The Cheap Eats

Summary

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Cabinet of Curiosities – “The Cheap Eats”

Episode Date: September 2, 2025
Host: Aaron Mahnke
Podcast: iHeartPodcasts and Grim & Mild

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Episode Overview

This episode of Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities, aptly titled “The Cheap Eats,” delivers two bite-sized stories connected by the theme of unexpected twists relating to food and survival. The first tale follows a daring heist committed by a Santa-suited criminal gang in 1920s Texas, and the second explores the origins of “fast food” markets in medieval Jerusalem under the rule of Queen Melisende. Throughout, Mahnke’s storytelling is both engaging and wryly humorous, spotlighting bizarre slices of history with his signature wit.

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Story One: Santa’s Great Texas Bank Heist

[01:08–06:20]

Key Discussion Points

• Setting the Scene:

  • Christmas, 1927: Texas is in the throes of its largest-ever manhunt.
  • The target? A bank thief known by many aliases—most infamously “Santa Claus.”

• The Mastermind:

  • Marshall Ratliff, freshly pardoned bank robber, assembles a team for a new heist.
  • Due to his notoriety, he opts for disguise: “a homemade Santa Claus suit, complete with a beard.”

• The Heist:

  • The robbers enter the First National Bank of Cisco, Texas.
  • Children stop “Santa” to give their wish lists (a darkly comic touch).
  • Inside, guns are drawn, and tellers are ordered to fill a bag with cash.

• Things Fall Apart:

  • A customer and her daughter escape and alert the police.
  • The gang attempts to use eight hostages as human shields in a chaotic shootout.
  • Their “getaway sleigh”—actually a car—is almost out of gas.

• Botched Escape:

  • The robbers try to hijack another car, but the driver absconds with the keys.
  • In the panic, they forget both Louis Davis (an accomplice) and the bag of cash.
  • The hunt lasts another week before the gang is caught or killed.

Notable Quotes

• “Their target had many aliases. Kris Kringle, Old Saint Nick, even Papa Noel. But no matter what name he went by, the truth was the Santa Claus had robbed a bank.”
  — Aaron Mahnke (01:20)

• “Santa suit or not, those bank robbers would spend the rest of their lives on the naughty list.”
  — Aaron Mahnke (06:15)

Memorable Moments

• The surreal image of a Santa-suited criminal ringleader being stopped by children before robbing a bank.
• The failed getaway, complete with lost cash, forgotten accomplices, and a comedic car hijack gone wrong.

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Story Two: Jerusalem’s 'Street of Bad Cooking'

[07:26–11:53]

Key Discussion Points

• Food Tells the Story of a City:

  • Mahnke begins with an observation: late-night street food in big cities is a key window into their culture, but “how far back into history does that go?”

• Medieval Jerusalem’s Tumultuous History:

  • Political instability—crusades, sieges, shifting rulers—never stopped the city’s daily life.
  • Focus on Melisende and Fulk of Anjou’s power struggle and Fulk’s eventual death.

• A Queen’s Lasting Legacy:

  • Queen Melisende becomes the first woman to hold public office in Jerusalem.
  • She directs the creation of a triple-market: “the street of Herbs, the covered street, and the street of Bad cooking.”

• The Street of Bad Cooking:

  • A marketplace for affordable, quickly prepared food—often of dubious quality but heavily spiced.
  • Not all food was poor; there were also fresh fruits and breads.

• The Birth of Fast Food:

  • Melisende’s markets mark an early example of a diverse, urban “fast food” hub—a precursor to modern convenience eating.

Notable Quotes

• “It’s perhaps not surprising to remember that people have not always been quite so traveled and food not quite so industrialized. And the farther back in time you go, the more interesting these differences become.”
  — Aaron Mahnke (07:42)

• “And this third street would perhaps become the most infamous of them all. It’s there that locals would prepare vast quantities of low quality food to be sold cheaply. The meat was bad, almost always rancid, but caked in enough spices that you’d hardly be able to tell.”
  — Aaron Mahnke (09:55)

• “And thus, thanks to her, the violence, turmoil and upheaval of the Crusades gave way to a business practice that wouldn't have a name until modern times: fast food.”
  — Aaron Mahnke (11:40)

Memorable Moments

• The poetic image of medieval Jerusalem—a powder keg of religious conflict—nurturing one of the world’s earliest fast food markets.
• The description of “bad” meat—so heavily spiced no one could tell how rancid it was—a wry echo of “cheap eats” through the ages.

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Episode Structure & Style

• Tone: Wry, intelligent, and laced with dry humor.
• Structure: Two sharply contrasting tales connected via their relationship to resourcefulness and survival, all with a culinary twist.
• Best For: Listeners who love bizarre history with a touch of irony and a focus on the everyday quirks that connect past and present.

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Timeline of Key Segments

| Time | Segment | |--------|----------------------------------------| | 01:08 | Santa Claus bank robbery story begins | | 06:16 | First story ends | | 07:26 | Medieval Jerusalem story begins | | 11:40 | Conclusion and reflection on “fast food”|

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Final Impression

The Cheap Eats highlights the strange ingenuity people have used to survive—or capitalize—on the hunger of others, whether through a bank robber in a Santa suit or a queen’s vision to feed the masses in a city at war. As always, Mahnke’s Cabinet offers curiosity, context, and a comforting sense that history is every bit as odd and compelling as the present.

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Quotable Close:
“And thus, thanks to her, the violence, turmoil and upheaval of the Crusades gave way to a business practice that wouldn't have a name until modern times: fast food.”
— Aaron Mahnke (11:40)

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. It was Christmas time, 1927, and the largest manhunt Texas had ever seen was underway. A posse of 100 men was scouring the Lone Star State. Their target had many aliases. Kris Kringle, Old Saint Nick, even Papa Noel. But no matter what name he went by, the truth was the Santa Claus had robbed a bank. Just a few weeks earlier, Marshall Ratliff took his first breath of free air after two long years. He had been imprisoned for bank robbery in a tiny central Texas town called Valera. But he walked free after the governor granted him a pardon. Immediately, he began to plot his next heist. It was a particularly dangerous time for bank robbers in Texas. Multiple banks were being robbed every day and the Texas Bankers association put up a bounty of $5,000 for anyone who killed a would be thief. Today that would be the equivalent of about 85,000. So lawmen and vigilantes alike were eager to get their payout. Marshall knew to get away clean, he needed the right team and the right approach. And so he staked out the First national bank of Cisco, Texas. To make a plan, he recruited two other Ex cons Henry Helms and Robert Hill. And when their original safecracker fell ill, they added Louis Davis, Henry's relative, to the team. And since Marshall himself was known to people in Cisco, he decided the best way to pull off the heist would be in disguise. Luckily for him, the woman running the boarding house he lived in had just the thing. A homemade Santa Claus suit, complete with a beard. The plan was simple. Drop Marshall in full Santa getup in town, close to the bank, when they would park their getaway car in the alley out back. Henry, Robert and Louis would then follow Marshall into the bank. They would steal the cash and exit through a side door to drive off into the sunset. It was nearly foolproof. On December 23rd of 1927, the townspeople of Cisco were didn't find anything suspicious about a man in a Santa suit strolling into the bank. In fact, on his journey into First National, Marshall was stopped by several children giving him their Christmas wish lists. Inside the bank, however, was a totally different story. The second that Marshall and his three accomplices entered the building, they pulled out their pistols and told the workers and patrons inside to put their hands up. Marshall pulled out a bag and told the tellers to begin filling it. In the chaos, however, the gang lost sight of one bank customer and her young daughter. The two slipped into a back office and out a side door, and then immediately ran into the police station just a block away. Minutes later, the bank was surrounded. The in and out heist the gang had planned was no longer possible, so they began to improvise. Marshall's gang entered the alley, pushing eight hostages ahead of them as human shields. They thought that the police wouldn't shoot if there were civilians in the way. However, they thought wrong. A firefight quickly broke out, wounding police, robbers and hostages alike. But amidst the melee, the four thieves were able to get into their getaway sleigh, I mean car, and go along with two fourth grade girls as hostages. It quickly became obvious though, that they had a problem. Whether a bullet had made a leak in the gas tank or the robbers simply forgot to fill up, the issue was clear. They were almost out of gas. There was no way that they were getting out of Cisco. At the edge of the town, they tried to steal a passing car, ordering the driver out at gunpoint. But by the time they loaded the cash, the hostages and themselves into the new car, they realized the driver had run off with the keys in his hand. Facing more gunfire, they jumped into their original getaway car and drove off. But in the confusion, they left behind Louis, who who had fallen unconscious from his wounds, as well as the bag of cash. It seems that after all this trouble to rob a bank, they would have nothing to show for it. The three remaining robbers made it about two miles out of town before they abandoned their car with the hostages inside. The ensuing manhunt lasted another seven days, with nearly 100 men on their trail. Desperate for their cut of the bounty, Marshall was caught on December 26 and Henry and Robert were captured on December 30. Altogether, 12 people were wounded and three people, including Louis Davis, were killed. The money, worth $172,000 at the time, would have been the largest bank heist in Texas history. At least it would have been had the robbers not left it behind in the chaos. Santa suit or not, those bank robbers would spend the rest of their lives on the naughty list.

[A]

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[B]

You know you learn a lot about a city based on the food they have available to visitors. There's nothing quite like flying into New York late at night and hunting down some cheap street food to keep yourself going. It may never be the healthiest option, but it's always a relief to weary travelers. The wide availability of simple prepared foods is an essential part of a big city today, but how far back into history does that go? It's perhaps not surprising to remember that people have not always been quite so traveled and food not quite so industrialized. And the farther back in time you go, the more interesting these differences Become cities were smaller. Preserving food for long periods was always a challenge. And in medieval times, it was not always a given that a house would have a kitchen of its own. Which brings us to one of the epicenters of the medieval Jerusalem. The central city of the Holy Land is easily the most contested location of the era. During the Crusades, it changed hands multiple times. First when Christian crusaders conquered the city in 1099, then when Saladin took it back and back and forth for much of the high Middle Ages. Now, despite weathering regular violence, sieges and religious conflict, the city still had to function like a city. As the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Ordinary people still came and went, people with no intention to participate in a crusade. It was a hub of travel for individuals of many different faiths. And for that reason, the rulers of the city had many warring interests to contend with. Which is why in the 1140s, the city was in the midst of a quiet political struggle between Fulk of Anjou and his wife, the heir to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Melisende. The late king's will determined that she should rule. But Fulk did not agree. He made many attempts to undermine his wife's authority, resulting in a tenuous arrangement where they would be co rulers of the city as king and queen. But all of this came to an end in 1143. Fulk and Melisande were riding in the countryside when the King of Jerusalem spotted a hare. Seized by a hunter's instinct, he charged after it. His horse stumbled and fell, whereupon Fulk received a grievous head injury. He would die of it some days later. And with this, Melisande took the throne for herself, ruling the kingdom of Jerusalem alongside her young son, Baldwin iii. She would be the first woman to hold public office in this kingdom, although her reign would eventually end due to infighting with her increasingly headstrong son. But this is where we get back to food, you see. Melisune did not spend all of her reign grappling for power with her immediate family members. She also seemingly had an interest in improving Jerusalem for its citizens. At her direction, three parallel streets would be established to become a sort of open market for the city, where travelers and citizens alike could go in order to purchase goods. And this so called triple market consisted of three streets. The street of Herbs, the covered street and the street of Bad cooking. And this third street would perhaps become the most infamous of them all. It's there that locals would prepare vast quantities of low quality food to be sold cheaply. The meat was bad, almost always rancid, but caked in enough spices that you'd hardly be able to tell. And if you're a crusader or a pilgrim who had just traveled thousands of leagues in order to come here, you likely wouldn't be complaining. But don't worry, not all of the food was of poor quality. There were fresh fruits available not far from the street of bad cooking as well as great local bread. It seems that Melisande's Triple Market was something of a city in miniature. In it, you could see people from all over the world brought into a very small location, all seeking a bite to eat. And thus, thanks to her, the violence, turmoil and upheaval of the Crusades gave way to a business practice that wouldn't have a name until the modern times. Fast Food I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting curiositiespodcast.com the show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series and television show and you can learn all about it [e-mail] and until next time, stay curious.

[A]

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