"A MEAD-ing of the Minds" with Drinking Horn Meadcast

05/18/22 • 72 min

1 Listener

This is a crossover episode you MEAD to hear! Our Foodlosopher Anna Van Valin and Chef-Creator Lia Ballentine have joined forces with Evan Anderson and Nick Irvine of the Drinking Horn Meadcast to discuss (and DRINK) mead! Evan and Nick tell us all about the world of making and drinking this ancient fermented honey drink at their Meadery in Flagstaff, AZ, the care and feeding of bees, mead’s better-for-you buzz and why it’s good for the planet. Then Anna tells us how every culture has a version of “honey wine” - from the Celts, to Ethiopia to the Ancient Mayan empire! - which meant that bees, honey and mead made some exceptional cameos in their myths. Then Lia tells us about festivals and holidays, like National Mead Day. Listen to find out why we're all abuzz about mead in this special crossover episode! Be sure to subscribe to Every Day is a Food Day and the Drinking Horn Meadcast, and don't forget to follow us on social media @fooddaypod and @drinkinghornmeadery.
Explore from the show:
- Listen to Every Day is a Food Day's episode "Honey: 2 Queens, 1 Hive" to hear how it all began - plus bee and honey crimes, surprising celebrity beekeepers, and why you should never wear Ugg boots to check on your hives.
- Check out Guy Fieri's visit to the Drinking Horn Meadery on Guy's Family Road Trip.
- Want to try the 3 meads we drink in this episode? Order your mead from the Drinking Horn Meadery website.
Connect with us!
- Want to support our women and BIPOC-created independent podcast? Buy us a coffee!
- For more great content about the stories & foods we talk about on the show (plus a peek BTS) follow us at @FoodDayPod on Instagram, Twitter & Facebook or check out our webpage.
- Join our mailing list for extra content and to keep up with all the exciting things we have planned for this season.

Previous Episode

Pretzels: Get it Twisted

1 Recommendations

Anna and Lia are tied up in knots — delicious, doughy knots — because this episode is all about pretzels! Lia Ballentine, our Chef-Creator, starts us off with the pretzel baking basics and tells us how changing the dough’s pH by boiling it in baking soda or dropping it in a lye bath (that’s right, a lye bath) is essential to achieving the perfect pretzel taste and texture. She takes us through the multiple pretzel-related food holidays on the calendar, including National Pretzel Day, which is day loved by all - especially our hero Stanley from The Office. Plus, she tells us why a region in Pennsylvania is known as the “Snack Belt,” how German immigrants started the pretzel boom in America, and highlights two important women in pretzel history: Helen Hoff and “Auntie Anne” Beiler. Yes, Auntie Anne is a real person! Then get ready for one of the wildest Deep Dish segments ever as Anna Van Valin, our Foodlosopher, tells us the fascinating story behind the bizarre religious history of the pretzel — starting from Middle Ages when monks baked pretzels as a holy treat for students, all the way to the 1970s when an ex-clown founded a movement to bring people back to the Catholic Church during a time when secularism was on the rise and made pretzels the center of it. Anna shares the fascinating story of Marlene McCauley, the founder of “Pretzels for God,” and how she believed the pretzel, with the spiritual guidance of a Native American saint Kateri Tekakwitha, could save our souls. Get ready to enjoy some crazy twists in this episode because these pretzel stories are ones you knead to hear!

More info from the show:

Take a tour of the Julius Sturgis Bakery in Lititz, PA.
Watch this interview with Anne Beiler, the real Auntie Anne.
Relive the excitement of National Pretzel Day with Stanley and the Dunder Mifflin gang.
Learn all about the "Pretzels for God" movement.

Connect with us!

Want to support our women and BIPOC-created independent podcast? Buy us a coffee!
For more great content about the stories & foods we talk about on the show (plus a peek BTS) follow us at @FoodDayPod on Instagram, Twitter & Facebook or check out our webpage.
Join our mailing list for extra content and to keep up with all the exciting things we have planned for this season.

Next Episode

Cookies: Double Stuffed - Part 1!

6 Recommendations

There’s DOUGH much we want to tell you about cookies, we had to do it in two episodes! In Part 1 of this epic two-parter, Anna and Lia share their fondest cookie memories and tell us how letting their creativity go wild with cookie decorating was important part of their holiday traditions growing up. They also debate Oreo cookie eating methods — the twist and the dunk — and prove there’s no such thing as moderation when it comes to these sweet treats. Then Lia Ballentine, our Chef-Creator, digs into cookie history, presents the “cookie vs. biscuit” debate, and goes through an epic list of cookie holidays. Can you believe there are more than 15 cookie days to celebrate each year? She highlights some of the most interesting cookie days on the calendar (National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day?) then tells us about three important women who have made (and continue to make) a tremendous impact in cookies and culture: Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girls Scouts; Ruth Graves Wakefield, creator of the chocolate chip cookies; and Jasmine Cho, a cookie activist. Stay tuned for Part 2 coming next week, when Anna Van Valin, our Foodlosopher, discusses the century-long battle for the cookie aisle between Oreo and Hydrox!
More info from the show:
* Watch Jasmine Cho’s TEDx Talk: “Cookies as a Form of Activism”
* Listen to Phoebe tell another lie in this clip from “Friends” -
Connect with us!
*Want to support our women and BIPOC-created independent podcast? Buy us a coffee!
* For more great content about the stories & foods we talk about on the show (plus a peek BTS) follow us at @FoodDayPod on Instagram, Twitter & Facebook or check out our webpage.
* Join our mailing list for extra content and to keep up with all the exciting things we have planned for this season.
*Get yourself a delicious Yumday snack box

Every Day is a Food Day - "A MEAD-ing of the Minds" with Drinking Horn Meadcast

Transcript

0:00:00.0 AVV: Honey and mead were actually part of the after life, so in Celtic heaven, which is called the other lands or Avalon was believed to have rivers of Mead running through Paradise.

0:00:11.4 EA: You think one bottle is dangerous.

0:00:13.2 AVV: Right? I'm just imagining a Willy Wonka situation with...

0:00:19.4 NI: Augustus. Augustus.

0:00:20.0 AVV: Augustus.