Dan talks to Matt Reynolds, director and star of the new documentary comedy The Great Chicken Wing Hunt , about the search for perfection in love and Buffalo wings. This episode originally aired on January 26, 2014, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Giulia Leo, Jared O'Connell, and Kameel Stanley. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Publishing by Shantel Holder. Every other Friday, we reach into our...
Feb 07, 2025•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dan is live on stage in Memphis with famed local restaurateur Karen Blockman Carrier! Karen grew up Orthodox Jewish in Memphis, and she wanted to be a painter. But after a chance meeting with a caterer in a smoke-filled bathroom stall in New York City, she decided to focus on food. Karen shares the twists and turns of her life, from a disastrous day working for Martha Stewart, to reinventing the Memphis dining scene with eclectic restaurants in an old Victorian home and a former hair salon, to a...
Feb 03, 2025•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're revisiting two "Call-In Smorgasbord" episodes from 2011, which were all about settling scores, issuing opinions, and learning about your kitchen innovations. In part one, we tackle a debate between an engaged couple, both philosophers, who want help answering the existential question: "Is it soup?" In part two, we take calls from a couple of students in Canada who are clearly ahead of the class. One caller has an important question about milk, and the other needs our consultation on a scho...
Jan 31, 2025•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why do some recipes just work while others are hit-or-miss? And is there a better way to write recipes overall? Last week we talked about how some recipes deceive you into thinking they’re easier than they are. This week we look at what makes a great recipe. Dan talks with Chandra Ram , who judged the prestigious IACP Awards, where she put recipes from popular cookbooks to the test. Then Dan talks with John Becker and Megan Scott, who revised and developed 2,400 recipes for the latest edition of...
Jan 27, 2025•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast What did dinosaur eggs taste like? In what shape would Jane Austen likely have had her dessert served to her? What does one of the world's leading paleontologists think of the paleo diet? How do you get maggots out of boiled sheep in the Gobi Dessert? How do you make ice cream on an uninhabited island in Madagascar in the summer? And how many ancient Aztecs would have had better teeth if they'd learned to eat corn by listening to The Sporkful? Dan gets answers to these questions and many more wh...
Jan 24, 2025•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast If you look at any list of best-selling cookbooks, certain words come up over and over again: quick, easy, fast, effortless. But is it actually possible to deliver deliciousness in no time? Or are these recipes too good to be true? This week, we talk with intrepid journalist Tom Scocca, who exposed the dirty secret about caramelized onions; recipe-writing legend Christopher Kimball; and food writer (and mom) Elizabeth Dunn, who’s sick of feeling bad when a recipe turns out to be harder than she ...
Jan 20, 2025•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dan sits down with the one and only "Weird Al" Yankovic, the man behind "Eat It," "Fat," "My Bologna," and so many other classic food-related parody songs. What would be his ideal ratio of cookie to white stuff in an Oreo? And which does he prefer, the rye or the kaiser? Plus, Dan takes issue with Al's suggestion in "Eat It" that it doesn't matter whether chicken or pie is boiled or fried. Also in this episode, a concerned 16-year-old in Idaho calls in to ask Dan how to learn to love onions. Thi...
Jan 17, 2025•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Happy anniversary to us! This week The Sporkful is celebrating our 15th anniversary with a special episode sharing the story of the show’s creation, and tracing its evolution. Dan started The Sporkful in 2010 — the Stone Age of podcasting — recording episodes in his living room, or borrowed studios that he sometimes had permission to be in. But what began as a show dedicated to dissecting food minutiae eventually grew to incorporate more serious conversations, in-depth interviews, globe-spanning...
Jan 13, 2025•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast In honor of The Sporkful’s 15th anniversary, for our Friday Reheats this month we’re pulling especially old episodes out of the darkest recesses of the deep freezer. Today, we’re defrosting our very first Sporkful episode ever, along with our episode on sandwich science with Radiolab co-host Robert Krulwich. These episodes originally aired on January 15, 2010 and May 17, 2010, and were produced by Dan Pashman and Mark Garrison. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres...
Jan 10, 2025•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast What makes the taste of a Meyer lemon so special? And why is there a secret society in Louisiana that holds a giant omelet festival every year? This week our friends at the The Atlas Obscura Podcast — which celebrates the world’s strange and wondrous places — bring us stories that answer each of those questions. First up, professional taster Mandy Naglich tells us the twisty history of the Meyer lemon, from the eccentric man it’s named after to the role it played in a citrus epidemic. Then we vi...
Jan 06, 2025•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why does eating alligator seem more manly than eating chicken? Is coffee more “masculine” than tea? This week, comedian Michael Ian Black talks with Dan about manliness, and how it relates to food — a conversation they have as Michael decides to order salad at a pizzeria. "Are we really still going through this dumb, ritualistic flexing of our masculinity over the fact that I just want some greens?" Michael asks. "It’s so representative of something so destructive." Michael also shares some cont...
Jan 03, 2025•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Despite being the best-selling nonfiction author in UK history, Jamie Oliver didn't read a whole book until he was 38. He's dyslexic, and writes by dictation. Growing up, school was a huge struggle for him. When he began cooking as a kid it was the first time he thought, "I'm good at something." Today, Jamie Oliver has one of the most impressive resumes in the food world: chef, TV personality, restaurateur, multi-cause activist, and author. This week, Jamie tells Dan about his life story, includ...
Dec 30, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast We follow a young truffle dealer as he hustles his way across New York City selling white truffles out of a styrofoam cooler in his car for thousands of dollars a pop. Then we try to figure out why people pay so much for this funky fungus. This episode originally aired on November 27, 2016, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Shoshana Gold, and Elizabeth Kulas, with editing by Dan Charles. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell...
Dec 27, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast What foods do Sporkful listeners resolve to eat more of in the new year, and why? And what’s Dan’s New Year’s food resolution for 2025? All is revealed in our annual year-end spectacular. We also replay one of the Sporkful crew’s favorite episodes of the year, with comedian Gary Gulman . Gary did so many food bits early in his stand-up career that he joked he was "a strictly food-based comic." But as his comedy started to evolve in new directions, the role of food in his act changed, too. Instea...
Dec 23, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast When comedian Hari Kondabolu isn't delivering incisive jokes about politics and identity, he's dreaming of being locked inside a magical bakery. Hari tells us why you shouldn't ask him about Indian food, and shares his take on whether famous food scenes with Apu on The Simpsons are racist or not. This episode originally aired on May 6. 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini, with editing by Peter Clowney. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, ...
Dec 20, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s time for our Salad Spinner Year In Review! On today’s show, we discuss the strangest and most surprising food stories from the past year with Joe Yonan from The Washington Post and Nikita Richardson from The New York Times . We share some of the biggest food trends of 2024—the ones we want to see more of, and the ones we wish would go away—and later, the best things we ate this year. This leads us in some unexpected directions, including demanding justice for seed oils and dreaming of a nap...
Dec 16, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2020, Samin Nosrat , author of the bestselling cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat , and Hrishikesh Hirway , host of the podcast and Netflix show Song Exploder , teamed up to create Home Cooking , a podcast where they answer listeners’ cooking questions, make lots of bad puns, and share their passion for cookies, among other foods. They join Dan this week and accept a challenge: How much time can the three of them spend analyzing the most minute details of cookies? Plus, Dan and Samin resolve their o...
Dec 13, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kristina Cho and Bryan Ford have a lot in common. They’re both children of immigrants, third-culture kids who got into food not through restaurants or culinary school, but by launching their own blogs. They dreamed of quitting their day jobs so they could write about food full-time. And when they took that plunge, they wrote debut cookbooks that explored baking traditions that have long gotten short shrift in American food culture. This fall, Kristina and Bryan have each released their second co...
Dec 09, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast We learn about the holiday drink that’s the centerpiece of Puerto Rican Christmas celebrations, and we hear how Hurricane Maria changed Christmas for one Puerto Rican family. This episode originally aired on December 3, 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Shoshana Gold, with editing by Dan Charles. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Transcription by Emily Ngu...
Dec 06, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast The holidays are a time when many of us have a few extra drinks — or spend time with people having a few extra drinks. This week we’re talking with LP O’Brien , an award-winning mixologist in Washington, DC. A couple years back, she decided to quit drinking, a decision that she says made her better at her job. We find out how that’s possible, and how it led LP into the quickly growing market for non-alcoholic drinks. She also tells Dan how she first stumbled into the world of high-end cocktails ...
Dec 02, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast The comedy icon discusses the role food can play in comedy and drama. Plus, he tells us why learning a new part is like eating spaghetti and how he reacts when people in the audience bring food into the theater. This episode originally aired on October 30, 2017, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, with editing by Dan Charles. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Publishi...
Nov 29, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast "I've always been a fan of food," comedian Fortune Feimster says in her 2020 stand up special, Sweet and Salty . She joined the swim team in grade school just for the snacks. As a chubby kid who became a chubby adult, she often played her body for laughs. But in recent years her approach to both comedy and food has evolved. Fortune talks with Dan about struggling to hold back when you really love to eat. She also shares the lesson she learned from her grandmother, and tells the story of the meat...
Nov 25, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tunde Wey learned to cook at home with his family in Nigeria. Sean Sherman grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Today they're both using food to explore politics and educate diners about the world beyond the dinner table. "Food is a delicious tool," says Tunde, "but it's pointing to something bigger." This episode originally aired on January 29, 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, with editing by Peter Clowney. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Mor...
Nov 22, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast A couple years ago, Abigail Keel started having debilitating attacks of vertigo. Once she got a diagnosis, the treatment seemed simple enough: reduce your salt intake to 1500 milligrams per day. But that change upended Abigail’s life in ways she never expected, altering her relationship with food, and leading her to question the way we think about medical diets in the first place. After all that, would the treatment at least help her vertigo? The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Em...
Nov 18, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast "White people are comfortable anywhere," says restaurateur Andy Shallal. "In order for a Black person to walk into a space, there need to be signals that say, 'You're welcome.'" In this week's show we decode those signals, which include the decor and music, the staff and other customers, and more. These codes tell you what kind of place a restaurant is, and whether it's for you. So what happens when a restaurant uses these signals to bring certain people in, and keep others out? This week we vis...
Nov 15, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast What do Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and The Diary of Anne Frank have in common? A woman named Judith Jones fought for both of them to be published. Judith was an editor with a vision, someone who was able to see the potential in books that so many others dismissed. This week Dan talks with Sara B. Franklin , author of the new biography The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America . Sara met Judith a little over a decade ago, when she was hired to...
Nov 11, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jake Cohen didn’t care much about Jewish food when he went to culinary school and worked in high end restaurants. But when he met his future husband, Jake was introduced to the Middle Eastern Jewish recipes of his in-laws, like tahdig and kubbeh. Soon, he was mining his own family’s Eastern European Jewish recipes, and putting his spin on matzo ball soup and kasha varnishkes. Earlier this year Jake published his first cookbook, Jew-ish: Reinvented Recipes From A Modern Mensch , and he’s become a...
Nov 08, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Before the James Beard Awards , there was the man himself. Beard was the first celebrity chef of the TV era, preaching home cooking and fresh, local food even as frozen TV dinners gained popularity. But he also had to navigate the complexities of being a closeted gay man in a time when the kitchen was considered a place for women. Dan talks with food writer John Birdsall , author of the Beard biography The Man Who Ate Too Much , which traces Beard’s life from his start at queer cocktail parties ...
Nov 04, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Kass shares stories of his time as the Obama family’s chef — cooking on Air Force One, smuggling special ingredients into the White House, and creating a dish that came to be known as 'lucky pasta.' This episode originally aired on October 29, 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Aviva DeKornfeld, edited by Gianna Palmer, and mixed by Dan Dzula. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Nora Ritchie, and Jared O'Connell. This update was pr...
Nov 01, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Bobby Flay has competed in more than 700 TV cooking challenges and written a dozen cookbooks. But at heart, he still thinks of himself as a restaurant chef. In his new book, Chapter One , Bobby looks back on his career, from dropping out of high school and working as a busboy in New York City, to opening his first restaurants in the ‘90s, to competing on Iron Chef and Beat Bobby Flay . We discuss how he got to where he is today, including the key to his longevity and how he deals with losing — o...
Oct 28, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
