So we are recording on Friday, September 8th at about 12.40 PM after a long hiatus that was totally my fault. All my home life was very complicated this summer, but now we are back. We have so many things we could be talking about.

So what did you choose for us to talk about today?

All right, Roman, let's start with the War on Marjorie.

Okay. That's not what I was expecting at all. All right, so why the

war on Marjorie? Well, the Paris World Exhibition of 1866 offered a prize for anybody who could develop a cheap substitute for butter.

And the reason was that Napoleon III wanted his armies in the Franco-Prussian War

to have something less expensive than butter.

Butter was getting pretty expensive.

And a French chemist invented that substitute and called it Oleo Margarine.

Now I don't know if you've ever seen just plain margarine?

I have.

You know the reason why I know any of this is that Chris Bray did a story about this for 99% invisible.

So I know some of this history, but plain margarine, you would call it unappealingly gray, guess you would say grayish white and so for that reason

Margarine doesn't really take off at first until the Dutch bought a patent for it they color it it yellow, and it starts to look like

butter and kind of tastes like butter and it's a lot cheaper.

Margarine then arrived in the United States in the

18 70s and the dairy industry hated it. They convinced state legislatures that margarine, which is of course half the price of

butter, was dangerous and unwholesome.

And by the 1880s, it became illegal.

So seven states by that time had passed laws that made making, selling, or possessing margarine illegal.

And many more states than that restricted its sale, at least the kind of margarine that was

colored yellow. And five states actually

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