They drilled through concrete. They lined up multiple trucks. They stole more than 100 tons of something most people would never notice.

In early 2022, one of the largest agricultural heists in Israeli history left investigators baffled. The target wasn’t gold, fuel, or electronics — but a food so ordinary it barely registers as valuable… until you understand its history.

In this episode of True Crime Culinary, we follow the logistics of the theft, the suspects’ background, and the surprising reason this product was worth breaking through reinforced walls to steal. Then we trace its journey across continents — from ancient burial sites in South America, through West African kitchens, into American fields — and uncover how a quiet survival food became a global commodity hiding in plain sight.

This isn’t a story about snacks. It’s a story about planning, scarcity, and the foods we stop seeing once they become everywhere.

Sources:

• “That’s nuts!: 104-ton peanut heist leads to quick arrest” — Israel Hayom (2025) www.israelhayom.com

• “Suspect arrested for stealing over 104 tons of peanuts in Be’er Sheba” — Jerusalem Post (2025) Jerusalem Post

• Peanut plant origin and cultivation history — Wikipedia Wikipedia

• Peanut domestication & ancient cultivation — ScienceDirect summary ScienceDirect

• Peanut origin & spread via European trade — Etymonline etymonline.com

• George Washington Carver biography and bulletins — Wikipedia Wikipedia

• Carver’s contributions to peanut agriculture — History.com HISTORY

• George Washington Carver agricultural legacy — National Peanut Board National Peanut Board

In 2002, Gwen Araujo, a 17-year-old transgender girl, was murdered in California for living openly as herself.

In this episode of True Crime Culinary, host Leah Llach tells Gwen’s story with care, personal reflection, and historical context — examining how everyday cruelty escalates, how violence is excused, and how one case helped change the law.

We follow Gwen’s life, the night of the attack, and the aftermath that led to the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act, which limited the use of the so-called “trans panic” defense in court.

Then, through the show’s culinary lens, we step back to examine the object at the center of the crime: a can of food.
Invented to preserve life — to feed armies, families, and people facing scarcity — the can represents humanity’s long struggle to protect what matters. This episode asks what it means when something designed to sustain becomes a weapon instead.

This is a story about memory, dignity, and the responsibility to see people as fully human — before harm is done.

📚 References & Further Reading

• Wikipedia — Murder of Gwen Araujo
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Gwen_Araujo
  (Chronology, trial details, and legal outcomes)

• ACLU of Northern California — Trans Panic Defense and Legal Reform
  https://www.aclunc.org

• The New York Times — Coverage of Gwen Araujo trial and aftermath

• Smithsonian National Museum of American History — The History of Canning
  https://americanhistory.si.edu/

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Food Preservation / Canning
  https://www.britannica.com/topic/canning-food-processing

• National WWII Museum — Canned Food and Military Rations
  https://www.nationalww2museum.org

In November 1939, a lone German carpenter and clockmaker came within minutes of assassinating Adolf Hitler — inside a Munich beer hall.

In this episode of True Crime Culinary, we explore the Beer Hall Bombing, one of the closest and least-known assassination attempts of World War II history, and the everyday objects that filled the room where it nearly happened.

Beer halls weren’t just bars in early 20th-century Germany. They were political spaces — places where people gathered to eat, drink, listen, and belong. They were instrumental in the rise of Nazi ideology. And they were furnished with heavy stoneware beer steins, objects designed for comfort, ritual, and staying put.

We tell the story of Georg Elser, a working-class German who acted alone, building a bomb hidden inside a pillar of the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall — and missing Hitler by just thirteen minutes.

Then we step back to explore the deeper history:

• why beer halls mattered so much to political power

• how beer steins evolved from sanitary tools into cultural symbols

• and how ordinary food spaces can quietly shape history

This episode looks at true crime through material culture — where food, objects, and violence intersect — and asks what it means when history unfolds in places meant to feel safe

References

• German Resistance Memorial Center — Georg Elser: The Assassin Who Acted Alone
  https://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/research/biographies/biography/georg-elser/
  (Authoritative historical archive on German resistance movements)

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Georg Elser
  https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/georg-elser
  (Contextual biography and historical verification)

• BBC History — The Man Who Nearly Killed Hitler
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50367544
  (Accessible overview of the 1939 assassination attempt)

• Encyclopaedia Britannica — Beer Hall Putsch & Bürgerbräukeller
  https://www.britannica.com/event/Beer-Hall-Putsch
  (Background on the beer hall’s political significance)

• GermanSteins.com — History of German Beer Steins
  https://www.germansteins.com/about-german-beer-steins/
  (Overview of stein materials, lids, and cultural use)

• Wikipedia — Beer Stein
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_stein
  (General reference; used for cross-checking dates and terminology)