I know a lot of things. Mostly inconsequential and esoteric things, but a lot of things nonetheless. But as Bill James tells us, the world is a billion times more complicated than our minds, and so there's a universe of stuff out there that someone knows, but that I don't.
Case in point, the origin story of Old Bay Seasoning.
Gustav Brunn was a successful spicemonger (we should use 'monger' for more things: zman is a lawmonger, for example) in Wertheim, Germany in the late 1930s. On Kristallnacht, he was one of 30,000 Jewish men who were captured by the Nazis and taken to the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At this point in history, the Nazis had yet to initiate their ghastly final solution, and men of means were often able to purchase their freedom. Brunn's family paid a lawyer 10,000 Deutschmarks to secure his release.
Unable to secure funding from banks to start a new business because he was Jewish (and after getting fired from McCormick for the same reason), Brunn got an assist from Katz American, a Jewish-owned competitor in the spice game. Katz loaned him the seed capital necessary to start Baltimore Spice Company, which in 1940 developed a seafood spice to pair with the crabs coming into town at the Wholesale Fish Market, which was immediately across the street from Brunn's business.
The rest, as they say, is history, save for one ironic coda. Brunn's business and McCormick feuded for years as the latter marketed a seafood seasoning in a suspiciously yellow tin. In 1990, five years after Brunn passed, the company sold the recipe for Old Bay to McCormick. Those dicks.
Some of you may know this story, but it was news to me.
News to me as well!
ReplyDelete“ In 2017, McCormick changed the packaging from metal cans to plastic containers in an effort to reduce the packaging costs.” Lame.
Brief rant from the site's media grump: Seems that Sports Illustrated's publisher, The Arena Group, has been publishing stories under the SI flag by writers that don't actually exist -- AI-generated stuff, complete with fake author bios and fake author pics.
ReplyDeleteWhen the website Futurism asked about it, AG simply deleted the stories and did not respond. They released a statement later attributing it to a third-party provider that assured them that said stories were written by actual humans under pseudonyms. Still no answer why a person writing under a pseudonym would need a fake bio and fake pic.
It's pretty much SOP for the parent company, which took over in 2019 and turfed roughly half the staff. They retained just enough quality journalists -- Tom Verducci, Jon Wertheim, Emma Baccellieri, Stephanie Apstein, Mike Rosenberg, Albert Breer, etc. -- to provide cover and gravitas for them to delve into content aggregators and click-bait and AI stuff that's heavy on profit and light on compensating people.
Discouraging as hell that one of the pinnacles of sports journalism has been reconfigured as a profit machine.
Wow. That is remarkably poor form. I guess this is the new norm?
ReplyDeletelight on compensating people, and light on quality, depth, or anything approaching what si used to be. baccellieri, in particular, was very vocal on the socials yesterday in criticizing the suits. almost to the point where it looked like an exit strategy.
ReplyDeletemeanwhile, the genius financiers who own popular science announced today that they're shuttering the 151 year-old publication and focusing on the same aggregation and content-farming as obx dave notes above.
we're getting dumber as a society because rich foofs want to get richer more easily. yay?
there’s a famous swiss soccer club known as young boys. they’re playing a champions league match at home in bern against red star belgrade. young boys play their home matches in stadion wankdorf. i’ll just leave that right there for y’all.
ReplyDeleteawl - good timing.
ReplyDeletebobby petrino reportedly headed back to arkansas as the oc. it’s all so very stupid and there are no consequences for anything.
ReplyDeleteOne more bit of cheery media news: Washington Post CEO told folks in a memo that layoffs are coming if they don't meet their goal of 240 buyouts.
ReplyDeleteAppears that paper's owner, a fairly well-to-do fellow if I recall, was truthful when he said he wouldn't interfere in paper's business.
All of which couldn’t be better news for public figure douches who don’t like getting called on their crooked bullshit. Journalism fading into the rear view. Freedom from the press is the latest liberty.
ReplyDeleteHooray! The holidays are here!
tribe down 15 at the half to norfolk state. starting to think it might not be our year.
ReplyDeleteAre we sure we can trust your assessment of tribe hoops? That doesn't sound right.
ReplyDeleteon the one hand, your skepticism is warranted. on the other, the tribe lost by 34.
ReplyDeleteThe Spartans of Norfolk State aren’t a group with whom one should trifle.
ReplyDeletepitt has a 6'11" junior center named federiko federiko who was born in cairo, raised in helsinki, and is an all-ACC academic honoree in addition to being on the league all-defense watch list. i'm intrigued, and would watch a movie about him.
ReplyDeleteTribe hoops down to seven scholarship players tonight due to injuries, I understand. Missing four of top six scorers and got dump trucked at Norfolk St, as rob pointed out. No idea if temporary or long term, with trip to Richmond on deck Saturday.
ReplyDeleteFederiko Federiko Ghali
ReplyDeleteWell, Federiko, by this time the hostages should be going through the early stages of the Helsinki Syndrome.
ReplyDeleteAs in Helsinki, Sweden.
Finland.
it's spotify wrapped season, and i'll likely do an audience participation post with more details from my year, but one thing from mine made me laugh. the location in the world my listening habits most fit in with is burlington, vt. so i'm a vermont hippie, apparently.
ReplyDelete