Today we’re recreating food banned from space. I too am banned from Outback Steakhouse, but, you know. Today’s historic meal is inspired by a sandwich that was banned from space travel. The first corned beef sandwich to orbit Earth was smuggled aboard Gemini 3 on March 23, 1965. Pilot John Young snuck in this contraband sandwich in a pocket of his spacesuit shortly before the launch. Around halfway through the flight, he offered some to the commander of the mission, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, who graciously accepted. Grissom put the unfinished sandwich away in his own spacesuit pocket, so the breadcrumbs that were breaking off wouldn’t float behind an instrument panel or into one of the astronaut’s eyes. While the sandwich didn’t cause any harm, The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee banned the sandwich from all future flights. Today, we’re recreating this banned dish along with other foods that have been enjoyed in space throughout the years. Applesauce, pudding, shrimp cocktail, and tacos. Yum, yum, yum! Can’t wait to see which human astronaut I’m going to play. Me too. It’s time for Meals of History! Did I mess up or did Emily mess up? Nobody messed up. This is good. Wait, did I do, no, did I do what I was supposed to do? I think we got it. Tell me I’m good. We got it. Tell us we’re good. I didn’t do bad. Tell us I’m a good girl. I will throw her under the bus. Daddy, tell me I’m a good girl. I had a dream like this once. Hello. Hi. Hi. My name is Josh. Do you shake hands? You can call me Tic Tac. Tic Tac. I think you might get sued by a candy corporation. – Tic Tac. – No, no, no. That’s the name of the ship. You came to Earth on a ship? In something you call a Tic Tac. That’s all you talked about in the hearings. Tic Tac this, Tic Tac that. Here a Tic Tac, there a Tic Tac. Everywhere a Tic Tac. You’re talking about the recent extraterrestrial naval hearings in front of Congress. That’s me! Yo, you were the, God, you got to. I was trying to allude to it, I guess you, I thought I’d be more of a celebrity by now. A lot of people don’t believe that you exist, which I think is pretty messed up. Oh, they saw it. Why don’t you believe it? It was just a little. You had a whole hearing with a bunch of white men who looked exactly the same, which is suspicious. That is suspicious. I think that. They look like clones of each other. Yeah. I don’t know what their names were, but I’m pretty sure it was all Steve. It was Steve one way or another. Yes it was. But, yeah, there were multiple Tic Tacs apparently, but I fly the one. And then the rest of them, I control with a little You’re, you’re driving like a head Tic Tac and then you have several drone Tic Tacs behind you. Yeah, I don’t know why this is such complicated technology. We had a famous flight. It’s famous to me. Oh, I forgot to tell you. I’m here because I want to learn something from you. So, are you going to teach me something? Yeah, do you want to learn how to make corned beef? Okay, good. I just wanted to make it clear what I was here for. Okay, fantastic. That’s why I picked this. I love that for us. That’s why I picked your show. Yeah, that’s great. No, I’m just so glad that. Also I want to eat your bones. What? You guys all think that we want butt stuff. Actually, we just want to eat your bones. We don’t want the meat. If we could just leave the meat and then take the bones, that would be great, but you guys need the whole thing. So that’s kind of unfortunate. Now I feel weird about getting in happy baby pose and sort of, presenting myself. Oh, trust me, babies won’t be happy when I’m through with them. We don’t have baby here today, but what we do have is a lovely brisket right here. So, the food that was banned in space by NASA officially in 1965, that’s our governing space organization. A man brought a corned beef sandwich. You’re familiar with corned beef? Nope. All right, so what we do, so we have an animal. It’s like me, but fatter and a little bit smarter. Oh, that’s what you look like on the inside. Yeah, actually, yeah, that would be kind of this region right here. Oh. You can see it? So, this is a brisket. So, the corned beef sandwich was smuggled on board by John Young in the Gemini 3 mission in 1965, and this is actually how they found out that you don’t want crumbs in spacef light. And yes, not pronounced “Gemi-ni”, it is pronounced Gemini. NASA officially came out with a statement saying it was pronounced Gemini. Nobody knows if it was just because the astronauts were mispronouncing it so much that NASA said screw it, it’s pronounced Gemini, but it is officially Gemini according to NASA. Oh no, because everyone knows that astrological stuff is real. Wait, it is real though? It is real, it’s science. It is real. Take it from Tic Tac over here. Also, I’ve met your God. How is she? It’s a he, unfortunately. Take that! And he is a, he’s about, he’s like a teenager, pretty much. He’s just figuring it out as he goes. Yeah. There’s other Gods of other planets and other solar systems, and they are much better than this one. He’s kind of like, he’s like got a bunch of, like, you know those kids with the magnifying glasses, and they’re just killing ants? That’s your God. Ants? The corned beef sandwich. So, this was smuggled on board. It’s actually how they found out that you cannot have leavened bread in space because it causes too many crumbs. Literally just an astronaut, decided to go rogue, said ha ha, practical joke, and then they’re like this could really cause your ship to explode, because he took a single bite, crumbs started flying out, and then his commander Gus Grissom put it in his pocket and was like no more, so we’re. Your technology could be taken down by crumbs. Really, like actually, so much for modern space food, I’m gonna start making the brine for this corned beef. We’re raising some corned beef from scratch, even though they got it from a local Florida diner in Cocoa Beach. But we’re adding salt to that, that’s gonna help preserve the meat. Keep fiddling with that ice, that’s good. Is that a cooking technique in your, in your country? No, I just love it! Your country of planet? What’s the planet called? I’m not telling you. These are nitrate salts. This is called Prague powder. It’s actually quite dangerous if you eat a lot of it. But, use it to preserve meat. It’s what gives it its signature pink color and also a lovely snappy texture. Wait. She said not to eat it. Why are we doing this? No, you eat it in cured meats, like nitrates or something that, like, the granola moms, they avoid, you know, the wheatgrass shop ones. They avoid this? Tibble can’t have sugar. But wait, they say that you can’t have this? You’re not supposed to eat it plain, like, it’s dangerous if you were to just house that whole thing, but we’re putting it into a brisket. Wait, I kinda like the granola moms for this one. So, we’re adding some brown sugar there. Sugar’s gonna give us some sweetness. Right now we’re just trying to add flavor to this brisket. We’re gonna let it sit in this brine. That’s some ground ginger, bay leaves. We’re gonna let it sit in the brine for about two weeks. And then we’re just gonna. Two weeks? Yeah, but in, that could be the blink of an eye on your planet. I don’t know how you perceive time. I can’t do this makeup every day for two weeks, dude. Black pepper. I look like Old Gregg. I didn’t realize that until I just put this makeup on. I look like, I would like to have looked like Gamora, but unfortunately, this is what I look like. And we got some whole cloves. It’s so funny because before we shot this, you were like, I’m going to talk a lot about the congressional hearings. I don’t believe, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I like don’t believe in aliens. I know to you, I’m the alien to you, I don’t believe in aliens like whatsoever. Oh my God, this is like the X-Files. And so. I do! They’re out there! We got this brine situated right here. We’re going to add a bunch of ice. My ice! Just to cool it down. I don’t know what’s poisonous to your people and what’s not. Anything could burn you, just don’t touch anything. The one time I don’t ask you to help and you want to help. So we’re going to take the brisket, the brine is cool right now, we don’t want to boil it. We’re going to let it sit in cool brine, we’re going to put that in a fridge for about two weeks, let all those ingredients, all that poisonous pink powder that we know and love, soak in there, then we’re going to boil it off, cook it up, and make our banned space sandwich. And then we have rented a zero gravity chamber that we’re actually going to go into see if we can eat the sandwich in there. We have the budget for the zero grav? All right, Glorp Glorp, so we got our corned beef. Oh my God, is Glorp Glorp, is Glorp Glorp an ex? That is racist. I’m so sorry. You are a racist. We’re adding some carrots to that. We’re now boiling it in just an aromatic broth. We’ve got all the spices that are soaked in there. So, now we’re making broth. Hey! Some garlic. Hi, yes? Can I put something in something? Put all of it in. So, we’re gonna take these. We’re flavoring our water that we’re gonna boil the animal flesh in. You know, the, the stuff stuck to my bones that you like. You don’t like smell? I don’t like onions. You don’t like onions? You’ve been on earth long enough to formulate opinions about onions? Yeah. Put them in, put them in. It’s going to be good when it boils with the beef. Do you want to know what we call this on my planet? Of course I do. You have to tap my little, my translator button. It changes to my, my language. This isn’t like a trick, right? Like, hey, you have to reach in the popcorn box in my lap. And that’s a literal translation? Yes. Is there another word for it? Oh, that’s in like the, affirmative case, but what about like an interrogative? What the [BLEEP] is that? I need to add the beef. We gotta get this coming. We gotta get the show on the road. We got Space Command. Mission’s leaving in three hours. We gotta get up there. We gotta see what’s on Venus. I’m trying to start a colony on Venus. Check back in a sec. TikTok, we gotta start assembling our sandwich now. So we take the corned beef. Tic Tac! Tic Tac, I’m sorry. We have the corned beef. We’ve taken it out of the liquid. It’s boiled, we’ve dried it off. We’ve let it chill down, so now we can slice it. I’m gonna start slicing this up. Okay. I don’t wanna use one of those. No, I don’t think you should. I don’t think you should, if we’re being honest. I’m a little greased up, but this should be fine. Keep your fingers clear. Thin slices, beautiful. Look at that. Look at the pretty pieces of flesh. Don’t put your fingers in. Don’t put your fingers in yet. Flesh! Okay, we’re going to turn it off. We’re going to turn it off. Wait for the blade to stop spinning. Listen, my dad worked as a meat slicer. Cut off one of his fingerprints. Really? Yeah, yeah. Check this out. We got some beautiful corned beef. He should be a spy. Yeah, he should have been. No. He, he, he didn’t. He didn’t do well in school. I think you got to be good at school. How do you like the human food? I can taste a little bit of bone. Yeah, there’s some bone fragment in there. I like that. But it doesn’t have the crunch. I need the crunch! What’s your favorite human food that you’ve experienced so far? I mainly like Buffalo Wild Wings. The scraps that people leave behind. That adds up. You love the crunch of the bones. Yes, but I also like blue cheese. They actually have a replica of this sandwich in the NASA museum. Apparently, they’re quite proud of this. And it did appear that the bread was toasted, so you can go see. You have a museum for your place that almost fell apart from crumbs? Yeah, you gotta understand though, this was 1965. This is when NFL players were smoking cigarettes in the locker room during halftime. This is when they were telling pregnant women that it was like beneficial to drink. Things were loosey goosey back then and that’s fine. I want our astronauts to bring weird stuff on board. I dated an Earthling once who said he went off to go get some of those and he never came back. Oh, you’re adapting to our culture real well. We have a couple of very famous astronauts here. I’m wondering if you’ve heard of them. Bruce Willis. Huh? Bruce Willis, the famous astronaut. Ben Affleck, he’s a famous astronaut. All right, we can bring that up. Ving Rhames. What? No, it was Michael Clarke Duncan. Michael Clarke Duncan or Ving Rhames? Michael Clarke Duncan. Are you talking about Armageddon? Yeah, the documentary? Listen, I’m more of a Deep Impact kind of girl. I bet she is, am I right? Alright, so we got. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. Hey, yo, is that Tic Tac talking? Does anyone know what Deep Impact is? It’s a movie that came out the exact same year, and it was about the same thing, and it was Elijah Wood and Leelee Sobieski. I’m a big Leelee Sobieski guy. She’s so hot. I think she played Joan of Arc. Anyways, we got our perfect No, that was, that was the. That was Leelee Sobieski No. Leelee Sobieski played Joan of Arc. No. 100%. Somebody look this up. We got our perfect recreation of a 1965 contraband corned beef sandwich smuggled on the Gemini 3 mission to By astronaut John Young, smuggled again by Gus Grissom back, almost took down the entire flight. And this actually set the tone for how they would eat food in space coming up later, including the fact they subbed out almost all leavened bread for tortillas. Milla Jovovich! That was not Mila Jovovich. It’s Jovovich. That’s who played Joan of Arc. Mila Jovovich. I don’t care about this episode at all. It was not Mila Jovovich. I would have remembered if it was. You don’t care about this episode at all? No, I care about finding out who played Joan of Arc in that TV. It was like a TV movie. Oh, okay. That’s good that you care about that. It was Mila Jovovich. So, to really understand how an astronaut smuggled a corned beef sandwich into space, we have to understand where space food really comes from, right? The Russians, well Soviets, beat us to space. Yuri Gagarin was the first person ever to get in there, first person from our planet, sorry, with all due respect to y’all. And the Russians at the time, they were eating just pastes. It was nutritional pastes fed through tubes that people were eating, but the Americans were like, no, we’re more human than the Godless Communist Soviets, so we’re gonna send real food up there. John Glenn was the first American astronaut to eat in space, but even he found the food pretty lackluster. So as technology kept getting better and better, we decided that we’re gonna send more and more complex foods up there. And one of the things that we try and prevent when sending food to astronauts at, say, the ISS. Don’t eat that, that’s gonna hurt ya, that’s gonna hurt ya. It’s homesickness. They want astronauts to have foods that remind them of homes, especially if they’re on long missions, which is how we fast forward to 1985, and the first taco is eaten in space by, Mexican scientist Dr. Rodolfo Neri Vela. They then found out that flour tortillas are a great substitute for bread, because, there’s no crumbs and they’re very shelf stable. Shelf stable tortillas were also very new by the early 80s, late 1970s. And, 2021, we had, so these are called chili peppers. They, they make your mouth hurt. I’m having fun. The first chili pepper grown in space. was the NuMex Espanola Pepper in 2021, first eaten in a taco by Megan McArthur, so that’s what we’re making today. Oh, God, you’re in for a treat, Tic Tac. So, we’re gonna take some freeze dried You said my name right. We’re friends now. Do you, don’t eat me. Don’t eat me. Don’t, oh, God, yeah. That’s how we do it. Thank you. We’re trying to make the taco very faithful to what Megan McArthur would have eaten in 2021 with these here in space. So, we’re taking some freeze dried beef fajita strips. We’re just gonna dump it in there. Here, eat this silica gel packet. This is what we eat with our cigarettes for dessert. Oh yeah, I dumped one in there. Oh God, what did I dump in there? I dumped, I don’t know what happened. Yeah, that’s, no, that’s the silica gel packet. What if I ate the silica packet on this show and then it was just like, in the arms of, this is like how I died. Freeze dried beef. Feel how light that is. All the water dried out of it via a freezer. Why is this? Oh, we got it. Yeah, somebody’s last meal was on a different show that nobody watched. I dumped the packet in there. And it was because I died. I gotta stop dumping in the packets. I lost it. I officially lost the packet. – There it is. – I made that! We’re so fine, guys. Did you see that? We are so fine. I’ve never seen a UFO or anything like that, but I have seen the Gurdon Lights. What are the Gurdon Lights? So it’s in Arkansas, once again. I feel like if, if, okay, if I were an alien, I would appear in places that were not heavily like, like dense cities. Yeah. Because you wouldn’t want to get caught. That’s why they’re appearing in a cornfield, is because they don’t, they’re like trying it out, testing the water, you know, and making some art. And, in the field. But yeah, no, the Gurdon Lights in Arkansas, it’s this like train track. You can look this up. And there’s just like, lights that appear on a train track. What happened? We’re so good! I might have poisoned us! Did you dump the pink stuff in? I didn’t dump it in, no! It’s just, there’s things in there. What’s in there? And we should probably just get another pot of water real quick. We removed the poison! Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you with that. The fun thing about this little character is that you can just say, this is what we do on our planet, and then you can do anything. I know. It’s kind of like, boring in that way. No, it’s not boring. I think it’s really good. I think it’s funny. Well, we were gonna do, no, I’m not gonna talk about what we were gonna do. What were we gonna do? We were gonna do a war criminal. Listen, in case you guys didn’t know, before the Ukraine war, before it It’s the funniest thing. It’s messed up. We did a character for a space episode, Valentina Tereshkova. Add the picture of her up right there. She looks like a villain from every movie. She is now pretty much a war criminal. Yeah, listen, she’s part of the Russian government. She’s not great. And so this is what you get now. Blame Valentina. That’s what I say. This is her fault. So artichokes and tomatoes. That was what was on the taco. A lot of the stuff. Wait, there was a taco? Yes! There were multiple tacos! One, the first one in 1985 and then the next one with the chili peppers that were grown in space from the New Mexico State Agricultural Program. Eaten by Megan McArthur in 2021. Rodolfo Neri Vela in 1985. You missed all this. What are you doing when I’m saying things about history? I was trying to make a bit happen with the fingies. Oh yeah, you right. That was funny though. That was funny though. And it wasn’t good, but I was trying to make it happen. I was trying to entertain the public. Artichokes are something that’s soft, they don’t like fracture off. It’s not like iceberg lettuce that your Taco Bell taco cracks and can float around and get stuck in a little, astrolabe or sextant or whatever they got on ships. I had a thing I was talking about, about the Gurdon Lights. Can I finish it? Yeah, do it. Okay. Well, we already made the taco, so it’s done. This is it. So there’s lights, and they’re floatin on a train track. Taco. The end. What would get you more ramped up than talking about the Gemini 4 mission in 1965? The first mission they have shrimp cocktail in. You know, the Gemini thing is just, I want to touch on how pretentious that is. Yeah. Because they changed it from UFO to UAP, which stands for unidentified. Help. You told me, Mindy told me. Unidentified anomalous phenomena. Like. Anomalous phenomena. Do, do, do, do. Phenomena. Do, do, do, do, do. Alright, we’re gonna make butterscotch pudding as well. You’re gonna get started on the shrimp cocktail though. You think you can do this? What do I have to do? So, you’re gonna take the shrimp, and this is really important, because even as you’re eating shrimp, you’re pulling some out of your mouth, some tail meat can just fly off and get in a machine and it can blow up. So, what they did. If there’s anything you know about aliens in history, they love the meat in the tail. Dip the shrimp in the goo. And yeah, and then just pull it out. No, pull it out. Shake them off. Shake them off. That’s perfect. Shake them off over that. You told me it was time sensitive! I gotta start making butterscotch pudding. Mission leaves. Wait, when’s launch? I’m gonna add sweetened condensed milk here. You said to do it fast. Now what do I do? Pudding is an ideal space dessert! Pudding is an ideal space dessert because there’s no crumbs because it’s pudding. Shelf stable dairy really had its day after World War II. They made a lot of strides in evaporated milk so they could send it to the troops. And they took a lot of that technology and they started sending it to astronauts in space. So that’s why we get things like butter powder. And I’m going to add some of this. I’m really just add lemon here. We’re going to add some butter powder. See what that tastes like. And then pudding, we want it to thicken. So we’re actually going to add egg powder. We got dried egg white powder, and then we got dried egg yellow powder, also known as egg yolk. We really want this to thicken like a proper pudding. So we got these egg yolks right here. That’s going to make it cause pudding in America, it’s kind of like thickened with starch, but then you get like, you know, a British custard is thickened with eggs. So that’s why we’re adding these eggy ingredients right here. And then again, vanilla powder. They’re not, you know, having vanilla extract up there in space and they would send all the stuff up powdered. So we’re going to add some vanilla powder. We’re going to see what this amalgamation of dairy and powders. Tastes like we’re gonna thicken it with a little bit of sugar. We’re just gonna let this come to a boil. We’re gonna stir it up. We’re gonna get it whisked together. It’s gonna be really, really fantastic. Oh, you can already see how thick that’s becoming. oh, God, this is gonna taste so good. What’s that? I have not looked, I have not looked to my left in a long time, and I’m gonna guess that I’m pretty glad about that. I don’t like the tomato. Add more tomato. But why would tomato make it better if I don’t like the tomato? Trust me! Tomatoes are poisonous to her people! What are your people called? Tap my button. Oh my God, your language is so beautiful. Do it again, do it again. Welcome to Moviefone! Now I know what you’re all thinking, boy do those astronauts look stylish in space, but not as stylish as I look stirring this rancid dairy pudding in my Mythical Kitchen Life’s Too Short to Cook on Medium Apron. You can go to the Mythical Kitchen merch store at mythical.com Oh my God. It’s a new apron. I didn’t even notice it. Thanks. It’s really cute. Flaunting it. I was like. I love it. That’s the. Go to mythical.com Check out the Mythical Kitchen collection. We are really proud of this new apron, the pudding stick. By God, we have our shelf stable butterscotch pudding. That’s gonna remind us of home when we’re stranded it up there in the great last frontier. We got the shrimp that’s coated in gelatin. No crumbs getting in our astrolabes today, right? What are we making? We made it! The shrimp and the cocktail sauce and now we get to eat it all! Tic Tac, do you mind if I cut you half a sandwich? Not at all. Don’t mind the Game of Thrones branded knife. That’s a Game of Thrones knife? I don’t know why we have it. That’s so cool! It just works pretty well. Okay, I won’t talk about that anymore. Don’t get any crumbs anywhere! Okay. Don’t you dare. Isn’t that weird though that crumbs are what is dangerous on a spacecraft but skin particles aren’t? Yeah, are they just lotioned up all the time. Are we covered in crumbs? They’re crumbs to you, because you eat people. Bones! I see why John Young was mad that there was no mustard and pickles on this. Oh for sure. Okay, you know how you go through a drive-thru and you get home and you’re like, oh they screwed up my order. Imagine getting to space and realizing they screwed up your order. I would be so pissed. I would like to play a little game with you. I don’t want to. We’re eating tacos. I’ll let you keep your bones. It’s so dry. I’ll let you keep your bones if you play the game. I’ll play the game. What do you want to play? Okay. You have a bunch of movies about alien life forms. Would you like to know which ones are based in truth? I do, actually. Name the movies. Arrival. No. Alien. No. Alien vs. Predator? Yes. Oh, Aliens? No. Prometheus? No. E.T. Yes. Yeah, if me and my friends found E.T. we would’ve killed him with a hammer. Blasphemy! I just had to swear a little bit. If I had said that in your native tongue, we would have been bleeped and then demonetized. I don’t want to eat the jello shrimp. I don’t really want to eat it either! You have to, it’s the show! I made it too, so it’s special. Oh, it looks so slippery. Alright, for real though, for real though. For real. What? I’m gonna eat this. You should. This looks like a tiny breast implant. The sauce won’t even stick to it. It’s wicking off the breast implant. What do girls call these, chicken cutlets? Chicken cutlets. I mean, that is a chicken cutlet. I don’t like it. There’s a bubble in the middle. The cocktail sauce is pretty good against all odds. Thank you. That’s the one thing I made. There’s wig hair in my mouth now. Oh, the gelatin melts and slides down, man. The thing, Emily, the things we do to sacrifice for our country for space research. Oh, that bounced. Did you see that? Eat the pudding. Eat the pudding to wash it down. Okay. So wait, what is the applesauce for again? Oh, just, they had applesauce in space. I don’t know, we put it there. Alright, good. Why is this bucket over here? It’s freeze-dried broccoli, they freeze-dried broccoli! Eat it! Eat it! That’s so gross. I’m never going to space! This place sucks! Can I say this? I hate this Applebee’s! The last episode we did was so delicious! I know! And now we’re just eating a dry ass sandwich. Even the astronaut that took this to space, smuggled it in there, almost killed the mission, was like, this sandwich sucks! He risked the safety of others and himself. For no pickles? For no pickles! No pickles. And no Thousand Island? Thanks so much for stopping by. I got to jet. I mean, I’m going to space. I’m doing it. I’m gonna get on one of those Jeff Bezos missions. Fine, abandon me. I’m gonna go on one of the rockets shaped like his pee pee. My name is not Emily, by the way. Okay, Tick Tork. Meggie, what? It’s in the shot. Let it be in the shot. Give me, give me, give it to me. Give it to me. You’re not gonna give it to me? I have a message for the planet Earth. Earthlings, I am Tic Tac. You may have seen me in those videos, in the hearing, last year. I can’t remember the date, but it happened. I’m not here to harm you. I’m just here to have a little bit of fun. If you can catch me, I’ll give you a Tamagotchi. I don’t think you know this, but we drop off a few little things of technology every now and then. Tamagotchis. I’ll give you the first one. But, if you don’t find me, I’ll eat your bones. I’ll eat all of your bones. Mostly your leg bones. Those are my favorite bones. It’s so much more beautiful in her native tongue. Get as adventurous as you want in your kitchen with the Mythical Kitchen Merch Collection. Available now at mythical.com