, but I remember playing Ocarina and Animal Crossing and I didn't I was I was a very slow reader like I I didn't read very well until I was like 10 or something. I, for a while in second grade, I thought maybe I was dyslexic or something. And so I was playing Ocarina. Could read like 3 words. I beat it somehow. So I was playing all that. And Animal Crossing, I could kind of read, kind of just figure out what to do. I definitely assumed you were able to read everything. A little, but yeah that's really impressive. Like Playing it again a few years later when I could read, maybe like when I was 12 or something specifically I was like, oh, I didn't know this was a thing. I just kind of was like, I want a horse. I'm gonna go where there's horses. I don't know. Ride it fast! It'd be a really great idea to just defeat this temple thing over here. Yeah. I know. I might just go do that.
[00:22:55] Stewnerds!
[00:23:04] Culinary Cornucopia Segment
Alex: So this segment is going to perhaps be called something like culinary cornucopia, because I like food and I just want to talk about food in general. I'm not gonna try to do any like this is how you cook this on a podcast because that's stupid. You gotta you want to see how it's being cooked. You know, you don't want to listen to it.
Josh: Really, I don't even want that I just want to eat it.
Alex: But I still want to talk about food. So I've apparently always enjoyed food. I'm sure that's something I mean that's something mom liked to say a lot
Josh: Yeah, can I share a memore real quick:
Alex: Sure
Josh: You're not gonna like this.
Alex: oh good
Josh: the black cherry Kool-Aid
Alex: uh-huh
Josh: dumping cinnamon into it.
Alex: cinnamon. oh yeah.
Josh: Dad got so mad. Alex just unloaded cinnamon into our massive black cherry Kool-Aid container.
Alex: It just made sense to me that It would taste good.
Josh: Stirred it up with the wooden spoon and it just sits on the top and it just all comes out in the first cup you know.
Alex: That's the problem with it.
Jacob: Wouldn't you cook-
Alex: I still stand by that though. I think that should be good. I just don't know how to get the flavor in there good.
Josh: Do you infuse the cinnamon?
Alex: I mean, I guess I'd have to get a stick and like cook it in there-
Jacob: boil it
Alex: -in there for a little while.
Jacob: Wouldn't you cook hamsteaks directly on the burners?
Alex: Wouldn't you? Is that what you said?
Jacob: Didn't you do that?
Alex: Did I?
Lizzie: Yeah.
Alex: I don't remember doing that.
Josh: I melted a lot of plastic.
Lizzie: Yeah, and I thought the house was burning down and mom wasn't home and I was scared out of my mind.
Josh: I was there!
Lizzie: Yeah, you were the one who caused it!
Alex: Yeah, the pyro who caused it!
Josh: So, yeah. Well, now we know I'm not the foodie. And Alex was at a very, very young age.
Alex: I tried to put my finger on why I've always enjoyed food and loved food. I haven't gotten there yet. So maybe in another segment, I'll finally get to say what my feelings are about why I like food so much. But when I was waiting to turn 19, before I could receive my call to serve a mission for our church, I was just inexplicably drawn to Food Network. And all of the Italian cooking shows that they had. Which at that point in time I think was really just Molto Mario. And it turns out that he's not a great person. But-
Jacob: Emeril was definitely around by then, wasn't he?
Alex: Yeah, but Emeril's... He didn't always do Italian food. He just did... He did his food. He did emerald got it But moto mario was always italian food
Josh: Wait this sorry. This was before your mission call?
Alex: Yeah
Josh: Oh, so before you even knew you were going to Italy.
Alex: Before I knew I was going to Italy.
Josh: Huh, nice.
Jacob: I see
Alex: I just wanted to watch all of this stuff and then I finally got my call to Italy and food was not the same. Food is just a completely different thing outside of the United States, I think. I can't really speak for other countries other than like, perhaps Europe, Italy specifically. But in Italy, food was so affordable, it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous.
Josh: Define food. Like, no, no, I mean like-
Jacob: groceries or prepared food.
Alex: Everything that you need to cook your own food.
Josh: Okay, so groceries.
Alex: Yes, groceries. But not just groceries, because groceries were so affordable, so were restaurants. I would go to Italy and get a pizza that was about maybe 14 inches across, and that's supposed to be eaten by 1 person because it's really thin crust and the toppings are generally more sparse, the cheese is more sparse. It's just about really delicious high quality bread, some simple tomato sauce that's not seasoned with much more than just salt, Maybe a little bit of sugar, really good high quality mozzarella. And then a few other things maybe like my favorite pizza when I was there was called the Caprichosa, which was a sort of a variation on another pizza, which was called Cuatro Staggioni. Cuatro Staggioni was the 4 seasons and the pizza was broken up into quarters. 1 quarter of it had artichokes. Another 1 had Kalamata olives. Another had mushrooms and another had ham.
Josh: Strange choice in seasons...
Alex: I've never thought about why those are the 4 seasons.
Josh: Like seasonings? Or like
Alex: No, like time of year. The 4 seasons.
Josh: I guess we can't refer to seasonings as seasons. They're just seasonings.
Alex: Right.
Josh: Language is hard.
Alex: But the capricciosa just had all 4 of those ingredients, toppings all over the pizza mixed instead of broken into little.
Jacob: Anchovies?
Alex: No anchovies. Ham? I'm sorry, I said car-chof-y because I couldn't think of what the name was in English. It's artichokes.
Jacob: You said artichokes?
Alex: Artichokes not anchovies.
Jacob: Oh, I take back my ew.
Alex: Okay.
Jacob: Okay. Let's go on.
Lizzie: I still say ew.
Alex: Ham, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, and mushrooms. Delicious. But an 8 ounce ball of mozzarella, which is normally the quantity of mozzarella that you buy, even in America, an 8 ounce ball, 50 cents in Italy. You'd spend $3.50 to $5 depending on the grocery store here in America.
Josh: At the time?
Alex: Now, you would- Yeah. Right. So this is between 2004 and 2006. I don't know what a ball of Mozzarella costs now. And I don't know what it costed... costed? What it cost? There it is. I don't know what it cost in America at that point in time either because I wasn't doing any cooking then. Not really. I was putting cinnamon in Kool-Aid... The great thing about being a missionary in our church in Italy was that, A, you had a well-established support system because there's just always missionaries there. Year round we've got missionaries in Italy, so you go to Italy and you're just put into the constantly changing group, and then eventually you become part of that support system for someone else. So we've had missionaries in Italy for since the 60s, I believe. And you cannot be a missionary in Italy without learning how to cook, because you have to feed yourself a lot of the time. And there's nothing to cook in Italy other than Italian food. You can't go get Kraft macaroni and cheese. You can go get hot dogs, but you're probably not, well, back when I was there, again, everything that I say about Italy is about when I was there in 2004. I don't remember, I do, I do remember hot dog buns. So I guess you could subsist on hot dogs if you really wanted to, but we're encouraged to learn the culture and pretty much everyone was really interested in cooking. There were some missionaries that didn't have the aptitude or interest, and so they didn't really learn and hope they kind of hoped that they had a companion that would do it. They would do the dishes while the companion did the cooking. But yeah, so I basically learned to cook for 2 years in Italy on food that was much higher quality than what you can get in America even today. Probably far better quality than what you get in America today than compared to what you got in America in 2004 because I think our food quality is just continuing to go further and further downhill. I am not an expert on this subject. I remember a history teacher talking about farming subsidies having to do something with food quality degradation in America. Well for instance I did just read today that high fructose corn syrup is the sweetener of choice in America because the government decided to subsidize the farming of corn, which made corn and corn-based ingredients cheaper for people to acquire. And since it was so sweet, high fructose corn syrup once it was created, so sweet and so cheap, That's what we use. But new research, I guess this isn't new research, I think it's a new, what do you call that, in the review. A new review of all the research that's out there posits a new position on the exact biological pathway for why high fructose corn syrup causes obesity. But the connection between high fructose corn syrup and obesity is well documented and has been for a while. That's why it's talked about in Parks and Rec. Sweetums?
Alex: Yeah, exactly.
Lizzie: Yeah.
Alex: But in Italy, they didn't they didn't do that. For 1 thing, corn isn't as nearly as abundant or as cheap, so they just use sugar. Things weren't super processed like here, like the pasta that you ate, even the dried pasta was like 2 or 3 ingredients, the flour and the water necessary to make it and then they dry it and that's it.
Josh: How can that be tasty though?
Alex: You salt the water and you put sauce on it.
Josh: It sounds so bland, ya know?
Alex: That's my favorite thing about like truly well I can't say truly good food but there's a lot of good food that's just so simple. Like the food that I want to bring up this week. I recently decided to try making some cultured butter from scratch.
Jacob: Wow.
Alex: Cultured butter is the butter that they eat in Europe.
Josh: That goes to museums.
Alex: They go to the opera, they like Mozart. No, we're talking about probiotics cultures, living organisms in your dairy. Yeah, in Europe they don't generally pasteurize their dairy. I'm not really sure why we do it here. I'm sure there was a historic reason for mass producing dairy and making it sure, really sure that it was going to be safe.
Jacob: I watched a video about this and I forgot what the reason was
Josh: It's probably distribution, storage, and shelf life, and just how gross we are. I mean eggs, you eat eggs at the grocery store and they're already 3 or 4 weeks old. And they're only good for another 2 weeks.
Alex: Right. So. That's not the only difference between our dairy and Europe's dairy. The cows in Europe tend to get more beta carotene. And I think that has to do with being more grass fed than our cows. We've started, not started, it's been quite a while now, we feed them all kinds of stuff. Even if you go to the Tillamook Cheese Factory, which we're all huge fans of, you can see on the wall a display of a bunch of clear canisters attached to the wall. There's like 20 of them, all of these different components that go into the food that they feed the cows that get milked, that get then turned into the cheese. But, go ahead.
Josh: Did you hear the story a number of years ago of the semi truck that like broke down and it's just a bunch of red Skittles fell off the back of the truck. And like the conspiracy was that these beef were being finished on red Skittles because it colorizes their meat.
Alex: Gross. What was I saying? Oh yeah, the dairy. So the milk, because they're, I think more grass fed, they get more beta carotene, because apparently there's more beta carotene in grass, which I didn't know, the milk comes out more yellow than white. And so their butter is like really yellow, whereas most of the butter here in America is really white. So there's that difference. But then also they don't pasteurize the milk. So there's usually stuff in the milk still.
Lizzie: What does that mean? Floaties?
Alex: Cultures, probiotics, things that are gonna be good for your gut. And so when they make their butter, it has a flavor that's a little bit, not a lot, but a little bit more like yogurt or sour cream. It's cultured like yogurt or sour cream. So I tried to find some raw milk here, some raw cream. And there's a farm nearby, I think it's called Maddox Family Farms. Their website didn't show dairy products because I don't know how legal it is.
Jacob: Contraband! That's what I thought.
Alex: I don't know how legal it is. There are legal reasons why they probably can't put that up there You can't get it. I know you can yeah, but Larissa knows someone who gets their raw dairy so I'm trying to get that information and I will remake this but the way you do it if you can't get your hands on non-pasteurized cream is gonna freak out a lot of Americans it kind of freaks me out but I did it and it's fine
Josh: you're only gonna freak out about 10 Americans actually
Alex: So I took a full pint of heavy whipping cream and dumped it into the mixing bowl of my stand mixer and then I took I think it was a cup of cultured buttermilk, which I could get from WinCo just fine. I dumped that in too, covered it, stuck it in the corner of our kitchen for more than 36 hours at room temperature. And it started to get really thick on top. Like really really thick. Like it was turning into yogurt because it basically was turning into yogurt. What Josh?
Josh: Oh, For the listeners who can't see me, I'm just very disturbed.
Jacob: Josh is 1 in 10 Americans being freaked out.
Josh: I'm lactose sensitive. So now I'm like lactose terrified.
Lizzie: We leave butter out to eat and just put some on your toast.
Alex: You shouldn't do that unless it's salted.
Lizzie: It's always, well, mom bought salted. So yeah. No? Maybe?
Alex: If it's the butter that's left out to be put on bread, it was probably salted. Generally, you use salted butter as a condiment and unsalted butter for cooking and baking.
Josh: Because you add your salt.
Alex: Because you want to control your sodium as precisely as possible when cooking and baking, especially when baking.
Jacob: Don't worry about it Liz, you're still alive.
Alex: Yeah, so once it was done doing that for like 36 hours, I stuck it in the fridge to get the bowl and the cream nice and cold. Oh, and the, the whisk attachment for my mixer. Put that in the fridge too, get that nice and cold. Once everything was as cold as it was going to get, take it out, put it on the mixer, set it to the lowest speed for a while because it's going to splash everywhere if I don't. And you just let it sit there and it starts to, it turns into whipped cream first. And then as you watch it, it starts to turn into what's called broken whipped cream. Like the, the like peaks that form start to get like weirdly broken and choppy.
Jacob: Yeah, I've heard about that on Great British Bake Off.
Alex: It just means you've over whipped it and you're starting to turn it into butter. You're starting to cause, Alton Brown would know the science, I don't know the science exactly, But you're doing something to the proteins that are causing them to glob together with the fat and The watery products are separating out. So you should start to see like the buttermilk is what it is. Buttermilk is the product of whipping dairy until it becomes butter And you get the solids and the liquids and the liquid is the buttermilk
Josh: Is that like syrup the buttermilk syrup? What's butter milk, I mean I've heard of it, I just don't know, What do you do with it?
Alex: Well, you can bake with it. I think the best recipes for red velvet cake use buttermilk and vinegar which sounds weird but the final product doesn't taste like vinegar it but it does interact with the for some reason buttermilk is acidic I'm not sure of all the reasons.
Jacob: Yes.
Alex: Probably lactic acid. From the lack of toast. I don't know.
Josh: But So buttermilk pancakes, you're using buttermilk as just a core ingredient for baking.
Alex: To help with the leavening. It helps with the leavening because it reacts with the baking soda or baking powder to just like you mean you make those Baking soda and vinegar volcanoes in school. It does exactly that It creates those bubbles in the batter and then as you cook it everything around the bubble just kind of solidifies and it's nice and airy and light. Which is exactly what I did with the buttermilk that I made from making this butter. I used, I had some pancake mix, I could have made it from scratch, but I didn't. I just dumped it into some pancake mix and they're really good pancakes. I have them in the freezer still. But The butter that resulted from it was Extremely soft like crazy soft the hard part is you have to take the butter out of the buttermilk and have a couple bowls of ice water ready to go. And you squeeze the butter, dunking it into the ice water to keep it from melting onto your hands and it's becoming liquid that you can't work with. You squeeze more buttermilk out of it. I'm sure- I don't know how to do this well at home. I followed the instructions of a French chef that I found on YouTube, Chef Jean-Pierre. He's really cool. Very funny guy.
Josh: He's a young guy.
Alex: No, he's not.
Josh: Oh, I saw a guy on YouTube who's French.
Alex: Well, there's a lot of those, I'm sure.
Jacob: The chocolatier.
Josh: No, he's cool though.
Alex: I'm sure professional butter makers have a better way of getting more water content out of the butter than just trying to squish it with your hands. But you're like going between you start in the 1 bowl of ice water and you're like squeezing and get out get out buttermilk squeeze squeeze squeeze. And then when that water is all white and no longer transparent, you go to the other 1 and you just keep doing that. And at that point, if you're serious about butter making, you have wooden paddles that shape the butter. I mean, there are a lot of people in the world that do this because it tastes so good, guys. Like, you don't even know.
Josh: I'm just picturing someone who's like really serious about butter making.
Alex: Like a professional?
Lizzie: No, like a crazy person.
Alex: There are French people that get very serious about butter making, like they get crazy about it. But you have these wooden paddles that allow you to manipulate the butter and shape it so you're not touching it with your hands and making it softer again. You shape it, roll it up in wax paper or whatever you're going to do, stick it in the fridge. If you want to salt it also, you know, salt it while you're right before you shape it, mix the salt in. That's what I did. So I'm not sure exactly how safe it is to leave cultured butter out when it's salted. But the best research I could find was that if it's salted, you're going to be okay. Just don't leave it too long. Eat it. So I do. It's amazing. On some really good bread with some honey.
Lizzie: Homemade bread.
Alex: I haven't gone that far yet. To wrap things up real quick on a completely different note, now that Liz brings up the bread. We don't buy sliced bread anymore. I buy loaves of French bread baked at the bakery of the grocery store every few days when we need bread. We use 1 of those plastic containers from the WinCo muffins. So after I've cut a chunk out of the middle of the bread, I put the 2 ends together and it will fit diagonally in the muffin container. And then I just keep slicing off slices from the center, continuing to push the 2 halves together to keep it from drying out in the middle. And the crust isn't crispy anymore. It does get soft, but when you toast it, it does get crispy. It's just way better. It's a way better bread experience than getting pretty sliced bread in America, because our bread is terrible. Our bread is cake. It's stupid. The end.
Jacob: I think you need to make German pancakes with your homemade butter.
Alex: Well, I oversalted this butter so.
Jacob: Next time.
Alex: Actually, that would actually be pretty good. I think, I generally think that a little extra salt would go well in the jam pancakes I've had. So I've got a lot of it. I should do that.
Josh: I wonder if raw milk will work in my tummy.
Alex: Yeah, I don't know.
Jacob: With the probiotics?
Josh: Yeah. Oh yeah, I've taken a lot of different pre-pro-post-biotics.
Jacob: Postbiotics. What?
Josh: ...making post-biotic techy noises...
Jacob: What's the prebiotic?
Josh: Oh, that's the amoeba.
Alex: So 1 last thing. I'm going to start soon 1 more dairy adventure. I'm going to try making my own homemade mascarpone next, which is an Italian cream cheese.
Jacob: Yeah, I've never actually had it.
Alex: Very simple, very easy to make, but I'm not going to do it in the traditional way with an acid. Normally you heat up the milk, or sorry, cream, and you add an acid once it gets to 85 degrees, no warmer than 85. You dump in an acid, you take it off the heat, and the acid curdles the milk, turns it into solids. And you can separate that from the whey, which is different than buttermilk for some reason, science reason. And then you've got your creamy mascarpone. But what I read, okay, when I was in Italy, mascarpone was a yellow cream cheese, Not bright yellow, not a really concentrated yellow, but a yellow color, I guess. It looked like a custard, like a custard yellow. And I was reading about making mascarpone and I found 1 person who was using rennet to make their mascarpone, which is a traditional ingredient for making cheese. It's an enzyme that does the curdling instead of a reaction with the acid. The enzyme breaks up the sugars in the milk and turns it into lactic acid. And the lactic acid then does all of that same stuff. He says that Rennet mascarpone ends up with a mascarpone that's more like a dairy custard, which sounds a lot more like to me like the Mascarpone I had in Italy that I can't find here anywhere so I'm gonna try that next. To be continued.
[00:47:39] Another Brother Outro