The Sporkful

On The Great British Bake Off , Paul Hollywood is known for his tough but fair judgments, his piercing blue eyes, and his handshake, which he offers to a contestant only when they really impress him. But before he was ever a TV judge, he was a baker. When he first started doing TV appearances, it was nothing more than “icing on the cake” of his baking career. But all that changed when he got the c...

When Nadiya Hussain competed on The Great British Bake Off in 2015, it seemed like all of Britain — from self-proclaimed #Nadiyators to the prime minister — was rooting for her. Since then, she’s hosted TV shows, written best-selling books, and become a household name in the UK. But the transformation we focus on in this conversation is the one that has taken place within her. She talks with Dan a...

Rosie Grant was already obsessed with cemeteries when she came across her first gravestone recipe. The headstone was carved into the shape of an open cookbook with a cookie recipe on it. Rosie made the cookies, posted about it on TikTok, and overnight she became the gravestone recipes lady. She tracked down dozens more gravestone recipes, meeting the families of the deceased and cooking the recipe...

We open the phone lines to settle your most contentious food disputes this week. Eliza wants to wipe her oily hands on her bare legs — is her boyfriend Connor right to object? Then, Natalie thinks she’s entitled to half of what her husband Josh cooks, even though he’s generally hungrier. What’s the fairest way to divvy up meals? To answer these questions, Dan enlists the help of Drew Magary and Da...

Are chicken tenders having a renaissance? Are lit candles in restaurants worth the risk of a few people’s hair catching on fire? And when Taylor Swift designs a signature cocktail…what’s in it? We cover all these questions and more in this edition of the Salad Spinner — our rapid-fire, roundtable discussion of all the biggest and buzziest food news of the moment. Joining us in the Spinner are best...

Ketchup started as a far different product from what’s on the shelves today. A lot of its evolution can be traced to an early government agency and a group there called “The Poison Squad” that tested the safety of different chemicals -- by eating them. We hear that story. Then a linguist explains why the name “rocky road” actually makes the ice cream taste better. This episode is a special collabo...

Growing up as a Black kid in Chicago, Dr. Marcia Chatelain says she learned more about Black history from McDonald’s than from her fancy prep school. Now, she’s a professor of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America , Dr. Chatelain explores the role that McDonald’s has played in Black communities since it...

Shabbat — the Jewish Sabbath – begins every Friday at sundown with a meal. But in all the years that Jews have been having Shabbat dinner, there’s no record in the rabbinic texts of it happening at the fast food chain Wendy’s. Until, that is, a group of seniors in Palm Desert, California, made it their  weekly tradition . This week Dan joins in on the Friday night festivities, and the seniors tell...

Josh Foer and Rabbi Charlie Schwartz set out to create a new kind of Jewish space, one that would be welcoming, thought-provoking, delicious, and even cool. The result is Lehrhaus — a Jewish tavern and house of learning. This week Dan visits Lehrhaus in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he takes a tour of their “magical Jewish objects,” checks out the room where they host events on everything from...

Bourbon's growing popularity is changing an industry with deep roots in Kentucky. We travel there to learn what that means for one of the oldest and one of the youngest bourbon masters. This episode originally aired on January 14, 2019, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini, edited by Gianna Palmer and Emma Morgenstern, and mixed by the Reverend John DeLore. The Sporkful team now includes...

A few weeks ago, Cracker Barrel announced it was changing its logo — removing the old man in overalls and the barrel, updating the font, and removing the words “Old Country Store.” Longtime Cracker Barrel fans went nuts, decrying the “sterile” look. Conservative commentators tied the change to a “DEI regime” and called the new logo “woke.” Even the president weighed in, and within a week Cracker B...

This week, we’re ringing in fall tailgating season with a barbecue, featuring three different cuts of pork: ribs, pork chops, and bratwurst. The grillmaster in charge of it all is Jimmy Tchinnis, owner and executive chef at Swallow Kitchen and Cocktails and L’uccello Pizza and Italian Fare in Greenlawn, NY. Jimmy started out cooking in high-end restaurants in New York City before eventually realiz...

This week’s show is a raucous Korean-style night out, all on a weekday afternoon. Dan heads to Orion Bar in Brooklyn to learn how to drink like a Korean with Irene Yoo and Peter Kim. Irene is the owner of Orion Bar and author of S oju Party , a book of drink and food recipes that’s also a guide to Korean drinking culture. She shows Dan some drinking games and explains the importance of never pouri...

Best-selling author Samantha Irby specializes in wringing comedy out of her own personal tragedies. Among her favorite topics: poop (she’s got Crohn’s disease), depression (which she also has), and sex. Throughout her writing, food is a recurring character. You can often gauge where she's at in life by what she's eating at the time. This week she takes us from the Oatmeal Creme Pies that got her t...

Antoni Porowski wasn’t the obvious choice to be the food expert on Queer Eye — he’s not a chef and he has no formal culinary training. When the show debuted in 2018, many people asked, “Can this guy actually cook?” Not the most reassuring reaction for Antoni, who already struggled with impostor syndrome. In the years since, he’s alternated between trying to prove his haters wrong, and trying to st...

What should you cook for breakfast the morning after? How can couples share power in the kitchen without driving each other crazy? We talk food and relationships with Dan Savage , who writes the sex advice column Savage Love and hosts the podcast Savage Lovecast . This episode originally aired on February 4, 2019, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, Ngofeen Mputubwele, Gianna Palmer, and...

Dan Pelosi and Negin Farsad join Dan to settle your food disputes! One couple can’t agree on when they should take the first bite of a meal: when the food is fresh and piping hot, or once they’re sitting down at the table? Another couple struggles over how to reheat leftovers to maximize flavor and minimize mess. Plus, our guests share their hottest food takes about the best recipe for cupcakes an...

Could listening to The Sporkful be the fertile soil out of which true love grows? We put out the call for Sporkful listeners looking for love, and hundreds of you responded. This week, we listen in on two blind Zoom dates that resulted from our extremely unscientific matchmaking. Is The Sporkful enough of a spark to ignite a grease fire of passion for two eaters? Or will these dates turn as cold a...

An email from Sara Bir set us off on an adventure. She’s an author and recipe developer who’s obsessed with pawpaws, the largest fruit native to North America. “Pawpaws are tricky in the kitchen,” Sara wrote to us. “You can't buy them in stores. Occasionally they cause people to vomit. But pawpaws are truly beguiling, reminiscent of tropical fruit like mangoes and bananas.” With the help of her co...

Casey Elsass is known as the “cookbook doula” because he’s helped birth nearly 20 cookbooks, as a ghostwriter or co-writer. Now, Casey has published his very first solo cookbook, What Can I Bring? Recipes To Help You Live Your Guest Life , about how to be the best guest at a dinner party. “If you're always on time, bring appetizers. If you're reliably late, bring drinks. If you're stopping by late...

For years, Dan has kept a Google Doc of ideas for ice cream flavors and ice cream sandwiches. But nobody asked him for it. Then, the folks at Heap’s Ice Cream in Brooklyn asked Dan to collaborate on the ice cream sandwich of his dreams. We get an inside look at the whole process with Heap’s cofounder Sarah Sanneh, from Dan’s pitch of fried plantain ice cream, to the invention of a new ice cream mi...

There are a lot of desserts named after severe weather phenomena, but not all of them are created equal. We asked Tornado Alley's top meteorologist, Gary England, to help us rank some of these desserts, based on the severity of the weather they are named for. In addition to Gary England's dessert rankings, this episode includes a conversation Paul Breslin about how weather affects our tastes. Bres...

We’re back with our annual game show: Two Chefs And A Lie! But this year, things are a bit different. Dan isn’t playing — he’s the emcee! And our contestant is Rachelle Hampton, host of the podcast Normal Gossip . The game, however, remains the same: Rachelle talks with three guests. Two of them are real chefs, one is an impostor. Rachelle can ask each of them just five questions, then has to gues...

Dan and WTF host Marc Maron have been arguing about eating for over a decade. This week they revisit old feuds and start news ones, sparring over temperature contrast in sandwiches, the merits of melon balls, and whether the high from sausage gravy is worth the food shame-induced crash. This episode originally aired on November 30, 2014, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini. The Sporkful...

Some people say that when they eat pasta in the US it makes them feel like garbage, but when they eat it in Italy they feel great. Is that legit? What does the science say? Also, why is the food at many tony restaurants so mediocre? And should you stop eating bagged salad greens? We dig into these questions and more in this edition of the Salad Spinner, our rapid-fire roundtable discussion of the...