Music – Santa's Workshop
Rachel Stewart: Welcome to our Christmas special of Don't Drink the Milk! And welcome to all our lovely producers – Charli, Chris, and Sam. We're not usually all in the same place, so this is pretty cool!
Chris Caurla: Hello.
Sam Baker: It’s true. Merry Christmas.
Rachel: Nice to see you guys. So, we launched our podcast back in October, and anyone who's been listening to the first few episodes probably knows the drill by now. We find the stories behind normal stuff you know in your everyday life. We follow the story, it starts off somewhere in Europe, and then it goes global, it goes worldwide. And, luckily for us, a really good example of something like that is... Christmas!
All: Woo!
Rachel: So, let's kick things off with a bit of a festive quiz to get us in the mood. I think if you know the answer, just shout it basically. We'll decide who wins at the end.
Sam: Are there prizes?
Rachel: You win a festive looking Mozart chocolate with marzipan in the middle.
Chris: Amazing.
Rachel: Any takers?
Chris: Marzipan? No.
Rachel: So, ready? It's thought that early celebrations of Christmas can be traced back to where in Europe?
Chris & Sam: Germany!
Rachel: Wrong. Wrong.
Charli Shield: England?
Rachel: No.
Sam: Wait, Europe, Europe... Italy?
Rachel: Yes, so Rome.
Sam: Right.
Rachel: Exactly. I'm giving it to Sam. So, we're talking like sometime around the 4th century. But a lot of the elements of the festivities that we know today, they actually came from pagan traditions. These were traditionally celebrating the end of harvest and what else?
Sam: The solstice.
Rachel: Which kind of solstice?
Sam: Winter.
Rachel: She is on fire, guys! Okay, two points to Sam, zero to Charli, zero to Chris. According to worldpopulationreview.com, how many countries today officially celebrate Christmas around the world?
Chris: How many countries are there?
Rachel: I knew you were going to ask that, and I forgot to look it up.
Charli: 57.
Chris: So, I'll say 93.
Sam: 71.
Rachel: Guys, you're all really far off. Apparently, it's 161.
Chris: Woo! I win, I win! You're so bad that I win.
Rachel: But just like with a lot of things in our podcast, as celebrations of Christmas started spreading around the world, they changed a little bit, right? So everywhere that these things landed, they kind of developed new traditions and stuff that fit in with the local culture. So, the next part of the quiz is: Match the quirky Christmas tradition to the country. Shout out the country that you think this tradition comes from. Christmas piñatas in the form of a seven-point star symbolizing –
Sam: Mexico!
Rachel: I should say wait till the question is finished before you go, but we'll give it to her. These are specific ones that are in the form of a seven-point star symbolizing the seven deadly sins.
Chris: That's so dark.
Rachel: Well done, Sam. Okay, next one.
Chris: We have to beat Sam, man. What is it? Three already? Four?
Charli: I don’t think that should’ve counted.
Christmas music – Dance of the Mirlitons
Rachel: She's like far ahead of you guys. Hiding brooms and mops so that evil spirits and witches who awaken at Christmas can't steal them to fly through the night sky.
Sam: Hogwarts.
Rachel: Sadly no.
Charli: Brooms and mops? The Netherlands.
Rachel: The Netherlands? No.
Chris: Could it be Spain?
Rachel: No. The answer is Norway. I think they're just lazy. They don't want to clean.
Sam: So, wait, they lock their brooms…?
Rachel: They hide their brooms in their mops...
Sam: For Christmas?
Rachel: Just because that's when the witches and evil spirits come out. And obviously they need a broom to fly.
Sam: Obviously.
Rachel: Okay, next one. Eating fried chicken from a very well-known fast-food chain.
Charli: Japan.
Chris: KFC.
Rachel: So, this is like quite a modern tradition, but seems to be something that's caught on. Okay, so the Christmas pickle, which is a decoration in the shape of a pickle that you hide on the Christmas tree.
Charli: Germany.
Sam: United States.
Chris: Can you repeat? A pickle?
Rachel: A Christmas pickle, it’s literally an ornament that looks like a pickle.
Charli: It’s Germany!
Chris: Pickles… Who eats pickles? Germans eat a lot of pickles.
Rachel: You guys are collectively sort of right. It's kind of debated, right? So, the legend says that it started somewhere in Germany, but if you ask most Germans, they've actually never heard of it. And at some point, someone in America said that they'd heard about this legend from Germany or that they'd been given one of these pickles. So, a lot of Americans might have heard of it. And I actually have one of these pickles.
Sam: Do you use it? Do you hide it?
Rachel: No, I haven’t actually ever done that. The idea is if you hide it, the first person who gets up on Christmas morning and finds the pickle in the tree gets an extra present. So, you've heard of it before, right?
Sam: Yeah, my family doesn't do it, but I had new friends growing up whose families did it. And I mean, usually the kids go for it in the morning, right? They're searching all around the tree trying find it. And it’s like shiny green, which blends in with the tree, which makes it a little trickier.
Rachel: And apparently one company in Germany saw this opportunity to make all these pickles, even though no one had ever heard of the tradition. But now they make money selling the pickles to people like me and Charli.
Chris: Another marketing tradition.
Rachel: So, half a point each I'd say. So next one, #5 – nativity scenes decorated with orchids and other tropical flowers.
Sam: Obviously it’s somewhere tropical…
Charli: Thailand.
Rachel: I like that guess, but it’s very far away, geographically.
Chris: It’s not Florida?
Sam: Maybe it’s like Caribbean, like Dominican Republic or something.
Rachel: Costa Rica. Yeah, cute right? Next up, roller skating to the Christmas church service.
Sam: Like South Africa? It's gotta be somewhere warm, right?
Chris: Is it an American country?
Charli: Is it Brazil?
Rachel: No, but that’s much closer.
Chris: Venezuela.
Rachel: Yes! Although, caveat is that apparently this only happens in the capital, Caracas. Excellent, ok very good. Next up, we have a slightly less appealing sounding one – potato salad as your Christmas Eve meal.
Chris: It sounds so German.
Sam: It does sound German.
Chris: Is it not German?
Rachel: Ding, ding, ding, ding!
Chris: Oh, really? It's so German. It’s very kartofflig.
Rachel: People get a bit annoyed when you say this, because some of them are like really defensive and say, we do not do that, but it is a tradition among a lot of families. The idea being that you have a bit of a more simple meal on the Christmas Eve because the next day you're gonna eat, like, really rich stuff. Although a potato salad can be quite heavy.
Sam: I was gonna say that light meal of a potato salad.
Charli: They’re like ‘it's got salad in the name.’
Rachel: Okay, where will you find a devil-like figure called the Old Man Beggar who roams the streets on Christmas Day begging for gifts? Sometimes he has a sort of duel with someone dressed like a version of Santa.
Chris: This sounds British. It just sounds like Christmas carol, you know?
Charli: It sounds like a weird European, Austrian, or Dutch?
Rachel: That would be a good vibe, but no, far away, far away. The answer is Liberia. Okay, there's one last one. Exploding cardboard tubes.
Charli: Britain.
Sam: The UK.
Rachel: Very good. Technically this one has been exported. So, you actually have them in Australia too, right? And I think a few places around the world have them. Christmas crackers, which is one of my favorite traditions.
Chris: Ah, interesting.
Rachel: Have you ever seen them?
Chris: No, I don't think so.
Charli: You've never seen a Christmas cracker? You haven't lived!
Rachel: Let's reenact it. Do you actually, do you have to cross over? Isn't that how you do it? Yeah, you sit round the table. You cross your arms. And then you'd hold the cracker like this. You've got the handle of each cracker. And then you go one, two, three, pull. So, then you pop, and it makes a bang, and then one person ends up with the actual bit of the tube and they've won. And inside you get a really cool colorful paper hat, a very funny Christmas joke, and usually a very high-quality trinket… that might break.
Charli: You’re trying too hard to sell it, I think.
Sam: I have to say, I think I'd go with the piñata over the Christmas crackers. At least there’s candy inside.
Rachel: Okay, next year I'm going to bring Christmas crackers, okay? I promise.
Sam: I’ll bring the piñata.
Rachel: So that was like my tradition from my country that I'm very proud of. But you guys have all brought something with you too, right?
Sam: My tradition – some people love it, and some hate it. So, I brought eggnog.
Rachel: Milk!
Chris: Don't drink it! Don't drink it!
Rachel: Eggnog?
Sam: Eggnog.
Rachel: I think I love eggnog.
Sam: Great, well, we're gonna find out.
Chris: Nug nug nug? What is it called?
Charli: Eggnog!
Rachel: Is this freshly made?
Sam: Yes.
Rachel: Homemade. Homemade eggnog.
Charli: Nug nug he's calling it.
Chris: It’s eggy.
All: Cheers!
Sam: Okay, so this is homemade eggnog. It's delicious. Instead of the store-bought stuff. So, this is a family recipe. I'll let you drink it before I tell you all the ingredients in it, but it has…
Rachel: That sounds like you're going to tell us something we don't want to drink.
Chris: Now I'm suspicious.
Rachel: What’s this secret family recipe?
Sam: There is egg in it, as the name would suggest. But the -nog was a little unclear, so this possibly is from a Scottish/Irish Gaelic term, noggin.
Rachel: Your head's your noggin.
Sam: That's what I thought too. It's apparently like an old term for a little cup, kind of like this actually. So, you would have like a small amount of alcohol or beverage in a little cup, and it would be a noggin.
Chris: Like a shot?
Sam: Yeah, like a little, lil’ noggin.
Rachel: So, would you drink this every Christmas, normally at home?
Music – Oh Christmas Tree (different versions)
Sam: Yeah, my grandfather would make this for a party usually on Christmas Eve for like a big group of people. And I didn't really know any of the history behind it, but it started in the UK, and started maybe not surprisingly with wealthier people and monks – always drinking. But it started as this drink called posset, I think it's pronounced.
Rachel: Isn't that the word that also means baby sick?
Sam: Oh, that would make sense, because let me read this to you: Posset is a drink made of hot milk curdled with ale, wine, or the like, often sweetened, and spiced.
Rachel: Curdled? Just put me off.
Sam: Anything with curdled. This is not curdled, because I poured the alcohol in very slowly.
Chris: What's the alcohol percentage?
Sam: High.
Chris: It doesn't taste high.
Charli: Brandy?
Sam: There's brandy, yep. You can do it with whiskey or brandy, and then there's a little bit of spiced rum. And so, where that comes from is this drink made its way across the seas to the U.S. eventually. The first use of the term eggnog is in 1775, right before the U.S. became a country. And they had rum at their disposal from the Caribbean, and whiskey that they were making on their own. So those were the cheaper things to put in this drink as opposed to like, sherry and ale, like they were doing in the U.K.
Charli: It's really delicious. I actually don't think I've ever had eggnog because the name put me off. What is the egg element?
Rachel: The egg.
Sam: So, the recipe I was using today had six eggs in it. Yeah, so you separate the whites and the yolks, and you beat them, and you add sugar and then you bring them back together and then you add a lot of cream and milk. And then alcohol and spices. Lots of cloves and nutmeg.
Rachel: Yum!
Sam: So, I learned in the 19th century, doctors would use this as a way to get patients to take medicine. They'd like mix it in and feed it to them and it was also supposed to be good because it had protein for patients who were on liquid diets.
Chris: Wow.
Rachel: Did they know that they could do that without the alcohol? The protein’s not in the alcohol.
Chris: Who drink proteins without alcohol, Rachel. What kind of question is that?
Rachel: There’s all these kids go around like, ‘Whoo! My doctor just gave me a noggin of posset.’
Sam: And this has also made its way around the world, which is why it fit our theme so well. There's a version in Mexico called rompope. It has vanilla in it. Puerto Rico has coquito with coconut milk and rum, which sounds excellent. The Peruvians put pisco in theirs. And in Germany, I guess we would say this is similar. They have Eierlikör, which is egg liqueur, but it's like a little bit more kind of custard-y.
Rachel: Yeah, it's really thick.
Sam: Yeah, it's pretty thick.
Charli: I'll have a top up.
Rachel: Oh, she's ready for more! Do you know, I quite like it, because I feel like it makes it look like you're just innocent drinking milk.
Sam: Or are you a villain?
Rachel: Please go back and listen to episode two of Don't Drink the Milk to find out more.
Chris: So, who's next?
Rachel: Oh, Chris! Are you ready?
Charli, Rachel & Sam: AHHHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHH!
Chris: So, this is what happens in Italy before Christmas. In the part of Italy where I am from, not far from Venice. So, every now and then when kids are playing, one of the parents or the big brothers take a bunch of candies, if they've been good kids, and they just throw it in the air. And then the kids just see candies falling out of the sky, and all the kids go crazy and try to grab it, and they're super happy, and, yeah, that's the tradition.
Sam: So small children think it's raining candy around the holidays?
Music – Winter Waltz
Chris: This is a saint throwing the candies. Only if you've been a good kid, and it's not Santa Claus. It's Saint Lucy. Where I'm from, now it's changing a little bit, but when I was a kid, Santa Claus wasn't so important. We were celebrating St. Lucy. Basically, there's this saint that, she's blind, she was blinded, uh, by the Romans. But she can always see whatever you do. She's always watching you, even though she's blind. All the time. And if you are a good kid, she'll throw the candies and bring you presents. If you're a bad kid, or a naughty one, she'll bring you coal. And if you're a very naughty kid, she'll throw coal in your eyes and blind you too!
Rachel: I feel like your parents just added that at some point. Because you weren't behaving still and you're like, next level.
Chris: I did get coal one year.
Charli: Did you? What did you do?
Chris: I don't know! Something naughty, must have been.
Rachel: Well, thank you for bringing us sweeties and not coal.
Chris: And this is celebrated not just in Northern Italy, but also in some Scandinavian countries.
Sam: In Sweden, yeah!
Chris: I mean, I just know that this was a saint from Sicily, and, I mean, the story's pretty brutal. I don't know if you want to go into it.
Rachel: I mean, if you've got more gore, we'll take it.
Chris: She wanted to do good. She was pretty rich, and she was giving all her stuff away, all her jewelry, all her money.
Charli: This is Saint Lucy?
Chris: Yes. And she wanted to be a virgin, only married to God and all that stuff. But her mom promised her to one of the local royals or something, and when the guy found out that she was giving away all her money, he got really angry, and she was killed. First blinded, then killed.
Rachel: Oh, so the Saint Lucy who then visits people is like a ghost?
Chris: Yes, and she goes around on a flying donkey.
Sam: Okay, you should have led with that.
Chris: And you leave outside of your door a little something for the donkey. Because every door she stops.
Rachel: Is that like the Italian version of a reindeer?
Chris: I guess, yeah. We have no reindeers; we've got some donkeys.
Charli: So, every year, a blind chick comes around on her donkey and either chucks candy in your face or coal.
Chris: Yes, exactly.
Charli: At that point you know if you've been–
Rachel: …if you weren’t sure how you’d behaved.
Chris: Yeah. But the thing is that the candies are more like something that goes at least throughout December. It's fair to receive candies any time. So, if you've been a good kid, maybe in the evening, maybe if you're lucky, you see candy raining.
Rachel: Does the coal rain on you?
Chris: No, the coal you just wake up on the 13th of December and instead of the presents that you ask for, you get the coal.
Charli: I can't believe you got that one year.
Rachel: I can believe it.
Rachel: Okay, Charli, please brighten our day.
Charli: Okay, I have something… This is my tradition.
Chris: Look at that, wow!
Rachel: And to be honest I'm getting summer, tropical vibes… It's passion fruit, eh?
Chris: Passion fruit?
Charli: Yeah. So, this is a pavlova, or a pav if you're a local.
Rachel: Oh, of course, you guys are always shortening everything.
Charli: I knew you would like that. And it's a dessert that we have at Christmas time. We, in Australia, and in New Zealand.
Rachel: Oh, do you fight over who's, who had the pav, who made the pav?
Charli: We do.
Rachel: I mean, I'm just going to throw my hat into the mix and say, I think pavlovas are British.
Charli: What? Rachel!
Rachel: But we don't call them pavs, so.
Chris: Right, so what is the pave?
Charli: So, it's meringue with cream and fruit on top. Usually tropical fruits. So, we usually have mango, passion fruit, and kiwi.
Sam: It looks delicious.
Rachel: I think underselling it as well, this is like an amazing display of– a tower of meringue and cream and tropical fruits.
Chris: We got coal and you guys get a big, nice cake with passion fruit and stuff.
Rachel: It looks really beautiful.
Sam: I mean, they do have the better Christmas weather, I feel.
Rachel: Imagine having Christmas in summer. That's so cool.
Chris: Definitely.
Charli: Yeah, so, there's a bit of a disagreement as to where it originated. Was it Australia? Was it New Zealand?
Rachel: [coughs] Was it the UK?
Music – Grand Ballet Overture
Charli: No, it wasn't. The Pavlova is named after a Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, who toured Australia and New Zealand in 1926. And actually, quite a few dishes were named after her around the world, including frog's legs pavlova in France.
Chris: She's a ballerina, not a chef?
Charli: She's a ballerina, but she was just inspiring everyone left, right and center.
Rachel: Do her legs look like frog's legs?
Charli: Well, I haven't seen them, so I can't say.
Rachel: And like, is this meant to represent…
Sam: Her tutu?
Charli: Yes! So, the Kiwis say that this well-known chef at the Wellington Hotel where she stayed, he said he was inspired by her tutu, so he called it Pavlova. But then the Australian stories say that it was created by a chef in Western Australia, in Perth, inspired by the likeness of her ballerina skills, her dancing.
Chris: And which one do you think is the real one?
Charli: Well, I think we know, Chris. Well, the origins go back further still, it seems.
Rachel: Here comes the UK.
Charli: So, this disagreement continues. The most recent research I could find, there were two researchers who looked into it – one was Australian, one was New Zealander. They worked as a team together. They wrote a book about it. And they found that it probably didn't originate in Australia or New Zealand. And its roots actually go back to… Germany, and the United States.
Rachel: No. Oh, it's like with the pickle!
Charli: Yeah, well, I think that German settlers in the United States brought over the meringue and the cream and the fruit thing, and then some sort of particular contraption was invented.
Sam: Like a beater?
Charli: It was the hand-cranked eggbeater.
Rachel: Oh, like one that you would ratchet around?
Charli: Yep, that was invented in the late 1800s and led to this beautiful meringue. Also, I forgot to mention that Anna Pavlova was known for her enchanting loveliness, which is ultimately the inspiration for the Pavlova.
Rachel: It is lovely.
Chris: Beautiful.
Charli: Enchanting?
Chris: Is it also tasty?
Rachel: Absolutely.
Charli: These two researchers, they hypothesized that the recipe for pavlova actually traveled to Australia and New Zealand on the back of a cornstarch box from the States. Because there's cornstarch in the meringue to make it a bit more marshmallow-y, and it's not something that they used to use in meringues of yester- yesteryear. It's supposed to have a bit of a chewy, sticky center.
Rachel: Yes, definitely.
Chris: Sounds delicious.
Rachel: You never had one?
Chris: No, never.
Rachel: So good. Cool, should we taste some now?
Charli: We should taste some.
Rachel: Mmm. Mmm. Sugar.
Chris: Yummy.
Rachel: I love pavlova, I love pav.
Chris: It's delicious, thank you Charli.
Charli: You're so welcome.
Rachel: So, I've brought one more thing with me. Do you remember for the first episode of the podcast I went to Liverpool, and I found out all about flirty, saucy, Victorian parlor games? Yeah, well when I was there, I was speaking to Dr. Bob Nicholson. And he told me about this one particular game, which was very popular at Christmastime! So, I figured it's time to hear all about it–
Music – Homecoming
Bob Nicholson: Snapdragon is one of my favorite parlor games from the 19th century, although it actually dates back to the Middle Ages. And it would usually be played around Christmastime. You'd get a kind of large, shallow dish or bowl. And you would fill it with a spirit, let's say brandy. And in that you would also put a lot of raisins. Then, you'd light the brandy on fire. So, at this point, you imagine these kind of blue flames erupting from the dish. The game, and this is a game played by children, was to gather around that dish while chanting snapdragon, snapdragon, snapdragon, snapdragon and then to reach your hand into it and to pluck the flaming raisins out of it and eat them. I did find one newspaper report of somebody burning down, I think, their house doing it. But supposedly Victorians would say like it was a way to kind of test your character. Somebody was timid at the snapdragon as being, you know, indicative that they were, you know, ‘lacking in sort of manly vigor’ and things like this. I've seen somebody play on YouTube and they survived. So, I would not officially recommend it, but I guess if you get a properly fireproof room and an extinguisher on hand, maybe give it a go.
Charli: Let's do it!
Chris: This is a game for kids.
Rachel: Yeah, ready for it?
Sam: Victorian kids.
Chris: Victorian kids – way rougher than us.
Rachel: Okay guys, get ready.
Sam: There it goes, there it goes!
Chris: It's working, it's working.
Charli: Go, go, go, go, go.
All: Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon! Snapdragon!
Rachel: Who dares? Who dares?! Oh my god, I'm really scared!
Chris: Go, go!
Music – Winter Playground
Rachel: Disclaimer: We don't encourage playing with fire at Christmas or any other time of the year. Thank you so much for joining our Christmas party and if anyone wants to give us the best Christmas gift ever, you could leave us a five-star review.
Sam: Or tell a friend about us.
Rachel: Yes, that's even better.
Charli: Or send us real gifts.
Rachel: We'll take anything.
Chris: Not coal!
Rachel: And if you've got any suggestions for topics, you want us to cover and follow next year, then just drop us an email, [email protected]. No apostrophe. And for anyone who's celebrating, Merry Christmas! And we'll see you in the New Year.
Music plays
Charli: Ooooooh!
Chris: Aaaaaaah!
Rachel: Maybe don't go in from the top.
Charli: Got one! Ah, you're eating it! My goodness!
Chris: It tastes like a burnt cashew.
Charli: Golly. This is terrifying.
Rachel: I haven't like successfully got any out yet.
Chris: They have these for kids?
Rachel: No, don't you touch the apricot. He's going to throw it, like his Italian sweet trick.
Chris: It's tasty.
Rachel: Oh, it's really burnt. It tastes like charcoal. That was pretty horrible...
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