The Hungry Historians

In this episode of The Hungry Historians Matt and Kelly interview Ken Albala about the history and use of fermentation based around Ken's 2026 book published with University of California Press, The World Atlas of Fermented Foods and Drinks. We discuss what fermentation is, the many fermented foods that there are across the world, and why fermentation is increasingly seen as something of a lost art. 

Ken Albala is an award winning author of thirty books and has taken part in a food-history video series for the Great Courses learning platform. He has previously written Beans: A History which won the IACP Jane Grigson Award in food history, and Three World Cuisines which won the Gourmand Best Foreign Cuisine Book in the World. He is the Tully Knoles Endowed Professor of History at the University of the Pacific. You can learn more about him on his website. 

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

How did the original tin can come about and what happened next to make it such an important part of our everyday ingredients? In this week's The Hungry Historians, Matt and Kelly chat with John Coupland, professor of Food Science at Penn State. Earlier this year, he published Containing Nature: The Ongoing Invention of Canned Food with Springer Nature. In our discussion we examine the history of canning, the micro inventions that made the cans that we know today, and challenges around make tin cans safe.

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

In this episode of The Hungry Historians Matt and Kelly interview Angela Ki Che Leung and Hallam Stevens about their edited book Crafting everyday food: technology, tradition, and transformation in East Asia, published through the University of Hawaii Press in 2025. This exploration of foodways across the east Asian region brings in discussions around new foods, trade, and traditional foods in a variety of contexts.

You can find Hallam Stevens on his website and Angela Ki Che Leung on her website. For more about the project that the book developed out of check out the Making Modernity in East Asia website.

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

This week we discuss the long-durée of food in Ireland, touching on linguistics, archaeology, and history, and discussing topics such as Irish cattle and dairy, honey, bog butter, and potatoes. We were very happy to chat with Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire and Dorothy Cashman on this subject, following the publication of their edited collection Irish Food History: A Companion, published in 2024 by the Royal Irish Academy. 

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

This week we interview Adriana Sohodoleanu on her latest book Sărut-mâna pentru masă (which translates as Kiss your hand for the meal). This anthology book brings together ethnographic and literary texts and recipes to highlight the richness of Romania's historical regions. 

Sărut-mâna pentru masă is published in Romanian by Carturesti Press and was released in 2025. 

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

For a long time New Orleans sold food to the public through public markets, much like those found in Paris at the time. This was in contrast to how food was largely sold elsewhere in the United States. In this week's The Hungry Historians, we explore the New Orleans public markets, considering their strengths and weaknesses, and whether they might represent an alternative way for food purchasing in the future. 

We are very pleased to have with us for this discussion Ashley Rose Young. She published on this subject in 2025 with her Oxford University Press book Nourishing Networks: The Public Culture of Food in New Orleans. You can find more about Ashley on her website. 

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

The rise of indigenous restaurants in Canada since the 1970s has helped to surface the foodways of indigenous peoples but has also helped to highlight the colonial repression of these older foods and cultures. In this week’s The Hungry Historians, we discuss the contrast of settler colonialism and indigenous resistance through the role played by restaurants. L. Sasha Gora wrote on this subject in her 2025 book, Culinary Claims: Indigenous Restaurant Politics in Canada, which was published by University of Toronto Press.

Our conversation with Sasha ranges from the politics of colonialism as played out through food to the purpose and symbolism of indigenous restaurants, including just what we really mean by the term indigenous restaurant.  

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

Sauces are often important parts of a meal, but a part that we don’t think too much about when studying the history of food. In this week’s episode Kelly A. Spring discusses how sauces define our meals and influence the way we think about ourselves and the food that we eat. This discussion is with Andrew Donnelly, Beth M. Forrest and Deirdre Murphy, authors of an edited collection called From Garum to Mole: Sauces and Identity in the Western World, which was released by the Oxford University Press in 2026.

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

When Elizabeth A. DeWolfe delved into her sources about the notorious case of Madeleine Pollard verses her former lover, Congressman William C.P. Breckinridge, she discovered that food was used as a clue and a method of connection for Jane Tucker (using the alias Agnes Parker), the woman Breckinridge employed to spy on Madeleine. In this week’s episode of The Hungry Historians, Matt Phillpott and Kelly Spring talk with Elizabeth DeWolfe about her research and how food became an essential ingredient in the tale of an eighteenth century American scandal.

Elizabeth DeWolfe published this research in 2025  as Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of A Gilded Age Spy, through the University Press of Kentuck. You can learn more about Elizabeth at her website https://www.elizabethdewolfe.com.

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.

Tomatoes arrived in Egypt in the 16th century but quickly became ubiquitous with Egyptian foodways. In this episode we talk with Anny Gaul, an assistant professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Maryland. Anny published in 2025, Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian culinary history of the tomato, through the University of California Press. She also runs the popular food blog Cooking with Gaul.

You can learn more about Anny Gaul on her website and buy her book on the University of California Press website and other bookstores.

This episode is sponsored by ⁠⁠Bloomsbury Food Library⁠⁠,  an essential resource for students, researchers, and scholars studying food, offering the widest-ranging existing collection of food studies content.