Making a Meal of It

This episode ends season one of Making a Meal of It on a sweet note, but also a savoury one, as well as a lofty (but reasonable) proposition for using pudding as an icon for systemic change. Conversations with food scientist Richard Hartel and saucissier-philosopher Nick Amberg show that the proof of the pudding is not just in the eating, but also in a whole series of steps both before and after....

Mushrooms are the magical focus of this episode, though we only just touch the tip of their mycelial majesty. Conversations with entrepreneurs Nanae Watabe and Judith Noel Gagnon bridge the worlds of foraging, restaurants, humans, and mycelia, while Maxime and David taste two fungal flavours during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’. Closing things off is the Food Questionnaire with artist and food schola...

This episode is all fish, fishing, and fisheries, including the fluid and dynamic ways that things change when water and humans meet. Conversations with fisheries researcher Kristen Lowitt and pisciculture entrepreneur Nicolas Paquin net out with a hefty catch of ideas about relationships, livelihoods, ecosystems, and innovation. For the fish edition of ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, Maxime and David...

This episode is all about the meaty meatness of meat, including power and privilege, language and taste. Conversations with food scholar Julie Guthman and charcutier-and-butcher Phil Viens cut to the bone when it comes to politics, technocracy, artisanship, and trust. David and Maxime moderate their meat intake during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, and physicist (and chili-sauce lover) Liz Ainsbury r...

This special episode of Making a Meal of It features 11 short conversations with participants in the FLOW Partnership, a seven-year international food systems research project. The full team met in Montreal in mid-May 2024 to share their progress, plan future research activities, and discuss ways to enable their work to transform food production, policies, and attitudes. Next week’s episode return...

This episode is all about the sweet, sour, and sometimes bitter taste of sugar—and honey, maple, and molasses! Two conversations unpack the sticky subject, one with food marketing expert Dr. Jordan LeBel, and the other with pastry artist and entrepreneur, Sonya Sammut. David and Maxime taste three sweet substances during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, and union organizer (and podcaster sister) Elisab...

This episode is about the dynamic, transformative, ancient, and contemporary process that is fermentation . We also get into feminist theory, the queering of food, and taste in zero gravity during conversations with fermentation experts Joshua Evans and Maya Hey. David and Maxime taste kimchi, miso, and perga (bee bread) in the fermented edition of ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, and filmmaker Bruce L...

This episode focuses on the design, politics, and economics of restaurants, including some of the reasons that the experience of dining out is a lot more complex than it may seem. One conversation with restaurant design and consumer behaviour expert Dr. Stephani Robson, and another with chef-turned-social gastronomer Christophe Dubois, shed light on the dynamics of cooking and serving food. (The c...

This episode unpacks gastronomy, including the way the concept has evolved in terms of meaning and practices. It also poses the question: Is the holism and complexity of an idea like eco-gastronomy too much for times when socio-political-environmental crises keep us focused on short-term needs? A conversation with Mark Panayiotis Notaras focuses on how an eco-gastronomic social enterprise is worki...

This mini-episode explains why it’s not the actual gastronomy episode, but is instead a placeholder for the eventual episode 108. Due to a late-arriving bit of bad news, one of the original conversations couldn’t be used, so we’re pivoting and re-editing. In the meantime, and to keep you occupied for the next week, check out the first ever Making a Meal of It crossword puzzle at makingamealofit.co...

This episode takes a few different perspectives on alcohol—including making, serving, drinking, and not drinking it—as well as the benefits, effects, and privileges associated with consuming wine and cocktails. We start with liquids entrepreneur Jean-Sébastien Michel and his many points of view, and then hear from Alessandra Castelli, a food/wine/yoga/wellness educator. The ‘Stick This in Your Mou...

This kitchens episode focuses on the ways in which our cooking spaces enable connection making, both among friends and family as well as within our inner selves and the world of imagination and poetry. Kitchen constructor Hubert Taschereau gives insights into spatial design, while literature scholar Alexia Moyer shares the ways that authors evoke character and place with references to kitchens. Da...

This episode focuses on food media, digital technology in agriculture, and some of the ways in which artificial intelligence might have an impact on cooking, eating, and nutrition. We also get into a few related themes, including food porn, celebrity chefs, data sensors, and the promises and warnings of science fiction. David talks with food scholars Signe Rousseau and Maaz Gardezi to find out whe...

We talk a lot about THE food system, but in reality, our world comprises multiple food systems, along with a lot of other kinds of systems, each of them overlapping with, interacting with, and often conflicting with each other. This episode looks at how those interacting systems of systems often produce really challenging types of conflict, whether it’s between colonialism and Indigenous foodways,...

In this inaugural episode, we set the stage for a season of deep dives into some big food themes, starting with relationality and how the multiple, overlapping ways in which we interact with food make it the most complex and delightful relationship that any of us participates in. The show kicks off with a couple of examples of complexity , one musical, one edible. That leads into a conversation wi...

This episode focuses on the relationships that underlie the buying and selling of food (and wine), including the ways in which trust is built up through exchange and communication. We start off with some sounds of feedback— but not the awful screechy kind. That’s followed by conversations with Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet of the Montreal Public Markets and Tania Perreault, from the wine bar L’aPéro Buve...

This episode is all about fat—both eating it and being it—and some of the many ways in which fat and fatness have highly complex effects on our psyches, our well-being, and our societies in general. The visibility (and invisibility) of fat in our worlds is a starting point, followed up with conversations with critical nutrition scholar Dr. Jennifer Brady, fat activist and educator Virgie Tovar, an...

Making a Meal of It is the podcast for eaters of all appetites who want to re-imagine and reinvigorate their relationships with food, food culture, and food systems. This trailer is a kind of “How To” for the show, an introduction to the ways it is conceived and produced. Not that you really need an instruction manual for listing to a podcast... Full episodes will be released starting March 12, 20...