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The Birds and The Bugs
Chicken is such a mainstay of the contemporary American dinner table that it seems hard to imagine that, just a century ago, it was rare and expensiv…
8 years, 7 months ago
It’s Tea Time: Pirates, Polyphenols, and a Proper Cuppa
This week, Gastropod tells the story of two countries and their shared obsession with a plant: Camellia sinensis, otherwise known as the tea bush. Th…
8 years, 7 months ago
Peanuts: Peril and Promise
Despite their diminutive scale, peanuts play an outsized role in American culture. Peanut butter has long been a mainstay of the American lunchbox, w…
8 years, 9 months ago
Fake Food
Hamburgers that turn out to be horse, not beef. Honey sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Old, grey olives dipped in copper sulfate solution to …
8 years, 9 months ago
Here’s Why You Should Care About Southern Food
The food of the South is one of the most complicated, complex, contradictory cuisines in the U.S. This is the region where a monumental mixing of cro…
8 years, 10 months ago
Better Believe It’s Butter
Butter is beautiful: solid golden bars add the perfect flakiness to pastry, give cake a delightfully tender springiness, and melt mouth-wateringly on…
8 years, 10 months ago
Meet Koji, Your New Favorite Fungus
It’s impossible to imagine Japanese meals without soy sauce, or the umami-rich fermented bean paste called miso, or the rice-based spirit known as sa…
8 years, 11 months ago
V is for Vitamin
They’re added to breakfast cereal, bread, and even Pop-Tarts, giving the sweetest, most processed treats a halo of health. Most people pop an extra d…
8 years, 11 months ago
Hacking Taste
Taste is the oldest of our five senses, and yet perhaps the least understood. It’s far more complicated than salty versus sweet: new research is dram…
9 years ago
Cork Dork: Inside the Weird World of Wine Appreciation
“There’s the faintest soupçon of asparagus and just a flutter of Edam cheese,” says Paul Giamatti in the movie Sideways. Believe it or not, he’s desc…
9 years ago