Gastropod

By: Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley
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  • Summary

  • Food with a side of science and history. Every other week, co-hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley serve up a brand new episode exploring the hidden history and surprising science behind a different food- or farming-related topic, from aquaculture to ancient feasts, from cutlery to chile peppers, and from microbes to Malbec. We interview experts, visit labs, fields, and archaeological digs, and generally have lots of fun while discovering new ways to think about and understand the world through food. Find us online at gastropod.com, follow us on Twitter @gastropodcast, and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/gastropodcast.
    2021 Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley
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Art World Cooking Science
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Episodes
  • Smashing Pumpkin Myths: What's Big, Orange, and Having an Identity Crisis?

    Smashing Pumpkin Myths: What's Big, Orange, and Having an Identity Crisis?
    Sep 17 2024
    It’s already begun: that time of the year now known across the land as Decorative Gourd Season. Squash are everywhere—carved into jack o’lanterns on front porches, adorning our sideboards and porches with strange shapes and autumn colors, and of course, baked into pies for fall celebrations. But get ready to rethink squash, because despite their slightly cheesy House Beautiful vibe and family-friendly pumpkin patch associations, they are—and we quote—"the most interesting plants in the world." Join us this episode as we explore our surprisingly long entanglement with the cucurbit family, from its star role as the very first plant domesticated in the Americas to the can of Libby's behind nine out of every ten pumpkin pies. Along the way, we figure out what on Earth the difference actually is between a squash and a pumpkin, and we get a sneak peek into the weird and wonderful world of giant pumpkins, where growers compete to break the two-ton barrier with fruits the size of a compact car. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • Meet the Queen of Kiwi: The 96-Year-Old Woman Who Transformed America's Produce Aisle (ENCORE)

    Meet the Queen of Kiwi: The 96-Year-Old Woman Who Transformed America's Produce Aisle (ENCORE)
    Sep 10 2024
    The produce section of most American supermarkets in the 1950s was minimal to a fault, with only a few dozen fruits and vegetables to choose from: perhaps one kind of apple, one kind of lettuce, a yellow onion, a pile of bananas. Today, grocery stores routinely offer hundreds of different fruits and vegetables, many of which would be unrecognizable to time travelers from a half century ago. What changed, and how did Americans learn to embrace spaghetti squash, sugar snap peas, and kiwi fruit? This episode, we tell the story of the woman behind this transformation: Frieda Caplan, the Queen of Kiwi. (Encore) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • Deli is Short For Delicious—But Are Your Pastrami and Bologna Sandwiches Giving You Cancer?

    Deli is Short For Delicious—But Are Your Pastrami and Bologna Sandwiches Giving You Cancer?
    Sep 3 2024
    School’s back in session, and kids are boarding the bus with lunchboxes in tow. Many of them contain sandwiches stuffed with turkey and ham slices, bologna, even salami—but where did these staples of the lunch break, not to mention the charcuterie platter, come from? Long before the 1900s meat-cute that birthed the deli sandwich, preserved meats were a standby in human diets: from dried yak cured in salt in the Himalayas, to pork fermented into salami in Italy, to beef pressed in the saddle and pickled in horse sweat in Central Asia, people all over the world invented ways to make meat inhospitable to microbes, more portable—and even more delicious! But, in recent years, these meats have gotten a bad name: in 2015, the World Health Organization even labeled them a carcinogen. So should you chuck the corned beef for the sake of your health? This episode, join us for a deep dive on the science behind whether your charcuterie could kill you—plus, the story of how cured meats became a staple of American diet and culture, thanks to German immigrants and Jewish delis, military-manufactured meat glue, and some truly orgasmic sliced pastrami on rye. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    53 mins

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