Esculent

Can we tell the story of a chef from 1490? Join podcast regular Professor Daniela Gutiérrez Flores as we attempt to recreate a recipe from Mestre Robert, a 15th-century chef and the author of Libre del Coch, the first printed cookbook. Join our reenactment where we speculate salt use, concern over squash cooking, and a huge sensory disagreement over rose water.

Tasting & Viewing: Menjar Blanc de Carabasses by Mestre Robert in Libre del Coch

Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

Well-baked bread is an art in and of itself, but in this episode, we look at a few representational mediums of yeasty dough: poetry, photography, and animation, as forms that give new light to a thousand-year-old practice. Baker Jim Franks discusses his new book of poetry, Existential Bread (Drag City, 2025), and one of my favorite animations of food ever, evoking faint memories for both of us, just like a whiff of a good loaf.

Jim Franks’ book is out now, with a cover designed by podcast favourite Jordan Rundle of Dazer!

Tasting: Minh Phan’s Jujube Blossom Shrub

Viewing: ‘Portraits of Women with Their Weight in Dough’ by Santina Amato (2019- ) and the 1947 Animated Short, Mickey and the Beanstalk

Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

I first smelled the freshly nixtamalized masa from Emmanuel Galvan of Bolita at the Gilman Wine Block, where the tender, vegetal umami scent carried above the crowds right into my nose. This episode, we focus on technological and labor challenges of nixtamalization in the present, specifically right in Berkeley – complicating the many ways nixtamalization makes corn esculent.

Tasting: Tessier Wine’s Pinot Noir

Viewing: “Memory,” the dish with tortillas from The Menu (2022)

Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

We are back with a dive into the archive featuring Chef Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s restaurant in San Francisco - featuring historic menus and historic buildings, and how this influences canonical Chinese American recipes like Peking Duck. We kick off Season 4: Chefs Pt. 2 with our literary inquiries into the work of Chefs, and how words, archives, and texts make the esculent.

Tasting: A whiff of UC Davis Special Collections

Viewing: Yan Can Cook: Winter Melon, Steamed Sea Bass, and Black Bean Chicken, aired on PBS in the 1980s

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Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

Season 4, Chefs is here: we revisit the dynamic role of the chef in popular culture through culinary literatures, from 15th-century cookbooks to PBS television series. 

Tasting: A Russell Stover head of an Easter Bunny (context provided, sort of).

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Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

Can baking brownies save the planet? I’m a little embarrassed I even wrote this question out, but this rhetoric exemplifies the argument of our esteemed guest’s new book: The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food (UC Press, 2024). For our final episode of this season, we are joined by Julie Guthman, Distinguished Professor of Community Studies Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. We discuss my favorite food film, shifts in university pedagogy, and how to conceive of doing good while maintaining critical thinking.

Tasting: Renewal Mill Brownie Mix

Viewing: Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja (2017)

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Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.

Authenticity. An idea that has plagued many conversations on food. This week, we are joined by Professor Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, the Jarvis Thurston and Mona van Duyn Professor in Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. We interrogate the role of authenticity in constructing Mexican national identity through another culinary idea: that of the taco. We discuss the taco’s malleable history across regions, including Taco Bell. Stay tuned for Professor Sánchez Prado’s upcoming book on the taco and modernity!

Tasting: Taco de machado con huevo by special guest Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores

Viewing: Viral Tiktok: White People Taco Night by Keith Habersberger and the Try Guys and MC Luka’s Lupita’s Taco Shop

Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram

Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.

How are processed and natural contested categories - rather than objective definitions- of food? These questions are at the center of Professor Charlotte Biltekoff’s new book, Real Food, Real Facts: Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge. Joined by a special guest, Dan Polsby of Best Friends Wine, to introduce our tasting and complicate “real” wine, we discuss food science, industry, and the Food Inc. documentaries.

Tasting: Sfera Bianco, 250mL can 

Viewing: Trailers for Food Inc. (2006) and Food Inc. 2 (2024) 

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Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.

We start off our third season featuring a conversation with Fabiola Santiago of Mi Oaxaca, exploring how indigenous knowledge is linked with mezcal and the colonial exploitation that occurs within Oaxaca today. From Mexico’s tourism board to the role of service and hospitality workers in disseminating knowledge around mezcal, this season, we are all about the big ideas that shape the esculent.

Viewing: Mexico Tourism Board’s 2014 campaign for Oaxaca, “Live it to Believe it”

Tasting: Kalawashaq Wine Cellars from Camins 2 Dreams

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Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.

Back again. This season hosts four thinkers, shaping and questioning the ideas that make food esculent. 

Reading: Excerpt from Professor Kyla Wazana Tompkins' new book, Deviant Matter (NYU Press, 2024)

Tasting: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant: 2023 Coteaux du Loir Rouge “Cuvée du Rosier”

Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram

Host: Elizabeth McQueen

This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.