Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avrogant.

This day April 1910, newspapers across the country are hailing the latest food trend to sweep the country, hippo meat.

All right, it may not have exactly been a trend and it may not have been sweeping, but it was in this moment that there was a serious

meat crisis in the United States as well as a growing ecological crisis and

American lawmakers were considering a novel approach to solving both growing hippos in the United States

South for consumption.

There was a proposal to allocate about a quarter million dollars to go to Africa, grab some hippos,

bring them back to the swamps of Louisiana, let them thrive, and then

kill them and eat them. Problem solved.

Now of course, if we cut to a hundred years later, you've probably noticed that this plan didn't really

stick, but it is worth

discussing why lawmakers were so desperate to find a new meat source and why our taste and food can be

so reluctant to change.

So here, as always, are Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello

Hello Jody. Hey there and our special guest for this episode who else would we have on but Dan Pashman host of the Sporkfold the legendary food

podcast overall brilliant food thinker Dan thank you for for coming on

Hey everyone thanks for having me and I forgot to include your biggest accolade as of late

inventor of a new pasta shape which maybe we can talk about that towards the end but that is

kind of your world now yeah it's yeah I'm in the pasta thing, I guess.

But Dan's Kaskatelli is available everywhere and he did an amazing series of episodes about

inventing a new pasta shape.

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