The Sporkful

Actor and comedian Jason Mantzoukas is known for playing characters that are overzealous, exuberant, and more than a little wacky. But these characters are the exact opposite of how Jason felt growing up — like a “boy made of glass.” Jason has a life-threatening allergy to eggs, and that constant threat has forced him to live a life of vigilance.

Transcribed - Published: 25 April 2025

Public discussions about eating disorders tend to focus on women, and in the past, so have our episodes on the subject. But millions of men also struggle with some form of disordered eating, though they’re far less likely to be diagnosed or to seek treatment. Today we hear stories from three men—in three different stages of life—who have complicated relationships with food.

Transcribed - Published: 21 April 2025

A neuroscientist calls in to debate the geometry of pizza, and food science guru Kenji Lopez-Alt explains how woodworking can help us make a better bagel and cream cheese.

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2025

Roy Choi is a legend in LA. He was one of the first chefs to start cooking out of a food truck, and one of the first to mashup different cuisines in the way that’s become so popular. His Kogi korean beef taco truck was a sensation in LA when he debuted it in 2008 -- it later inspired the movie “Chef,” starring Jon Favreau.

Transcribed - Published: 14 April 2025

Is there really a difference between cheap and expensive vodkas? In this collaboration with NPR's Planet Money, we go on a mission to learn how super premium vodka is made and marketed. Then we make our own, to see how it measures up.

Transcribed - Published: 11 April 2025

Comedian Matteo Lane comes from a large Italian family, which gave him his passion for food and his sense of humor. A few years back he started posting cooking videos on social media, and now he’s published Your Pasta Sucks, a collection of recipes, stories, and jokes.

Transcribed - Published: 7 April 2025

Author and podcast host Malcolm Gladwell immigrated to Canada when he was young, the child of an English father and Jamaican mother. He’s always felt like an outsider. He hated maple syrup, in a town that hosts the largest one-day maple syrup festival in the world.

Transcribed - Published: 4 April 2025

Scott Wiener, founder of Scott’s Pizza Tours, has made a name for himself as one of the most knowledgeable and passionate pizza experts in America. (He has the Guinness Record for the world’s largest collection of pizza boxes -- nearly 2,000.) This week, Dan and his family join Scott on one of his famous Sunday tours, in which pizza pilgrims board a school bus not knowing what pizzerias Scott plans to take them to.

Transcribed - Published: 31 March 2025

When Dan hit 40, he noticed his body wasn't feeling as good. So recently, he embarked on a journey to change his lifestyle. Today, you'll meet the three people who've inspired him. (This episode is a satire. Please enjoy it as such!)

Transcribed - Published: 28 March 2025

Indie musician Michelle Zauner (leader of the band Japanese Breakfast) always had a complicated relationship with her mother, Chongmi. Michelle was born in Seoul and raised in Oregon, where she never felt like she was fully Korean or American. While it was sometimes hard for mother and daughter to understand each other, the thread that kept them together was their shared “Korean appetite,” as Michelle writes in her memoir, Crying in H Mart.

Transcribed - Published: 24 March 2025

For two decades, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has been one of the most popular snacks in America. In recent years its legend has grown, as word spread that they were invented by Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor at Frito-Lay who went on to become a company executive. The story made Montañez something of a Latino icon, with two memoirs and a biopic based on his life. But when L.A. Times reporter Gustavo Arellano started looking into this feel-good story, he found a very different tale.

Transcribed - Published: 21 March 2025

Is wine actually better than beer when watching football? What would a Thanksgiving feast prepared with recipes from Tom Brady’s cookbook taste like? Do you really need to wash your vegetables? We’re tackling your food disputes and hot takes this week, with someone who’s seen plenty of tackling — Katie Nolan.

Transcribed - Published: 17 March 2025

What do a great bartender and a great priest have in common? We ask a Catholic priest who moonlights as a mixologist. Plus, Dan revisits a beloved pub from his past to find out what makes a great bar.

Transcribed - Published: 14 March 2025

Laurie Woolever is a food writer in New York, but she’s probably best known for two other jobs she’s held: an assistant to Mario Batali, and an assistant to and collaborator with Anthony Bourdain. Laurie was working with Bourdain when he took his own life in 2018. After his death, she published Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography.

Transcribed - Published: 10 March 2025

81-year-old Patsy Grimaldi may be the last person making pizza today who trained under someone who trained at Lombardi's—the first pizzeria in American history. Dan sits down with Patsy and his wife Carol to discuss slice folding technique, the art and science of using a coal oven, what she taught him about pizza, and the scourge of pineapple pizza, along with several other trends Patsy deems "ridiculous."

Transcribed - Published: 7 March 2025

Why is the bird flu outbreak that’s currently driving up egg prices different from past outbreaks? Are new tariffs about to make your groceries more expensive? And, perhaps most importantly, are Capri-Sun pouches about to disappear?

Transcribed - Published: 3 March 2025

Mimi Sheraton has seen it all in her 92 years. In this Reheat of our spinoff podcast, Ask Mimi, the legendary food critic offers advice on food and life to live callers and celebrity guests. The Sporkful's Dan Pashman moderates. In this episode, humorist Mo Rocca joins Mimi and Dan live on stage to ask for help with an issue involving his mom.

Transcribed - Published: 28 February 2025

Monday through Saturday, Devin Pickard and his family run Papa KayJoe's BBQ in Centerville, Tennessee. But on Sundays, Devin trades the BBQ pit for the pulpit at Hope Church, the non-denominational congregation where he preaches. In many ways, food is a natural fit for a southern preacher, but there are other, less obvious ways Devin's two professions come together.

Transcribed - Published: 24 February 2025

We're reheating this episode in honor of Chef Charles Phan, owner of The Slanted Door, who recently died. In 2016, he showed us the right way to eat the Vietnamese noodle soup pho. Then we take a deep dive into the science of soup slurping with a researcher who studies the mechanics of eating.

Transcribed - Published: 21 February 2025

Edna Lewis was one of the first Black women to write a successful mainstream cookbook about the South. She talked about seasonality and farm-to-table cooking long before it got trendy, and she tied that approach to the way she grew up in Virginia. So why isn’t Edna Lewis better known?

Transcribed - Published: 17 February 2025

In the last 15 years, Nashville hot chicken has become a hot trend. But for decades before that, hot chicken was well known among Nashville’s Black community. For generations, you could only get it at the place where it was invented: Prince’s Hot Chicken.

Transcribed - Published: 14 February 2025

The South is known for fantastic gas station food, and on today’s show, Dan takes a road trip from Birmingham to Memphis to try some out for himself. He travels across Alabama and Mississippi, eating pimento cheese sandwiches, tacos, fried chicken on a stick, sushi, and a very specific regional pasta dish.

Transcribed - Published: 10 February 2025

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 wings.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 3 February 2025

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?" Plus, a woman in California shares a novel way to reheat pizza.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2025

Why do some recipes just work while others are hit-or-miss? And is there a better way to write recipes overall? This week we look at what makes a great recipe.

Transcribed - Published: 27 January 2025

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?

Transcribed - Published: 24 January 2025

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?

Transcribed - Published: 20 January 2025

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?

Transcribed - Published: 17 January 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 13 January 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 10 January 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 6 January 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 3 January 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 30 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 27 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 23 December 2024

When comedian Hari Kondabolu isn't delivering incisive jokes about politics and identity, he's dreaming of being locked inside a magical bakery. Plus, Hari tells us why you shouldn't ask him about Indian food, and shares his take on whether famous Simpsons food scenes with Apu are racist or not.

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 16 December 2024

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?

Transcribed - Published: 13 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 9 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 6 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 2 December 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 29 November 2024

"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.

Transcribed - Published: 25 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 22 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 18 November 2024

"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.

Transcribed - Published: 15 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 11 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2024

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.

Transcribed - Published: 4 November 2024