Welcome to Air and Mankies, Captain of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these

amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Flashback to 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns had a stuck at home scrolling the internet for

hours on end, baking sourdough bread and looking up the newest recipes to try in the Instant

Pot.

Now if you're anything like a lot of folks I know the pressure cooker fad didn't end when

the vaccines came out, Instant Pot meals are still a pretty common occurrence, and it

turns out the technology behind this 21st century cookware can be traced back almost 400

years.

It all started in the 1670s, in what is arguably still the culinary capital of the world,

Paris France.

A recent medical school graduate named Dennis Papine had just moved to the city in search

of work, but before he could land a job at a hospital he met a Dutch man named Christian

Huygens.

Christian was doing some research that caught Dennis's attention.

You see, Christian was experimenting with air pumps, which I know it doesn't sound particularly

exciting, but in the 17th century it certainly was.

In fact it was so exciting that Dennis gave up a promising career as a doctor to work with

Christian.

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