Gastropod
Food with a side of science and history. Every other week, co-hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley serve up a brand new episode exploring the hidden history and surprising science behind a different food- or farming-related topic, from aquaculture to ancient feasts, from cutlery to chile peppers, and from microbes to Malbec. We interview experts, visit labs, fields, and archaeological digs, and generally have lots of fun while discovering new ways to think about and understand the world through food. Find us online at gastropod.com, follow us on Twitter @gastropodcast, and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/gastropodcast.
Episodes (272)
Talking Taco
Whether or not it's Tuesday, tacos pretty much always hit the spot—and not just in their homeland in Mexico. These days, the taco can be found all over the world, although it's acquired some strange...
Tomatoes: A Love Story
The tomato is Gastropod’s favorite flavor of summer, and we’re not alone: today, it’s the most popular vegetable on the planet, despite the fact that it's technically a fruit. But, until a couple of...
The Most Dangerous Fruit in America
It's the epitome of summertime: there’s nothing like a cold, juicy slice of red watermelon on a swelteringly hot day. But, once upon a time, watermelons were neither red nor sweet—the wild watermelon...
The Colorful Tale of Mexico's A-maize-ing Grain
This might sound corny, but the relationship between maize and humanity is essential. We rely on corn—globally, more maize is grown than wheat or rice—and, in turn, corn is utterly dependent on us, to...
Should You Be Eating Poison Oak?
Probably not. But Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz decided to try it anyway, putting his body — and specifically his butt — on the line to answer a seemingly straightforward question: Is it...
Ask Gastropod: Bubblegum, Meal Kits, and the Real Truth About Rooibos
What do bubblegum, rooibos tea, and meal kits have in common? They’re all topics that puzzle and fascinate you, dear Gastropod listeners. This episode, we're getting to the bottom of your most...
Feasting With Montezuma: Food and Farming in a Floating City
Five centuries ago, before Spanish conquistadors arrived, what's now Mexico City was the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan—and it took the European invaders' breath away. It was built on an island...
Bananageddon! Say Goodbye to *the* Banana, and Hello to the Weird and Wonderful World of Bananas, Plural
Yes, it's true: the banana we know and love is going the way of the dodo bird. An incurable strain of the fungal Panama disease known as TR4 is currently wiping out tens of thousands of acres of...
Going Bananas: How a Tropical Treat Became the World's Favorite Fruit
In 1870, a strange fruit arrived on the docks in New Jersey, starting an industry that would change the world. That fruit was a banana, and, although it was a staple food in tropical regions, most...
Do We Really Have Beer to Thank for the First Writing and Cities?
Humanity's love affair with beer goes *way* back: 5,000 years ago, the civilization that arose in Mesopotamia invented writing, and one of the very first things they wrote about was... beer! But where...
Seed Oil Scare: The Curious Case of Canola
If you've been hearing that canola is a killer, you're not alone. It's one of the so-called "hateful eight" seed oils: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says it's among the most deadly things you can eat, and...
Nutrition Advice Decoded: What Foods Are Actually Good For Us, What Should We Avoid, and Why Is It All SO Confusing?
Are eggs going to give you high cholesterol, or are they the base of a great protein-rich meal? Will coffee give you cancer, or will it help you live longer? If you're confused about what nutrition...
The Rise and Fall of Quinoa: From Incan "Superfood" to Buddha Bowl Basic
Quinoa is everywhere these days, the base for a million salads and grain bowls. But, until recently, barely anyone outside the nutritious seed's ancient's homeland—the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes—had...
The Shocking True Story of the World's First Seed Bank—And The Scientists Who Sacrificed Their Lives to Save It
During World War II, the Soviet city of Leningrad was surrounded, cut off from food supplies for nearly two and a half years. People were desperate: they ate boiled leather, machine oil, toothpaste,...
No Buzz Booze: The History and Science of Going Low- or No-Alcohol
Dry January may be over, but, for many people, drinking less alcohol or none at all is an increasingly common choice year-round. And, unlike in the past, when dealcoholized options were few and far...
Moon Rocks Wanted (guest episode)
(Guest episode) On September 18, 1998, an unusual ad ran in USA Today — a company called John's Estate Sales was looking to buy a moon rock. But the phone number on the ad didn't lead to, say, a store...
Is My Dentist Scamming Me? (guest episode)
(Guest episode) Matt wants to know how to tell if he’s being scammed by his dentist. To find the answer, we open up the surprising history of dentistry, ask why it seems so different from internal...
Why Are Kids Dipping Cookies in Ranch, Are Food Comas Real, and What's Inside the Mummy's Stomach?
Just in time for the holidays, Ask Gastropod is back with a plate full of listener questions for your listening delight! You came to us with mysteries both large and small, both ancient and eternal,...
Hacking Taste (encore)
Taste is the oldest of our five senses, and yet perhaps the least understood. It's far more complicated than salty versus sweet: new research is dramatically expanding our knowledge of taste, showing...
The Curiously Strong Story of Mint
What’s the coolest flavor of the holiday season? It's peppermint, obviously, and it’s showing up in everything from coffee to chocolate and cookies to ice cream right now. But while standing in line...
Dishwashing Debates: The Soapy Science Behind Everyone's Favorite Chore
Next week, the US celebrates the dishwashing Olympics—also known as Thanksgiving. But how best to tackle the washing-up after the big meal can cause as much conflict as your uncle’s hot takes at the...
V is for Vitamin (encore)
They're added to breakfast cereal, bread, and even Pop-Tarts, giving the sweetest, most processed treats a halo of health. Most people pop an extra dose for good measure, perhaps washing it down with...
Bringing Salmon Home: The Story of the World's Largest Dam Removal Project
The Klamath River on the California-Oregon border was once the third largest salmon river in the continental U.S. There were so many fish, indigenous histories claim that you could cross the river...
Potatoes in Space! (encore)
Today, a half century after Neil Armstrong took one small step onto the surface of the Moon, there are still just ten humans living in space—the crew of the International Space Station. But, after...
Absinthe: The World's Most Dangerous Drink?
To painters and poets in late-1800s France, absinthe was "the green muse" or the "green fairy," an almost magical potion that promised vivid dreams, wild ideas, and artistic inspiration with every...
From Trash to Treasure: Why's It So Hard to Save Restaurant Leftovers From the Dumpster?
Every day, at the end of service, restaurants throw away tons of entirely edible food: heaps of pastries and whole loaves of bread, vegetables chopped but not cooked, noodle dough, fish off-cuts, and...
Smashing Pumpkin Myths: What's Big, Orange, and Having an Identity Crisis?
It’s already begun: that time of the year now known across the land as Decorative Gourd Season. Squash are everywhere—carved into jack o’lanterns on front porches, adorning our sideboards and porches...
Meet the Queen of Kiwi: The 96-Year-Old Woman Who Transformed America's Produce Aisle (ENCORE)
The produce section of most American supermarkets in the 1950s was minimal to a fault, with only a few dozen fruits and vegetables to choose from: perhaps one kind of apple, one kind of lettuce, a...
Deli is Short For Delicious—But Are Your Pastrami and Bologna Sandwiches Giving You Cancer?
School’s back in session, and kids are boarding the bus with lunchboxes in tow. Many of them contain sandwiches stuffed with turkey and ham slices, bologna, even salami—but where did these staples of...
What's the Buzz on Eating Bugs? Can Insects Really Save the World?
About ten years ago, insects were constantly being hyped as the future of food. Headlines proclaimed that, within the decade, everyone would be eating bugs as part of their daily diet—and saving the...
The Billion Dollar War Behind U.S. Rum (Planet Money)
When you buy a bottle of rum in the United States, by law nearly all the federal taxes on that rum must be sent to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's an unusual system that Congress...
The Interstitium (Radiolab)
Guest episode: In this episode we introduce you to a part of our bodies that was invisible to Western scientists until about five years ago; it’s called "the interstitium," a vast network of fluid...
Are Hush Puppies Racist? Is A2 Milk Really Healthier? And What's Up With Wedding Cake? Ask Gastropod!
You asked, and we’re answering—again! Ask Gastropod returns to answer some of our listeners’ most pressing culinary queries: how did elaborate, expensive cakes become the standard dessert for...
Why Does Everyone Have Food Allergies These Days?
It's not your imagination, food allergies are really on the rise. One recent study found that severe allergic reactions to food have increased by more than 300 percent over the past decade. And they...
The Bagelization of America (encore)
Today, it’s a breakfast staple, but, as recently as 1960, The New York Times had to define it for readers—as “an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.” That’s right, this episode is all about the...
The Birth of Cool: How Refrigeration Changed Everything
For as long as we’ve been making Gastropod, co-host Nicky has also been working on another project: writing a book all about refrigeration. Well, time to pop the champagne you’ve had stashed in the...
Omega 1-2-3 (encore)
Based on all the hype, you'd be forgiven for believing that the fish oils known as omega-3s are the solution to every problem. Heart disease, dementia, depression, even obesity—the list of ailments...
Sugar's Dark Shadow
Your pantry's sweetest ingredient has an extremely bitter history. The sap-producing grass known as sugarcane has been grown and enjoyed by humans for at least 10,000 years, but it was only relatively...
(Guest) Are Fast Food Jingles Pop Music?
From our friends at Switched on Pop: Where were you when you learned that the McDonald's jingle "I'm lovin' it" was originally part of a full-fledged pop song by Justin Timberlake and Pharrell that...
Why Are Restaurants So Loud? Plus the Science Behind the Perfect Playlist
When you go out for a meal, it’s not just what's on your plate that matters, it's what's in your eardrums, too. From dining rooms so loud you have to shout to be heard, to playlists that sound like a...
The Food Explorer (encore)
You've probably never heard of David Fairchild. But if you've savored kale, mango, peaches, dates, grapes, a Meyer lemon, or a glass of craft beer lately, you've tasted the fruits of his...
Meet the Most Famous American You’ve Never Heard Of: His Legacy is Excellent French Fries and Monsanto
In his day, Luther Burbank was a horticultural rock star: everyone from opera singers to movie stars and European royalty to an Indian guru traveled to Santa Rosa, California, to meet him. Dubbed the...
All You Can Eat: The True Story Behind America's Most Popular Seafood
Americans eat more shrimp than any other seafood: on average, each person in the US gobbles up close to six pounds of the cheap crustaceans every year. We can eat so many of these bug-like shellfish...
The World Is Your Oyster: How Our Favorite Shellfish Could Save Coastlines Worldwide
If we at Gastropod were asked to name a perfect food, the oyster would be at the top of our list. Oysters are pretty much always our answer to the question of what we'd like to eat this evening—but...
Eat This, Not That: The Surprising Science of Personalized Nutrition (encore)
This episode, we've got the exclusive on the preliminary results of the world's largest personalized nutrition experiment. Genetic epidemiologist Tim Spector launched the study, called PREDICT, to...
Bam! How Did Cajun Flavor Take Over the World?
If "Cajun-style" only makes you think of spicy chicken sandwiches and popcorn shrimp, you need to join us in the Big Easy this episode, to meet the real Cajun flavor. Cajun cuisine and its close...
Anything's Pastable (Guest Episode)
After Dan’s pasta shape, cascatelli, was launched, people everywhere were cooking with it and sending him photos of what they were making. As exciting as that was, he was disappointed that most folks...
Can You Patent a Pizza?
Close your eyes and imagine this: a world without stuffed crust pizza. We know!—but that was the dismal state of the Italian flatbread scene before 1985, when Anthony Mongiello, aka The Big Cheese,...
Super Fry: The Fight for the Golden Frite (encore)
Shoestring, waffle, curly, or thick-cut: however you slice it, nearly everyone loves a deep-fried, golden brown piece of potato. But that's where the agreement ends and the battles begin. While...
Dining at the (Other) Top of the World: Hunger, Fruitcake, and the Race to Reach the South Pole
In contrast to the abundance of the Arctic, in Antarctica, "once you leave the coast, you're basically heading to the moon." Jason Anthony, who spent several summers on the seventh continent, told us...
Dining at the Top of the World: Arctic Adaptation, Abundance, and...Ice Cream
You may feel like it's cold where you live, but in the Arctic, the average temperature is well below freezing all year round. In winter, it's also pitch black for weeks on end—not an ideal environment...
Cork Dork: Inside the Weird World of Wine Appreciation (encore)
“There’s the faintest soupçon of asparagus and just a flutter of Edam cheese,” says Paul Giamatti in the movie Sideways. Believe it or not, he's describing pinot noir, not quiche. The world of...
It's Tea Time: Pirates, Polyphenols, and a Proper Cuppa (encore)
This week, Gastropod tells the story of two countries and their shared obsession with a plant: Camellia sinensis, otherwise known as the tea bush. The Chinese domesticated tea over thousands of years,...
The Case of the Confusing Bitter Beverages: Vermouth, Amaro, Aperitivos, and Other Botanical Schnapps
When it comes to booze, it’s fun to be bitter: an Aperol spritz has been the drink of summer for about five years, vermouth and soda was apparentlythe "hot girl" drink of 2023, and amaro is having "a...
Rice, Rice Baby
Though rice might not feature in a hit 1990s Vanilla Ice rap, this grain tops the charts in other ways: it's the staple food for more than half the global population, and it's grown by more farmers...
Ask Gastropod: White Chocolate, Jimmies, Chile vs. Mustard Burns, and Asparagus Pee
Is white chocolate really chocolate? What causes asparagus pee? Sprinkles or jimmies—which do you call them, and is the term ‘jimmies’ racist? Why is the heat of mustard and wasabi so different from a...
Pumpkin Spice Hero: The Thrilling But Tragic True Story of Nutmeg
No pumpkin spice latte, cookie, candle, or seasonal can of Spam (yes, really) would be the same without one of its key flavors: nutmeg, a warm, woody spice grated from the seed of a tropical fruit....
Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit
Botanically, bean pods are indeed fruits, and, honestly, they are also pretty magical. And we’re clearly not the only ones to think that: beans are the unsung hero of history. The fact that they were...
Raised and Glazed: Don’t Doubt the Doughnut
Doughnuts are ubiquitous in the United States: whether you're at party, a coffee shop, or the break room at work, you’re likely to find a box of iced rings covered with sprinkles. But some kind of...
We'd Like to Teach The World to Slurp: The Weird and Wonderful Story of Ramen's Rise to Glory
Savory, chewy, and, above all, slurp-able, a delicious bowl of ramen is one of the triumphs of Japanese cuisine. That's also a bit odd, because, for most of Japanese history, heavy, meaty, wheaty...
First Foods: Learning to Eat (encore)
How do we learn to eat? It may seem like an obvious question, but it's actually quite a complicated process. Who decided that mushed-up vegetables were the perfect first food—and has that always been...
All Aboard the Tuna Rollercoaster! Join the King of Fish for a Wild Ride that Involves Ernest Hemingway and (of course) Jane Fonda
A bluefin tuna can grow to the size of a car, weigh twice as much as a grand piano, swim as fast as a running lion, and keep its muscles at human body temperature even in the ocean's coldest depths....
The Keto Paradox: Fad Diet *and* Life-Saving Medical Treatment
What do some epilepsy patients have in common with tech bros, bodybuilders, and Joe Rogan? The high-fat, carb-shunning diet known as keto, whose history dates back much further than its 2010s rise to...
Secrets of Sourdough (encore)
Today, you can find a huge variety of breads on supermarket shelves, only a few of which are called "sourdough." For most of human history, though, any bread that wasn't flat was sourdough—that is, it...
Watch It Wiggle: The Jell-O Story (encore)
It's been described as the ultimate status symbol for the wealthy, as the perfect solution for dieters and the sick, and, confusingly, as a liquid trapped in a solid that somehow remains fluid. What...
Where's the Beef? Lab-Grown Meat is Finally on the Menu
Can we really have our burger, eat it—and never need to kill a cow? Growing meat outside of animals—in a lab or, these days, in shiny steel bioreactors—promises to deliver a future in which we can...
The Incredible Egg (encore)
We love eggs scrambled, fried, or poached; we couldn't enjoy a quiche, meringue, or flan without them. But for scientists and archaeologists, these perfect packages are a source of both wonder and...
Good Shit: How Humanure Could Save Agriculture—and the Planet
For most of us, when we sit on the porcelain throne to drop the deuce, priority number one is flushing and never having to think about it again. But it might be time to rethink our stink: all around...
Gettin' Fizzy With It (Encore)
'Tis the season for a refreshing glass of bubbly—but this episode we're not talking wine, we're talking seltzer. America is in the throes of a serious seltzer craze, with consumption of the bubbly...
Who's Eating Who: Pineapples and You
What was the hottest accessory for late 1600s European dining rooms? The pineapple! Explorers had recently brought this spiky tropical fruit over from the Americas, and in short order it became the...
You've Lost That Hungry Feeling
Whether it's via TikTok or the morning news, you’ve probably heard the recent hype (and hand-wringing) about new prescription weight-loss medications with names like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro....
Fish & Chips: Uncovering the Forgotten Jewish and Belgian Origins of the Iconic British Dish
Fish & chips: a golden hunk of battered cod, accompanied by thick-cut French fries, lightly sprinkled with malt vinegar, and wrapped up in a newspaper.... It's as British as cricket, cream teas, the...
What Connects Bones, Bird Poop, and Toxic Green Slime? Hint: Without It, Half of Us Wouldn't Be Alive Today
It’s the 13th element on the periodic table, it glows in the dark, and it spontaneously combusts if it gets any hotter than 80 degrees Fahrenheit; little surprise, then, that phosphorus is known as...
All the Feels: How Texture Makes Taste
The squish of bananas, the squeak of mushrooms, the pop of a grape: for some people, these textures are a delight—but for others, they’re a total nightmare. Texture plays a huge role in how we...
The Fruit that Could Save the World
Can bread really grow on trees? This episode, meet the all-star, super productive, low-maintenance, gluten-free carbohydrate of the future. Did we mention it's also delicious? How can one fruit—that's...
Meet Taro, the Poke Bowl's Missing Secret Ingredient
When Polynesians first arrived in Hawai'i some 1,500 years ago, they found islands that were lush, beautiful...and nearly devoid of anything to eat. Luckily, those sailors had packed a very special...
Always Coca-Cola: Coca, Kola, and the *Real* Secret Formula
Coca-Cola's red and white logo is so iconic that supposedly nine out of every ten people on Earth know it on sight. Nearly two billion servings of Coke are sold a day, enough for one out of every four...
Here Comes Truffle
This episode, join us on a hunt for buried treasure at a super-secret location in North Carolina. We follow a million-dollar dog wearing adorable slippers, and then get down on our knees, butts in the...
Museums and the Mafia: The Secret History of Citrus (encore)
A slice of lime in your cocktail, a lunchbox clementine, or a glass of OJ at breakfast: citrus is so common today that most of us have at least one lurking on the kitchen counter or in the back of the...
The End of the Calorie (encore)
For most of us, the calorie is just a number on the back of the packet or on the display at the gym. But what is it, exactly? And how did we end up with this one unit with which to measure our food?...
Champagne Wishes: The Tastes of Celebration
We pop it at weddings and pour it for the holidays, gift it to congratulate and sip it to celebrate—but, if we're being honest, Gastropod will seize any occasion to drink champagne. In the second...
Caviar Dreams: The Tastes of Celebration
Yachts, private jets, caviar, champagne—all standard ingredients in the lifestyles of the rich and famous. But, every so often, at parties and special occasions, we mere mortals get to live large and...
What Is Native American Cuisine? (Encore)
Pasta, sushi, tacos, samosas, and pad thai: In the U.S., enthusiastic eaters will likely be able to name traditional dishes from a wide variety of cuisines around the world. But most of us couldn't...
That Old Chestnut: A Nutty Tale, of Love, Loss, and Reconnection
Just a little over a hundred years ago, eastern forests were studded with what was called "America's perfect tree": 100-foot giants with straight-grained, rot-resistant wood, which filled the woods...
Prescription Dinner: Can Meals Be Medicine?
We've all heard that what you eat affects your health—but doctors prescribing dinner? It's real: Medically tailored meals are specifically designed to treat conditions such as kidney disease,...
Trouble in Paradise: Coconut War Waters and Coconut Oil Controversies
Whether enrobed with chocolate in a candy bar or sucked up through a straw on the beach, coconut has become shorthand for the good life: clear blue waters, white sand beaches, and an ocean breeze. But...
Does the Western Megadrought Mean the End of Cheap Cheese and Ice Cream?
Imagine a summer's day without the jingle of the ice-cream truck, a pizza without its bubbling layer of melted cheesy goodness, or even a bowl of cereal without milk. It’s a shocking prospect, for...
Lunch Gets Schooled (encore)
Across the United States, school lunch is being transformed, as counties and cities partner with local farms to access fresh vegetables, as well as hire chefs to introduce tastier and more adventurous...
What Do Aliens Eat? Food in Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Whether you’re an adorable, candy-loving alien, a lost hobbit, a Federation starship captain, or the King in the North, you still need to eat. This episode, Gastropod is exploring the weird and...
Guest Episode: The Umami Mama by Unexplainable
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode of Unexplainable. For thousands of years, there have been four basic tastes recognized across cultures. But thanks to Kumiko Ninomiya (a.k.a. the...
Gut Feeling
Do you get butterflies in your stomach when you’re excited? Feel nauseated when you’re nervous? Get a knot in your gut when you're worried something bad is going to happen? Then you’ve experienced...
Green Gold: Our Love Affair With Olive Oil (encore)
Olive oil is not what you think it is. According to Tom Mueller, author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, an olive is a stone fruit like a plum or cherry—meaning that...
How Ketchup Got Thick
Ketchup is the crowd-pleaser of condiments—a ubiquitous accessory on dinner tables throughout the United States, and, increasingly, the world. But this kid-friendly classic actually has its roots in a...
Delivery Wars
Big tech is changing every aspect of our world. But how? And at what cost? Gastropod is excited to share the first episode of a special four-part Land of the Giants series, in which Recode teams up...
The Milk of Life
No matter what your diet’s like today, we all likely started life eating the same thing: breast milk, formula milk, or a bit of both. But both of these products aren’t always easy to come by....
Poultry Power: The Fried Chicken Chronicles (encore)
Juicy, crispy, crunchy...fried chicken is undoubtedly delicious. But it's also complicated, in ways that go far deeper than the science behind that perfect crust. From slavery to entrepreneurship and...
Guest episode: Montréal by Not Lost
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode of Not Lost, called Montréal: Voyage Voyage. When both his popular culture podcast and long-term relationship come to an end, journalist Brendan...
Reinventing the Eel
Aristotle thought they were born out of mud. A young Sigmund Freud dedicated himself to finding their testicles (spoiler alert, he failed). And a legendary Danish marine biologist spent 18 years and...
Monsanto or MonSatan? How—and Why—a St. Louis Startup Became a Hated Herbicide Giant
A chemical that kills the plants you don’t want—weeds—and keeps the plants you do—food!—seems kind of like magic. After all, weeds are the bane of farmers' lives, causing tens of billions of dollars...
The Way the Cookie Crumbles
If you’ve baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, enjoyed a nice cup of tea and biscuits, or somehow scarfed a sleeve of Oreos, you will know that cookies—or biscuits, as they were known for most...
Black Gold: The Future of Food...We Throw Away
For a few weeks in 1987, trash was temporarily headline news: a barge filled with waste that would no longer fit in New York City's overflowing landfills spent months wandering up and down the East...
Gum's the Word: A Sticky Story
It’s sticky, it’s breath-freshening, and, according to the FDA, it’s technically food—this episode, we’re chewing on the science and history of gum! As it turns out, humans have been harvesting...
Déjà-Brew: How Coffee Got Bad, Then Worse, and, Finally, Good Again
If you hopped in a time machine for a cup of coffee from a 17th-century London coffeehouse, you would probably be a bit disappointed by their stale, bitter brews. We told you the story of how coffee...
Grounds for Revolution: the Stimulating Story of How Coffee Shaped the World
About 400 years ago, a dark and mysterious stranger arrived in Europe and sent the jitters—really, shock waves—through society. That newcomer was the coffee bean, and it's hard to overstate its...
The Fortune Cookie Quest
No dish of General Tso's, chow mein, or beef and broccoli is complete without a fortune cookie at the end. In fact, factories churn out an estimated *three billion* of these folded confections every...
Guest Episode: Graveyard Cookies and Dollhouse Crimes
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode—actually, two episodes—from the podcast Atlas Oscura: one all about the Spritz Cookie Gravestone and the other on the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained...
Mango Mania: How the American Mango Lost its Flavor—and How it Might Just Get it Back (encore)
Mangoes inspire passion, particularly in India, which is home to hundreds of varieties of the fruit. They are celebrated in Indian music, poetry, and art; they are mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist...
Guest Episode: Scents and Sensibility
Gastropod is excited to present this guest episode of Outside/In called Scents and Sensibility. Once upon a time, potpourri was a popular way to freshen up a space. Now, for some, it feels a bit like...
Your Mystery Date
Allow us to indulge our inner aunties: We’ve set you up on a really hot date this episode—with one of nature’s sweetest fruits, the date! Adored by pleasure-seekers and paleo dieters alike, dates are...
The Most Interesting Oil in the World
Here’s a little riddle for you: What’s all around you, but can’t be seen, smelled, or tasted? Hint: It’s in your Oreos, Nutella, instant noodles, dish soap, shampoo, lipstick, potato chips, pizza...
Are Plant- and Fungus-Based Meats Really Better than the Real Thing?
Move over, beef: there’s a new burger in town. Plant-based meats are sizzling hot right now; in 2020 alone, the alternative meat industry saw a record $3.1 billion in investment, with 112 new...
Guest Episode: The Doorbell by Nice Try!
This week we're bringing you an episode from Nice Try! Nice Try’s second season, Interior, is all about the lifestyle products that have been sold to us over and over, and the promises of self...
Balls *and* Brains: The Science and History of Offal
It’s pretty rare to find organ meat on the dinner table in most American households today, but 90 years ago, the earliest editions of The Joy of Cooking contained dozens of recipes for liver,...
Trick or Treat: Soul Cakes, Candy Corn, and Sugar Skulls Galore!
If you live in the U.S., chances are, your first hint of fall isn’t a russet-colored leaf landing on the sidewalk—it’s the orange-wrappered candies taking over the aisles of your local grocery and...
Buried Treasure: Weeds, Seeds, and Zombies
If you’ve ever engaged in mortal combat with a patch of ragweed, dandelion, or crabgrass in your garden, you might understand the twin emotions of rage and begrudging admiration when it comes to...
The Barrel That Could Save A Forest
Bourbon has to be aged in barrels, by law; whiskey usually spends years in barrels, by custom; and between 20-30 percent of wine spends some time in one. And almost all of those wooden vessels are...
Tofu for You: Meet the Cult Leader, the Spy, and the Pioneering Woman Chinese Doctor Who Brought Tofu to the West
For a lot of Americans, tofu conjures up images of bland, squishy cubes: a sorry alternative to meat. Even in Asia, where tofu was born, the soybean was initially seen as unappetizing, not to mention...
The Great Gastropod Pudding Off (encore)
Four bakers, one evening, and one challenge: Who can steam the best spotted dick? On this week’s action-packed episode, Tom Gilliford, Selasi Gbormittah, and Yan Tsou of Great British Bake-Off fame,...
It's All Going to Pot: the Science and Economics of Edibles
If you thought it was high time for us to get into the weeds with cannabis science and economics, then you’re in the right place: Welcome back to part two of our miniseries on cannabis edibles! This...
Baked: How Pot Brownies and Pate de Fruits Fueled an Edible Cannabis Revolution
Edible cannabis products are hot right now: Snoop's got some, Willie Nelson's got some—even Martha Stewart's making fancy French-style gummies. In states where it’s legal, you can buy everything from...
The Bottle vs. Tap Battle Finale: Alkaline H2O, Lead Pipes, and, Yes, Water Sommeliers
As promised, it's time for the final splashdown in the battle of bottled vs. tap water. When we left off last episode, bottled water had staged a miraculous comeback thanks to Nike, yuppies, and Orson...
Bottled Vs. Tap: The Battle to Quench Our Thirst
Today, bottled water is ubiquitous and cheap: every single second of every single day, more than a thousand people buy and drink a plastic bottle of water in the U.S.. But it wasn’t always so. In this...
Chocpocalypse Now! Quarantine and the Future of Food
We’ve dropped hints and left clues—and now, at long last, Gastropod’s very own Nicola Twilley has published her first book! Co-written with her husband Geoff Manaugh, Until Proven Safe: The History...
Guest Episode: Immune Boosting, Is It a Bust? | Science Vs
Internet influencers have been pushing “immune boosters” during the pandemic — claiming they’ve got just the pill, berry, or brew to rev up our body’s defenses. But is there really a way to boost our...
Guest Episode: How Much Water Do You Actually Need a Day?
Guest Episode: Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter. Think you know how your body works? Think again! Dr. Jen Gunter is here to shake up everything you thought you knew — from how much water you need to...
First Class Fare
Like most people around the world, you probably didn’t do much flying this past year. Maybe you miss the bustle of airports and the joy of seeing friends in far-off places—but chances are, you...
Guest Episode: How To Save a Planet
Guest Episode: Does climate change freak you out? Want to know what we, collectively, can do about it? Us too. How to Save a Planet is a podcast that asks the big questions: what do we need to do to...
You're Wrong About Prohibition
For most of us, Prohibition seems like a peculiar American experiment—a doomed attempt by straight-laced religious conservatives to ban alcohol, and, with it, fun. But as it turns out, we've got it...
So Hot Right Now: Why We Love the Chile Pepper
Perhaps no other plant is as entwined with pain and pleasure as the chile pepper. But why does it burn—and why on earth do we crave that uncomfortable sensation? How did capsaicin's fungus-fighting,...
Easy A: The SuperRad Story of Home Economics
If you grew up in the U.S., you might remember home economics class as the source of deflated muffins and horrifically distorted sewing projects. You might, like Jonah Hill’s character in Superbad,...
Where There's Smoke, There's ... Whiskey, Fish, and Barbecue!
As anyone who’s spent time by a crackling campfire or a barbecue pit can attest, the scent of smoke is unmistakable—and surprisingly mysterious. Smoke clings to clothing but vanishes in the breeze....
Phage Against the Machine
If you thought food poisoning was just a matter of the occasional stomach upset from a dodgy shrimp or two, the CDC has some unsettling numbers for you: foodborne bacteria is responsible for at least...
Guest Episode: Mission: ImPASTAble from The Sporkful
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Why Thai?
It’s hard to imagine the American restaurant landscape without Thai food: Tom yum and pad see ew are practically household names, and pad thai is the ultimate quarantine comfort food. (It's...
Hot Tips
If you live in the United States, you’re familiar with a curious mathematical ritual that takes place at the end of every restaurant meal—it’s time to tip, with all the stress the process entails. How...
TV Dinners
Cue the dramatic music, it’s quiz time: Can you identify the people behind these catchphrases? “Yum-O!” “Pukka!” “Bam!” “Peace, love, and taco grease!” The answers are below—but if you’ve already...
The Brightest Bulb
Imagine, for a moment, a world without garlic: garlic-free garlic bread, tzatziki sans Allium sativum, a chili crisp defanged. If this sounds like the makings of a horror story to you, you’re not...
Like Water in the Desert
Over the past century, we've transformed the arid lands of the American west into year-round, well-irrigated agricultural powerhouses. Today, fruits, nuts, and nearly all of our leafy greens are grown...
The Magic Cube
You could call it the Swiss Army knife of the kitchen: bouillon is a handy ingredient, whether it comes as bottled brown gloop, or a cube wrapped up in shiny foil like a tiny present. Today, cooks...
The Big Apple Episode
There’s nothing more American than apple pie—or is there? We might prescribe an apple a day and call our largest city the Big Apple, but this legendary fruit originally hails from the mountains of...
The Hangover: Part Gastropod
Morning fog. Gallon-distemper. Busthead. These are all names for alcohol's age-old after-party: the hangover. But, aside from being a physical (and painful) manifestation of regret, what exactly is a...
Snack Attack!
To snack or not to snack? And what counts as a snack, anyhow? Plus the great meal vs. snack smackdown: is grazing good, or does eating between meals lead to waistline expansion? We’re asking deep...
This Spud's For You
Fried, roasted, mashed, steamed: it's hard to imagine life without the crispy, fluffy comfort blanket of potatoes. But until the late 1500s, no one outside the Americas had ever encountered this...
Moo-Dunnit: How Beef Replaced Bison on the American Plains—and Plate
Saddle up, folks: Today’s episode involves the cowboys' lullabies and meat riots that helped make beef an American birthright. With the help of Joshua Specht, author of Red Meat Republic, we tell the...
What the Shell? Cracking the Lobster's Mysteries
Consider the lobster roll: tender chunks of lobster bathed in butter or mayo, sandwiched between two slices of a squishy bread roll… Have we caught your attention yet? Lobster is a summertime staple...
Guest Episode: Rocky Road with Science Diction
This episode, Gastropod is bringing you a guest: Science Diction, a bite-sized podcast about words, and the science stories behind them. They answer questions like: what does the word “meme” have to...
Shatter-Proof: How Glass Took Over the Kitchen—and Ended Child Labor
Cheers! The lively clink of glass on glass is a must for any festive gathering, whether you’re sipping champagne in a flute or lemonade in a tumbler. We rely on glass in the kitchen—for baking...
The Most Dangerous Fruit in America
It's the epitome of summertime: there’s nothing like a cold, juicy slice of red watermelon on a swelteringly hot day. But, once upon a time, watermelons were neither red nor sweet—the wild watermelon...
Dig for Victory
You’ve seen the news: vegetable seeds are selling out. All that quarantine ennui has combined with anxiety about the gaps on supermarket shelves to create a whole new population of city farmers in...
Shared Plates: How Eating Together Makes Us Human
We love eating dinner together with friends and extended family, and we miss it! But why does sharing a meal mean so much—and can we ever recreate that on Zoom? As we wait for the dinner parties,...
Pizza Pizza!
At last, an episode on pizza! But that raises a tricky question: what exactly is pizza? As it turns out, the original pizzas from eighteenth-century Naples looked nothing like a standard slice—they...
Eating the Wild: Bushmeat, Game, and the Fuzzy Line Between Them
It's a safe bet that your recent media diet has included the words "wet market," "zoonotic disease," and "pangolin," as experts take a pause from discussing COVID-19's spread and impact to speculate...
Eating the Rainbow: Or, the Mystery of the Orange Oranges, the Red M&Ms, and the Blue Raspberry
From stripy fuchsia beets to unicorn doughnuts, the foods available today on grocery store shelves and in cafe displays are more brightly colored than ever. But this hasn't always been the case. This...
A Tale To Warm The Cockles Of Your Heart
You might have heard of Molly Malone, selling cockles from a wheelbarrow in Dublin, or of Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, with her cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row—but the chances are most...
White vs. Wheat: The Food Fight of the Centuries
White or whole wheat: while today the question is most frequently asked at the sandwich counter, the debate over the correct answer goes back literally thousands of years. In the past century, though,...
Licorice: A Dark and Salty Stranger
Licorice is a polarizing candy: there are those who pick out the black jelly beans, those who think Twizzlers are better than Red Vines, and those who won't travel without a supply of salty dark...
To Fight Climate Change, Bank on Soil
Our glaciers are melting, our forests are on fire, our harvests are increasingly decimated by either floods and drought. We are in a climate emergency that threatens our very survival, and it is,...
Move Over Gin, We’ve Got Tonic Fever
Just a few decades ago, gin & tonics were considered rather stodgy and boring, the drink of suburbanites at the golf club. Today, the century-old drink is hot again. In part, that’s due to a boom in...
The United States of McDonald’s
McDonald’s is mind-boggling. According to Adam Chandler, author of the recent book, Drive-Thru Dreams, it sells roughly 75 burgers every second and serves 68 million people every day—equivalent to 1...
Dinner Plate Invasion: Lionfish, Tiger Shrimp, and Feral Pigs, Oh My!
Across America, feral pigs are on the rampage, wrecking fields of crops, hunting local wildlife to extinction, and even attacking humans. In the United Kingdom, Japanese knotweed is taking over the...
Meet the Queen of Kiwi: the 96-Year-Old Woman Who Transformed America’s Produce Aisle
The produce section of most American supermarkets in the 1950s was minimal to a fault, with only a few dozen fruits and vegetables to choose from: perhaps one kind of apple, one kind of lettuce, a...
Are Insect Guts the Secret to the Most Delicious Kimchi?
This side dish of spicy, bubbly, funky pickled vegetables is such a staple in Korea that no meal is considered complete without it—but, recently, kimchi has found its way into burgers, pasta, grilled...
Menu Mind Control
At its most basic, a menu is simply a way for a restaurant to communicate its offerings and their prices to its customers. But, perhaps even more importantly, says Alison Pearlman, author of a new...
Of Ghost Foods and Culinary Extinction
The earliest humans favored juicy, meaty mammoth at mealtimes. Ancient Romans loved their favorite herb, silphium, so much that they sprinkled it on everything from lamb to melon. In the 19th century...
Tiki Time!
Tiki bars are hot these days: you can enjoy a fruity tropical drink while surrounded by faux-Polynesian décor in most major cities around the U.S. and elsewhere, with new tiki spots opening every...
What’s CRISPR Doing in our Food?
You’ve probably heard the hype: CRISPR will revolutionize biotech, cure disease, resurrect extinct species, and even create new-and-(not-so)-improved humans. But what is CRISPR—and what’s it doing in...
Happy Birthday to Us: Gastropod Turns Five
We launched Gastropod in September 2014, which means we’re turning five this month, and that’s approximately 100 in podcast years. We’re celebrating our birthday with a special episode featuring...
Celebrate Mexico’s True National Holiday with the Mysteries of Mole
In the United States, Cinco de Mayo is an excuse for margarita-fueled partying. But in Mexico, that date—the anniversary of a military triumph over Napoleon on May 5, 1862—is marked by a parade and...
Running on Fumes: Strawberry’s Dirty Secret
This episode, we tell an age-old tale: an innocent young berry heads west to make its fame and fortune—but sells its soul in the process. In order for our hero, the strawberry, to defeat its nemesis,...
Omega 1-2-3
Based on all the hype, you’d be forgiven for believing that the fish oils known as omega-3s are solution to every problem. Heart disease, dementia, depression, even obesity—the list of ailments that...
Meet Sharbat, the Ancestor of Sorbet, Syrup, Shrub, Sherbet, and Pretty Much Everything Else Cool
Many of you won’t have heard of sharbat, the delightfully tangy, refreshingly icy Persian drink. But most of you will have tasted at least one of its many descendants: sorbet, sherbet, syrup, shrub,...
Super Fry: The Fight for the Golden Frite
Shoestring, waffle, curly, or thick-cut: however you slice it, nearly everyone loves a deep-fried, golden brown piece of potato. But that’s where the agreement ends and the battles begin. While...
Eat This, Not That: The Surprising Science of Personalized Nutrition
This episode, we’ve got the exclusive on the preliminary results of the world’s largest personalized nutrition experiment. Genetic epidemiologist Tim Spector launched the study, called PREDICT, to...
Guts and Glory
What does it mean when your stomach rumbles? How do our bodies extract nutrients and vitamins from food? Does what you eat affect your mood? Digestion is an invisible, effortless, unconscious...
BONUS: Introducing Science Rules! with Bill Nye
We interrupt our regular programming to bring you news of a new podcast you might like. Bill Nye is on a mission to change the world—one phone call at a time. On his new podcast, Science Rules!, he...
The Great Gastropod Pudding Off
Four bakers, one evening, and one challenge: Who can steam the best spotted dick? On this week’s action-packed episode, Tom Gilliford, Selasi Gbormittah, and Yan Tsou of Great British Bake-Off fame,...
Potatoes in Space!
Today, a half century after Neil Armstrong took one small step onto the surface of the Moon, there are still just three humans living in space—the crew of the International Space Station. But, after...
The Curry Chronicles
Curry is, supposedly, Indian. But there is no such word in any of the country’s many official languages—and no Indian would use the term to describe their own food. So what is curry? This episode...
The Bagelization of America
Today, it’s a breakfast staple, but, as recently as 1960, The New York Times had to define it for readers—as “an unsweetened doughnut with rigor mortis.” That’s right, this episode is all about the...
Can Diet Stop Alzheimer’s?
Every three seconds, someone in the world develops Alzheimer’s disease. It’s a devastating disease: millions of people, as well as their caretakers, spend years dealing with disabling disorientation...
Seeds of Immortality
When seeds first evolved, hundreds of millions of years ago, they not only revolutionized the plant world, but they also eventually sowed the path for human civilization. Today, it’s nearly impossible...
Pick A Pawpaw: America’s Forgotten Fruit
In 1916, agricultural experts voted the pawpaw the American fruit most likely to succeed, ahead of blueberries and cranberries. But today, most people have never even heard of it, let alone tried it....
Eating to Win: Gatorade, Muscle Milk, and… Chicken Nuggets?
Ancient Greek Olympians swore by beans to give them a competitive edge. Japanese sumo wrestlers rely on a protein-rich soup called chankonabe to get into peak condition. And NBA all-stars Kevin...
The Secret History of the Slave Behind Jack Daniel’s Whiskey
Back in 1866, Jack Daniel’s became the first registered distillery in the United States; today, it’s the top-selling American whiskey in the world. For much of the brand’s 150-plus years, the story...
Sweet and Low (Calorie): The Story of Artificial Sweeteners
For decades, ads for treats sweetened with substances like Sweet’N Low, NutraSweet, and Splenda have promised what seems like a miracle of modern science: that you can enjoy all the dessert you want,...
Dirty Tricks and Data: The Great Soda Wars, Part 2
Over the past five years, more than forty cities and countries around the world have passed a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. These soda taxes are designed to improve public health—but do they? Or...
Souring on Sweet: The Great Soda Wars, Part 1
Public health researchers agree: the evidence is clear that Americans consume way too much sugar, that sugar contributes to weight gain, and that rising rates of obesity in the U.S. will lead to...
The Truth is in the Tooth: Braces, Cavities, and the Paleo Diet
Brush, floss, and forget: chances are, you only think about your teeth when they cause you trouble. But teeth have tales to tell, such as how old we are, how fast we grew, and how far we’ve traveled…...
Who Invented Mac and Cheese?
The warm, gooey dish, a childhood staple across North America, is many things to many people: a mainstay of African-American Sunday dinners, according to soul food expert Adrian Miller; a comforting...
How the Carrot Became Orange, and Other Stories
Thousands of years ago, in what’s now Afghanistan, people unearthed the tangled, gnarled roots of Queen Anne’s Lace—a ubiquitous, hairy-stemmed plant with a spray of tiny white flowers. These fibrous,...
The Incredible Egg
We love eggs scrambled, fried, or poached; we couldn’t enjoy a quiche, meringue, or flan without them. But for scientists and archaeologists, these perfect packages are a source of both wonder and...
Espresso and Whisky: The Place of Time in Food
Why does fish cook so fast? What’s the “wasabi window”? And can you really make 20-year-old aged whisky in six days? This episode, we’re looking at the role of time in food and flavor: what it does,...
Why These Animals?
In the West, when it comes to which meat is for dinner, we nearly always choose beef, pork, or chicken. Yet cows and pigs are only two of more than five thousand of species of mammals, and chicken is...
Mango Mania: How the American Mango Lost its Flavor—and How it Might Just Get it Back
Mangoes inspire passion, particularly in India, which is home to hundreds of varieties of the fruit. They are celebrated in Indian music, poetry, and art; they are mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist...
Keeping it Fresh: Preservatives and The Poison Squad
More than a century ago, enterprising manufacturers added brand-new chemical preservatives into food to keep it fresh as it traveled from the farm into rapidly growing American cities. Milk no longer...
Watch It Wiggle: The Jell-O Story
It’s been described as the ultimate status symbol for the wealthy, as the perfect solution for dieters and the sick, and, confusingly, as a liquid trapped in a solid that somehow remains fluid. What...
Out of the Fire, Into the Frying Pan
From rainbow-hued enameled stew pots to lightweight nonstick frying pans, the metal and ceramic vessels we use to heat our food are such an everyday aspect of the kitchen that they’re easy to take for...
Hotbox: The Oven From Turnspit Dogs to Microwaves
Humans are the only animals that cook their food, an innovation that changed the course of our evolution and the trajectory of the planet. But how did we tame those early cooking fires and put them in...
Feed the World: How the U.S. Became the World’s Biggest Food Aid Donor—And Why That Might Not be Such a Great Thing
The United States is, by far, the world’s largest international food aid donor. Almost every year since the 1950s, it has been responsible for more than 50 percent of the billions of tons of food...
Ripe for Global Domination: The Story of the Avocado
Avocados are on a roll. More precisely, they’re on toast—a lot of toast. Last summer, British Vogue reported that more than three million new photos of avocado toast are uploaded to Instagram every...
Meet the Man Who Found, Finagled, and Ferried Home the Foods We Eat Today
You’ve probably never heard of David Fairchild. But if you’ve savored kale, mango, peaches, dates, grapes, a Meyer lemon, or a glass of craft beer lately, you’ve tasted the fruits of his...
Who Faked My Cheese?
Cheeeeese: that one word alone causes our stomachs to rumble and mouths to water. The sheer variety of flavors and textures created by only a few ingredients—milk, salt, enzymes, and microbes—is...
Marching on our Stomachs: The Science and History of Feeding the Troops
For most of us, eggs are perfect packets of portable protein, and pizza is the lazy option for dinner. For the research team at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, pizza and eggs are two of...
Cooking the Books with Yotam and Nigella
Who first started collecting recipes into cookbooks? Do cookbooks have a future in a world full of online recipes? And can cookbooks tell us anything about what people are actually eating, or are they...
Cutting the Mustard
For some Americans, a trip to the ballpark isn’t complete without the bright yellow squiggle of French’s atop a hotdog. For the French, the slow burn of Dijon is a must-have complement to charcuterie....
Remembrance of Things Pasta: A Saucy Tale
It’s one of food’s most beautiful relationships: pasta and sauce. But which came first—and how on Earth are you supposed to figure out which of those hundreds of shapes to serve with your pesto? With...
We’ve Lost It: The Diet Episode
Diet dreams are splashed across magazine covers and blare from the T.V., offering tips and tricks, that will, readers and viewers are promised, make weight loss easy and fast. Diet books making...
Meet Saffron, the World’s Most Expensive Spice
It’s the poshest spice of all, often worth its weight in gold. But saffron also has a hidden history as a dye, a luxury self-tanner, and even a serotonin stimulant. That’s right, this episode we’re...
Secrets of Sourdough
Today, you can find a huge variety of breads on supermarket shelves, only a few of which are called “sourdough.” For most of human history, though, any bread that wasn’t flat was sourdough—that is, it...
Green Gold: Our Love Affair with Olive Oil
Olive oil is not what you think it is. According to Tom Mueller, author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, an olive is a stone fruit like a plum or cherry—meaning that...
Women, Food, Power … and Books!
From “The Flintstones” to Focus on the Family, the stereotype has long been that men hunt and provide, while women just stir the pot. Thankfully, today many women—and men—reject both that biological...
Crantastic: The Story of America’s Berry
It’s nearly Thanksgiving, which, for most Americans, marks the one time a year their dinner table is adorned with jewel-like cranberries, simmered into a delicious sauce. But hundreds of years ago,...
Cannibalism: From Calories to Kuru
For most of us, it’s unthinkable: human is never what’s for dinner. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but this episode, we discover that not only is cannibalism widespread throughout the natural world, but...
Eataly World and the Future of Food Shopping
In just over a month, the world’s first theme park devoted entirely to Italian food will open its doors—and Gastropod has the scoop! Among Eataly World‘s delights will be hunt-your-own truffles, baby...
What the Fluff is Marshmallow Creme?
If you’re not from New England, you may never have heard of Fluff, or its legendary sandwich-based incarnation, the Fluffernutter. The sticky sweet marshmallow creme was invented exactly one hundred...
Lunch Gets Schooled
Across the United States, school lunch is being transformed, as counties and cities partner with local farms to access fresh vegetables, as well as hire chefs to introduce tastier and more adventurous...
Sour Grapes: The History and Science of Vinegar
It’s found in almost every home, whether it’s destined to dress salads or clean surfaces and kill fruit flies. But, effective as it is at those tasks, most of us struggle to get excited about vinegar....
The Birds and The Bugs
Chicken is such a mainstay of the contemporary American dinner table that it seems hard to imagine that, just a century ago, it was rare and expensive. But over the course of the 20th century, both...
It’s Tea Time: Pirates, Polyphenols, and a Proper Cuppa
This week, Gastropod tells the story of two countries and their shared obsession with a plant: Camellia sinensis, otherwise known as the tea bush. The Chinese domesticated tea over thousands of years,...
Peanuts: Peril and Promise
Despite their diminutive scale, peanuts play an outsized role in American culture. Peanut butter has long been a mainstay of the American lunchbox, with its sticky, slightly sweet nuttiness flavoring...
Fake Food
Hamburgers that turn out to be horse, not beef. Honey sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Old, grey olives dipped in copper sulfate solution to make them look fresh and green. Fraudulent foods...
Here’s Why You Should Care About Southern Food
The food of the South is one of the most complicated, complex, contradictory cuisines in the U.S. This is the region where a monumental mixing of crops and culinary traditions gave way to one of the...
Better Believe It’s Butter
Butter is beautiful: solid golden bars add the perfect flakiness to pastry, give cake a delightfully tender springiness, and melt mouth-wateringly onto toast. But unlike its cousin, cheese—another...
Meet Koji, Your New Favorite Fungus
It’s impossible to imagine Japanese meals without soy sauce, or the umami-rich fermented bean paste called miso, or the rice-based spirit known as sake. Which means that Japanese cuisine depends on...
V is for Vitamin
They’re added to breakfast cereal, bread, and even Pop-Tarts, giving the sweetest, most processed treats a halo of health. Most people pop an extra dose for good measure, perhaps washing it down with...
Hacking Taste
Taste is the oldest of our five senses, and yet perhaps the least understood. It’s far more complicated than salty versus sweet: new research is dramatically expanding our knowledge of taste, showing...
Cork Dork: Inside the Weird World of Wine Appreciation
“There’s the faintest soupçon of asparagus and just a flutter of Edam cheese,” says Paul Giamatti in the movie Sideways. Believe it or not, he’s describing pinot noir, not quiche. The world of...
To Eat or Not to Eat Meat
With flexitarianism on the rise throughout the developed world, and everyone from Bill Clinton to Beyoncé endorsing the benefits of a vegetarian or vegan diet, it can sometimes seem as though meat is...
We Heart Chocolate
In the weeks before Valentine’s Day, U.S. consumers will buy nearly 58 million pounds of chocolate. This love affair is not limited to just one day or one country: chocolate has spread from its...
Inventing the Restaurant: From Bone Broth to Michelin
Early humans may have visited each others’ caves for a shared meal, but they wouldn’t have expected to be served at their own table, or to choose when and what to eat. But today, restaurants are...
Gettin’ Fizzy With It
‘Tis the season for a glass of bubbly—but this episode we’re not talking champagne, we’re talking seltzer. America is in the throes of a serious seltzer craze, with consumption of the bubbly stuff...
The Spice Curve: From Pepper to Sriracha with Sarah Lohman
American food has a reputation for being bland—but, according to historical gastronomist Sarah Lohman, “It’s nonsense that Americans don’t like spicy food.” Lohman is the author of a new book, Eight...
The Buzz on Honey
Honey seems like a simple, comforting food, slathered on toast, spooned down to soothe sore throats, and beloved of bears, both plush and real. In reality, this sticky combination of bee spit and...
What is Native American Cuisine?
Pasta, sushi, tacos, samosas, and pad thai: In the U.S., enthusiastic eaters will likely be able to name traditional dishes from a wide variety of cuisines around the world. But most of us couldn’t...
Counting Fish
This week, we are taking on one of the universe’s great mysteries: how many fish are in the sea? If you stop to think about it, it seems almost impossible to figure out how many fish there are—after...
Seaweed Special
Seaweed farming is booming: the global harvest has doubled in the past decade, according to a new report from the United Nations University, and it’s now worth more than all the world’s lemons and...
The Salt Wars
Salt is a magical substance. It reduces bitterness, enhances sweetness, boosts flavor, and preserves perishable foods. Without it, we would die: the human body can’t make sodium, but our nerves and...
Kombucha Culture
If you haven’t tasted kombucha yet, you probably will soon. The sour-sweet, fizzy, fermented tea is becoming ubiquitous in trendy cafes, workplaces, and health food stores across America. Where did it...
Keeping Kosher: When Jewish Law Met Processed Food
Roughly two percent of Americans are Jewish, and only a small fraction of them keep kosher. Yet between a third and a half of all packaged food in an American supermarket has a kosher label on it. How...
Poultry Power: The Fried Chicken Chronicles
Juicy, crispy, crunchy…fried chicken is undoubtedly delicious. But it’s also complicated, in ways that go far deeper than the science behind that perfect crust. From slavery to entrepreneurship and...
Outside the Box: The Story of Food Packaging
The invention of food packaging is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. It may seem hard to imagine today, but the first clay pots made the great civilizations of the ancient world possible, while...
Who Invented the Cherry Tomato?
In the 1960s, cherry tomatoes were nearly impossible to find in the grocery store. By the 1990s, it was hard to get a salad without them. Somehow, within a couple of decades, the tiny tomatoes had...
Everything Old is Brew Again
Pull up a bar stool and prepare to open both your mind and your palate: it’s time to meet beer before it settled down into the fizzy brown brew we know and love today. The ales in this episode of...
Museums and the Mafia: The Secret History of Citrus
A slice of lime in your cocktail, a lunchbox clementine, or a glass of OJ at breakfast: citrus is so common today that most of us have at least one lurking on the kitchen counter or in the back of the...
Grand Theft Food
It’s easy to assume that burglars and thieves are always after conventional valuables: cash, jewels, or high-end electronics. But some of the most memorable heists actually involve food. Inspired by...
Caffeine: The World’s Most Popular Drug
A tablespoon of it will kill you, but most of us feel like death without it: we’re talking about caffeine this episode. Inspired by a listener question — does green tea have more or less caffeine than...
The Maple Boom
Many people only think of maple syrup at the breakfast table, when they’re facing down a stack of hot, fluffy pancakes or some French toast. They’re missing out. Maple is undergoing a major boom,...
First Foods: Learning to Eat
How do we learn to eat? It may seem like an obvious question, but it’s actually quite a complicated process. Who decided that mushed-up vegetables were the perfect first food—and has that always been...
The Food of Love
Throughout history, humans have attributed aphrodisiac powers to certain foods, from legendary lover Casanova’s diet of fifty oysters for breakfast to chocolate, the default Valentine’s Day gift for...
The End of the Calorie
For most of us, the calorie is just a number on the back of the packet or on the display at the gym. But what is it, exactly? And how did we end up with this one unit with which to measure our food?...
End-Of-Year Feast
Cheese science, cilantro phobia, and fork usage: we’ve covered it all on Gastropod. And, for our special end-of-year episode, we’re bringing you updates on some our favorite stories. Join us to find...
The Mushroom Underground
They’re a kingdom unto themselves, neither animal, vegetable, nor mineral. They count among their number both the world’s largest organism and millions of microscopic, single-celled creatures. And yet...
Peak Booze
Are you part of Generation Peak Booze? In this episode, we dive into the factors behind the ups and downs in alcohol consumption in the U.K. and the U.S. over the course of the twentieth century, we...
Mezcal: Everything but the Worm
It’s nearly the Day of the Dead in Mexico, which gives us the perfect excuse to get familiar with the country’s national spirit: tequila. Or wait, should that be mezcal? And what’s the difference,...
The Good, The Bad, The Cilantro
On the surface, it’s just a leafy green herb. Its feathery fronds add a decorative note and a distinctive flavor to dishes across Latin America and Asia, from guacamole to phở. And yet cilantro is the...
The Bitter Truth
It’s one of the five basic tastes, along with salty, sweet, sour, and umami. It’s also the least popular and the most mysterious. “That tastes bitter” is not usually a compliment, and yet scientists...
The United States of Chinese Food
Wander into any town in the U.S., no matter how small and remote, and you’re likely to find at least one Chinese restaurant. In fact, there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, KFC,...
The Whole Hog
Bacon, bratwurst, bangers, barbecue: these are just a few of the many ways people around the world enjoy feasting on pigs. Of all the domesticated animals humans consume, Sus scrofa domesticus is the...
The Scoop on Ice Cream
It’s one of the most complex food products you’ll ever consume: a thermodynamic miracle that contains all three states of matter—solid, liquid, and gas—at the same time. And yet no birthday party,...
Crunch, Crackle, and Pop
“Sound is the forgotten flavor sense,” says experimental psychologist Charles Spence. In this episode, we discover how manipulating sound can transform our experience of food and drink, making stale...
Field Recordings
Plants that can hear themselves being eaten. Microphone-equipped drones that eavesdrop on sick chickens. Lasers that detect an insect’s wing-beats from dozens of feet away.
In this James...
In this James...
The Cocktail Hour
Whether you sip it with friends, chug it before hitting the dance floor, or take it as a post-work pick-me-up, there’s clearly nothing like a cocktail for bracing the spirit. In addition to its...
Gastropod on Gastropods
Finally, Gastropod is tackling gastropods! In this episode, Cynthia visits one of America’s first and only snail farms.
Though Gastropod is, as regular listeners know, a podcast about the science and...
Though Gastropod is, as regular listeners know, a podcast about the science and...
Savor Flavor
Why does grape candy taste so fake? What on earth is blue raspberry, anyway? And what is the difference between natural and artificial, at least when it comes to flavor?
Join us as we taste the...
Join us as we taste the...
Say Cheese!
Cheese is the chameleon of the food world, as well as one of its greatest delights. Fresh and light or funky and earthy, creamy and melty or crystalline and crumbly—no other food offers such a variety...
No Scrubs: Breeding a Better Bull
In 1900, the average dairy cow in America produced 424 gallons of milk each year. By 2000, that figure had more than quadrupled, to 2,116 gallons. In this episode of Gastropod, we explore the...
Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. Or is it? In this episode of Gastropod, we explore the science and history behind the most intentionally designed, the most industrialized, and the most...
Kale of the Sea
Call off the search for the new kale: we’ve found it, and it’s called kelp! In this episode of Gastropod, we explore the science behind the new wave of seaweed farms springing up off the New England...
Bite: Smoked Pigeon and Other Subnatural Delights
In this week’s bite-sized episode, Nicky travels to the campus of Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, for a day of talks and tastings exploring the shifting status of stinky cheese, offal,...
The Microbe Revolution
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, you’ve probably heard about the human microbiome. Research into the composition, function, and importance of the galaxy of...
Dan Barber’s Quest for Flavor
In this latest episode of Gastropod, chef and author Dan Barber takes listeners on a journey around the world in search of great flavor and the ecosystems that support it, from Spain to the deep...
Episode 1: The Golden Spoon
Chances are, you’ve spent more time thinking about the specs on your smartphone than about the gadgets that you use to put food in your mouth. But the shape and material properties of forks, spoons,...
About this Podcast
Copyright
2021 Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley
Language
en
Categories
Arts, Food, Science, History