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Six Degrees with Mike Rowe - Se1 - Ep01 HD Watch [Full Movie] [Trending]Full EP - Full
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00:063, 2, 1.
00:10We live in amazing times.
00:12That's what I'm talking about!
00:14Uncertain times.
00:15Times that make us scratch our heads and wonder,
00:18what in the hell is that?
00:21Join me on a search for answers.
00:23Answers that require puppets, tuba players,
00:28unexpected discoveries, and a little help
00:31from my old buddy Chuck.
00:33Together, we're going to prove that every single thing
00:37in our crazy and unpredictable world is connected.
00:41Genius.
00:41I'm Mike Rowe.
00:42It's alive!
00:44And this is 6 Degrees.
00:50When people say to me, Mike Rowe,
00:52what is the key to each episode of 6 Degrees with Mike Rowe?
00:55I say, well, obviously, this show begins
00:58with the invention of the forward pass.
01:01And when they look at me like I'm absolutely crazy,
01:04I rethink my answer and say,
01:06well, I suppose I could make a case
01:08that our show relies on a cookbook from the Civil War.
01:14Where it goes from there is not exactly a straight line,
01:17but when the dust settles, you will see the undeniable,
01:20incontrovertible truth of exactly how hungry Civil War soldiers
01:25produced this show.
01:34This story starts the way most American stories do.
01:38No, not with stock footage of a waving American flag,
01:42but with clashing political parties,
01:45vicious debate over the Constitution,
01:48competing economic interests.
01:49Oh, yeah, it's just another day in these United States.
01:55In 1861, to kick off the year,
01:58seven states secede from the Union.
02:00A couple of months later,
02:02the Civil War is on,
02:04and as the kids like to say,
02:06it's lit.
02:08Literally, Fort Sumter is on fire.
02:10The conflict escalates,
02:13and more states secede.
02:16Come on, Tennessee.
02:17Make up your mind.
02:20All right, then.
02:23Our great nation was looking not so great,
02:27and it was bleakest of all out on the battlefield.
02:32My dearest Priscilla,
02:34the war has just begun,
02:36but already it feels like an eternity.
02:39What our Confederate adversaries lack in manpower,
02:42they make up for in conviction and ingenuity.
02:46I'm gonna be completely honest here,
02:48war basically sucks.
02:50I super regret signing up.
02:52Some nights I lay awake wondering,
02:54what got us into this mess,
02:56and why I didn't go to art school.
02:59I promise I'll write again soon.
03:01In the meantime,
03:02I will pray that this war is short,
03:05for it's more than I can stomach.
03:07Lovingly yours,
03:09the General.
03:12Stomach is an interesting choice of words.
03:14More on that in a minute.
03:16First, let's pick it up here.
03:20July 22nd, 1861,
03:22and the Union Army has just gotten a wake-up call.
03:25Yesterday, they fought the first decisive battle
03:28of the Civil War,
03:29the first battle of Bull Run,
03:30which everyone expected they would win,
03:32running away.
03:33Well, what happened is,
03:35they just ran away.
03:37The Confederates kicked their butts.
03:383,000 casualties on the Union side,
03:412,000 on the Confederate side.
03:43These guys are just realizing they're in for a long slog.
03:47They're all so exhausted, they're tired, they're hot,
03:50and more than anything else,
03:51they're hungry.
03:53Making the chef
03:56the most important guy in camp.
03:58There's only one problem.
04:00The cook doesn't know what he's doing.
04:02He has no training.
04:04He has no experience.
04:05He's never worked in a tavern or a restaurant
04:08or even followed a recipe.
04:09His meals have been prepared for him
04:11for the last 10 years by his wife.
04:13The ingredients are deeply suspect,
04:15and on top of everything else,
04:16I think he's wrestling with a head cold.
04:20Not good.
04:21You poor bastards.
04:23Point is, the food was not only terrible,
04:26there wasn't even enough of it to go around,
04:28leaving the men both hungry and nauseous.
04:31They did get staples like flour,
04:34salt, sugar, coffee,
04:36but their fresh meat and produce options
04:38were sorely lacking.
04:40Veggies came dry when they came at all.
04:43If the pork wasn't raw, it was over-salted.
04:46And the beef was so rancid.
04:48They called it salt horse.
04:51It's true what they say.
04:53War is hell.
04:55Priscilla, the longer the war drags on,
04:59the more I yearn for your touch.
05:01And more importantly, your cooking.
05:04The food here on the battlefield
05:06is perhaps best described as hot garbage.
05:09As our provisions dwindle,
05:11so too does our morale.
05:13My soul is as black as the charred beef
05:16we were served for breakfast.
05:18In contrast, I've just eaten a piece of pork
05:21so undercooked,
05:22I literally thought I was going to vomit.
05:25Supper today was a bowl of dirt.
05:28That's not a metaphor.
05:29I ate dirt with a spoon.
05:31I'd rather die a thousand deaths
05:34than eat another piece of hardtack.
05:37Hungrily yours, the general.
05:40A quick word about hardtack.
05:43For starters, it's hard.
05:45It's made of flour, water, and salt.
05:48And it will survive a nuclear winter.
05:52Soldiers had lots of fun nicknames for it.
05:55Teeth dollars, sheet iron crackers,
05:57or my personal favorite, worm castles.
06:00Why worm castles?
06:02Vermin grows in it.
06:04Weevils, larvae, things like that.
06:07So in order to coax the protein out,
06:09these guys drop the hardtack in their coffee,
06:11which also softens it up to the point
06:13where they can actually eat it.
06:15And then they scoop the little bugs
06:17off the top of their coffee.
06:20This poor fellow's been chewing the same mouthful
06:22of grub for the last 10 minutes.
06:25Although there is some ambiguity
06:27around the source of the pork,
06:29one thing's for certain, it's undercooked.
06:32You ever put raw pork in your mouth before?
06:35It's not good.
06:41Priscilla, I can barely muster the strength to write.
06:45For nigh on a fortnight, I've had crazy diarrhea.
06:49I don't want to be graphic.
06:51I think I've got a case of the battle of bull runs.
06:55It's entirely possible that I'm having a bowel movement
06:58as I write this letter.
07:00There is no way of knowing.
07:06I think.
07:08So how did the United States cure its giant case of diarrhea?
07:12Not with a giant bottle of Pepto.
07:15Nope, it was the job of the U.S. Sanitary Commission,
07:19a.k.a. the sanitary.
07:22It was up to them to support sick and wounded Union soldiers
07:25during the war.
07:26That meant setting up hospitals
07:28and cleaning up Union Army kitchens.
07:35So the sanitary called in the big guns.
07:38Well, not literal guns.
07:40This guy wasn't even a soldier.
07:42He was a hotel operator by trade.
07:45But the army made him a captain.
07:49Captain James M. Sanderson.
07:54It's an entrance fit for a hero.
07:56And make no mistake, Captain James Sanderson is a hero.
08:00He spent the last year writing a cookbook.
08:03It's called Campfires and Camp Cooking or Culinary Hints for the Soldier,
08:07including Receipt for Making Bread in the Portable Field Oven
08:10Furnished by the Subsistence Department.
08:11It's a terrible title, but make no mistake.
08:14The recipes in this book are credited with helping change the course of the war.
08:19In other words, they're good enough to eat.
08:24Think of him as Gordon Ramsay in Hell's Kitchen 150 years ago.
08:30He stepped into a dire situation and without fanfare, he cleaned it up and apparently made a difference in just
08:38three days.
08:39Instead of trusting inexperienced cooks, Sanderson made sure every company had a specially trained cook major and two designated privates
08:50to help him out.
08:51And, most importantly, he made sanitation a priority.
08:56Cleanliness is next to godliness, both in persons and kettles.
09:01Be ever industrious, then, in scouring your pots.
09:05Much elbow grease, a few ashes, and a little water are capital aids to the careful cook.
09:10You really think Gordon Ramsay is going to write something like that?
09:14Solid.
09:19He never fired a gun or sutured a wound.
09:22But Captain Sanderson may have saved more Union lives than any other officer.
09:30He had his standards, beginning with quality.
09:35That meant clean water simmering.
09:37Instead of boiling, supplementing desiccated vegetables with fresh ones.
09:41Nutrition.
09:42Be sparing with sugar and salt, he said.
09:45One hour of overcooking is better than five minutes of undercooking.
09:48Skim the fat off the top and use it for frying or sell it later.
09:52Which brings us to efficiency.
09:54Insulate kettles to save fuel.
09:56Use every morsel of meat and bone.
09:58Anything to prevent unnecessary extravagance.
10:02What I want to know is, how's it taste?
10:08Beef stew with desiccated vegetables.
10:10So delicious, he's not even chewing.
10:14So delectable, he licks his plate clean.
10:18Coffee that tastes like coffee.
10:21No more tears.
10:24Over the course of a year, the food in the Union Army went from inedible to downright delectable.
10:31And the Union Army went on to win the Civil War.
10:34A war that would end slavery.
10:37Thanks to Captain Sanderson and this book.
10:42To keep the Northern Army's hunger at bay, the North took advantage of its 21,000 miles of railroad track
10:49to distribute meat rations to its troops on the go.
10:53Creating a new infrastructure for food delivery on a massive scale.
10:59Before the war, food distribution relied heavily on local sources.
11:03But this war proved that shipping meat and goods across the country was not only possible, but highly profitable.
11:12Bottom line, the Civil War and James Sanderson's cookbook drove the demand for meat like never before.
11:23And so there came a time for an inevitable meeting.
11:28The meat industry and the railroad industry come together here on the south side of Chicago.
11:32They identify a piece of land that's mutually acceptable.
11:36They shake on it.
11:38And after that, it's all the meat you can eat.
11:43So what does the meat industry have to do with making this show?
11:48Well, that should be obvious.
11:52Cattle herds came into the southwest from Mexico.
11:55By 1855, there were 10 head of cattle for every person in Texas.
12:01Gradually, the industry spread eastward across the Alleghenies and into the Ohio River Valley.
12:06And let's not forget about hogs.
12:09Cincinnati was so well known for its pig population, it came to be known as Porkopolis.
12:15After the Civil War, the burgeoning railroad system helped create the first version of a centralized meat industry.
12:22Bringing slaughterhouses and packing houses to Chicago en masse.
12:26Which begs the question, what happens 10 years later?
12:2910 years later, the swamp is no longer a swamp.
12:32The railroad industry and the meat industry come together.
12:37And the result?
12:38The Chicago Union stockyards.
12:41It's kind of a big deal.
12:43Now, was the occasion commemorated with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony?
12:48I don't know.
12:50But I know this much is true.
12:52Between 1860 and the end of the Civil War, cattle receipts skyrocketed by 189%.
13:00Hogs receipts rose 258%.
13:03From under 400,000 to almost one and a half million.
13:07And to get their meat to the masses, the meat packing and railroad industries would have to keep working hand
13:14in hand.
13:17This is one of those meat packers, Gustavus Swift.
13:20At 16, he bought his first cow for $20.
13:24He butchered it and sold the meat to his neighbors.
13:28Two decades later, old Gustavus is a partner at a major meat packing company, Hathaway and Swift.
13:35And right now, he's trying to solve a problem.
13:39How to get meat to hungry carnivores on the East Coast.
13:42When the stockyards first formed, meat packers would ship the cattle live.
13:46And they'd be slaughtered when they got there.
13:49But Swift has been working on an idea.
13:51With the help of an engineer, Swift designed a ventilated but well insulated refrigerator car
13:59that pushed cold air downward from tanks of ice.
14:02The Swift refrigerator line allowed packing houses to ship meat long distances without spoiling.
14:09The ice-cooled railroad car helped cement Chicago as the meat packing capital of America.
14:15And Swift as a man with his eye on the bottom line.
14:19But to get the full picture of how Swift changed meat in America, I'm going to become a puppet and
14:25go inside.
14:27Inside the walls of his slaughterhouse.
14:33These unsung heroes gave their lives not only in the name of delicious steak dinners, but in the name of
14:41American innovation.
14:42Welcome to the Gustavus Swift assembly line, or more accurately, disassembly line.
14:49Powered by a steam engine, the overhead trolley system moved meat throughout the factory where workers would perform specialized tasks.
14:59Splitting backbone.
15:01Yeah, I should probably get off here.
15:03The process was so efficient, it would go on to inspire Henry Ford, who famously said when he first tried
15:10the experiment of an assembly line,
15:13quote, the idea came in a general way from the overhead trolley the Chicago Packers used in dressing beef.
15:22Quick digression.
15:23Slaughterhouse workers did not whistle while they worked.
15:28Working conditions were often deplorable.
15:30Sanitation, subpar.
15:32And don't even get me started on the smell.
15:35But just as we sanitized this scene with puppets,
15:39Gustavus Swift also knew how to dress up a slaughterhouse into a more palatable package.
15:47Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and witness the eighth wonder of the world.
15:53The modern-day slaughterhouse.
15:57That really happened.
16:00After shaving off a terrible beard, Gustavus Swift not only opened a slaughterhouse,
16:06he printed up visitor reference books.
16:08You'll be amazed as you watch us turn steers into steaks in 35 minutes flat.
16:16And that is a big deal, because up until this point,
16:19it took 10 hours to turn a steer into a pile of edible steaks.
16:23Doing it in a half hour changes everything.
16:26We're making pork chops.
16:28We're making Christmas hands.
16:30But you'll be amazed how we're making bacon.
16:34And the bacon they're making is coming not just from a pig.
16:38It's coming from ticket sales.
16:40It's coming from meat orders.
16:41This guy, Swift, he started a butcher shop with $400.
16:46By the time he dies in 1903, his empire is worth over $3.5 billion in today's money.
16:53Make no mistake, there's money in meat.
16:56Trust me, we use every bit of the pig except for the squeal.
17:02Trust me.
17:03They really said that.
17:05Did they really do it?
17:06Of course they did.
17:08All thanks to the brilliant meat mind of Gustavus Swift.
17:13Legend has it that Swift had an aha moment while walking along a fork off the Chicago River.
17:20Or, as it came to be known, Bubbly Creek.
17:24An unspeakable repository of slaughterhouse runoff.
17:28Upton Sinclair described it like this in his hysterical novel, The Jungle.
17:34Quote, bubbles of carbonic acid rise to the surface.
17:39The grease and filth have caked solid and the creek looks like a bed of lava.
17:44And many times, an unwary stranger has started to stroll across and vanished temporarily.
17:51The Chicago meat magnates dumped their waste pretty much wherever they pleased.
17:57But, on that fateful day, Swift didn't just smell foul animal byproducts.
18:02He smelled a business opportunity.
18:07What if all that animal waste could be retained and used to make other products?
18:12Rendered fat became candles, soap, and therapeutic oils.
18:17Bones became glue, gelatin, cones, buttons.
18:21Hog hair went into mattresses.
18:23And sheep intestines?
18:24They went on to become high-quality strings for violins, cellos, and tennis rackets.
18:30The other packing houses followed Swift's lead, adding to their empires by turning those discarded animal parts into profits.
18:47In other words, the meat industry finally started making good on its promise to use everything but the squeal.
18:54Which means the secret to our little show is tangled up somewhere in these sheep intestines.
18:59I'm out.
19:01Making friends everywhere I go.
19:05This is a random tennis match being played back in 1915.
19:09And we call your attention to it not to highlight the incredible athletic prowess of the players on the court,
19:15but rather the incredible contribution to the game by one of the audience members in attendance.
19:22Specifically, that guy.
19:25His name is Thomas.
19:26And the question is how did he help us make this show?
19:33The answer?
19:34Maybe more than you can stomach.
19:36Today we're showing you exactly how hungry Civil War soldiers produced this show.
19:41It starts with hungry Civil War soldiers spiking the demand for meat, which allows meat by-products to take the
19:47world by storm.
19:47And that involves an up-close look at one of the most...
19:51Well, this is not that.
19:54Don't let the fancy outfit fool you.
19:57Mogul.
19:57But he's also a transformational figure in the wide world.
20:00Sheep intestines we sometimes refer to as...
20:30there's no way a man much for the snowing this show.
20:30We're so sure that we're supposed to make a bear on the ground.
20:30We're so important to remember that it's going to be right now.
20:31You're right.
20:32This is a little more interesting.
20:32I'm not too low.
20:32And people are still sharp.
20:38We're so sharp.
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