Garlic & Pearls

By Muriel Zagha and Suzanne Raine

Suzanne and Muriel examine a series of very different things – from a film to a kitchen utensil, a model train to a bar of soap – that define British or French attitudes, each explaining her cultural ... more

· Society & Culture

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FAQs about Garlic & Pearls:

How many episodes does Garlic & Pearls have?

The podcast currently has 66 episodes available.

Garlic & Pearls episodes:

April 25, 2025 Jigsaw Puzzles: The amazing British invention that went from geographical 'dissection' to universally popular form of meditation
Suzanne tells Muriel the riveting story of an invention devised in London by one inspired man, in an 18th-century world of map-making, mezzotints and early industrial machinery, and explores what jigsaw puzzles do for us, what they mean, and why they are more popular than ever.
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56min
April 18, 2025 The Metric System: Born of a perfect storm of Enlightenment and Revolution
Muriel tells Suzanne how the French dream of the metric system became realised when the Enlightenment scientists' desire for reliable measurements met the French Revolutionaries' decision to remodel the nation according to Reason.
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54min
April 11, 2025 Bluebells: Why does this enchanting native blue flower make the British giddy?
Suzanne explores the complex botanical, mythical and poetic aspects of the British bluebell cult. Hope and death, secrecy and display and even asparagus all come into it, and Tilda Swinton, Diana, Princess of Wales and Margaret Thatcher all guest star.
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52min
April 08, 2025 Glamour: What – and who – do the French find so bewitching about Britain?
Happy Entente Cordiale! It is, Muriel explains, when at their most conventional that the British are at their most glamorous to French eyes. And we reveal the British winner of the title of Full Cordiale Corker!
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18min
April 07, 2025 Panache: How a French king's white feather came to define a Gallic core value
Suzanne digs for the roots of French panache, encountering kingly pageantry, Cyrano de Bergerac and the emblem of the cockerel.
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16min
April 06, 2025 Eccentrics: Why do they grow in Britain and not in France?
It's Muriel's turn to express admiration of the vivid anarchic creativity of British eccentrics, and to ask if there is something in the water.
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17min
April 05, 2025 Insouciance: What is it and can the British ever achieve it?
Suzanne's first choice of French word du jour. Vanessa Paradis embodies it. A paradox: there is nothing harder to pull off than insouciance, the art of not caring.
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20min
April 04, 2025 The Theatre of Horrors: How the visceral Grand-Guignol thrilled Paris to the core
In which Muriel tells Suzanne about the rise and fall of the once ultra-fashionable Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, where, not far from the Moulin-Rouge, the fears of the Belle-Epoque and interwar years – from crazed surgeons and escaped lunatics to the Modern Woman wielding sulphuric acid – were staged with an immersive, hallucinatory intensity.

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1h 4min
March 29, 2025 Trailer: Garlic & Pearls Cordiale Corkers
Great excitement at Garlic & Pearls HQ: the anniversary of the Entente Cordiale between France and Britain is near. To celebrate, Muriel and Suzanne tell each other what they find most intriguing about each other’s culture!
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2min
March 28, 2025 Rescue Puppies: The whys and wherefores of Britain’s unparalleled devotion to animals
Suzanne reflects on British attitudes to animals, from the Reverend Humphrey Primatt’s ‘animal theology’ to the founding of the RSPCA 200 years ago and later eruptions of violent pro-animal activism.
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1h 4min

FAQs about Garlic & Pearls:

How many episodes does Garlic & Pearls have?

The podcast currently has 66 episodes available.