Episode 194: The Menu

Two of our earliest guests are back — and 200 episodes later, the conversation is better than ever.

Jason sits down with Emily Contois (Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa and author of *Diners, Dudes, and Diets*) and Mark Johnson (Assistant Professor of History at UT Chattanooga and author of the newly released *American Bacon: The History of a Food Phenomenon*) to dig into the 2022 satirical horror film *The Menu* — and end up covering pretty much everything worth knowing about American food culture along the way.

What starts as a film discussion quickly becomes a wide-ranging conversation about class anxiety and culinary capital, the rise (and fall) of the celebrity chef, the myth of Southern food exceptionalism, why farm-to-table can only exist after industrialization, and what it really means when you pull out your phone to photograph your dinner. They debate who deserves their fate in the film, why the cheeseburger scene might be the most important moment in the whole movie, and whether food can ever truly be "authentic."

Plus: Jose Andres, Anthony Bourdain's complicated legacy, Mario Batali, the bread scene, s'mores as satire, Noma's $1,500 tasting menu, and why gumbo might just be the most American food there is.

*Spoilers throughout — watch the film first.*

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*Emily Contois is on Instagram and Bluesky. Her book Diners, Dudes, and Diets is available wherever books are sold. Mark Johnson's American Bacon is out now — and he'll be back on the pod soon for a dedicated book episode.*