Anyone for fried jellyfish?

Have you ever been stung by a jellyfish or found yourself unable to take a dip in the ocean because of them? In this week's episode, our guest, Professor Stefano Piraino, will answer the big question: What should we do about the overabundance of jellyfish in European waters? Professor Piraino and Katy Lee take a deep dive into the world of these ancient creatures, uncovering some unexpectedly fascinating quirks about jellyfish, as well as proposing a striking solution to address their burgeoning population.

We're also discussing the shady manoeuvres of the Alicante city council regarding trees and Poland's pivotal election, which is less than two weeks away.

And finally, stay tuned until the very end of this episode for a special surprise – a baby beaver awaits! If you enjoy our podcast and would like to help us keep making it, we'd love it if you'd consider chipping in a few bucks a month at ⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠ (many currencies are available). You can also help new listeners find the show by ⁠leaving us a review⁠ or giving us five stars on Spotify.

Producers: Katy Lee and Wojciech Oleksiak

Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak

Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

Twitter | Instagram | hello@europeanspodcast.com

00:22 AI-powered podcast translations

04:06 Bad Week: Alicante’s tree falling

12:11 Good Week: Poland’s opposition march

22:52 Interview: Stefano Piraino on why jellyfish is your next favorite snack

36:29 Inspiration Station: A documentary about Sinéad O'Connor - ‘Nothing Compares’ and a new season of “Have You Heard George's Podcast’

40:52 Happy Ending: Baby beaver born in London!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction - 00’22”

Dominic: Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Europeans podcast. You are hearing the voice of Dominic in Amsterdam. And I am not joined by Katy this week because she's still on maternity leave, but I am joined down the line in Warsaw by Wojciech Oleksiak. Our producer, thanks for joining us Wojciech

Wojciech: Oh, a pleasure. Hi, hello!

Dominic: How are you doing?

Wojciech: I'm fine. Unlike you, from what I've heard, is that right?

Dominic: Yeah, so I have COVID. Again. It's still a thing, apparently. But yeah, I'll be fine.

Wojciech: Do you keep a count of like, how many times did you have COVID? Since 2020?

Dominic: I've actually lost count, to be honest. And I kind of don't want to go back and work it out. Because I think it's more times than I should have had it. I just think that opera singing is probably one of the riskiest professions you could have when it comes to an airborne virus like COVID, unfortunately…

Wojciech: Poor you, but I wanted to cheer you up with like, very interesting tech news this week. So do you remember when we were wondering back in May in Amsterdam, whether that would ever be possible that an AI engine would translate our podcast into other languages, using your and Katy’s voices? 

Dominic: Oh, yeah, that seemed like some distant, dreamy future where we could talk in English and it would come out in Spanish or Arabic.

Wojciech: Yeah! So imagine it's actually happening. And it's happening now. So last week, Spotify announced that they partnered with open AI. And they created a tool that does exactly that, which is just mind blowing. And I listened to the podcast by Lex Friedman. And I was like toggling between listening to him in English and Spanish. And it's just basically the same guy. Talking languages. So yeah, like, you know, Europeans coming soon in Albanian and Polish and Belarusian and whatever.

Dominic: That's so cool. It's what we've wanted for ages. And it might be the thing that saves this continent and makes it feel like we have some kind of shared European identity if we can all speak to each other in our own voices, but in each other's native language.

Wojciech: Yeah, actually, I find it harder and harder to persuade my kids to learn languages, because there might be no need to do this soon. But yeah, it's great. And I'm really excited and looking forward to this. And I hope it's going to become more publicly available soon, because now the batch of podcasts that are AI translated is rather limited. So I'll be keeping an eye on it and possibly, keeping you posted, if it becomes universally available.

Dominic: Great. Anyone from Spotify listening, please let us try out this feature ASAP.

Wojciech: Yeah, and I think it's gonna happen sooner than later, really. Okay, so enough tech news. Tell me, what do we have in store for today?

Dominic: Well, this week, Katy has got another really nice interview for us all. Another one she recorded before she went into labor. We will be hearing Katy chat with an expert on the most irritating of all sea dwellers, the jellyfish. Katy and her guest Professor Stefano Piraino will be discussing how the problematic booming jellyfish population in Europe could be fixed. If we just started eating them. Hmm, this might sound completely disgusting to you, or it might sound totally normal if you live in East or Southeast Asia. Whatever you think about it, it's a fascinating and eye opening chat with Stefano. So I highly recommend you keep listening. That's coming up in a bit after we find out who has had a good week and who has had a bad week in Europe.

Good Week, Bad Week - 04’06’’

Wojciech: Who has had a bad week, Dominic.

Dominic: Well, it's been one of those weeks with just so much news in Europe and so many things we could and should be talking about whether it's the Slovakian elections that were won by a populist friend of Orbán or the tragedy of 100,000 people fleeing their homes in Nagorno Karabakh, so many seismic news stories, stories that are changing very quickly and being covered pretty well by the mainstream media. So I decided to go for a more left field topic this week for my bad week, and I'm giving bad week to humans who destroy trees, because I came across two bad news stories about trees in Europe this week.

Wojciech: Oh no, not trees. So what happened? Tell me…

Dominic: Well, for our listeners who live in the UK, they will already be aware of this first one. It's a really grim British tree story. One of the UK's most beloved and photographed trees, the award winning,  movie-featured, 300 year old sycamore tree, beside Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland was cut down in the middle of the night in what appears to have been a random brutal and senseless act of vandalism. Oh, did this story make it to Poland? 

Wojciech: No, I have not heard about it yet.

Dominic: Okay. Yeah, I was wondering because it's been such a big story in the UK and at the moment, we don't know why someone did this. The time of recording the investigation is ongoing but a 16 year old boy and a man in his 60s have both been arrested and both released on bail whilst the investigation continues. There's not so much more I wanted to say about this story other than it's just very sad news. But this tree felling story from the UK ties in with another tree felling news story from Spain that I think has gone a bit more under the radar unless you are living in Alicante. It was sent in by producer Katz and it's a story that was reported this week in the Spanish newspaper El Salto. In it, the journalist writes that the city council of Alicante has cut down more than 2000 trees and 30,000 plants in the last two years alone. And there may not have been award winning trees like the sycamore tree in Northumberland, but that doesn't make the reporting any less grim reading.

Wojciech: Oh my god, it's a lot of trees to chop down. So who's responsible for this?

Dominic: Well, this city is run by the mayor of Alicante, Luis Barcala, who leads the City Council, which is currently run by the conservative popular party with the support of far right Vox. And on the surface, Mayor Luis seems like a regular tree loving guy. He talks about green corridors in the city's urban development projects. And he was filmed recently planting a tree as part of a Tree for Europe initiative. So it seems like he knows that trees are important. But somehow the city government's choices are making a lot of environmentalists, opposition politicians and local residents and trees. Very sad.

Wojciech: And me!

Dominic: I don't know why I'm personifying trees here. Yes, and you! And that's in part because trees are very important in Alicante. I mean, they're important everywhere. But they're especially important in a city like this that has been suffering from extraordinary heatwaves, heatwaves that have been causing alarming numbers of deaths. And as we will probably know, by now, trees in cities not only provide vital shade, but also function as kind of nature's air conditioners, they take in warm air, they send out cool air, they are a brilliant way to keep a city a bit cooler during a heatwave.

Wojciech: So why on earth are they getting rid of the streets?

Dominic: Well, in broad terms, this article paints a picture of the city deciding to prioritize more space for urban developments for tourism and for the hospitality industry in the center of town, over trees…

Wojciech: but nobody's going to visit if it's too hot. 

Dominic: Yeah, that's true. No one's going to want to sit outside on those terraces, if it's too hot to sit outside. I agree with you. In the government's defense, a lot of the trees that are being uprooted are being relocated, not just chucked away. Much of the controversy is about these Melia trees that the city claimed they have moved to a place where they apparently have better conditions and more space to thrive. The city says the trees needed moving because they were not thriving in their current positions. And whilst the local activists acknowledge that some of the trees were not happy or not healthy where they were. They say that this is because they weren't being cared for properly. And it didn't mean that they had to be moved. According to these local activists who have organized pretty well, the trees are really needed in these downtown areas and the moving of the trees has, according to multiple reports, been very tough on many of these mature trees. There were visible signs of broken roots after the removal and some of the trees have already died in their new location and then been removed. The activists argue that the transplanting of the trees not only makes these downtown areas more exposed to the brutal heat of the summer, but it's also having a negative impact on biodiversity and disturbing the city's wildlife. And one thing is clear. Alicante does not have enough trees and it doesn't have enough of the right trees. One thing that I found interesting in this article was that palm trees are pretty common in the city, but actually they don't provide as much benefit for the city can had too many other trees, they don't reduce the temperatures as much. They don't provide as much shade, which makes sense. And they also don't absorb as much CO2. Another interesting thing I discovered from reading this piece is that there is an official figure from the World Health Organization about how many trees there should be for each inhabitant in a city, which says that there should be at least one tree for every three inhabitants. And according to this piece, Alicante has one tree that can be considered useful for every 7.7 inhabitants. 

Wojciech: So they're not counting the palm trees.

Dominic: Yeah, I think they're not. I actually looked up how many trees there were in our home cities Wojciech. Just for comparison's sake. And my city of Amsterdam has an estimated one tree for every inhabitant, which is pretty good, actually. How do you think your city of Warsaw is doing

Wojciech: My city of Warsaw, wow, that's always a question of what do we consider to be Warsaw and what not? But I guess that would be a tree per two inhabitants.

Dominic: Well, actually Warsaw is doing amazingly well, based on a report I found from a few years ago, which suggests you have four trees for every inhabitant. 

Wojciech: Oh, that's, you know, I think they probably like, they counted in the huge forest that is like on the northern outskirts of Warsaw.

Dominic: Okay, so well done Warsaw, congratulations on all your trees Wojciech. Back to Alicante, it's clear that Alicante has quite some way to go before it reaches that who target and maybe it's not entirely fair of me to compare three numbers from the north and center of Europe to those in the south of Europe, because it is difficult, growing trees and keeping them healthy, especially in such a warm climate. But it also has such benefits for the city's residents and for its wildlife, not only with cooling, but also in terms of air quality, carbon reduction, energy savings, even the happiness of residents. I realized I sound a bit like I'm being sponsored by the tree lobby this week. Apologies, I'm not, but I do love trees. So yeah, bad week goes to humans uprooting trees, please stop it. Anyway, cheer us up by check who's had a good week,

Wojciech: I am giving a heavily caveated good week to the Democratic opposition in Poland. So it is a good week, because this past Sunday, the largest opposition coalition of political parties known as the Civic Platform, or the Civic coalition, they organized a massive, massive rally in Warsaw with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. And picture this, one of Warsaw’s main roads, spanning over four kilometers, was jam packed with people marching and waving red and white flags. And so yeah, like it really looked good

Dominic: Under the shade of all the trees. 

Wojciech: Yeah! Anyway, the position dubbed this event, the march of Million Hearts, which is a bit on the cheesy side, if you ask me. But it's because they are portraying themselves as a party of tolerance, respect and cooperation. And their symbol for this campaign is a red and white heart. So you get the point. Although I would probably look for a better name for this. And yeah, what is interesting is that this was actually their second event of this kind. So the first one happened back in June. And you know, looking back at it, it really gave the opposition, some momentum. And it definitely made the current election race a lot closer. I don't think it's easy to pull off such a massive stunt, to gather so many people twice in a short time. But they definitely did it. So congratulations to the Civic Platform. You've earned this good week mentioned.

Dominic: Yeah, congratulations. Sounds like a lot of people to get out onto the streets. But why is it heavily caveated?

Wojciech: Yeah. Now let's get into the not so jolly part of it. So first and foremost, it doesn't seem like anything is going to change significantly, at this point, and you know, the pivotal election is just around the corner. It's on October 15th. And the current ruling party Law and Justice, they are leading all the polls, boasting give or take 35% support. And that's a seven to 10% lead over the largest opposition party, the aforementioned Civic Coalition. And, you know, to be honest, I've been watching this very closely, and this trend has held steady for the past two months or so. So yeah, law and justice are going to win this election easily. Yeah.

Dominic: That sounds quite depressing. Considering all the terrible things we've heard about the Law and Justice Party over the last few years. How is it possible that they are still so popular?

Wojciech: Well, so you see, so this is a topic I could go on about for hours. So I'll try to keep it short. So first of all, this government has done something quite unique in Poland's history. And this is that they've chosen to focus on the poorer, older, less privileged, less educated and more rural demographics as their core base. And they have like, actually genuinely improved these people's lives in many ways. So like, primarily, they just made significant increases in social spendings, and they made those groups beneficiaries. But they've also kind of reshaped the narrative, like shifting the spotlight away from big cities away from technology, to shine on smaller towns, maybe simpler entertainment and tradition, Catholic Church and 20th century history, subjects that resonate more with those groups.

This was my very sort of restrained praise for the government. Yeah, and here comes the second point: throughout  the long rule of nearly eight years, they have constructed a system where the state and the ruling party are becoming sort of one thing. They are becoming increasingly synonymous in every aspect. For instance, with the election coming, we suddenly have the lowest fuel prices in Europe, because the chairman of the State owned Oil Company, which dominates the market drastically reduced gasoline prices, regardless of market conditions. As you can imagine he is an infamous member of law and justice. Also, the Polish Central Bank, meant to be a non-political rebel regulatory body, has just lowered interest rates by a whopping 0.75%. Like nobody saw that coming. And that resulted in like, actually very noticeable drops in mortgage payments. Right before the election. And again, the chairman is a law and justice appointee.

Dominic: Okay, so it really doesn't sound like it's a level playing field before the election, right?

Wojciech: Yeah, that's absolutely right. And perhaps the most potent tool they have is the full control over public media that they transformed into like a very, very vicious mouthpiece of the ruling party. And the messaging is very finely tailored to their core base, it creates a very impenetrable information bubble that's starting to resemble, like a sort of parallel reality sometimes.

Dominic: Can you give us an example of the kind of story you're talking about?

Wojciech: Yeah. So like, last Sunday, there was this massive, very peaceful rally that everyone was talking about. And now in the state television, they gave it a two minute long segment at the back end of the infamous daily evening news edition. That was titled, now watch out, march of a million - a turnout flop, insults and a display of aggression. It’s actually true. You can go online and check it for yourself. And basically, it consisted solely of ridiculous manipulations, and depicting participants as a violent mob, endangering the whole public sphere. They found somebody who cursed the hell out of the current government and played him on and on. And then they played a single sentence from the opposition leader speech and immediately commented on it by explaining that it's an utter lie, and that it was a part of a German plot to capture Poland. 

Dominic: It sounds like they're stooping very low. What has Germany got to do with it?

Wojciech: Yeah, that's a very, very good question. So one of the sentiments they cannot stop exploiting day in day out is the fear that World War two survivors, again, like a super duper important part of their electorate, have towards the German state. So Donald Tusk, the opposition leader, he's portrayed every day as a German agent and traitor to the Polish cause. It's like everyday news edition has several mentions of him. It's been a nonstop smearing campaign running for a few years now. And the Law and Justice party seems to have an intense fixation on him. I think it's largely because the last time they lost the election, it was to him. Yeah, but I mean, this coming election is so far from being like a free democratic election with a level playing field that I just, it's hard to believe it's actually, you know, build the way it is.

Dominic: Is there any like silverlining? Are they gonna do less well than they did last election?

Wojciech: Yes. So there is a ray of hope. So, Law and Justice are going to win and like there's no doubt about this. But at the same time, it's very unlikely that they can replicate their 2019 success, where they secured the majority of seats in parliament. And now here comes the most interesting part of it is that every other party projected to win seats has made it abundantly clear that they won't form a coalition with love and justice.

Dominic: Okay, so what are the possible scenarios? Law and Justice could presumably be locked out of power?

Wojciech: Yeah, that's one of the possibilities. So it's very hard to predict what's going to happen. But basically, it all comes down to how other parties beyond the main rivalry between law and justice and the Civic Coalition will perform. And their polling is still a bit unstable. But if the actual results aligned with current polls, it appears that the craziest party of all Konferderacja, might hold the key. If you're not familiar with them, it's a far right party with nationalist anti immigrant, anti Ukrainian, anti semitic and anti EU rhetoric in their background. However, they're currently doing a whole lot of backpedaling on those and trying to portray themselves as economic libertarians aiming to shake up the political landscape. If they choose to join forces with Law and Justice, or support their minority government, is a trouble. But if they stick to their stance of not doing so, everything remains some the table from the possibility of a very early snap election to the opposition forming some sort of challenging, very broad coalition, but that would have to include those far right jokers from Konfederacja. Yeah, so it's complicated. Not all hope is lost. And there are two weeks of campaign remaining and the outcome, I guess will be decided in the final stretch.

Dominic: Wow, sounds like a nail biter. Well, thank you for giving us such a clear summary of how it's going there in the run up to the election. We'll be watching very closely in two weeks time,

Wojciech: I'll keep you posted!

***

Dominic: Wojciech, Katz and I, we are keeping this show on the road whilst Katy is off on her maternity leave. And the reason why we're able to do this is in large part thanks to the support of our lovely Patreon supporters. So if you'd like there still to be a show in place, once Katy is back properly from her maternity leave, then please consider supporting us on Patreon with as little as two euros or dollars or pounds or whatever currency you'd like to pay in per month. This is honestly a rather precarious time for this podcast with some of our funding that we'd been counting on for next year falling through, but with the support from you wonderful listeners we are each week, inching closer to that goal of being financially stable, which would be a wonderful thing, wouldn't it? Wojciech.

Wojciech: Oh, my God, that's the only thing I'm dreaming about.

Dominic  

This week. We have two patrons to thank. Thank you, Dominique, for joining us. And thank you, Anne, for increasing your pledge, which is also an incredibly lovely and helpful thing to do.

Interview with Stefano Piraino - 22’52

Dominic: Jellyfish? Not my favorite animal. What's your relationship with jellyfish, Wojciech?

Wojciech: No hard feelings, actually. 

Dominic: Oh, yeah?

Wojciech: Yeah, yeah. But I never had a bite. So I don't know… like I'm a bit appalled by the topic of this interview anyway.

Dominic: Yeah, me too. I mean, I'm mainly not a fan of jellyfish because there are a reason that sometimes stopped me going into the sea, which is like one of my favorite things to do in life. And it's becoming more and more of a problem because the jellyfish population in Europe is increasing. And it's not just the stinging, that is a concern. I'm gonna leave it to Katy and her guest Professor Stefano piraino, a zoologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Salento in Italy, to enlighten us about the problems with jellyfish in Europe. And this very striking potential solution for the population boom.

Katy Lee: You are a very distinguished zooologists. But you spent a lot of your career studying jellyfish in particular, what is it about these creatures that you find so fascinating?

Stefano Piraino: Actually, the beauty of a jellyfish is because it's as simple animal but very well adapted to its habitat. The jellyfish morphology didn't change over 500 million years. And this means that this is one of the best adapted organisms living in the oceans. If you don't change it means that you are well adapted.

Katy Lee: Yeah, 500 million years with no changes needed is pretty impressive. But I felt like we've seen more headlines in recent years about jellyfish blooms around Europe and indeed around the world. First of all, what is a jellyfish bloom?

Stefano Piraino: Well actually blooms means something that looks like the flowering of grass. And this sense blooms is just a population outbreak. That means that the population of jellyfish in this case grows very rapidly reaching very high numbers in a short time. And suddenly, after a period where they are flourishing, they will suddenly disappear. That's the mystery of jellyfish they grow up and down. And mysteriously they one day they are there the other day, they are not anymore. But we are learning more about this, we are understanding that they are some increasing the frequency and duration of outbreaks. And it's not so mysterious as it was before.

Katy Lee: And are we seeing these jellyfish blooms more and more frequently because of climate change? Or do we not yet know why it's happening?

Stefano Piraino: Climatic crisis is certainly something that is adding strength to the population outbreaks of jellyfish. The warming temperature in the sea oceans make possible for jellyfish to have longer reproductive periods. Some species for instance, 30 years ago, they were mature for sexual reproduction only two months here. Now we are the same species can be found over seven eight months with mature gonads

Katy Lee: and isn't necessarily a problem having these kinds of spikes in the jellyfish population.

Stefano Piraino: It might be a serious problem. First of all, they are carnivorous predators. They consume lots of zooplankton that is the construction food of fish, so they may have an impact on food webs. Now the point is that they may clog the fisherman nets in some cases, there were some nets so full of jellyfish that even the boats of the fishermen were capsized. When a fisherman catches many jellyfish, the number of fish will be very small. And even if there are some fish with a catch, they will be damaged because jellyfish many species are stingers in UK in the Irish Sea, in 2017 Fish Farm was near to collapse because 300,000 fish were killed in two days by a swarm of jellyfish. So the course is terribly high. But another point is also that when you have 100,000 of jellyfish, clustered together in a coastal zone, and in the same zone you have for instance, a power plant that uses the seawater for cooling, the jellyfish may clog the filters of the pipeline that bring the seawater in this will require to switch off the engine of the power plant and this has happened multiple many times. In UK in Sweden, in other areas, where even nuclear power plants had to be switched off. Switching off a nuclear power plant is not like switching off your the light of your over your house. It costs  millions of euros. For instance, Tel Aviv in Israel in Haifa remain for three days without electricity because the thermal plant was clogged. Finally, the impact on tourism and imagine in the Mediterranean we have 200 million tourists every year. There are lots of people worldwide that are stung every year. By by jellyfish in many cases, this is not a big problem. Sometimes you need to go to a drugstore and asking for a cream to relieve the pain. But in other cases you need to go there has several problems with the allergic reaction that needs to go to the hospital. In one year in Valencia in Spain, 2009, 11,000 tourists went to the single hospital requiring medical attention because they were stung by jellyfish in Italy, for a single person going to the first aid center in a hospital has a cost of 220 Euro. So if you multiply 11,000 tourists for a cost, let's say 200 Euro, this is a lot.

Katy Lee: Okay, so it sounds like there are plenty of reasons to try and make sure that the jellyfish population doesn't get out of control. And you are someone who has concluded that one way we can do that is to eat more of them. What is the case for eating jellyfish? 

Stefano Piraino: That's certainly one way to control it. But I would also say that we have also tested some other mitigatation tools. We have tested efficiently the use of anti jellyfish nets from Spain to Tunisia, Malta and Italy. The other way Yes, yes certainly is. The major component of jellyfish besides water is collagen. Collagen is a healthy protein. Actually, the best way to make money is to produce high quality collagen for pharmaceutical purposes. Because collagen can be also used for instance in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. For a culinary use,  jellyfish are eaten in eastern countries since more than 1000 years. They are considered delicious food healthy food that brings good luck. If you go to a marriage in in China, you will not miss a soup of jellyfish and or jellyfish solid. That's something that many chefs now are testing. Actually, the only problem is that Mediterranean jellyfish is not yet the food that is allowed by the Agency for the Food Safety. What is missing now is just someone from the industry that wants to start producing jellyfish that start asking the European Food Safety Agency the authorization to do that. Actually, we have also interviewed some fishermen. And the fisherman said, how he cooked the jellyfish and he said I couldn't put them directly in a pan with oil because they were too much water. So first I boiled it a little bit cut in slices, I put some flour on it. And then I fried the second day he added also some eggs, flowers and grated bread. So like côtelette

 or an Austrian schnitzel, and then I fried it and we ask and do you like it? Wow, it was very good. And he said he also was very nice to see also. This tell us that the people that works at sea and lives with fishing, with the creator of the sea, they are used to exploit what is available. This means that in our long term perspective that we should reason also to use what is sustainable, the polyp stage can produce many jellyfish for many years. Of course, we need to investigate much better all the species that we can consider exploitable, because we must be sure that it cannot be over-harvested. We cannot over exploit as we are doing in for many of the fish species. But because of these special life cycles, they have the potential to produce something that can be exploited you know more sustainable way then we are doing with fish populations.

Katy Lee: And have you had any opportunities to try eating jellyfish yourself?

Stefano Piraino: Yes i did several times also at home I was furious. So we did the tempura we did simply boiled or made the Mediterranean  way with olive oil, tomatoes, capers, and but then I tell you once I found one of the Mauve Stinger jellyfish, I was in a remote island in the Mediterranean north or west of Sicily, the island Ustica on the rocky shore stranded the probably after one day all the cells of the jellyfish the outer cells were falling apart. And what was the remaining is only the non cellular part which is where the collagen is there. And I tested row I washed little bit in the in a sea and then I tested and it's delicious. I mean because it's crispy is salty. And it's something that if I would have maybe a tomato salad there I would have cut in slices and added very easily.

Katy Lee: So like a kind of jellyfish caviar?

Stefano Piraino: not a caviar because caviar is tiny eggs but imagine that you have a gelatinous stuff that you can break is make small cubes or small slices and you can add to a salad. Instead of adding salts. You just had pieces of jellyfish and that's good. You are adding salts, but you're also adding proteins.

Katy Lee: Yeah, I can definitely imagine the hipster foodies buying jellyfish rare and making it trendy. Jellyfish is eaten quite widely in Asia already, as you say. But do you think Europeans could be convinced en masse to eat it more? Or are we too stuck in our ideas about like what is tasty and what is weird and disgusting?

Stefano Piraino: We have published a paper where we have tested the attitude of Italian consumers. And we understood that young people, people that travels a lot or people with a good level of education, they are ready to eat, they are willing to taste. They say why not? They understand the concept of sustainability. They are used to eat a different type of foods. But also remember that Europe has already 6 million people coming from Eastern countries.

Katy Lee: Yeah, that's very true. There's a big market here already. And my family are among that Asian population. They're from Vietnam. So I will try to recruit them for the European jellyfish revolution.

Stefano Piraino: Okay!

Dominic: Well, I'm not 100% convinced about the whole eating jellyfish thing, but I am willing to give it a go. If you're listening and you've tried to jellyfish, let us know what it tasted like. And if you'd recommend it, you can find us on Instagram @Europeanspodcast on Twitter or x @Europeanspod or send us an email Hello@europeanspodcast.com.

Wojciech: Although the pic or it didn't happen rule is very valid this time because we won't believe you, if you just write that you ate it.

Dominic: Yeah, so if you have to have proof, please send proof. 

Isolation Station - 36’27’’

Dominic: So I promised last week that we would rename our isolation inspiration segment because it didn't feel entirely appropriate to still have a segment that was named around our long periods of isolation that feel fortunately for most of us, like ancient history, ironically, I then caught COVID. And I am now recording from isolation. But nonetheless, I still think it's time to change the name. Let's make it less quarantine-related, because most of us are thankfully not quarantining, but are still enjoying culture. And I know from our survey we did at the end of last season that lots of people have become quite attached to this segment of cultural recommendations across Europe. So as ever, we put the question to our Patreon supporters about what the new name should be. And I think we have a winner. I'm doing this very democratically based on which comment got the most likes. And I would like to announce that the new name of this segment is drumroll please.

<Emphatic drumroll>

Dominic: Inspiration station.

Wojciech: That's a very neat name!

Dominic: It is neat, isn't it? It was a name that was suggested by Mariska Martina, the amazing Dutch Peruvian songwriter and musician who actually made our Patreon jingle and was the person who suggested isolation inspiration in the first place as a name. Mariska, you are perfection. Thank you for another inspired idea. So let's get on that culture train. What are you bringing with you as we roll into inspiration station this week Wojciech.

Wojciech: So I've been really busy the last couple of weeks, but I noticed that the podcast I used to love, it has just launched a new season. And there is this podcast from BBC that's titled Have You Heard George's podcast? Have you heard of it?

Dominic: Ah, yeah, I have heard about it. It won lots of awards. Yeah, but I've actually never listened to it.

Wojciech: Oh, you definitely should. It's a podcast from George The Poet who's a hip hop artist and social activist. And it's a beautifully crafted, very poetic, very beautifully sound designed and sort of oniric take on his identity of being a person with African roots living in Great Britain. And there is a lot of social commentary on important social issues. I would say that all the episodes are kind of like half songs almost, where you listen to this amalgamate of words and sounds and his memories and his past and present, and it's really beautiful. I have not had the chance to listen to episode one of the fourth season, but I'm definitely going to do this once I'm done preparing this week's podcast for you. So I heartily recommend this podcast to everybody.

Dominic: Cool. I will finally give it a lesson. It's been on my list for ages.

Wojciech: So what do you recommend this week, Dominic?

Dominic: I finally got around to watching a documentary that was released last year about the incredible Irish musician Sinead O'Connor who sadly died this summer in London. It's called ‘Nothing Compares’ and it's made by the Belfast born filmmaker Catherine Ferguson. And Ferguson has made such a beautiful portrait of an incredible edition and activist who really paved the way for today's generation of musicians and activists. The film is tough. She had a very brutal upbringing, and was then treated awfully by the entertainment industry, by the media and by much of the general public as she became more famous and more outspoken, but I really recommend watching it. It's a really sensitive take on a difficult life. It seems to be available on various different streaming services across Europe, depending on where you are. And although it was made before her death, it serves as an amazing tribute to her life. So go check it out.

Wojciech: Interesting. I was always sort of interested in her and I don't really know that much about her so I'm definitely going to watch

Dominic: Yeah, I also didn't know so much about her so it's really worth watching.

Happy Ending - 40’51’’

Dominic: I have a happy ending this week from London where I grew up. In fact, it's a story from very close to where I grew up from the borough of Enfield where I went to school. And the happy news is that for the first time in 400 years, a baby beaver has been born in London. 

Wojciech: Whoa, baby beaver! Hello!

Dominic: Yeah Enfiled Council began a project to reintroduce beavers into the capsule in 2022. And this birth is a really good sign that the project is working. Beavers were hunted to extinction in England but are gradually being reintroduced around the country in part because of how amazing they are at building dams, and therefore how good they are for building natural flood defenses. A local councilor said to the BBC, the beavers' hard work creating a natural wetland ecosystem will contribute to excellent flood defenses protecting the local area and hundreds of homes from flooding downstream to the southeast of the bearer, while encouraging biodiversity. Which is amazing, but also sounds like quite a lot of pressure resting on this one baby beaver's shoulders. Now, yeah, let's hope that they're joined by some other baby beavers soon.

Wojciech: Oh, yeah. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this baby beaver. Can I treat you with a little bit of beaver-related trivia?

Dominic: Oh, hit me.

Wojciech: So do you know that beavers cuddle to keep warm?

Dominic: Nooo. That's so nice!

Wojciech: Yeah, you gotta go online and see it for yourself because it's just the most heartwarming thing you can see today. So yeah, go online and just type in like ‘beavers cuddling’ or something. It's just amazing!

Dominic: Oh, I'm looking it up now. Beavers cuddling. Thank you Wojciech for joining me today and for producing most of this episode apart from the interview which was produced by Katy Lee. You can find us as always on social media, on Instagram @Europeanspodcast, Twitter @Europeanspod or by email Hello@europeanspodcast.com See you all next week. Ciao

Wojciech: čau čau!