A Little Pompeiian Fish Sauce Goes a Long Way | Radiolab Podcast

From the Radiolab podcast: The coldest of cold cases about a red hot explosion.
Today we follow a sleuth who has spent over a decade working to solve an epic mystery hiding in plain historical sight: did anyone survive the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD?
Tired of hearing the conventional narrative that every Pompeiian perished without any evidence to back it up, Classicist Steven Tuck decides to look into it himself. Although he is nearly two millennia late to ground zero, he uses all the available evidence to reimagine the disaster from the perspective of the people on the ground. Could anyone have survived the volcano? If they did, could they have survived what came after that: earthquakes, tsunamis, pumice stones hurtling like missiles from the sky? If someone did survive, what happened to them after that??! To find out we have to think, feel and possibly even eat like Ancient Romans.
An against-all-odds story of a disaster without warning, a mass disappearance without a trace, and oddly, a particularly stinky fish sauce, care of special guest Chef Samin Nosrat.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by Latif Nasser, with help from Annie McEwen and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys.
Produced by Annie McEwen.
Recording help from Adam Howell.
Voice acting by Brandon Dalton.
Original music and sound design contributed by Jeremy Bloom and Annie McEwen, with mixing help from Arianne Wack.
Hosting help from Sarah Qari.
Fact-checking by Emily Krieger.
Edited by Pat Walters.
Recipes:
Ancient Roman recipe for garum: archive.org/de...
Read more about garum here: penelope.uchic...
Or in Sally Grainger’s book "The Story of Garum: Fermented Fish Sauce and Salted Fish in the Ancient World."
Articles:
On Pliny's letters and the eruption including a reanalysis of the date of the eruption, Pedar Foss, Pliny and the Eruption of Vesuvius: www.routledge....
Documentaries:
A recent PBS documentary, "Pompeii: The New Dig," including segments on Steven Tuck’s work: www.pbs.org/sh...
Photos and Maps:
To trace building locations or names of home owners as well as photos of every square inch of Pompeii: pompeiiinpictu...
From Steven Tuck: “If someone has an otherwise unbeatable case of insomnia, my preliminary publication of findings is in Reflections: Harbour City Deathscapes in Roman Italy and Beyond” edizioniquasar...
Brief description of the casts and casting process of the remains found at Pompeii: pompeiisites.o...
Maps of the Ancient Roman world that you can use to trace some of the land and sea routes discussed in the episode: orbis.stanford...
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Photo illustration by Jared Bartman
Video by W. Harry Fortuna

[@danielludlow8960]

This reminded me of radiolab of the past. Great episode!

[@richmondvand147]

I'm right there with you Latif, I cant stop imagining myself right there experiencing these things 33:00 and this one hit particularly hard - am a total mess. Thank you for this;

[@sargerpd]

Great Ep

[@Averyskellyboi]

What is the song that plays at the end of this episode I have been looking for it all day and i cannot find it anywhere

[@Deeppowbro]

❤

[@napalmholocaust9093]

We already know most got out. The bone layer is not the first erupion. The first depositions are just ash. It only got the stragglers who thought they knew better.