Getting to know Zoe Delahunty-Light and the horrible histories she loves
What do you know about onion soup?
Do you know how Vikings used to work out who'd die of their wounds and who wouldn't? And I mean internal wounds here, not obvious external ones.
Onion soup.
The Viking healers would feed the warriors really stinky onion soup and then, if the healers could smell it, it probably meant the stomach had been perforated and old Bjorn was on their way to Valhalla.
Zoe Delahunty-Light told me that - Zoe who you'll know from the Eurogamer YouTube team. Not that she talks about morbid things there - but on TikTok it's a different matter. There, morbid history is entirely Zoe's jam, or um, grave wax as the case may be.
Understanding Zoe's penchant for darker history goes a long way to understanding Zoe, which is why I'm telling you about it. And I found out about it while talking to Zoe during the interview I've embedded here.
It helps explain Zoe's love of scary games, which she always seems to be playing. It also explains her love of lore and digging into precise histories and backstories, which again, you see her do often on the Eurogamer YouTube channel.
And, as a side note, it helps explain why she's soon launching an occult-loving online shop called House of Mugwort, where you can buy badges and pins and artwork made by her. And why she's got a historical true crime YouTube channel, which currently has one series - "Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?" - but will soon have another, documenting the tragic tale of Bridget Cleary, an Irish woman murdered for fear of being a changeling.
All of that, together, begins to build a picture of who Zoe is and what interests her. And we talk about it all, plus her career and how she ended up at Eurogamer, in the embedded interview here. It's one of the most interesting chats I've had.
And remember: you can find these Eurogamer Podcasts wherever you listen to them. Just search for "Eurogamer Podcasts" there and you'll see them.
Oh, and if you like hearing from the Eurogamer YouTube team, you may be interested in the Aoife interview and the Ian interview I've recorded too.