Episode 552
with Cecily Wong and Andrew Bird
Writer Cecily Wong chats about her book Gastro Obscura, which features fascinating food stories from across the globe, including psychedelic honey that was once used as a weapon in old world Turkey; and Grammy Award-nominee Andrew Bird explains how he balances painful shyness with being a public figure, before performing "Make a Picture" from his latest album Inside Problems. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello dish out some yums and yucks from our listeners.
Cecily Wong
Writer
Cecily Wong is the author of three books. Her debut novel, Diamond Head (Harper, HarperCollins), was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, recipient of an Elle Readers' Prize, and voted a best debut of the 2015 Brooklyn Book Festival. Like her first novel, her second novel, Kaleidoscope (Dutton, Penguin Random House), was well-received by the critics describing it as “gorgeously written, deeply moving”. In 2021, Cecily co-authored the New York Times bestseller Gastro Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to Food (Workman Publishing). Her work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The LA Review of Books, Bustle, and elsewhere. She has spoken at book festivals across the country and was a keynote speaker at the Hawaii Book and Music Festival. A graduate of Barnard College, Cecily spent 13 years living in New York and now lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and daughter. Website • Twitter
Andrew Bird
Singer-songwriter
Andrew Bird is a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter who has been steadily releasing critically-acclaimed albums since 1996. His genre-spanning music is known for its wistful melodies, hyper-literate lyrics, and virtuosic violin-playing and whistling. His 2019 release, My Finest Work Yet, earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. In the 90s, Bird sang and played violin in several jazz ensembles, including swing revival band Squirrel Nut Zippers, where he met frontman and guitarist Jimbo Mathus. The old friends recently reunited to collaborate on their new album These 13, which came out in March 2021. Website • Instagram
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Luke Burbank: Hey there, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going all right. Although, this week, I am really overcoming some obstacles, namely my cat, unplugging the various audio equipment in this room that I'm in right now. So if I can just keep Bubbles at bay, you and I can actually have an episode of Live Wire. What do you think?
Elena Passarello: Maybe she's training for a job in tech support.
Luke Burbank: And she needs a lot of training because right now she's whatever the opposite of support is. Are you ready to play a little "Station Location Identification Examination"?
Elena Passarello: Oh, yeah.
Luke Burbank: All right. This is where I talk about a place in the country where Live Wire is on the radio. Elena's gotta guess the location that I am describing. Now, here's the thing. I was personally unfamiliar with this particular city, but I want to go there based on all of these hints. So I want you to know, Elena, that if you, you know, if you find yourself grasping here, it's because this is a very this is a somewhat out of the way place, but it's got some interesting details. The television series Roseanne was set in the fictional town of Lanford, but it was actually modeled after this place.
Elena Passarello: So it's somewhere in Illinois.
Luke Burbank: Okay. Wow. Yes. You're already narrowing it down. You've got the correct state. How about this? Max Adler, who was once the vice president of Sears and Roebuck and the benefactor to the Adler Planetarium, was born and raised in this place.
Elena Passarello: I'm just going to start naming towns in Illinois that I know. So Skokie, Illinois.
Luke Burbank: Not Skokie. This city was once called the butter capital of the world.
Elena Passarello: Oh, what about Abe Lincoln's old stomps: Springfield, Illinois?
Luke Burbank: Not Springfield, not Skokie. It starts with an E.
Elena Passarello: Elena, Illinois.
Luke Burbank: Elgin, Illinois, where we're on WEPS FM (Woo!) Other things to know about Elgin. Part of the comedy Dennis the Menace was set there, and also parts of the film Contagion and Nightmare on Elm Street were filmed in Elgin, Illinois.
Elena Passarello: Imagine if all those three films were combined together with Roseanne.
Luke Burbank: That would be something to see. All right. Should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it!
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX- It's LIVE WIRE! This week, writer Cecily Wong.
Cecily Wong: We as Americans are doing some of the most bizarre stuff with food, like, you know, if you apply a lens from another country. I mean, the amount of cheese that we eat is really grotesque. Like people, people find that very, very strange.
Elena Passarello: With Music by Andrew Bird.
Andrew Bird: I'm interested in things that might tell us what we're made of. I think they just make nice metaphors for what it is to be human.
Elena Passarello: And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello. And now the host of Live Wire: Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone tuning in all over the country, including Elgin, Illinois, where we're on WEPS FM. We've got a great show in store for you all this week. Of course, we asked Live Wire listeners a question. We asked, Well, what's a yum for you, that's a yuck for most other people? Like, what's something you really like that makes you feel like you're not in the majority of folks when it comes to that thing. We're going to hear those responses coming up in just a few minutes. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week. (Best, Best News) This is our a little reminder at the top of the show. There's some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what's the best news you heard all week.
Elena Passarello: Okay. I learned about a new person and a new occupation this week. The person's name is Chelsea Brown. She's a genealogist, which I've heard of before, but she's also an heirloom investigator.
Luke Burbank: What does that mean?
Elena Passarello: I don't know. I mean, that seems sinister. This is a very heartwarming story. So she uses artifacts to trace family histories, the histories of towns, I'm assuming she just finds the stories inside these antiques and left behind things. And she's gotten so good at it that she actually appeared in a segment on the Kelly Clarkson show.
Luke Burbank: Okay. That's the big time when you get on Kelly Clarkson, you know that you know that you're at the top of your game.
Elena Passarello: National treasure, Kelly Clarkson, friend of all genealogists, I think, as she's known. Anyway, so a woman named Dottie Cairney was watching this episode of Kelly Clarkson, and it immediately made her think of this pile of letters that she's been holding on to for 30 years when she was renovating her house in Staten Island in the 1990s, they opened up a wall and this bound together thing of letters between a soldier and his wife in World War II popped out. But Dottie, back then, of course, there was not really any Internet to speak of, and she's not particularly computer savvy, so she had no way of figuring out who these people were and how to get the letters back to them. So she immediately called Chelsea Brown, heirloom investigator to the stars. And Chelsea was so excited to help, but she was pretty sure that at this point the letter writers would be deceased because these letters were from the early forties. So she focused on finding the families. So at least those letters could get back to the families. And she used my heritage dot com to track down the descendants of Claude and Marie Smyth's, and she found their grandson's Facebook page. The grandson thought this was a scam, so it took a little bit of time to sort of like, you know, validate this work.
Luke Burbank: I have information about your ancestors. I just need you to send me your date of birth and the credit card number.
Elena Passarello: Exactly. But eventually, Chelsea Brown was vetted, and then Tom managed to put her in touch with his mother, Carol Bohlin, who is 76 and living in Vermont. But that house in Staten Island was her girlhood home. And Chelsea Brown sent the letters to Carol Bohlin, and Carol Bohlin says, I recognized my dad's handwriting right away. It's been so long since I saw it and so long since I heard his voice and the letters. They have a couple of quotes of the letters in this article. And they're just so darling. The letters that the soldier wrote, his wife back in the 1940s, they include quotes like, I do hope you will be feeling better soon. So long, honey. Glad to hear you attended the church suppers. You are lucky to have won that pie. Love and kisses and a big huge hug. Your hubby, Claude.
Luke Burbank: Maybe I've just watched too much Ken Burns, but I just have this feeling like when we were writing letters a long time ago, they were just. They were just so different than the way that we, like, text each other now, you know?
Elena Passarello: Oh, yeah, there are no emojis at all in these 80 year old letters between Claude and Marie, FYI, which maybe might be kind of good.
Luke Burbank: I can't even convey myself in, like, traditional words anymore. I need the emoji that's kind of like. Like rolling its eyes. That's now more how I express myself than with the written word, which is pretty sad for everyone. But it's a great story that this family was able to be reunited with these great love letters between their, their ancestors. I've actually got a story this week that I saw that involves a couple of people that are also maybe on the sort of a bit older side of life. They are Sandy Hayslip and Ellie Hamby, who are both 81 years old and inspired by the Jules Verne novel Around the World in 80 days, decided that they would travel around the world in 80 days when they turned 80. Problem was, there was a pandemic that you might have heard about, which got in the way of their plans. And so they are now getting to go out on their trip around the world. They're on a mission to see all seven continents, nine wonders of the world, and visit 18 countries in 80 days. They've already set foot in Antarctica.
Elena Passarello: Wow.
Luke Burbank: At 81 is pretty good. They've flown over Mt. Everest and they are just having a grand time. They were talking to CBS television about it. And one of the things I thought was kind of interesting was, you know, as you get older in life, it can be more and more challenging to deal with like economy travel. Like, I'm 46 and I, you know, shudder to think about flying in the middle seat at the back of the plane. And here's the thing. Despite being 81 years old, they are not flying, you know, like. Premium class or like extra leg room or whatever. They're doing this economy style Elena, so, Sandy Hayslip, she said that other women in particular have seen their traveling exploits and wanted to travel with them. And she said, We don't travel first class. So when we have other ladies, especially, you say, I'd love to travel with you too. The first thing I always do is I look at their hands. If they are well-manicured, they do not want to travel with us. I love, they're keeping it real. This reminds me of how my mom travels. My mom will fly from Seattle to Philadelphia by way of Bangladesh if it is a cheaper, cheaper ticket. I love this for for Sandy and Ellie. The other thing, too, is, you know, if your let's say, mom or grandmom was out traveling the world in 80 days and they're 81 years old, you might be a little worried. Yeah. Not Ellie Hambly's kids. She says my daughter is not too concerned. She just says, well, if mom falls out of a hot air balloon in Egypt or off a mountain, that's fine. She's living the life she wanted to live.
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: That's an amazing approach to life. And I love that the whole family is in on this. I mean, what a way to go. If if you got to go at 81, falling out of a hot air balloon in Egypt, I mean, that's memorable. You got to say that at least.
Elena Passarello: Nothing if not memorable, yes.
Luke Burbank: Right. So the big adventure that Sandy Hayslip and Ellie Hamby are currently on, that's the best news that I heard this week. All right. Speaking of adventurous out of the way things, let's get our first guest on the show. She searched the planet in pursuit of the most incredible ingredients food, adventures and edible wonders from all seven continents. And yes, Elena, in case you were wondering. That does include Antarctica, where she can tell you where the best barbecue prawns are available. The result of all of this research is the beautiful New York Times best seller "Gastro Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to Food." It's truly a feast for the eyes and the mind. Take a listen to this. It's our conversation with Cecily Wong, recorded at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland. Hi, Cecily.
Cecily Wong: Hello, hello!
Luke Burbank: Welcome to the show.
Cecily Wong: Thank you for having me.
Luke Burbank: You were born in Hawaii, but you grew up in Oregon?
Cecily Wong: Yeah, I was born in Hawaii. Moved to Eugene, Oregon when I was seven.
Luke Burbank: How adventurous were you as an eater, as a kid in Eugene, Oregon?
Cecily Wong: You know, I think that adventurous eating has really come a long way since I was a kid growing up in Eugene, Oregon, as a kid from Hawaii, I ate a lot of foods that other people didn't eat and didn't recognize. And so for me, it was completely normal. And for other people, it was kind of more bizarre. So I don't know. I think I think I got like my sea legs for it and strange things as I traveled as I moved to New York, and got exposed to a lot more things. But now, I mean, I'll eat anything, which is part of. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I'm wondering this this book is an outgrowth of the Gastro Obscura website, which is really fascinating. But I'm wondering how you keep both that website and this book from just becoming "get a load of what people eat." (Hmm.)
Cecily Wong: For sure. Yeah. I mean, that was one of our our main goals in writing this book, launching this website, is that there was no yuck factor. Right. And we're using all you know, all yums are like, "oohs," you know, like, what is that? So, you know, you think you think like weird foods, you think bugs, you think organs, you know, things like that. And, you know, they're just foods like these are these are things that we are not super familiar with. But like I, I was just down at South by Southwest and I met this amazing bug chef. And I think that we're all going to be eating bugs. Really soon!
Luke Burbank: I ate so many bugs on my jog today.
Cecily Wong: Exactly.
Luke Burbank: A generation of gnats.
Cecily Wong: Why did you think?
Luke Burbank: Could have used some salt. But like, the idea being that there's a lot of food that seems odd or surprising to us, but it's just something that someone's eating somewhere because it's the food that's available to them, they enjoy it and it's really easy to other it or be sort of quote unquote grossed out by stuff. But obviously that's not the goal of any of this stuff that you guys are doing.
Cecily Wong: Totally. And what we found is that we, we as Americans are doing some of the most bizarre stuff with food. Like, if you know, if you apply a lens from another country, I mean, the amount of cheese that we eat is really grotesque. Like, people, people find that very, very strange.
Luke Burbank: This is live wire from PRX. We're listening back to a conversation that we recorded with Gastro Obscura writer Cecily Wong. When we come back, Elena and I will be sampling some miracle berries, which is not a code name for edibles, although that would be a pretty good code name for that. Anyway, stay with us. Much more Live Wire in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. We are listening back to a conversation we had with the writer Cecily Wong about her book, "Gastro Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to Food." Let's pick that up live from the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. I was wondering about the process of of what you decided to put into the book because there's all these posts on the website and I guess a ton of information that you then had to kind of sort through prioritize. How did you decide what was in and what was out?
Cecily Wong: Yeah, so the process took about four years. It was it was a heavy lift and it wasn't it wasn't just me. I have a coauthor, Dylan Thuras, and then we have a whole edit team. And so it's basically their entire job just to kind of scour the earth and the Internet for the most obscure things they can find. And then Atlas Obscura, if you're familiar with the website, has this massive community of users who are super active and they write in literally every day saying, "I'm, I ate this. It's amazing. Check it out. I'm from here. This is what you have to eat." And so we just got this flood of tips every day and we just we sorted through them and we just kind of jumped down dozens of rabbit holes every day. And we had a lot of latitude to kind of put in whatever we found most fascinating.
Luke Burbank: And that was the kind of core principle was like, if it's fascinating to you, it can go in the book.
Cecily Wong: If it's fascinating. We were, so, I'm a I'm actually a, mostly a novelist and I grew up at a food family. My parents owned restaurants. I've always been a very enthusiastic eater. And so they wanted to put together a book that was narrative about storytelling behind food, not just about, you know, look at this crazy food that you've never seen before. And so what we were really looking for was stories behind these foods. And so you'll also find in this book that there are foods that you know about that have these amazing histories that you don't know about.
Elena Passarello: Benny Wafers. I grew up in South Carolina, and I always knew where Benny Wafers were, but I thought they were named after some guy named Benny. But thanks to your book, I now know that Benny is a Bantu word that means sesame seeds. And there's sesame seeds wafers, because it's one of the many West African traditions that made its way into South Carolina cooking. (Bam!) Amazing! So amazing!
Cecily Wong: There you go, Yeah. I tell the story all the time about the pineapple. I'm obsessed with the history of the pineapple. Basically, when it first came over to England, it was like this big hit with the super rich because they didn't have any sugary fruits. They're really into this new fangled fruit. And so it became this kind of status symbol. And in like the 17th century, there is this thriving pineapple rental business because they were so expensive, you could actually you could rent a pineapple for a party and then just display it, and then you would have to give it back and the person would sell it to someone who was like, way richer than you were and could like afford to eat it.
Luke Burbank: I'm just leasing this. Yeah. Yeah. Someday I'll be able to.
Elena Passarello: Pineapple timeshare.
Cecily Wong: Right. I mean, I think an 18th century pineapple is like $8,000. Like, these were these were status symbols. (WOW)
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I want to actually kind of jump into some of the things in the book, including one that I know is kind of near and dear to your heart. What's spam jam?
Cecily Wong: The spam jam. Yeah. So it's it's what it sounds like you're jamming with Spam. It's it's like the biggest, craziest spam party. And and they're are multiple....
Luke Burbank: As opposed to the low key spam parties, the kind of subdued ones.
Cecily Wong: You'd be surprised. There are more spam parties than you than you think there would be. This one's big. This one, it's 35,000 people. They come specifically to celebrate spam. It's in Hawaii. Hawaii is where I'm from. And Hawaiians actually eat the most spam in the world. It's like seven cans per person every year, which is, Oh, that's a lot of spam.
Luke Burbank: Are you keeping your end of that bargain up? Would you say you put down about seven cans a year?
Cecily Wong: It's kind of a lot. I mean, I could, you know, like if pressed, I could definitely do it. So you eat spam and just like every variety. Spam fries. Yeah. Macadamia nuts with powdered spam. They're spam pastries. Like anything you can imagine. They're putting spam in it. And then it's just like it's along this, like, very fancy street in Hawaii, which I find so wonderful. Spam in Hawaii. There's like, nothing to be ashamed of. There's like, spam pride. This is like fancy meat. Whereas when I moved here, spam, it was like came as a huge shock to me that like spam was not a cool meat. And so it's my people are in Hawaii just, you know, like getting after spam.
Luke Burbank: Do you have a favorite kind of preparation, like for folks that have have not enjoyed spam properly? Is there a way to to prepare it?
Cecily Wong: There's absolutely a way to prepare it. (What's your favorite?) Okay. So the first thing that you have to remember about spam is that it is a canned meat. You cannot just take it out of the can and eat it. No one's going to like that. So you have to you have to slice that, you have to fry it. You have to get some texture on there. So I think the gateway drug to spam is probably either spam fried rice or spam musubis. There's actually a lot of spam musubis in Portland, which I find just absolutely wonderful. But it's like it's like a spam sushi. It's rice, seared spam, usually a teriyaki sauce. Seaweed. Mm. Delicious.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I have to say, the first time I had spam was fried and I was like, I had heard all these jokes growing up on the mainland. It was sort of a punch line. And then I had it fried up in some rice and I was like, Where's this been all my life? It's salty.
Cecily Wong: Totally.
Luke Burbank: It's like, delicious.
Cecily Wong: People are eating it wrong- yeah. I'm really glad we can have this conversation. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: How about Miracle berries? I read about this and I was like, This can't be a real thing. And then I heard you actually brought some.
Cecily Wong: I brought some miracle berries.
Luke Burbank: What are miracle berries?
Cecily Wong: They were fruit that is native to West Africa. They kind of look like cranberries. They kind of taste like bland cranberries. But basically the miracle of these berries is that you eat them. You kind of coat your mouth with the juices, and then everything that should taste sour then tastes sweet. So that's why.
Luke Burbank: That's some Wonka stuff.
Cecily Wong: Yeah, exactly. We call them tongue drugs. And there's this is the better one. There's another one actually that removes the sweetness from everything you eat, which is Why would you want that?
Luke Burbank: Wow. Okay, so can we try one of these?
Cecily Wong: So take one of those. These are actually these are freeze dried.
Luke Burbank: Thank you. And you just, like, just chew it or suck on it.
Cecily Wong: It says chew it for 30 seconds. And then the third instruction is enjoy new flavors. All right?
Luke Burbank: Just take the mic for 30 seconds.
Elena Passarello: So it's like a pomegranate, all right? It tastes like popcorn at the bottom of the popcorn bucket. You know, it just like the kernels.
Luke Burbank: It's like kind of the one that'll go up. Like in your back teeth and your gums. You're working on it for like, two weeks. Okay. What do you think, Cecily?
Elena Passarello: I'm masticating it.
Cecily Wong: Right. Okay, Take your now.
Luke Burbank: Okay, so now we've got a lemon. So we have for those listening at home, we've chewed up a miracle berry.
Elena Passarello: And I don't trust the miracle berry. I'm afraid to eat this lemon. (Give it a go.)
Luke Burbank: Do we just bite right into the lemon. It's supposed to make the lemon taste sweet....sweeter...
Cecily Wong: Not a miracle?
Luke Burbank: Like a lot of miracles, I think it depends on who the miracle is being done on.
Elena Passarello: No, it doesn't taste like lemonade, except lemonade.
Cecily Wong: Did you need more miracle?
Luke Burbank: Maybe it was a little bit more miracle, but I can see the effect that it's having.
Elena Passarello: Oh I got it. I'm there.
Luke Burbank: Speaking of hallucinogenic properties, can we talk about mad honey? By the way, this is Live Wire Radio, allegedly. We're talking to Cecily Wong, the coauthor of the Gastro Obscura book A Food Adventures Guide. Let's talk about Mad Honey from Turkey. This is a wild story.
Cecily Wong: Yes. So mad honey from Turkey. It's called deli bal. This is something that only grows on these, like high mountains that surround the Black Sea. The rhododendron grows on these mountains, and then the bees eat the flowers. And basically, the special flower contains a special toxin called grayanotoxin. And it makes honey psychedelic, essentially. It causes hallucinations that causes paralysis. In smaller doses, it's taken as folk medicine. And so it can treat more minor things diabetes, hypertension, stuff like that. But if you eat too much, which is actually not even that much, it's like a tablespoon. That's when things get kind of wacky. Well, and we know this partly because of this amazing war story from 67 B.C.. Emperor Pompey and the Romans were invading what is now Turkey and King Mithridates and his men were find the moth, and then they had this, like, great idea, which was that the Romans were going to be tired and hungry and they should just like, place these mad honeycombs in their path.
Luke Burbank: And so they left out basically (spiked honey), the LSD honey, so that the Romans would find it and be like, free honey.
Cecily Wong: I mean, genius, right? I mean, it worked. And so they. So they eat the honey and they lose control of all their limbs. They start hallucinating. They're all falling along the side of the road. And then Mithridates and his men, they come back and they just, they slay them. It's like one of the great sacks of history, and it's like honey related death.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, great. I don't. I don't want to die at war. At war. But if I had to, that's how I want to die. Just high as balls off honey.
Cecily Wong: They probably didn't even know it was happening.
Luke Burbank: Just lying by the side of the road, like vibing as my last thought.
Cecily Wong: There are worse ways to go, right?
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Let's talk about corn meal mush entrapment competition in South Carolina. Elena's old stomps of South Carolina. Yeah.
Cecily Wong: Okay, so South Carolina, there's this small town called Saint George. I think there's about 2000 people, but their like big claim to fame is that they eat the most grits per capita out of anyone in the world. And so to celebrate this vast accomplishment, they have the Grits rolling festival. And so it's a competition. They feel like kiddy pool with 3,000 pounds of prepared grits. And they have a competition to see how how many pounds of grits you can trap on your body. You have 10 seconds to roll in this kiddy pool and collect it on your body. And so ...
Luke Burbank: We could have had it all. (Yeah.) Rolling in the grits.
Cecily Wong: Exactly. Exactly.
Luke Burbank: I've had a lot of miracle berries. Okay, I have. I can't speak for what's going to happen for the rest of the program. So they're trying to balance as much grits as possible on their physical body.
Cecily Wong: Yes. And so over the years, they've kind of come up with new styles of grit entrapping clothing. And so they'll have (overalls!) Exactly.
Luke Burbank: You can put it in your pockets.
Elena Passarello: Maternity pants.
Cecily Wong: You can put it in your pockets, The other like duct tape, their sweat pants at the ankles.
Luke Burbank: Cargo shorts
Cecily Wong: Shorts fall through cargo shorts. I don't know if that's worth your time, okay? But, you know, whatever.
Luke Burbank: They rarely are. Yeah, just as a fashion. Elena, as a Southerner, what's your take on grits? And also, is there a preparation of grits that you find particularly tasty?
Elena Passarello: Never instant. And for me, never sweet, a savory grit. I'm a butter and salt grits purist, and I like a lumpy grit. What about what about you, Cecily? What's your grit portfolio, your grit profile, your grit profile.
Cecily Wong: I think it's polenta. Is that blasphemy?
Elena Passarello: No. I mean, polenta is Italian grits.
Cecily Wong: Yeah. Okay.
Elena Passarello: As a Southerner with the last name Passarello, I think I can just sort of decree that it's okay.
Luke Burbank: I was surprised to read in this book that the world's oldest sandwich is not from wherever. The Earl of Sandwich was from. It was actually from China, right?
Cecily Wong: Yes, it is. The oldest sandwich is Chinese. I don't I don't know where that Earl of Sandwich story happened. That was like 2000 years too late to be the earliest sandwich that Earl he was. I want to say that 18th century Earl, this sandwich dates back to, like, 200 B.C. It's called Roujiamo. It's a very popular street food in China. It's, it's all over, it started around the city that's now Xi'an. And that was actually the beginning of the Silk Road. And so lots of spices were kind of being traded in and out. And and kind of what's known now is as like a traditional street food roujiamo has like 20 spices, cinnamon, cumin, bay leaves.
Luke Burbank: It has like somewhat thousand year old oil on it or something. (Yeah) I order that at Subway and they're like always out of it.
Cecily Wong: That they would actually probably do well. Well, I don't know. I don't know if I would pass health inspection here, but essentially, okay, a thousand year sauce, it's also known as like perpetual sauce or. Yeah, it's it's what it sounds like. You usually cook meat in it and then when you're done selling the meat or whatever, instead of throwing out the source, that source becomes the base for tomorrow's source and so forth and so forth. And this is done all over the world. Actually, there's a shop in Thailand that does a beef stew and their sauce is 45 years old. Um, and so that's that's good sauce.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, that's I bet, Yeah. It's been marinating for a minute. What about champagne as an energy drink? Where is this going on?
Cecily Wong: I actually asked to talk about this because I love talking about this. Yeah, I just think it's wild that up until, like, the 1980s, they were giving, like, endurance athletes alcohol to to hydrate them. They thought that it hydrated them as well as water, if not better. And so this is like on full display at the 1908 London Olympic Marathon. Like 57 runners start out and only half of them make it to the finish line because they're all so drunk. And it's just it's so bonkers. Like there's this front runner, this young Canadian runner. He's going to win. Everyone knows he's going to win. And then like Mile 17, he accepts champagne because he's got like a cramp. And of course, he he's he's out, he falls down, he's out. And then the next person, like, takes the lead. He's got like this epic four mile lead he should win. And then he also is like, okay, champagne. And then he's out. And then the winner is this Italian pastry chef. He had a ton of champagne, and in the last mile, he's running the wrong direction. He has his heart massaged by a medic. And he's actually helped across the finish line by a doctor. And so that led to a redistribution of the medals because that's not allowed, I guess, in the Olympics. And so, yeah, it's wild that the 1924 Paris Games, they stocked their rehydration stations with wine. Wow. Beautiful. That's gorgeous. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: I would run more marathons.
Cecily Wong: There's actually a marathon for you. There's one in the wine region of Modoc in France. You run a marathon classic marathon, but you stop, I think, 23 times to drink a glass of wine.
Luke Burbank: I would win that. The Venn diagram overlap of being kind of okay at running and really okay at wine drinking. That's me. Cecily Wang Everyone in the book is "Gastro Obscura." That was Cecily Wong right here on Live Wire. Her book, "Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurers Guide," is available now. And since we recorded that conversation, Cecily has published a new novel. It's called Kaleidoscope. So make sure you check that one out as well. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines offers the most nonstop from the West Coast, including destinations like Hawaii, Palm Springs and San Francisco. And as a member of the OneWorld alliance, Alaska Airlines can connect you to more than 1000 destinations worldwide with their global partners. Learn more at Alaska Air dot com. This is Live Wire, of course. Each week we ask our listeners a question. We were inspired by Cecily Wong's book, talking about all kinds of amazing and varied food experiences. And so we wanted to ask the listeners, what is a yum for you? That is a yuk for most other people. What is something that you like that you find a lot of other people are not that into? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What do you see?
Elena Passarello: Okay, this one gets points for enthusiasm for sure. I hope I can convey the way it's punctuated. It's from Barbara. Barbara says, I love raw clams. Exclamation point, exclamation point. When I was a little girl, my dad would take me and my two sisters to a clam bar on the side of the road in Yonkers. And we would just slurp those things down. Exclamation point. Now, I'm retired in Arizona. I can only get raw clams or oysters when I go back to visit family in Connecticut. Exclamation point.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I would avoid the raw clams in Arizona. Yeah. Just, you know, I mean, not to be no fun, but that just sounds like a safer approach. You know, it's weird. I've never thought I mean, I've had many, many raw oysters, and yet a raw clam hadn't really occurred to me. I wouldn't imagine. Is that different? I guess.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. I mean, I don't know that either. But I would do anything with Barbara with the level of enthusiasm that she showed for those mollusks.
Luke Burbank: All right. Barbara loves those raw clams. What's another yum for one of our listeners that most people would say, no, thank you, too.
Elena Passarello: Okay, so we have a celebrity entry from an author that we're going to be featuring next week on the show, Joseph Earl Thomas, who his Yum is Twizzlers. And I totally understand why this is a yuck for other people, because I really want to like Twizzlers. It's like Bloody Marys. Like, they just seem like if you go to the movies, you should have Twizzlers. If you're drinking in the morning, you should have Bloody Marys. But I just can't bring myself to enjoy them.
Luke Burbank: Have you have you really dedicated yourself to the project, though?
Elena Passarello: I really like Joseph Earle Thomas' writing, so maybe I should get back in there and try again.
Luke Burbank: I mean, I am a fan of Twizzlers, but in a very weird, specific way, which is they need to be a little bit stale. I think this is because I went to a pretty down market movie theater when I was a kid, Oak Tree Village, and I don't think they had the they were not resupplying the Twizzlers like, you know, on the regular. So you'd get a box of them when you were going to see, you know, like the original Batman with like Michael Keaton in it. And you get those Twizzlers out and they're just a little bit stale. But that just kind of adds to the I don't know, the experience, as they say on those cooking shows. The mouth feels.
Elena Passarello: Maybe I'm eating too fresh a twizzler, (that could be a problem) issue. Yeah, well, this is actually related to another one we got somebody said that they really like stale Oreos because when they're fresh, they're too crunchy. But if they've been on the counter a little and they're soft bite into, they have reached their peak ripeness like Oreos or a banana.
Luke Burbank: Peak ripeness, that is a term I've never heard associated with an Oreo. But you know, that's a yum for that listener that most of us would be like no thanks we'll we'll go with the non stale Oreos, but you never know. All right. Thanks to everyone who sent in a response. We've got another listener question for next week's show coming up in just a few moments. In the meantime, this is Live Wire Radio. Our next guest is a multi-instrumentalist and singer songwriter whose genre spanning music is known for its wistful melodies, its hyper literate lyrics, its virtuosic violin playing and luscious loop pedal soundscapes and crystalline whistling. More on that in a moment, by the way. He's a Grammy nominee. His latest album, Inside Problems, came out back in June of 2022, which was when Andrew Bird zoomed in to the show to tell us all about it. Take a listen to this. It's Andrew Bird here on Live Wire. Andrew Bird. Welcome back to Live Wire.
Andrew Bird: Good to be here.
Luke Burbank: The title of the album is Inside Problems, but you're going on this tour which you're calling outside problems. Is, is that basically like you're externalizing your odd thoughts to a bunch of people that are going to come watch you?
Andrew Bird: Yeah, that's one one way of putting it. It's also most of the the shows are outside.
Luke Burbank: I see.
Andrew Bird: So there's a literal reason for that. But yeah, I also made an instrumental companion album that I often do that goes with the song album that's called Outside Problems because it was recorded outside. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Right. You launched this album with kind of a short film that I was watching on YouTube, and again, it's talking about inside problems versus outside problems. And you kept saying this line, I want to know what you think, but not really. Mm hmm. But is that kind of how you feel?
Andrew Bird: Uh, it's like the pretense of wanting to know what you think. Or when I play a show. I adopt a certain posture of, like, of a dialog with the audience, But actually reading the suggestions in the box on the way out of the theater is not something I'm inclined to do. It's just the, you know, just setting it up as if it's a dialog or feeling like it's a dialog. It's all part of the songwriting process for me. Sometimes I'll try a song out before it's finished in front of an audience and I'll be like, I don't know, it could go this way or this way. It's like I feel like a comedian when I'm doing that on stage. It's like I shrug of the shoulders, like, I don't know. What do you think, folks? You know.
Luke Burbank: You strike me as a as a fairly private person and as somebody who is not clamoring for the spotlight or attention, which is, I guess, ironic considering your line of work. But like, what is it like for you to be a person who is a public figure and who plays these shows? And thousands of people come and kind of want to talk to you and sort of have a piece of you. What's that like for you?
Andrew Bird: It's a strange thing because ever since I was a little kid in school, I was painfully shy, what they called quiet. But as soon as I would come up in front of the class and give a book report or something, I would be completely self-possessed and comfortable and at ease to the degree that it was kind of alarming to the teachers. It's a strange thing, but I. I feel safe on stage until I get to the stage and like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know. I'm doing it As soon as I get in front of the mic, I'm like, I know what to do. This is my job, you know?
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire Radio. We're talking to Andrew Bird, whose latest album is Inside Problems. Speaking of your career, it has been really varied over time with doing a lot of different things. I know that you're doing soundtrack stuff now and you also you acted in Fargo. You were great in that show. Were you an actor before that?
Andrew Bird: No, I had never given it a thought. Noah Hawley, who started the whole Fargo Post Coen Brothers Enterprise, saw me play a show in Austin and just cast me on the spot for the funeral director, and he kind of had to reassure me that I was going to be okay and I wouldn't make a fool of myself. He knew that I had never done it before, and what was cool is like I got there and all these amazing actors like Jessie Buckley and, you know, and I'm in the company of people that really know what they're doing. And everyone just treated me like another actor, you know?
Luke Burbank: Did you ever, like, break out your violin or do something to demonstrate to them what you are really, really good at? Like, kind of like, okay, maybe this my first time acting, but check out this.
Andrew Bird: Yeah, I was desperate for something, some sort of security blanket at some point. So in the script, it had me whistling right after I, you know, pay off the gangster and think I've, I've saved everybody. And so I'm pretty proud of myself. And I'm walk in the door whistling and dancing. And I was like, Oh, thank God, I can do something I know how to do. But it got it got sticky because I whistled something from Sisyphus and I wasn't I wasn't really allowed to do my own music.
Luke Burbank: So wait, there was a rights issue to a song that you had written.
Andrew Bird: Yeah. And then they brought that up and I said, okay, I'll whistle some as if I'm just whistling. I'd like a jazz solo of a tune. So it's and even that was too much because I was inventing it myself. So they're like, can it just be Camptown Races or something? You know, something Public domain. Anyway, we resolved it. It was fine. I don't think that they were looking for me to showcase my whistling skills so much as just move the story along. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire from PRX. You're listening to a conversation that we are having with Andrew Bird. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We have to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, much more from Andrew, including an incredible musical performance that you could only hear here. So stay with us for more Live Wire. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello. Okay, before we hear some music from the one, the only Andrew Bird, a little preview of next week's episode of the show. We are going to be talking about "Tiny, beautiful things" with the one and only Cheryl Strayed. It's the ten year anniversary of that book, which is also being turned into a television series starring Kathryn Hahn. We're going to talk to Cheryl about what it's like being portrayed by an American treasure for the second time. We're also going to ask her what it's been like writing as Dear Sugar for all these years. And we're going to talk to the aforementioned Joseph Earl Thomas about his memoir Sink, which The New York Times called an extraordinary memoir of a Black American Boyhood. In it, he investigates his childhood and the way that geek culture saved him in certain ways. And then we'll hear music from the amazing Stephanie and Johnson. And as always, we are going to be looking to get your answer to our listener question. Elena, what are we asking the Live Wire listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: We want to know what advice you would give your past self from ten years ago.
Luke Burbank: Hmm. Mine would be buy crypto, but then sell it, but then buy it again because it's back down. But then sell it might actually just be be better at finance.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, me too. Exactly. Remember that money is real. That's probably I mean, it's not..
Luke Burbank: Unless you're talking about crypto, in which case it may not be real.
Elena Passarello: It's not real at this point.
Luke Burbank: If you have an answer to that question, advice you'd give your past self from ten years ago. Please send it our way on Twitter or Facebook. We're over at Live Wire Radio pretty much everywhere. All right. This is Live Wire from PRX. Before the break, we were listening to a conversation we had with the Grammy nominated musician, actor and world class whistler, Andrew Bird. Let's get back into that right now. One of the things I love so much about your music is the intersection of science and and your music. And you just have this really beautiful way of kind of posing a scientific principle or questioning something in the world of science in the midst of a song. I'm curious, what's your relationship with science? Do you have a formal background in that? Did you studied that in college or something?
Andrew Bird: No, not exactly. I really don't have any science, science background at all, but I like phenomena. My approach to science is like big picture kind of crackpot theories. I'm interested in things that might tell us what we're made of, whether it be dark matter or just make nice metaphors for what it is to be human.
Luke Burbank: And when you're writing a song, I mean, are you reading an article in, like Scientific American or The New York Times or wherever, and you see some sort of large principle about the universe or whatever do you like, underline it, You make a note and think, Oh, I could probably work that into a song later.
Andrew Bird: Yeah, it's kind of it's really the the, the popular headlines in science that, you know, I'm not maybe.
Luke Burbank: That's why it works for me because I'm not a big deep diver, but I feel smarter after I want to use it.
Andrew Bird: But yeah, like someone says, Hey, check out this article about, you know, how baby birds practice their their songs in their sleep or something. And I think, oh, that's, you know, I used I was also a big fan of what's still going this magazine called Cabinet which kind of based on a theme they would talk about kind of archaic scientific experiments from the Victorian era or something. That's the kind of stuff that would draw me in that has like a science based but kind of a literary bent to it.
Luke Burbank: One of the songs off of this new album is called Atomized, and I was watching it on YouTube, and there's a sort of quote from you beneath the video that says, It's not just about society getting atomized, but it's that the self is being broken apart and being scattered. I'm wondering, was that your version of trying to work out, you know, the pandemic or our weird relationship with technology or just like the strange moment of life that we're in right now?
Andrew Bird: I mean, all of that, you know, the first verse is talking about being sort of unsettled, like sort of shaken from your comfortable perch by that algorithm or whatever it is, just some modern life kind of trying to disrupt you and divide you for profit, basically. And then the the chorus was I happened to have Beethoven's Seventh Symphony going in my head one day, and it was like, I wonder how that would work as a bridge or chorus to the song. And then I was thinking about, you know, an issue that that keeps coming up with me, like the self versus the group or like, are do we live in a society? Or like, America is so confused about what individual freedom really means. And so there's that line about is each of us an island or more like Finland? And then the second verse is talking. It kind of brings it more to a personal level, which I often do. If it gets a little too, you know, abstract about technology or geopolitics, I'll make the next verse about like between two people. But yeah, the song was just kind of talking about, you know, from Yeats second Coming poem to Joan Didion's Slouching toward Bethlehem essay. And then this is an attempt to sort of update that to the present with technology and social media. And, you know.
Luke Burbank: What is your personal relationship with social media? It seems like if there's anybody who has a good austere policy, it's Andrew Bird. I don't know why I think that, but you just seem like a person who wouldn't be obsessed with it.
Andrew Bird: No, I'm not obsessed. I've always been a little arm's length with it. I do do a lot of Instagram posts and I do a lot of my songs, just casual performances on it, and I'll post it, but I don't read anything or interact or talk to anybody, and I just try to use it as like a broadcast channel for my own TV show, basically. Yeah, just think of it in analog, you know, very old school analog way as opposed to, you know, getting, getting sucked into these worlds. You could have 500 glowing things and someone says something nasty and it just ruins your your week. So I'm a sensitive guy. You know, I like I don't think I'm cut out for engaging that world full on.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Okay. So we're going to hear a song. Which song are we going to hear?
Andrew Bird: I'm do..Make a picture.
Luke Burbank: Okay. And this is off of the new album, Inside Problems.
Andrew Bird: Mm hmm.
Luke Burbank: All right. This is Andrew Bird here on Live Wire.
Andrew Bird: Oh, I don't wanna ride on your shoulders or put you in the hospital, I just wanna roll away boulders that they said was impossible, 'Cause don't you know there are many repressible optimists walking with the fatal flaw, Running in the streets like feral cats, Will be hard to mistake any and raise a paw, Tell us what you think you saw, What you think you saw, Tell us what you think you saw, Make a picture, Make it snappy, Make a picture, Don't look so happy, All the scowling faces, All those furrowed brows, All those burnt-out cases, Make 'em take a bow (Make 'em take a bow), How 'bout them smiling faces?, Come on and show us how, Neverming the braces, Love you anyhow, Would love you anyhow, I don't wanna hear what's impossible, Falling with the shepherd;s time, And if we're ever gonna get out of this hospital, You will never sleep alone, Listen to the cries of the wounded metropolis, sits on tenterhooks, I listen to the cries of the pliable populace, Giving us some dirty looks, They're giving us some firty looks, Dirty looks now, They're giving us some dirty looks, Make a picture, Make it snappy, Make a picture, Don't look so happy, All the scowling faces, All those furrowed brows, All those burnt-out cases, Make 'em take a bow (Make 'em take a bow), How 'bout them smiling faces? Come on and show us how, Nevermind the braces, Love you anyhow, We love you anyhow, We love you anyhow, Love you anyhow, And then we sleep alone, Love you anyhow, And then we sleep alone.
Luke Burbank: Andrew Bird. That is incredible.
Andrew Bird: Thank you.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much for coming on, Live Wire.
Andrew Bird: Yeah. Good to see you again.
Luke Burbank: That was Andrew Bird right here on Live Wire. His album Inside Problems is available now. You can also find out everything that he's getting up to over at Andrew Bird Dot Net. All right. That's going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests, Cecily Wang and Andrew Bird. Live Wire is brought to you in part by Alaska Airlines.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director. Our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Our assistant editor is Trey Hester. Our marketing manager is Paige Thomas. Our production fellow is Tanvi Kumar. and Yasamin Mehdian is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Molly Pettit is our technical director and mixer, and our house Sound is by D. Neil Blake.
Elena Passarello: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F and Marian L Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank Member Elaine Lees of Lake Oswego, Oregon for more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast. Head on over to Live Wire Radio dot org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.
