pplpod

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In 1884 an American writer called chop suey China's national dish, yet in 1903 a visitor from Guangdong wrote that Chinese people in America refused to eat it. This episode looks at what chop suey is, why its name means something like odds and ends or mixed leftovers, and how the term once referred to cooked animal organs.

We debunk the popular origin myths involving railroad workers, Qing statesman Li Hongzhang, and drunk miners in San Francisco, and trace the dish to Taishan in Guangdong. Then we follow how Chinese-American restaurant owners adapted it for American diners, its 1920s popularity with artists and theater crowds, its later label as inauthentic, and why it held on in the Midwest.

• What chop suey means and how the name once referred to cooked organ meats
• Why historians reject the railroad, Li Hongzhang, and San Francisco miner stories
• How the dish traces back to Taishan, the home region of many early Chinese immigrants
• How Chinese-American restaurants adapted chop suey for American tastes to survive
• Why chop suey lost its cool on the coasts but stayed popular in the Midwest

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

On October 5, 1842, a brewery in Pilsen poured a golden, crystal-clear beer unlike the dark, cloudy ales Bohemians were used to. This episode explains the science behind that change, from warm top-fermenting ale yeast to cold, bottom-fermenting lager yeast, and the earlier work of Czech brewer František Ondřej Poupě, who published guidance on brewing in 1794.

We look at how Bavarian brewer Josef Groll combined that method with Pilsen's soft water, Saaz hops, and pale Moravian malt, why the brewery trademarked Pilsner Urquell in 1898, and how Carl von Linde's refrigeration let lagers be brewed anywhere. We also compare Czech, German, European, American, West Coast, and Australian pilsners.

• Why cold, bottom-fermenting yeast makes lager clearer and cleaner than ale
• How Pilsen's soft water, Saaz hops, and pale malt produced a golden beer
• How Pilsner Urquell used trademarks to protect its claim as the original
• How Carl von Linde's refrigeration freed lager brewing from cold caves
• How American brewers added corn or rice to handle high-protein six-row barley

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

That hazy, fruity IPA at your local craft brewery started out as a beer built to survive a months-long voyage from Britain to India. This episode begins with coke-fired malting, which made paler ales possible, and explains how brewers fermented these beers longer and added lots of hops to keep them from spoiling during trips around Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

We follow London brewer George Hodgson's location and credit terms, the Napoleonic blockade that pushed Burton-on-Trent brewers into the India trade, and how Burton's gypsum-rich water made the style shine. Then we trace how World War I rules weakened the IPA and how American craft brewers revived it with Cascade and Chinook hops, leading to double, hazy New England, and black IPAs, and possibly hopless IPAs made with engineered yeast.

• How coke-fired kilns made pale ale possible
• How heavy fermentation and hop alpha acids helped beer survive the trip to India
• How Napoleon's blockade and Burton's gypsum-rich water reshaped the IPA
• How World War I rules and taxes pushed some British IPAs below 4 percent alcohol
• How Bert Grant, Vinnie Cilurzo, and John Kimmich shaped the modern American IPA

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

The saffron crocus is a sterile plant that cannot make seeds, so every saffron plant alive is a clone that humans must dig up, divide, and replant by hand. This episode explains how a plant that could not survive without us became a spice that can cost up to $11,000 a kilogram, needing about 150,000 hand-picked flowers for every kilo.

We break down the three compounds behind saffron's color, flavor, and aroma, including how drying turns bitter picrocrocin into safranal. Then we follow saffron from Persia and Alexander the Great's baths to the Black Death, the 14-week Saffron War, Nuremberg's harsh penalties for fakes, and today's ISO 3632 lab tests. We finish with tips for spotting fakes and how Afghanistan is promoting saffron as an alternative to opium.

• Why the saffron crocus can only spread when humans divide and replant its corms
• How crocin, picrocrocin, and safranal give saffron its color, bitterness, and scent
• How demand during the Black Death led to the Saffron War and Nuremberg's anti-fraud laws
• How ISO 3632 testing and grades like Sargol and Coupe rate saffron quality
• How Afghanistan is turning to saffron in place of opium poppies, with women making up most of the workforce

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

The name Tex-Mex started as an abbreviation for the Texas-Mexican Railway, chartered in 1875, and had nothing to do with food at first. This episode makes the case that Tex-Mex was not invented in a boardroom but grew out of the everyday ranching food of the Tejano people, with beef, goat, flour tortillas, and the cumin brought by Canary Islanders who settled San Antonio in 1731.

We look at how the railroads brought cheap processed cheese that pulled Tejano cooking away from food in Mexico, the invention of nachos in 1943, and the sizzling fajitas that Ninfa's in Houston popularized in 1973. We also cover Felix Tijerina, Diana Kennedy's harsh verdict, and Tex-Mex's unlikely spread to France after the film Betty Blue and to Scandinavia's Taco Friday.

• How the Texas-Mexican Railway gave Tex-Mex its name
• Why cumin, brought by Canary Islanders, became central to Tejano cooking
• How railroads brought cheddar and other processed cheese that set Tex-Mex apart
• The origin stories of nachos, chile con queso, and sizzling fajitas
• How Felix Tijerina, Diana Kennedy, a French film, and Taco Friday shaped Tex-Mex's reputation

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In 1986, a McDonald's opening near Rome's Spanish Steps sparked protests, and that anger grew into the global Slow Food movement. This episode follows Carlo Petrini's push to defend local food culture, the 1989 Slow Food manifesto signed in Paris, and the idea that food should be good, clean, and fair, which the movement calls eco-gastronomy.

We look at how local chapters called convivia run the movement, how the Ark of Taste and Presidia projects try to save endangered foods by getting people to eat them, and how programs in Australia, Latvia, and the Netherlands adapted the model. We also cover the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, the Chipotle partnership, charges of elitism, and the membership losses after 2008.

• What good, clean, and fair mean in Slow Food's approach to eating
• How more than 1,300 local convivia keep the movement decentralized
• How the Ark of Taste and Presidia projects protect endangered foods
• Why Slow Food USA's 2014 Chipotle partnership caused controversy
• How critics call the movement elitist, and how the 2008 recession hit its U.S. membership

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Ramen feels like an ancient Japanese tradition, but it began with Chinese noodle soups in Yokohama's Chinatown in the late 1800s. This episode explains why ramen noodles are cut rather than hand-pulled despite the name's link to lamian, how the dish went from Nanking soba to shina soba to chuka soba, and how Rairaiken in Tokyo helped turn it into Japanese-Chinese fusion in 1910.

We look at postwar Japan's rice shortage, the U.S. wheat flour that flooded the country, and the black market street carts tied to the yakuza, followed by Momofuku Ando's instant ramen in 1958. Then we explain the chemistry of a bowl, from alkaline kansui noodles to clear chintan and creamy paitan broths and the shio, shoyu, and miso tare, plus regional styles and global versions like birria ramen.

• Why the name ramen comes from lamian even though the noodles are cut, not pulled
• How Rairaiken used Cantonese cooks to adapt Chinese noodle soup for Japanese diners
• How the postwar rice shortage, U.S. wheat, and yakuza-run stalls spread ramen
• How kansui gives ramen noodles their chew and yellow color
• How chintan and paitan broths differ, and what makes Sapporo, Hakata, and Kitakata ramen unique

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

In 1560, King Charles IX of France had to order waffle vendors to stay apart because they kept brawling over street corners. This episode traces the waffle from flat cakes the ancient Greeks cooked between hot metal plates, through medieval communion wafer irons and oublie makers, to spices brought back after the Crusades and a 14th-century Paris recipe with wine and cheese.

We explain how beer yeast in 16th-century Belgian recipes led to the deep grid, how the price of sugar made waffles a luxury and then nearly killed the trade, and how electric irons, Eggo's frozen waffles, and the 1964 World's Fair Bel-Gem waffle revived them. We also tour Vietnamese pandan waffles, Hong Kong egg waffles, Scandinavian heart waffles, Hawaii's waffle dog, the croffle, and waffle grids studied for heat sinks.

• Why French waffle vendors fought in the streets and needed a royal order to keep apart
• How beer yeast in a 16th-century Belgian recipe led to the deep-pocket grid
• How cheap beet sugar after the Napoleonic blockade made waffles lose their prestige
• How General Electric, the Dorsa brothers' Eggo, and the 1964 World's Fair revived waffles
• How Vietnam, Hong Kong, Scandinavia, and Hawaii each reinvented the waffle

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

A banh mi is a crackly baguette filled with pâté, cold cuts, pickled vegetables, cilantro, and chili, and its history includes colonial rule, war, and migration. This episode starts in the 1860s, when French colonists brought the baguette to Vietnam as an imported luxury, and explains why the word banh was used for Vietnamese breads and cakes long before the French arrived.

We look at how World War I shipping problems pushed bakers to mix in rice flour, creating a lighter, crispier loaf, and how northern migrants in 1950s Saigon started stuffing it into a portable sandwich. We then follow the sandwich through scarcity after 1975, its comeback with the Doi Moi reforms, the ice cream banh mi, its spread with refugee communities, and debates over fast food versions like KFC's Zinger Banh Mi.

• Why the baguette was a costly import in colonial Vietnam and how the name banh mi arose
• How adding rice flour during World War I created the light, crisp Vietnamese loaf
• How a Saigon bakery opened by northern migrants in 1958 helped create the stuffed sandwich
• How the sandwich faded during the subsidy period and came back with the Doi Moi reforms
• How Vietnamese refugee communities spread banh mi to the U.S., Australia, and the UK

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Doner, gyros, and shawarma all mean turning, which is a clue that this food is defined by how it is cooked. This episode traces the vertical rotisserie back to 19th-century Ottoman cooks in Bursa and Kastamonu, explains how standing the spit upright lets the meat baste itself, and follows the dish into the elite restaurants of 1940s Istanbul.

We follow the spit as migrants carried it to Greece, the Arab world, and Mexico, where Lebanese immigrants helped inspire tacos al pastor. Then we look at Kadir Nurman's 1972 Berlin sandwich and Germany's 3.5 billion euro kebab industry, local versions from the Halifax donair to Dutch kapsalon and Australia's halal snack pack, Turkey's 2022 EU bid to protect the recipe, and food safety rules for kebab meat.

• Why a vertical spit keeps meat juicy by basting it as the fat drips down
• How Greek refugees, Arab cooks, and Lebanese immigrants in Mexico carried the technique abroad
• How Kadir Nurman's portable sandwich at Berlin's Zoo station built a huge German industry
• How the Halifax donair, Rotterdam's kapsalon, and Australia's halal snack pack adapted the dish
• Why Turkey's bid for EU protection of the recipe drew objections from Germany