Laurie Woolever is a food writer in New York, but she’s probably best known for two other jobs she’s held: an assistant to Mario Batali, and an assistant to and collaborator with Anthony Bourdain. Laurie was working with Bourdain when he took his own life in 2018. After his death, she published Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography. Now she’s tel…

81-year-old Patsy Grimaldi may be the last person making pizza today who trained under someone who trained at Lombardi's—the first pizzeria in American history. Dan sits down with Patsy and his wife Carol to discuss slice folding technique, the art and science of using a coal oven, what she taught him about pizza, and the scourge of pineapple pizza…

Why is the bird flu outbreak that’s currently driving up egg prices different from past outbreaks? Are new tariffs about to make your groceries more expensive? And, perhaps most importantly, are Capri-Sun pouches about to disappear? We tackle these hard hitting questions, and a lot more, in this edition of the Salad Spinner, our rapid-fire roundtab…

Mimi Sheraton has seen it all in her 92 years. In this Reheat of our spinoff podcast from 2018, Ask Mimi, the legendary food critic offers advice on food and life to live callers and celebrity guests. The Sporkful's Dan Pashman moderates. In this episode, humorist Mo Rocca joins Mimi and Dan live on stage to ask for help with an issue involving his…

Monday through Saturday, Devin Pickard and his family run Papa KayJoe's BBQ in Centerville, Tennessee. But on Sundays, Devin trades the BBQ pit for the pulpit at Hope Church, the non-denominational congregation where he preaches. In many ways, food is a natural fit for a southern preacher, but there are other, less obvious ways Devin's two professi…

We're reheating this episode in honor of Chef Charles Phan, owner of The Slanted Door, who recently died. In 2016, he showed us the right way to eat the Vietnamese noodle soup pho. Then we take a deep dive into the science of soup slurping with a researcher who studies the mechanics of eating. This episode originally aired on February 14, 2016, and…

Edna Lewis was one of the first Black women to write a successful mainstream cookbook about the South. She talked about seasonality and farm-to-table cooking long before it got trendy, and she tied that approach to the way she grew up in Virginia. So why isn’t Edna Lewis better known? And who exactly was this person who changed the way Americans th…

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 nei…

The South is known for fantastic gas station food, and on today’s show, Dan takes a road trip from Birmingham to Memphis to try some out for himself. He travels across Alabama and Mississippi, eating pimento cheese sandwiches, tacos, fried chicken on a stick, sushi, and a very specific regional pasta dish. He also talks with the people behind these…

Dan talks to Matt Reynolds, director and star of the new documentary comedy The Great Chicken Wing Hunt, about the search for perfection in love and Buffalo wings. This episode originally aired on January 26, 2014, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Giulia Leo…

Dan is live on stage in Memphis with famed local restaurateur Karen Blockman Carrier! Karen grew up Orthodox Jewish in Memphis, and she wanted to be a painter. But after a chance meeting with a caterer in a smoke-filled bathroom stall in New York City, she decided to focus on food. Karen shares the twists and turns of her life, from a disastrous da…

We're revisiting two "Call-In Smorgasbord" episodes from 2011, which were all about settling scores, issuing opinions, and learning about your kitchen innovations. In part one, we tackle a debate between an engaged couple, both philosophers, who want help answering the existential question: "Is it soup?" In part two, we take calls from a couple of …

Why do some recipes just work while others are hit-or-miss? And is there a better way to write recipes overall? Last week we talked about how some recipes deceive you into thinking they’re easier than they are. This week we look at what makes a great recipe. Dan talks with Chandra Ram, who judged the prestigious IACP Awards, where she put recipes f…

What did dinosaur eggs taste like? In what shape would Jane Austen likely have had her dessert served to her? What does one of the world's leading paleontologists think of the paleo diet? How do you get maggots out of boiled sheep in the Gobi Dessert? How do you make ice cream on an uninhabited island in Madagascar in the summer? And how many ancie…

If you look at any list of best-selling cookbooks, certain words come up over and over again: quick, easy, fast, effortless. But is it actually possible to deliver deliciousness in no time? Or are these recipes too good to be true? This week, we talk with intrepid journalist Tom Scocca, who exposed the dirty secret about caramelized onions; recipe-…

Dan sits down with the one and only "Weird Al" Yankovic, the man behind "Eat It," "Fat," "My Bologna," and so many other classic food-related parody songs. What would be his ideal ratio of cookie to white stuff in an Oreo? And which does he prefer, the rye or the kaiser? Plus, Dan takes issue with Al's suggestion in "Eat It" that it doesn't matter …

Happy anniversary to us! This week The Sporkful is celebrating our 15th anniversary with a special episode sharing the story of the show’s creation, and tracing its evolution. Dan started The Sporkful in 2010 — the Stone Age of podcasting — recording episodes in his living room, or borrowed studios that he sometimes had permission to be in. But wha…