Aaron’s grandfather never would have thought this little story about growing up during the depression would reach tens of millions of people around the globe.
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Original Story Told by: Joseph Collier (Calafato)
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music: thomas j. duke
S3 Episode 17: The Dandelion Salad - powered by Happy Scribe
Hey, everybody, it's Aaron. I hope your 2023 is off to a great start. What you're about to listen to is the first 7 Minute story of 2023. Right now, I'm actually standing in the middle of our... I call it the den. Cori doesn't like when I say the word "den", but it is like a garden-level area in some split-level homes. I love it. We have our TV, the books, the record player, all that stuff.
But I'm actually moving recording spaces. I've been telling stories in this upstairs closet for multiple years. If you've been following this podcast for a long time, that's where I am when I'm recording, this tiny little closet surrounded by foam, got a microphone, got great sound, but it's getting a little tight in there.
With the help of Cori, she's pretty much doing a lot of the planning and all that stuff. She's better at this stuff than I am. We're moving me down to the basement. I guess to upgrade, I got to go down, and we're going down to the basement, and it's going to be a much bigger space, even better sound for the stories that you hear.
I can move around a little bit, do stuff for the podcast consulting business and all of that stuff. I'm actually really excited to move. That's my start to the 2023.
I also wanted to thank you all because as you know, we always take a couple of weeks off over the holiday season. It's just been a thing that I do. Then we come back in January and continue the season. But what's amazing is that you all, your listenership around Christmas and New Year, when we weren't posting any new stories, you took us into the top 100, I think we peaked at 97, in the United States of America for performing arts on Apple Podcasts.
It's so awesome just to know that we could take a break. I don't have to post a story and that you're there listening, binging, and telling people about it and helping this podcast grow. This is amazing. I just wanted to say thank you for that. It means a lot.
Okay, I'm really anxious for you to hear this story. This story is titled The Dandelion Salad. What you'll hear, not only with the story that's a story that my grandfather told me that I'm sharing, not only I think you enjoy the premise and the story itself, but also you'll find out what happened with the level of viewership and how many people around the globe have ended up hearing and seeing this story, including you. It's a pretty cool thing. Stay tuned and enjoy and I'll talk to you soon.
My grandfather told a short story that was heard by millions of people around the globe. Before I tell you that story, though, before we get to it, I want to paint a picture for you.
I want you to imagine this. Go with me on this journey here. You can smell your favorite dish being made, and it's coming from the kitchen. Even better, it's someone that you love making it. It could be your wife, it could be your husband, mom, dad, family, whoever. But it's being made, and at first the smell is kind of faint and you're like, Yeah, I can smell something really good. And then you recognize, Oh, it's your favorite dish. It's your favorite food.
Whatever that is to you, just imagine that first sensation. Then you can hear them moving around in the kitchen. You can hear them banging against the oven and opening the oven and hear timers in the fridge with ingredients coming in and out or chopping.
Or maybe you hear the crackling of a piece of meat being put into a sauté pan or some vegetables being sautéed. Now you can smell the other aromatics, some garlic, some onion, something in the air. You're like, man, you start salivating and you know that this is going to be an amazing dinner and you can't wait.
Then you go up there and it's true. They're like, it's your favorite. And you're like, oh, my God, thank you so much. You wash your hands, you sit down and there's that dish right in front of you. You're so hungry, you dive right in, but you don't want to go too fast because you want to savor every bite. The flavors and the textures, interplaying and dancing like a ballet. You can feel your whole body just accepting this and you feel nourished.
They call it home cooking, but it's real because it's not just that it was cooked at home, it was how it was cooked and who cooked it and their intention in cooking it. And it literally revitalizes you. That experience in itself, to me, is one of the best experiences you can have being alive. It also is an experience for me that shows the power of food and memory and food and story and how they are so interconnected.
I saw this one commercial that's been out, maybe it's because I'm watching a lot of football, but this one commercial where around the holidays, it was this young guy trying to create this dish that his grandmother created. When you're watching the commercial, you see his grandmother is helping him along the way. The reveal at the end is it was her spirit and she wasn't really there, but she was there.
When he serves the dish, even though he haphazardly tried to make it and do his best, he did her proud. And he looked up and there's a picture of her overlooking the entire family and the food he's about to serve. My God. That's what it's about.
I've been thinking about this, and I remember that my grandfather had told me one of the best stories about food that I had ever heard. It was ironic because he told me this story right as we were about to eat a meal. But it was different this time because I had invited him to dinner. I had just gotten my first job, my first paycheck. I was just really proud and I wanted him to be proud of me. So he went out to dinner with me and it was a cool thing.
It was a fancier restaurant, more upscale than we were used to. But the waitress comes out and talks about the appetizers and we're both looking and we see this, it's like a wild green salad and it had all these fancy names on it. So I was like, "That looks good. Let's get those."
And so we wait for a few minutes, waitress comes back with the salads. My grandfather looks down at his salad, he starts laughing. I was like, "What are you laughing at?" He goes, "There's dandelions in my salad." I was like, "Well, yeah, it's a fancier restaurant, I guess. It's just dandelion salad, Grandpa. Enjoy it." He goes, "No, no, no, it's fine." He just said, "It reminds me of a memory that I have of growing up in the Depression."
He goes on, he says, "My mother would send my sister and I out into the front yard, and we were really poor during this time, couldn't afford really anything. And in our front yard, it was like in quotations, he said, "There was just a strip of grass. And on that strip of grass was a bunch of dandelions. And my mother would have us pick every single one of them, put them in a bucket and then come back inside and bring it to her."
He said, "She would take all of the dandelions out and start preparing them." He said, "I would just watch her and she would wash all of them. And next thing you knew," he said, "he would start sautéing these and olive oil and just adding just a few simple ingredients, salt, pepper, and some garlic.
And he said, "And then she would have my sister and I sit at the table and she would bring us this plate of sautéed dandelions. And that's what we had for lunch." He goes, "And I just can't believe it. All these years later, I'm looking down at this salad, but I'm here at this fancy restaurant with my grandson who's buying me dinner."
He got tears in his eyes and I was like, "Whoa!" And he said, "The other thing that's crazy is I can't believe this salad is $12," he said. He said, "No offence, because I just remember picking this out of the strip of grass in the front of our house."
And he goes, "To be honest with you, Aaron, this is very good." He takes a bite. "But the way my mother prepared it is just a little bit better. But I appreciate you so much taking me to dinner."
That was it. We moved on to the next subject. But there was this moment that happened, but I didn't realize it was going to be one of our last meals together before he passed away. I'm so glad we had that dinner together.
Now, at the beginning of the 7 Minutes, I told you that that little story that my grandfather told me was heard by millions of people around the globe. Now, many of those people are you listening right now in 7 Minute Stories, the audio podcast.
But several weeks ago, I did a one-minute video version of this story I just told you about the dandelion salad. If you haven't yet, go to my YouTube channel and subscribe because that's what I put out every Tuesday is one-minute video adaptations of the 7 Minute Stories you listen to every week. Anyways, I put the dandelion story out there and it was viewed by over 15 million people around the globe.
What was amazing is all of the comments and the stories that people left talking about their grandparents and their loved ones and their connection with food. It was so affirming about the connection I was talking about between food and story and our common humanity and the goodness in that. It was such a gift that that happened.
All I can think about is just how proud my grandfather would be to know that his little story about some dandelions that he picked during the Depression would reach so many people around the globe. I don't think you could ever imagine it. So there you go, Grandpa. Love you.
7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Our senior audio engineer is Ken Wendt. Our resident artist is Pete Whitehead. Original music by TJ Duke. If you or your company needs help starting a podcast, Aaron and Ken's company, Valley View, does just that. Reach out to them at valleyview.fm. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcasts. I'm Cori Birst. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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