The Sporkful

When Food Network star Duff Goldman got into baking elaborate cakes, he was just trying to pay the bills while pursuing his real dream of rock stardom. So what happened? This week we talk with the Ace of Cakes host about his deep artistic roots, the risks he took as a teenage graffiti artist, and why he almost gave up on the food industry altogether. More than ten years after Ace of Cakes ended, Duff is still starring in Food Network shows — but he can’t completely shake the sense that any moment, it could all disappear. 

This e...

On Halloween night in 1974, an eight-year-old boy in the Houston suburbs got Pixy Stix laced with cyanide. He wasn’t the only one. So did four other kids who were trick-or-treating that night. It made poisoned candy an overnight terror to parents nationwide. In this episode from our friends at the food true crime podcast Outlaw’s Digest, we hear the story that inspired a fear of Halloween candy for decades to come. Along the way, we take a dip into the surprising origins of Pixy Stix, and check in with host KC Hysmith’s family to hear how the ca...

This week we have a Reheat double-header. First up, from way down in the crevices of that deep freezer: a throwdown over proper buffet priorities, in which we also cover seat selection, line etiquette, and how far one should go to win the age-old battle against the Buffet Master. Next up: Should you send a dish back to the kitchen simply because you don't love it? Or should you just suck it up and eat it anyway? Sporkful listener Lynn and her dad, Joseph, are at odds — so Lynn called in the big guns, and sought advice from Dan and...

Is a wedge salad worth the effort of using a knife to eat it? Should you take home the unopened beer you brought to a dinner party? And does your produce really need to be washed? Dan’s taking your calls with Gail Simmons, Top Chef judge and author of the new book Guesting, and Ayesha Nurdjaja, restaurant chef and author of the new book Mediterranean All The Way.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell.

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“Literally all pasta shapes are wonderful except bucatini. Bucatini can go get effed.” Francis Lam’s strongly-worded tweet inspired Dan to organize a live event in 2018, where he, Francis (host of The Splendid Table), and Evan Kleiman (host of Good Food) could debate the merits of various pasta shapes. It was called “The Bucatini Dialogues” — and yes, it was the night when Dan first announced his intention to invent a new pasta shape. But now, for the first time, we’re airing the rest of that conversation. We cover a range of shapes and tackle the tough questions, like: Why would you...

The craft brewery used to be a place for self-proclaimed beer nerds to sample the hot new IPA. Now, young kids, toddlers, and even infants take up as much space as beer-drinking adults. So how did this happen? It’s a story of a fast-growing industry finally slowing down, and its core customer base growing up. Sporkful senior producer Andres O’Hara investigates how craft breweries became the go-to spot for parents, with help from journalist and author Joshua M. Bernstein. Then he talks with two brewery owners—Damian Fagan of Almanac Beer Company and Jason Goldstein of Icarus Brewin...

Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli-British chef famous for getting people to eat more vegetables. But now, he's making the case for sugar. On the heels of his 2017 dessert cookbook, Sweet, he discusses the personality differences between bakers and cooks. Plus, why he never orders the specials in restaurants and what happens when a perfectionist like him attempts to cook with his kids.

This episode originally aired on November 27, 2017, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Margaret Kelly. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. This update...

In 1973, Madhur Jaffrey penned An Invitation to Indian Cooking and introduced many Americans to Indian cuisine. More than 50 years later, Priya Krishna (author of Indian-ish and Priya’s Kitchen Adventures) argues that Indian food is just as American as any other immigrant cuisine. But among many non-South Asians in the US, Indian food still carries the perception that it’s “foreign.” Why? And what has to happen for this to change? Madhur Jaffrey and Priya Krishna join us live on stage to discuss.

This episode originally aired on May 8, 2019, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, Ngofeen...

Should you eat fast food on vacation, or should every meal be at a special local place? Is soup bar food? Does ice belong in milk? Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings join Dan to answer your questions — and to settle some long-standing food disputes of their own. Brittany and Eric used to co-host the podcast For Colored Nerds, a show about Black culture. They’re also old friends, which means they argue about everything — from how Eric eats wings to the merits of soup. So they’re well-qualified to help when an eighth-grader calls in about a dispute in his clas...

The fat acceptance movement has spent decades fighting weight stigma and calling for equal rights for fat people in all areas of life. As the movement moved online, the idea of body positivity emerged. While fat acceptance was about societal change, body positivity was more about self help -- loving yourself at any size. With the rise of social media, body positivity influencers gained success and sponsorships. But lately, fat acceptance and body positivity have been at a crossroads. Gabriella Lascano is a fashion and beauty influencer and public speaker who’s been caught up in some of these co...

Comedian Nicole Byer hosts the cooking competition show Nailed It! on Netflix. It’s family-friendly, but that doesn’t stop her from deploying her raunchy humor with her co-host, the chocolatier Jacques Torres, when the cameras are off. Nicole talks with Dan about the parallels between a restaurant kitchen and comedy club, and why she makes her own favorite cake for her late mom’s birthday. And you’ll definitely want to be listening when Nicole sees a whole shrimp for the first time.

This episode originally aired on August 20, 2018, and July 26, 2021, and was produced by Dan Pashman...

If someone asked you to name the country that dominates American yogurt aisles, you would undoubtedly say Greece. Thick Greek yogurt makes up more than half of all US yogurt sales. But shaking its fist from the shadows is another country that’s even more obsessed with yogurt: Bulgaria. They have a museum of yogurt. One key bacteria found in all yogurt in the world was discovered in Bulgaria. And yet, the Greeks get all the attention. In this special live show performed at Little Island in New York, Dan and reporter Eliza Rothstein explain how Bulgaria lost out to...

Dan goes on an adventure around Los Angeles, starting at the airport. Where is he going? He doesn't know. He doesn't have a plan. The one thing he does know is that he's going to attempt to travel through time to eat a piece of coconut cake from Patys Restaurant, which he should have eaten three years ago. With an Atlas Obscura article as his guide, what could go wrong?

This episode originally aired on July 16, 2018, and July 25, 2022, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Aviva DeKornfeld, with editing help from Rob McGinley Myers and...

Thirty years into her career as a chef and cookbook author, Carla Lalli is releasing a book many people told her she shouldn’t write. It’s called Food Is A Feeling, and it’s a lot more personal than her others. It has plenty of great recipes, but at its core it’s a series of essays about her divorce, and how it changed her relationship with food. Carla talks with Dan about what she made the night she and her ex-husband told the kids they were separating, and how she learned to embrace cooking just for pleasure. Plus, sh...

You know that friend of yours who rails against the evils of high fructose corn syrup? The one who’s obsessed with where every single morsel of their food comes from? Writer Michael Pollan — author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and Cooked — may have made your friend like that. But as we hear in this conversation, Michael himself isn’t like that at all. This week, he opens up about everything from how he likes to eat Cracker Jack to the time a fan caught him eating a candy bar in a gas station. And in the later part of this Reh...

Fernando Frías was a successful cafe and restaurant owner in Havana. But when Fidel Castro came to power, the government nationalized Fernando’s businesses and imprisoned him when he tried to leave the country. Eventually he got out, settling near Miami like so many other Cuban expats. Even though Fernando never went back to Cuba, he was always searching for pieces of his homeland in the Cuban-American community in Miami. This week Dan talks with Fernando’s son, Carlos Frías, who’s now an investigative editor at USA TODAY. Carlos was close with his father until Fernando was trag...

Negin Farsad loves to negotiate. And when it comes to negotiating, nothing is off-limits — even religious law. "I feel like Allah would be like, 'Get the pork chop but don't kill anybody,'" the Iranian-American Muslim comedian and host of Fake the Nation says. This week, Negin uses her lamb kebab to school us on campaign finance reform. (Can you tell she's a former policy advisor?)

This episode originally aired on February 19, 2018, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Peter Clowney. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jar...

In New Jersey, the tomato is king. Almost a century ago, a scientist at Rutgers University developed a variety that became the tomato that lined grocery store shelves for decades. Now, Rutgers scientists are at it again — they’ve invented a new grape tomato called Scarlet Sunrise. Will it become the next hot item in the produce aisle? How do you even invent a new tomato? And why are new varieties of fruits and veggies becoming more popular than ever? We team up with Kenny Malone from Planet Money to find out, and to see if this hot new toma...

When Dan had to plan his mom’s big 80th birthday dinner, he knew just where to take the whole family: Myrtle Beach, SC. The group of ten celebrated at Hook and Barrel, a sustainable seafood and wine restaurant owned by restaurateur Heidi Vukov, who’s a legend in Myrtle Beach. She started out as a single mom who opened a small bakery, and 31 years later became the city’s first James Beard semifinalist. Dan also takes his wife and kids to Tidal Creek Brewhouse, known for its ales, its burgers, and — believe it or not — their menu for dogs. 

Can “functional” candy be delicious? Why are people ordering from a fake food delivery app? And should tomatoes be banned from sandwiches? We cover all of these questions and more in this week’s Salad Spinner, our rapid-fire roundtable discussion of the hottest food news of the moment. Joining us in the Spinner this week are Tanya Sichynsky, a New York Times editor and author of the forthcoming Veg Everything, and Zach Stafford, host of the Vibe Check podcast.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell.

Right...

Chef Marcus Samuelsson was taught in culinary school that French cuisine is the gold standard of cooking. One day, he realized, “somebody lied." Samuelsson, a black Swede and the youngest chef to ever receive a three-star review from The New York Times (at age 23), has forged a new culinary ethos that permeates his restaurants in Harlem, Montreal, and London. His flagship restaurant, Red Rooster Harlem, combines Swedish and Ethiopian influences into dishes that have helped launch an empire. The menu includes cornbread with lingonberry butter, a salad with berbere vinaigrette, and his own take on fried chicken: a hot hon...

Like palm trees, the Everglades, Disney World, and “Florida Man,” the orange is a classic symbol of the Sunshine State. But maybe not for much longer. Production has declined more than 95% in less than 25 years, setting off alarm bells across the industry. So what happened? It’s a produce murder mystery—and reporter Alex Sammon and our friends at Decoder Ring are on the case. The suspects include insects, hurricanes, mortgage-backed securities, and the American habit of not reckoning with enormous, load-bearing flaws until it’s way too late.

Check out Decoder Ring wherever you get your podcasts. ...

At the 1964 New York World's Fair, Belgian waffles were introduced to America. They became a sensation. But a half-century later, the woman who sold those waffles says her family's legacy has been co-opted. She joins Dan to share her memories of that World's Fair, and to explain why her mother still blames her father for everything that went wrong. Plus, we introduce her to an innovative, young waffle-maker who’s shaking things up. And then, in part two of this Reheat, Sporkful listeners call in for Dan's advice on family food feuds. Matt in Ohio can't abide his brother's no...

The Rao family in Maryland knew that something was different about their younger daughter, Ayoni, almost as soon as she was born. But it took them until she was five to get a diagnosis of Prader-Willi Syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes extreme, insatiable hunger. Food needs to be locked away from many of these patients, or they might eat until their stomachs actually rupture. Dan visits the Raos at their home to learn more about how they manage Ayoni’s condition, then cooks and eats dinner with the family. Dan also talks with Zayd Anwarzai, a 25-year-old wi...

The musical Sweeney Todd is about a barber who goes on a killing spree and disposes of his victims by baking them into meat pies. In an off-Broadway production, they serve you an actual meat pie before the show begins. Dr. Pamela Dalton, a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, helps us understand how food flavors and smells can affect our brains while we’re watching this kind of immersive theater. Then, food Helen Rosner joins Dan to eat the pies, see the show, and report back.

This episode originally aired on April 24, 2017, and was produced by...

Mandy Naglich is an award-winning home brewer who also writes and teaches about beer. Now she wants to become a Master Cicerone — basically the beer equivalent of a master sommelier. There’s only a handful in the world, and the majority are men. If Mandy wants to join this rarefied group, she’ll need to pass a grueling two-day exam that includes identifying beers by taste and smell, pairing beers with food, and fixing a broken draft line. Dan selflessly offers himself up as Mandy’s beer-tasting study buddy, and we get a glimpse of the depth of her knowledg...

Why do our brains go crazy for the melted cheese on Philly's iconic cheesesteak? What is it about scrapple’s crispy fried goodness? How does surface-area-to-volume ratio make the roast pork sandwich more delicious? This week, we take a road trip to the City of Brotherly Love to feast on some classic Philadelphia fare. We also learn about the science of appetite with a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in West Philadelphia. It's hard work, but we're making the big sacrifices for science.

This episode originally aired on February 23, 2015, and July 8, 2019, and was produced by Dan P...

Is there anything better than hearing the sound of an ice cream truck approaching? Today we’re bringing you two stories of ice cream trucks, past and present. First, Sporkful managing producer Emma Morgenstern tells the tale of her great-uncles, who owned a fleet of trucks starting in the 1940s — complete with sibling rivalries, California dreaming, and the exact right speed to drive a truck to maximize profits. Then, Dan hangs out with Caner Halis, a soft-serve truck driver and local celebrity in Dan’s neck of the woods. Caner breaks down the intricacies of the business, and Dan tries...

Carla Hall is known for her quirky, energetic personality on TV. But in some ways she’s very different today from the woman who first appeared as a contestant on Top Chef almost two decades ago. "I didn't want to show up as my Blackness if it wasn't going to be accepted," the former co-host of The Chew says of her first foray into food media. When Carla started her career, she turned her back on the food she grew up with. Her journey back included false starts, U-turns, and a mail truck full of sandwiches. 

Carla's one-wo...

We’re back with our annual game show: Two Chefs And A Lie! This year our contestant is Rachel Martin, host of the NPR podcast Wild Card and an old friend of Dan’s. The game goes like this: Rachel talks with three guests. Two of them are real chefs, one is an impostor. She can ask each of them just five questions, then has to guess who the liar is. You can play along too! Can Rachel, and you, spot the fake chef?

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and...

Is the perfect burrito a feat of engineering or art? We debate burrito construction and the Los Angeles/San Francisco rivalry with Jesse Thorn (founder of Maximum Fun and host of Bullseye) and Evan Kleiman (host of KCRW's Good Food). Matt Yglesias (cofounder of Vox Media and author of the Slow Boring newsletter) compares Chipotle burritos to iPhones. And then, Dan and cookbook author/YouTuber Kenji López-Alt take some calls: A wife objects to her husband's embarrassing food hacks, and Kenji explains the science of tomato storage.

These episodes originally aired on September 3, 2012, July 1, 2013, May 4, 2015, May 29, 2017, a...

Recent studies say that somewhere between 12 and 16 percent of Americans have used GLP-1s like Ozempic, Wegovy, or Zepbound. Many people who take these drugs report that the meds have fundamentally changed their relationship to food. Jason Diamond is a writer who covers food, men’s fashion, and culture. Throughout his life he’s had a complicated relationship with both food and medication, which played a big role in how he thought about whether or not, as a new dad, to start taking GLP-1s. 

Jason’s story in New York Magazine is “Eating With My Daughter and My Ze...

“The time has come for us to change the coffee brand that we offer and we want your input!” The email came from Myiesha Gordon in the HR Department at WNYC. Like many others, Myiesha hated the office coffee. This week we follow her as she sets up a taste test and an office-wide coffee election. We'll find out why office coffee is so important to people, plus we'll talk to a caffeine researcher about whether it makes us better at our jobs. Then a behavioral economist weighs in about whether coffee is something companies should be spending money on.<...

McDonald’s soft-serve machines break down so often that a corner of the internet is awash in memes and videos about their unreliability. Enter Jeremy O’Sullivan and Melissa Nelson, two entrepreneurs who wanted to fix the broken machines. They thought they'd succeeded — until McDonald’s told its franchisees to stay away. This week we talk with Jeremy, Melissa, and Andy Greenberg, the Wired reporter who first broke this story of ice cream intrigue, and we hear about the 900 million dollar lawsuit Jeremy and Melissa brought against McDonald’s.

This episode originally aired on June 7, 2021, and was produced b...

In honor of July 4th, we’re exploring an important part of American history – the contributions of enslaved Black chefs, whose work influences American cuisine to this day. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson brought the enslaved chef James Hemings, brother of Sally Hemings, with him to France to train under the French culinary masters of the day. Hemings created a cuisine that was half French, half Virginian, and brought it back to Jefferson's plantation, Monticello. This week, Dan tours the kitchens at Monticello with three descendants of enslaved Virginians: Michael Twitty, culinary historian and historical interpreter; Niya Bates, senior fellow of Afri...

Summer is here, and for years, Dan has spent part of his summer in New England visiting family and friends. This week he’s visiting two New England summer institutions. First is Woodman’s—known as the place where fried clams were invented—in Essex, Massachusetts, the clam capital of America. Dan chats with the owner, Steve Woodman, about the origin of their fried clams, and sits down for a meal with someone who's been coming to Woodman’s for decades: his mom. Then, Dan heads to Grace Church on Martha’s Vineyard, which has some of his favorite lobster roll...

Dan goes inside Consumer Reports, the independent nonprofit that tests and rates everything from toaster ovens to frozen pizzas to luxury cars. CR takes testing very seriously, and Dan gets to see their process in action. It all starts with an undercover shopper who goes by the pseudonym Jim. Then Dan visits the labs at HQ, where he sees how a gas range is poked, prodded, and brought to its limits. This includes testing the oven’s self-cleaning feature against a mixture so foul, it’s legendary.

This episode originally aired on September 19, 2022, and was produced by Dan...

How do restaurants decide who gets the worst tables? Why are Americans obsessed with the German supermarket chain Aldi? And should iced coffee only be consumed in hot weather? We get into all that and more in our Salad Spinner! Dan is joined by Deena Shanker, who covers food and health for Bloomberg Businessweek, and Elazar Sontag, food critic at The Washington Post. They discuss why Diet Coke’s biggest rival may be Coke Zero, and weigh in on the latest wellness product: cookies.   

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and J...

As a struggling young actor, Ty Burrell pretended to be a guest at hotels to get the free breakfast buffet. Now he fights the urge to pocket food at the Emmys. He talks about his hors d'oeuvres strategy at fancy Hollywood events, getting his kids to eat slower, and how Utah's arcane liquor laws actually benefitted the two Salt Lake City bars he owns.

This episode originally aired on September 4, 2017, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, Dan Charles, and Paul Ruest. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and...

In just a few weeks, the United States will mark its 250th birthday, with celebrations all across the country. But when cake artist Grace Pak started looking into it a few months ago, she realized the festivities were missing something crucial: a birthday cake! Now, she’s been tasked with making it. It’ll take a month to complete and include contributions from dozens of members of Congress. The final cake is supposed to be the size of a car. So how do you make such an ambitious confection? Grace tells Dan all about the process, then lets him try...