Episode 768: Hippie Sandwich

Spilled Milk

The hosts explore the culinary history and personal nostalgia surrounding the 'hippie sandwich,' prompted by an email from listener Watzel.

Key takeaways

• Jonathan Kaufman's book 'Hippie Food' describes alfalfa sprouts jutting out of sandwiches like hair.
• Francis Moore Lappe's 1971 book 'Diet for a Small Planet' highlighted the environmental impact of meat production and promoted soybeans.

Main topics

• History of hippie food
• Alfalfa sprouts and tofu trends

Notable quotes

Every time you mention a place in Oklahoma City, an angel gets its wings.

Conclusion

A nostalgic journey through the ingredients and literature that define

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:04) I'm Matthew. Speaker 2 (0:05) And I'm Molly. And Speaker 1 (0:06) this is Spilled Milk, the show where we cook something delicious, question mark, eat it all, and you can't have any. Speaker 2 (0:12) Today we're talking about hippie sandwiches. This Speaker 1 (0:15) episode was suggested by Watzel, wife of the show Lori. Should I read her message? Yeah, please. Okay. Hi. A while ago, Wendy- Wait a minute. Speaker 2 (0:23) Wait, wait, wait. I'm sorry. Did she email this to you? Yeah. Speaker 1 (0:27) Okay. Speaker 2 (0:27) Okay. Speaker 1 (0:27) Great. No, she sends me emails regularly. It's the main way we communicate. Speaker 2 (0:31) Okay. That's hot. Speaker 1 (0:33) Yep. A while ago, Wendy, that's Silat's W for you listeners, made me for lunch what she called hippie sandwiches, and I wanted to suggest this for a spilled milk episode. At that time, I asked you what you would say goes into a hippie sandwich, and here's what you said for reference. Sprouts, lettuce, tomato, tofu or chicken breast, something like tahini, seeded bread. Note that was your list, not Wendy's. If you do the episode, you might ask her for her list. I didn't. Whoops. Related, the new cookbook Veggies for Breakfast by Willie Galloway has a recipe called Hippie Breakfast Bagel, which is based on the hippie sandwiches of her childhood. Also, I haven't read it, so I'm not sure if Jonathan Kaufman's book Hippie Food addresses the sandwich. Worth checking. Love me. Speaker 2 (1:11) Okay, well, so did Watzel read Jonathan Kaufman's book, Hippie Food? Because I'm going to be mentioning it too. Speaker 1 (1:17) Yeah, I have an exciting update. She read the book and then she said, you should check the book out from the library, the ebook, and search it for the word sandwich and see what he has to say about sandwiches. So I did. Oh, Speaker 2 (1:27) you did? Okay, good, Speaker 1 (1:28) good, good. Yeah, so like on page two, he mentions, quote, alfalfa sprouts just out of an avocado Havarti sandwich as if its toasted whole wheat shell were a squashed on hat. Speaker 2 (1:37) Wait, what do you mean alfalfa sprouts just out of? I Speaker 1 (1:41) don't know. I'm realizing this now. Speaker 2 (1:44) I think Speaker 1 (1:45) that's probably a transcription error on my part. Hold Speaker 2 (1:48) on. Let's read this sentence again. Alfalfa sprouts just out of an avocado Havarti sandwich as if it's toasted whole wheat shell were a squashed on hat. Speaker 1 (2:02) I'm going to go get my e-book reader now and see if that's actually what he wrote, and if so, why? But I think it's me making a mistake. Well, Speaker 2 (2:08) also, I was Speaker 1 (2:08) just Speaker 2 (2:08) sort of wondering if there's, like, an additional subject verb that we're missing, like, from this sentence. We're going to find out. But I do like the idea of whole wheat bread as a too squashed on hat. And maybe the idea here is the alfalfa sprouts were sort of sprouting out of the sides of it, like hair. Speaker 1 (2:26) Oh, but what is just out? Oh, like they're just peeking out? Like hair? Yeah. Okay. Hippie food. I'm going to go back to the beginning. Page Speaker 2 (2:36) two. Jonathan Kaufman used to live in Seattle. Speaker 1 (2:38) Oh, yeah, yeah. He's a friend of the show. Oh, Speaker 2 (2:40) which is why he's loving right now that we're completely like misattributed. You're right. Speaker 1 (2:47) It's jut out. Oh, Speaker 2 (2:49) jut out. Okay. Okay. So Speaker 1 (2:52) you're right. Yes. So they stick out. Speaker 2 (2:54) Okay. Okay. What's another thing he said in the book Hippie Food? Speaker 1 (2:58) Quote, he began delivering fruits and nuts, dark breads, avocado sprout sandwiches, and carob cookies to rich patrons in the beauty salons of Beverly Hills. This is a reference to Gypsy Boots of Gypsy Boots' Health Hut in Los Angeles. Wow. Speaker 2 (3:12) Wow. I love the sound of this guy. Yes. Speaker 1 (3:15) Overall, I would say the book really makes it seem like alfalfa sprouts are the key hippie sandwich ingredient. Boy, will we get to this. Speaker 2 (3:21) Okay. So, you know, I want to start out on memory lane a little bit. I've got a few stops to make on memory lane, Matthew. I have one. Okay. Well, I'm going to begin. Okay, Speaker 1 (3:31) great. Speaker 2 (3:31) Of course, as our listeners know from, I believe, the carob episode and possibly other episodes. There was a health food store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in my childhood called The Earth. Speaker 1 (3:44) And Speaker 2 (3:44) I remember they had, you know, like a little like deli counter, basically. But what I remember is how tightly they would wrap your hippie sandwich in plastic wrap. And it was always on sort of a... pale wheat bread. The slices were always much smaller than loaves of bread today. And there were always alfalfa sprouts involved. Always, always. Yeah. Okay, and here's where I began really eating hippie sandwiches, at Celestial Smoothies. Oh, I do Speaker 1 (4:16) remember Celestial Smoothies. Speaker 2 (4:17) I've mentioned it many times on the show, and I believe I've also mentioned that Tony, the guy who owned it, taught me the proper way to assemble a sandwich. Did Speaker 1 (4:25) you know that every time you mention a place in Oklahoma City, an angel gets its wings? No, I imagine all of them, especially the ones that are no longer there, so I wasn't able to. Wait, Speaker 2 (4:36) you mean the Speaker 1 (4:36) angels that Speaker 2 (4:36) are no longer there? The Speaker 1 (4:37) angels that are no longer there, because they... They like moved on. They Speaker 2 (4:40) got their wings and flew Speaker 1 (4:41) away. They were like, I'm out of here. Yeah, like what? Never mind. We're not going to examine the theological ramifications here because what I was really going to say, the actual joke was that every time you mentioned a place that I haven't been to in Oklahoma City, I imagine that it also has a suit of armor that also gets its wings. Speaker 2 (5:02) Oh, gosh, I love this. OK, well, so at Celestial Smoothies, there was like one sandwich that we made and you could either have it in like the vegetarian version or the like, you know, turkey cold cuts version. Now Speaker 1 (5:14) I'm imagining like a knight in armor drinking a smoothie. Speaker 2 (5:17) It's so cute. There's this weird ad on TV. That's weird. Speaker 2 (5:25) I often see ads. It could be like on YouTube. It shows these like white robots that are meant to be kind of sexy and they're drinking, I don't know, it's like Red Bull vodka or something. But when they pour it into their mouths, you see it come out through the like seams in their neck and stuff. Nice. Why? Speaker 1 (5:45) What's this a commercial for? I Speaker 2 (5:47) think it's... meant to look like, wow, these robots really know how to party. But what it looks like is like gruesome. Speaker 1 (5:56) But what's the commercial for? I Speaker 2 (5:58) think it's for... Speaker 1 (6:00) Red Bull? Speaker 2 (6:01) Sky vodka or something like that. All right. But I'm thinking about it because can you imagine if a suit of armor drank a smoothie? It would look like a Speaker 1 (6:08) – Speaker 2 (6:08) Oh, God. It would really Speaker 1 (6:09) gunk up the works. Okay. Never mind. I take that back. It's not cute. It's upsetting. It Speaker 2 (6:16) is. Okay. But anyway, so Tony, my boss at Celestial Smoothies, he bought these loaves of – it was like a sesame seed bread somewhere. Again, very pale. Tony Speaker 1 (6:26) was very pale for the bread. Shut up. Speaker 2 (6:30) And when someone ordered a sandwich, I would go in the back. I'd get two slices of that bread, some kind of white cheese. Speaker 1 (6:37) I Speaker 2 (6:37) don't think it was Havarti because Havarti is like too creamy and delicious. This wasn't quite so creamy and delicious. Maybe it was provolone. We do grated carrots, slice of tomato, maybe avocado, definitely some sprouts, and you could add turkey if you wanted. I don't think there were any condiments. I Speaker 1 (6:54) have a question. Was there only one sandwich on the menu? Speaker 2 (6:57) Yes, I just said that. You Speaker 1 (6:59) just said that. You Speaker 2 (6:59) were too busy coming up with your joke. I was too busy thinking Speaker 1 (7:01) about. robots in suits of armor cavorting with various fluids. Speaker 2 (7:05) That's right. And I actually really loved that sandwich. There was something about the sesame seeds in the bread and there were like a lot of them. So you'd get a couple in every bite. Like the taste of the sesame seeds and then sort of all these dry, crunchy veggies with some cheese and some avocado. Speaker 1 (7:22) Yeah. I love the idea of a restaurant or any place that only has one sandwich so you can just say, give me the sandwich. Would that be the sandwich I would choose? No, but I'm glad it happened. Speaker 2 (7:35) Yeah, yeah. Okay. What about you? I'll come to my last one in a moment. Okay. Speaker 1 (7:40) So like if you had asked me like do I have any hippie sandwich memory lane before I started thinking about it, I would have said no. But of course, like my parents were hippies. I grew up in Portland, Oregon in the 80s, and I took a peanut butter and alfalfa sprout sandwich to school in my lunch like probably 100 times. Hold Speaker 2 (7:59) on. Matthew, why? didn't you get out the peanut butter right now and make us a peanut butter sprout sandwich? Speaker 1 (8:06) Because what we got, like, okay, the co-op, the natural food store really let me down this morning because I was like, of course they're going to have alfalfa sprouts. That's like their main thing. They had no