Food Rock Radio Special - The Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show

This episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM was based on everyone's favorite essential aspect of life... FOOD! Yes, every song you heard on this episode was based on, or related to food, even the background songs. 

I didn't speak too much on this episode but I did mention a few things about potatoes (then again, when am I NOT talking about potatoes). 

Did you know that Americans eat over 115 pounds of potatoes a year with most of those potatoes enjoyed as French fries and potato chips? Speaking of French fries, there are arguments about whether or not France or Belgium can claim to be the origin of the salty side dish which is ironic because at one time France actually banned potatoes over fears that the vegetable could cause leprosy. 

One of my favorite ways to prepare potatoes is by mashing them but mashed potatoes are actually a younger dish than I had imagined. The timeless classic was first documented in the 18th-century by an English writer named Hannah Glasse in her book: The Virginia Housewife: Or Methodical Cook. If you aren't accustomed to reading old recipes you'll notice how simple Glasse's directions are compared to the sorts of modern recipes you may be used to:

POTATOES MASHED.

 
When the potatoes are thoroughly boiled, drain and dry them perfectly, pick out every speck, and rub them through a colander into a clean stew-pan; to a pound of potatoes put half an ounce of butter, and a tablespoonful of milk; do not make them too moist; mix them well together. When the potatoes are get- ting old and specked, and in frosty weather, this is the best way of dressing them you may put them into shapes, touch them over with yelk of egg, and brown them very slightly before a slow fire.

 

And for my final potato fact, I had mentioned that the stacked potato-based product, Pringles, aren't considered potato chips due to the way they are constructed by using a sort of potato dough. At first Pringles were marketed as "Newfangled Potato Chips" before other potato chip manufacturers argued that the potato chip term should only be applied to sliced potatoes with the FDA eventually making a similar distinction. In the year 2007, Procter & Gamble (the previous makers of Pringles) embraced their non-potato chip distinction when they argued in British courts that Pringles should not be classified as chips in order to avoid a tax known as a value added tax (VAT). You gotta love those silly global corporations! Funny enough, I think this episode had more potato facts than my episode named Potato. Check out that episode's playlist here.

As for the other foods I talked about, I spoke about a few candies such as the gum drop, which has a convoluted and mysterious history and the discontinued Altoids Sour Tangerine. I used to love Sour Tangerine Altoids and, like a lot of other people, I had assumed the candy would be around forever. Old expired cans can fetch a pretty penny on the used market but there is a company in Tallahassee, FL named Lofty Pursuits which has reversed engineered the candy and developed a small-scale approach to recreating the treat. If that's the sort of thing you are into, then you can follow along as the company documents their manufacturing process on their YouTube channel. It's really neat watching the process evolve over time as the product becomes commercially available.

Anywho, thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm or through KUCR.org! If you'd like, you can also listen to KUCR through Radio Garden or Tune-In.

You can listen to this episode's playlist below:

 

The Gum Drops - Gum Drop
Sixth Day Creation - Cherry Pie
Shadow Casters - Cinnamon Snowflake
Johnny Cymbal - Marshmellow

The backing tracks used in this episode were:

  Intruders - Fried Eggs
Dick Dale and His Del-tones - Taco Wagon
The Ventures - Green Onions
Beachcombers - Purple Peanuts

Alice Cooper, Dalí, Mushrooms, and Garage Rock Tunes - The Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Clementine"

On this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM I was having one of those nights where my brain was bouncing all over the place. Perhaps my mind is twisted from this unusual weather with temperatures still in the mid to high 80s or maybe I'm still trying to cope with the fact that another Halloween season has come and gone and all I got was a bag full of rocks. Either way, let's take those rocks and roll into the topics I covered on this episode (please don't hate me).

The first thing I blabbed on about were two of my favorite mushrooms, which I call my favorite purely for their unusual beauty. The conversation about mushrooms came up because the first song of the night was Hugh Barrett's cover of Terry Noland's song There Was a Fungus Among Us. While I think Noland's version is worth checking out too, I prefer Barrett's cover because it has a grittier edge which I think suits the topic of the song a little better.

Photo by Darvin DeShazer from Mushroom Observer

Anywho, the first mushroom is known by many names with Bleeding Tooth being the most descriptive. When the fungus is immature it has the appearance of used chewing gum with indentations that hold onto a red liquid that is reminiscent of jelly or blood. Despite the spooky name and unappetizing nature, the mushroom is non-toxic and actually contains Atromentin which is known for it's antibacterial and blood thinning properties. I won't pretend that I know how the Atromentin is extracted from the fungus but I doubt you should go around eating them for any sort of medicinal reasons, especially since the mushroom is known for having an extremely bitter taste. 

Basket Stinkhorn

Secondly, I mentioned the foul-smelling Basket Stinkhorn which has an egg-like appearance until it matures into a strange geometric shape that reminds me of chicken feet from heck. Unlike the Bleeding Tooth, a mature Basket Stinkhorn isn't considered harmless although flies certainly love it, which most definitely means that even if you can get past the awful smell, eating a mature Stinkhorn is probably a big no-no.

 

Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain as seen in this video

As the show continued, I played a song by a Phoenix, Arizona garage rock band named Spiders who were previously known as The Earwigs but more famously transformed into Alice Cooper. There's plenty of things to say about Alice Cooper, both the band and the man (they both share the same name), but what I chose to focus on in this episode was the time Salvador Dalí teamed up with Alice Cooper (the man) for an unusual portrait. In 1971 Dalí was contacted by an artist/businessman named Selwyn Lissack about the possibility of Dalí exploring the field of holography. Dalí eventually collaborated with Lissack and his crew by creating a series of holograms including a holographic cylinder which featured a portrait of Alice Cooper sitting down while holding a modified statuette of Venus de Milo, complete with his signature makeup and an assortment of expensive jewelry. Although the audio is a little spotty, you can hear Cooper recall the portrait during a Q&A session at The Dalí Museum back in 2013. 

Finally, to round out this post I'll quickly go over some other random things I touched upon throughout the show. You heard The Palace Guard's song Oh Blue (The Way I Feel Tonight) and I mentioned that they were from the L.A. suburb Hawthorne, which was also the hometown of both The Beach Boys and Tyler The Creator. Another song I played was The Scots of St. James' Tic Toc which led me to recommend a short story by Harlan Ellison named "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman. You heard a fun tune by The Rats, who were a garage rock group from Akron, Ohio which some call the home of the hamburger due to claims by Frank and Charles Menches that they originated the staple American classic at Akron's 1892 Summit County Fair. However, Akron is probably most famous for their vast rubber production and their minor league baseball team, the RubberDucks. Lastly, you heard a song by The Nashville Teens who were surprisingly from a town in Surrey, England named Weybridge. Weybridge has a lovely bus museum nearby (The London Bus Museum) which features a wide variety of buses over the span of 150 years. From everything I've seen online, it sort of reminds me of the Southern California Railway Museum in Perris, CA, which I highly recommend if you are in the Riverside area.

Thanks for tuning in! Remember, you can listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM or through KUCR.org every Saturday at 9pm. If you'd like, you can also listen to KUCR through Radio Garden or Tune-In.

You can hear this episode's playlist below:

 

Hugh Barrett - There Was A Fungus Among Us
The Palace Guard - Oh Blue (The Way I Feel Tonight)
The Systems - Su un'altra terra
The Roosters - She Sends Me 
The Mummies - Your Love
Thee Headcoatees - Davey Crockett