As We Eat

Today we’ll journey through a fascinating cookbook whose purpose was to inform, educate and break through ingrained stereotypes. How to Cook and Eat in Chinese is a cultural road map into Chinese culture through its food and culinary traditions with some humorous and personal twists and turns along the way. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship, Kim and Leigh discuss th...

  Grab your favorite glass of Burgundy and settle in as Leigh and Kim discuss what Leigh learned about making an iconic dish that epitomizes the warmth, hospitality, and culinary traditions of French culture. Leigh even shares what she discovered about herself when making coq au vin from Mastering the Art of French Cooking while Kim talks about the traditional wine used in making this dish. Cook w...

It’s no secret that Leigh and Kim are fans of Julia Child - a culinary icon who revolutionized the way Americans think about food and cooking. Julia Child made cooking accessible and fun, and her legacy lives on today through her timeless recipes, television show episodes, her cookbooks, and through the work of the many chefs and food lovers she inspired. For todays’ episode, we take a good look a...

Today, Kim shares her experience with a recipe intended to ease the strain of entertaining and leave time for more important matters, like gaining votes for women. We would love to connect with you AsWeEat.com , on Instagram @asweeat , join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal . Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to sha...

You may know that the woman suffrage movement played a significant role in winning women the right to vote. But are you aware that an important tool that they employed to educate,  persuade, and build community was cookbooks?  Kim and Leigh discuss how one of the movement’s self-published community cookbooks would serve as a testament to the suffragettes’ commitment to their cause and their desire...

Today, Leigh shares her experience with a recipe that embodies the feeling of home: Edna Lewis' Beef a là Mode from A Taste of Country Living.  The recipes in this auto-biographical cookbook are full of warmth, flavor, and nostalgia, and Beef a là Mode is no exception. This classic comfort food was a favorite of Edna’s family during the winter months in Freetown and was often served for specia...

Season 3 kicks off with a cookbook with a heartfelt message of seasonality. The Taste of Country cooking by Chef Edna Lewis provides a beautifully written canvas for Kim and Leigh explore what it means to eat seasonally, and what it means to be home. Despite growing up in a figurative cornucopia of produce in California, Kim struggled to feel a connection between herself, the food she ate, and the...

2022 was an eventful year for Leigh and Kim, and we laid everything on the table for As We Eat this year. Across 20 episodes, we ladled out many stories about how the ways we cook, eat, and share meals make food such a key component of our homes, our communities, and our culture. In this final episode for 2022, Leigh and Kim discuss our favorite episodes of the year and what we’ve learned. We espe...

Pies have claimed their stake at the feast table long before there was a national celebration of Thanksgiving. Largely originating in England, pies both small and large served royals and peasants alike with fillings of meat, fruits, and spices from faraway lands. Immigrants from Great Britain brought pie traditions over the Atlantic and expanded their repertoire with new fruits, nuts, and game.  P...

Today marks the first of two festive days collectively known as Días de los Muertos, a Hispanic folk holiday to remember the souls of those departed and to temporarily welcome them home with a vibrant celebration of color, food, and music. Leigh and Kim go beyond the veil to reveal the origins of two iconic food traditions: Pan de Muerto and Calaveres du Azucar. During Días de los Muertos, million...

Of the three cereal grains consumed around the world, rice is a versatile foodstuff with an interesting history. As a food staple, it nourishes more than half of the 7.75 billion people on our planet, but it means so much more to us than merely grains in a bowl - this is the stuff upon which empires are built. For this episode, As We Eat follows the story of rice from temple to terroir to table. C...

Whether served fried, steamed, or boiled, dumplings can tell the story of a geography by how it's cooked and eaten . As We Eat concludes its three-part series exploring the global cuisine of dumplings with our third installment examining the twin stories of the “dumpling” darling of a classic American comfort food. Are you Team Fluffy or Team Slick? As we’ve discovered in our three-part series...

Whether served fried, steamed, or boiled, a dumpling filled with local ingredients feeds the mind with a taste of its history. As We Eat is embarking in a three-part series exploring the global cuisine of dumplings, and our second episode takes us over Silk Road trade routes into Europe where we explore the culinary impact of such European delights as ravioli, pierogi, Matzo balls, kreplach, and f...

Whether served fried, steamed, or boiled, a well-shaped dumpling offers a tasty perfect bite along with a well-intentioned wish for luck, prosperity, and good health. As We Eat is embarking in a three-part series exploring the global cuisine of dumplings, and our first episode starts with a survey of the intersection of food and medicine with a deeper exploration of two immensely popular Pan Asian...

With as few as three ingredients, dough can transform into some of the world’s most seminal dishes - pizza, pasta, bread, and more. Join As We Eat as we rise to the occasion and dish up some fascinating history and cultural impacts of dough. The Limitless Capacity of Dough Dough has a nearly limitless capacity depending on its ingredients, leavening or fermenting process, or how the dough is shape...

The story of fruit spreads and how they become staples of the breakfast table is as much about the similarities between fruit and techniques to preserve it as the story is of its differences. In today’s episode, we briefly revisit the origins of food preservation to show how the fundamental desire to be able to revisit the taste of fresh, sweet strawberries has led to the proliferation of all mann...

Cookbooks provide context into a specific cuisine; allow its reader to emulate royal diets; provide meaningful instruction in how to nourish and nurture others with food; or even just whet the imagination and the appetite. This latest installment of As We Eat’s Kitchen Technology series turns our attention to the cookbook - a powerhouse culinary tool that instructs, educates, and inspires.  What d...

Did Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson nibble on Black & White cookies while composing their famous “Ebony & Ivory” duet? We may never know the answer to that question, but As We Eat can tell you about the origins of the Black & White cookie (and its Half Moon cookie cousin) which became a well known metaphor for racial harmony thanks to an episode of Seinfeld. Kudos to Abby Lamb for t...

The first episode of a new As We Eat series highlights the accomplished lives and careers of Leah Chase and Edna Lewis - two African-American chefs who not only had brilliant careers but whose work in the culinary world highlights how important food culture is to community-building. We know good food when we eat it, but how often do we know the names, faces, and lives of the chefs who make those r...

Celebrated throughout the United States since 1865, June 19th is marked by lots of good food with a particular emphasis on the colors red, yellow, and green. Kim & Leigh go behind the scenes to explore and learn more about Juneteenth and its tasty traditions. In 2021, the federal government of the United States added a new national holiday on June 19 - Juneteenth National Independence Day (aka...

In today’s As We Eat episode, Leigh and Kim explore how the realms of food and military intersect, both in times of war and in times of peace. From ration cards on the home front to ceremonial cauldrons wielded by the Janissary Corps in the Ottoman Empire, the power of food affects how we grow, prepare, eat, and organize our military. In times of peace and in times of war, food becomes of paramoun...

Listen as Betty Ann shares her memories of a special childhood Sunday meal, how it become a touchstone for her family in America, and some surprising advice on how to make Spanish-style Filipino Cocido today. Armed with her mother's dog-eared cookbooks packed in her suitcase, Betty Ann Quirino and her family started a new life in a new country far from family and the familiar. Spanish-style Fi...

In the latest episode of our “What’s in Your Pantry” series, Leigh and Kim plunge into the stories of two flavorful pantry staples that brighten up our foods and add some spark to our Bloody Mary’s - Worcestershire Sauce and Fish Sauce. Come for the correct way to pronounce Worcestershire Sauce and stay for the fish sauce suggestions! Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode  Lea & Perrins w...

Fish have played an integral part in sustaining cultures around the world. In this episode, we take a closer look at several classic fish stews and how they have come to define a specific region and represent the communities and cultures who make them. Although similar in their foundations, each stew is characterized by the unique, local ingredients used. Kim starts out our exploration into fish s...

Ever since humans first learned that most foods taste better when cooked, we sought ways to harness fire and ice. Too much heat or chill can burn and destroy our food just as much as too little can spoil all our efforts at a tasty, nutritious meal. Yet development of two of the most fundamental technologies in modern cooking - the stove and the refrigerator - took a long time to be realized in the...