The Undegooglables
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Episode 202 · May 9, 2026

Since Fire and Water

Coalson asks about 'soup to nuts'. The hosts debate nuts and bolts, the industrial revolution and prohibition; it turns out to refer to the order of courses in a meal and echoes a Roman 'eggs to apples'.

“Maybe we're calling things nuts that aren't really nuts. Don't call me nuts.” (05:18)

Questions

Where does 'soup to nuts' come from? (00:31)

Our guess
The first and last courses of a meal (Joey), or nuts and bolts / industrial revolution (Harper, Coalson)
Reveal the answer
The answer
Soup is the first course and nuts the last; the Roman 'ab ovo usque ad mala' (eggs to apples) is a predecessor. The specific phrase 'soup to nuts' is American, from the early 1900s.
Verdict right

Listen to the episode

Transcript (auto-generated)
[00:00] Coalson, do you want to under Google for us?
[00:04] Oh, we do under Google rules.
[00:17] That was the play of super excited told us we had to.
[00:23] So we signed up for it.
[00:25] In the end, it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:31] I don't really do anybody have else.
[00:35] I got one.
[00:36] Nice.
[00:37] I was looking at my list and we had been to this around doing earlier, but the phrase soup to nuts.
[00:48] We went all the way from soup to nuts.
[00:50] It's the whole.
[00:52] Shebang.
[00:53] Kitten gaboodle or the whole process.
[00:56] You're saying it's the whole process.
[00:58] It's it's it's we.
[01:00] What did we do?
[01:01] How do we do a soup to nuts?
[01:03] When do you use this phrase?
[01:07] I think of it as like, you know.
[01:11] Yeah, a whole process thing like we.
[01:14] We have control of this whole operation from soup to nuts.
[01:18] Yeah.
[01:19] OK.
[01:20] Is that what you guys think of it as or.
[01:23] Yeah.
[01:24] When you want to when you want to just describe something.
[01:29] In totality, you know, from beginning to end.
[01:32] Alpha and Omega.
[01:35] Like.
[01:37] Coalson, your Lord is is, you know, the soup and the nuts, right?
[01:44] Sure.
[01:45] So so in this.
[01:48] The way that you're describing this soup would be the beginning of the process and nuts would be the end.
[01:54] Is that is that what you're saying?
[01:56] Yes.
[02:00] Or it's like this is the breadth of things that we have.
[02:04] Like we have everything from.
[02:07] Like if you're thinking about at a grocery store, we have everything from soup to nuts.
[02:14] Like and all of the things in between.
[02:17] OK, that's it's it's interesting that those are the parameters.
[02:23] Right.
[02:24] And then everything else is in between.
[02:25] I mean, I suppose that's why you're asking this question.
[02:27] I was wondering, though, whether this was not edible nuts, but like nuts and bolts.
[02:36] Sure.
[02:37] Yeah.
[02:38] No, that's that's a good.
[02:39] But then why soup or does this go back to souped up cars?
[02:47] Yeah.
[02:49] Like super dupe.
[02:51] Mm hmm.
[02:54] You know, or what about like some sort of a stew of things, a soup of.
[03:03] You know, I don't know ideas instead of a soup to eat.
[03:08] OK, OK, so we go all the way from idea to the nuts and bolts of things like the actual product.
[03:17] At the end of the assembly line.
[03:20] That's what I'm going with because I don't really eat nuts with soup and those don't make sense to me connected.
[03:28] They're not they're not connected on the food in the food world, really.
[03:32] Sure.
[03:33] I don't.
[03:35] I remember having reference to ideas as a soup.
[03:40] I remember watching.
[03:42] What was it?
[03:43] Talk soup.
[03:45] Talk soup.
[03:46] Yeah.
[03:47] Show.
[03:48] Joel McLean.
[03:49] Michael.
[03:50] Oh, yeah.
[03:51] Michael.
[03:55] Yeah.
[03:56] Is that where this comes from?
[03:57] This is Joel.
[03:59] The soup potentially.
[04:01] Yeah.
[04:06] Sidebar.
[04:08] By the way, Coalson, I've made some good soups that you know, you put some nuts in there and puree them.
[04:15] It gives a little more.
[04:16] Oh, sure.
[04:17] Yeah.
[04:18] Just a little more.
[04:20] A little more thickness, you know.
[04:23] No, I like that.
[04:24] Nobody does that besides vegetarians.
[04:27] So nobody.
[04:29] Well, I was nobody's like sprinkles nuts on a soup.
[04:35] Right.
[04:37] Crackers.
[04:38] You do a pepita on a.
[04:41] Oh, I do love a pepita.
[04:43] But it's not a squash soup or something.
[04:46] That's a seed, right?
[04:47] Not a nut.
[04:50] I mean, technically.
[04:51] Yes.
[04:54] I guess nuts are seeds.
[04:55] Yeah.
[04:56] All right.
[04:57] Fair enough.
[04:58] I think there is a distinction actually.
[04:59] OK.
[05:01] But like an acorn is a nut and a seed because it would make a tree.
[05:07] I don't know.
[05:09] I forget how you define what the definition of a nut is, but there's
[05:13] something about like.
[05:15] All of the things that we call nuts are not actually nuts.
[05:18] Like, oh, like peanuts are not nuts.
[05:20] Yeah.
[05:21] They're goons.
[05:22] Yes. Right.
[05:23] And I don't know what.
[05:24] Mushrooms or something.
[05:25] I don't know.
[05:26] Right.
[05:28] Sure.
[05:29] Sure.
[05:31] Maybe that's it.
[05:32] Maybe we're calling things nuts that aren't really nuts.
[05:38] Don't call me nuts.
[05:41] So like, you know, it's soup to seeds, really.
[05:45] We're just calling, you know.
[05:47] So it's the primordial soup.
[05:49] Yeah.
[05:50] Mm hmm.
[05:51] That's what I'm going with.
[05:52] Hmm.
[05:54] When do we think that?
[05:55] So yeah.
[05:56] When do we think this came around?
[05:58] When did when did they invent soup?
[06:06] I think this was shortly after hot water was in.
[06:10] I mean, I feel like there's this.
[06:13] I feel like there's a stew before there's a soup.
[06:15] Right.
[06:16] You only want heart heartier.
[06:19] Well, actually, I don't know.
[06:20] You're probably right.
[06:21] Things. It's just hot water.
[06:22] You didn't have when things are.
[06:24] Boiled boiled your bones.
[06:26] Yeah.
[06:27] Yeah.
[06:28] Where soup started.
[06:29] Yeah.
[06:30] Okay.
[06:31] Good stuff.
[06:32] Okay.
[06:33] So basically the moment you came up with fire.
[06:36] And water.
[06:37] Probably soup.
[06:41] Yeah.
[06:43] When did we come up with water?
[06:45] I mean, Asheville still hasn't figured that out.
[06:50] Got him.
[06:52] Okay.
[06:53] It seems old oldie to me, but not not like ancient.
[06:56] It seems like 1800s.
[06:58] Like the like industrial revolution phrase.
[07:01] Okay.
[07:02] Well, that's why I'm wondering whether it's a you know, it's like, hey, we go to the we go to work.
[07:07] We carry our our pale of soup.
[07:10] Sure.
[07:11] And and yeah, we've got nuts and bolts.
[07:15] So we were when we walk in the door, we got our soup.
[07:19] And we're going to work.
[07:21] Sure. Yeah.
[07:22] By the industrial revolution in the machine.
[07:25] Yeah.
[07:26] What'd you get?
[07:29] I like this.
[07:30] So you're very pensive over there.
[07:32] And I don't know what's.
[07:33] Yeah, I'm trying to like.
[07:34] You look scared, Joey.
[07:35] It's okay.
[07:36] Like you don't want to know the answer to this question.
[07:39] That's certainly.
[07:41] You just are okay with being wrong and you want to be wrong forever.
[07:44] Well, what about oh, what about this?
[07:46] What about like if you had a meal and you had like soup?
[07:50] Maybe you always had soup as like the first course.
[07:54] And nuts were like a dessert.
[07:58] Like a just like a digest after dinner.
[08:02] Okay.
[08:03] Everything at least it's possible thing.
[08:05] It's ordered like in the.
[08:07] So you have your dinner and then you retire to the.
[08:11] To the.
[08:12] Lounge to have your cigar and there's some nuts around.
[08:15] And cognac.
[08:16] Yeah.
[08:17] Yeah.
[08:18] Yeah.
[08:19] From soup to cognac.
[08:20] Didn't sound as good.
[08:21] Yeah.
[08:22] Well, that's what it was until prohibition.
[08:25] And then they had to change it.
[08:27] Right.
[08:28] Right.
[08:29] Oh, sure.
[08:30] That became code for cognac.
[08:36] All right.
[08:37] So in.
[08:38] So he's going prohibition.
[08:40] Our typical.
[08:43] Shakespeare.
[08:44] Is this a Shakespeare?
[08:45] Definitely.
[08:46] This is a thousand percent Shakespeare.
[08:49] Is it seafaring in any way?
[08:53] Is it.
[08:54] I feel like.
[08:55] I feel like.
[08:56] I don't feel like soup is on the boats.
[09:00] Yeah.
[09:02] Is this is this part primordial soup to the nuts of a horse.
[09:09] It's like horse racing.
[09:12] I'll pass on that one.
[09:15] Hard pass.
[09:16] Now I see why you were so afraid.
[09:18] Do I.
[09:22] No, I'm going to go.
[09:23] I'm going to go Shakespeare.
[09:24] Joey's going prohibition.
[09:27] I'm going industrial revolution.
[09:29] I think this is like a.
[09:30] Andrew Carnegie phrase or something like that.
[09:33] Okay.
[09:34] Okay.
[09:38] Oh, hell yeah.
[09:39] It is exactly what Joey said.
[09:42] It was nice.
[09:45] First course appetizers are soup.
[09:48] Final course sweets, fruits or nuts.
[09:53] The phrase comes from the Roman phrase.
[09:58] Of oval.
[09:59] Uska add mala.
[10:02] Because apparently the Romans ate soup and ended with apples.
[10:08] Or no.
[10:09] They begin with eggs.
[10:11] Yeah, that's over.
[10:13] Well, why would that be soup nuts?
[10:16] I guess that's how stuff evolves.
[10:18] Well, you could just change it.
[10:22] Like, what would the.
[10:25] Like for an American meal, you would say like, uh, from fries to shake.
[10:30] Right.
[10:31] Okay.
[10:32] Timing is a little weird on this.
[10:34] It seems like middle of the 20th century.
[10:38] So it used to be eggs to apples.
[10:40] Thanks to apples and.
[10:41] Cottage cheese.
[10:44] And then in the mid 20th century.
[10:48] I'm seeing there's another one from the soda to.
[10:51] The hot.
[10:54] There's a website called hot idioms.
[10:59] I have to confirm that I'm over 18.
[11:01] No, I'm just kidding.
[11:08] So it looks like.
[11:11] This usage, like specifically soup to nuts is,
[11:14] is American and seems to be from.
[11:19] You know, in the early 1900s.
[11:23] But there's other, like you guys had mentioned, there's others.
[11:26] Same meaning.
[11:28] Phrases.
[11:30] From eggs to apples and things like that, or, or.
[11:34] In other cultures.
[11:37] Previously.
[11:39] Yeah.
[11:40] There's, there's also a movie called soup to nuts.
[11:44] That the three stitches were in 1930.
[11:47] Yeah. And I saw there was a Looney Tunes duck soup to nuts.
[11:51] Okay.
[11:53] All right. So Joey nailed it.
[11:55] Joey nailed it.
[11:57] I almost got the timing right.
[12:00] And I thought it was nuts and bolts.
[12:02] So what do I know?
[12:04] And or the nuts of horses.
[12:07] And next time I have a dinner party,
[12:09] I'm just serving nuts for dessert.
[12:11] Yeah.
[12:12] That's cheaper than a lot easier than.
[12:14] I think it's actually way more expensive.
[12:16] Oh yeah.
[12:17] Nuts are very expensive.
[12:19] Yeah, they are.
[12:20] Yeah.
[12:21] You're right. That's true.
[12:23] But it's easier than making a cake.
[12:25] True.