The Sporkful

“So often when we talk about veganism, we don't imagine Black people,” says Bryant Terry, the James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, chef, and educator. But Bryant sees veganism as deeply rooted in Black communities and traditions. And, he points out, veganism is growing faster among Black Americans than among any other group.

We’re back with the latest on Cascatelli, the new pasta shape that Dan invented. Now that the chaos around Cascatelli’s launch has died down, Dan has to make some big decisions about what to do next — with help from his cousin Carrie and die maker Chris Maldari. Then while Sfoglini upgrades their factory and tries to get the pasta into stores and restaurants, Dan explores other opportunities. Can he land the kind of deal he’s hoping for? Plus: Dan puts his mom to work developing recipes for Cascatelli.

Order your limited edition cascatelli gift box now at Sfoglini.com! And use The Fresh Market’s store locator to find cascatelli in a store near you. //

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Transcript available at  www.sporkful.com

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Patti LaBelle is not just a music icon, she’s also a food icon. She’s written best-selling cookbooks, hosted a food TV show, and even cooked for Elton John, The Rolling Stones, and Prince. Back in July, she released the 20th anniversary edition of her first cookbook, LaBelle Cuisine. She talks with Dan about touring the segregated South in the ‘60s, the viral video that made her sweet potato pie a Walmart sensation, and the one recipe in her cookbook that’s perfect for women going through menopause. Plus food writer Adrian Miller joins us to discuss why Patti’s sweet potato pie has particular significance in the Black community. //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Pati Jinich has always had to move between worlds — as a Jew growing up in Mexico, and as a Mexican immigrant to the US, where she first worked as a policy analyst. “It wasn’t until I switched to cooking,” she tells us this week, “that I was finally able to make sense of all the pieces of myself.” Since that transition she’s spent a decade documenting Mexico’s vast and varied food cultures in her cookbooks, and on her PBS show Pati’s Mexican Table, which is watched by more than 65 million people around the world. Her new docu-series, La Frontera, is more political, examining the US-Mexico border, and the people who navigate the two worlds between it. It’s also her most personal work yet. She talks with Dan about why this show is so important to her. Plus she peers into his fridge over Zoom, and tells us about a deep fried quesadilla in Jalisco that she’ll never forget. //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

A few months back, we got an email that set us off on an adventure. It came from Sara Bir, an author and recipe developer who’s obsessed with pawpaws, the largest fruit native to North America. “Pawpaws are tricky in the kitchen,” Sara wrote. “You can't buy them in stores. Occasionally they cause people to vomit. But pawpaws are truly beguiling, reminiscent of tropical fruit like mangoes and bananas.” With the help of her connections in the pawpaw dark web, Sara had identified one of the few pawpaw patches in the New York area. Can Dan and Sara find a pawpaw in the wild? And why does the pawpaw — also known as the poor man’s banana and hillbilly mango — inspire such a cultish following? //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Stanley Tucci nearly broke the internet last year when he made a Negroni on Instagram. But long before that, the award-winning actor built his career around his love of food. He created the iconic food film Big Night, he’s written best-selling cookbooks, and he eats his way through Italy in a new CNN series. Now he’s released a memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food, which includes the revelation that a few years ago he battled oral cancer, which changed his relationship with food forever. He and Dan discuss that and much more, including the art of eating on camera. //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

In the last 15 years, Nashville hot chicken has become a hot trend. But for decades before that, hot chicken was well known among Nashville’s Black community. For generations, you could only get it at the place where it was invented: Prince’s Hot Chicken. Now with attention from the likes of Beyoncé and Guy Fieri, Prince’s has gone from being a neighborhood institution to a Nashville landmark — and many imitators have come along. Dan travels to Nashville and speaks with André Prince Jeffries, who’s been running Prince’s for more than 40 years. She talks about Nashville’s history of segregation, serving members of the KKK, and the complicated racial dynamics behind this food trend. When white chefs and restaurateurs cash in on a dish created by Black people, who benefits? //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Chef Joe Flamm grew up in a big Italian family, where there was always sauce bubbling on the stove. The rule of the house was: if you walked in the kitchen, you stirred the sauce. Since then Joe has worked in Michelin-starred restaurants, won Season 15 of Top Chef, and now opened his first restaurant in Chicago, Rose Mary. It’s named after his two grandmothers and inspired by his Italian heritage. Like Dan, Joe has strong opinions about pasta, but he takes sauce just as seriously. Joe tells Dan why rigatoni carbonara will always win out over spaghetti carbonara, when it’s better to skip fresh pasta and go with the dried stuff, and the one thing you never want to do when saucing any kind of pasta. 

This episode is sponsored by Bertolli. Their new Bertolli d’Italia sauces are made in Italy, crafted with vine-ripened tomatoes under the Italian sun, finely-aged Italian cheeses, fresh cream, and Mediterranean olive oil. Find sauces, recipes and meal inspiration at bertolli.com/ditalia. //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Since we first had Padma Lakshmi on The Sporkful in 2016, a lot has changed — in the world, and for her. She’s become a vocal activist, speaking out on immigration and women’s rights, and sharing more of her own personal experience in the process. She created and hosts a food travel show, Taste the Nation, that looks at the immigrant experience through the lens of food. She’s also just published her first children’s book, Tomatoes for Neela, all while continuing to host Top Chef. This week Padma reflects on the rejections she faced when pitching her show, the aspect of her work that she resents the most, and how she’s finally taken more control over her own career. //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

For two decades, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has been one of the most popular snacks in America. In recent years its legend has grown, as word spread that they were invented by Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor at Frito-Lay who went on to become a company executive. The story made Montañez something of a Latino icon, with two memoirs and a soon-to-be-released biopic based on his life. But when a journalist at the L.A. Times started looking into this feel-good story, he found a very different tale. //

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Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.