One of the things that really helped with traveling so much in the past year was listening to my favorite foodie podcasts. In this blog post, I’ll share my top five, plus one honorable mention (because it’s not exactly a food podcast).
I just discovered Gastropod very recently. Gastropod bills itself as looking at food through the lens of science and history, which I absolutely love. I’m always looking for more information about the food I eat – and often look at a particular food and think to myself “I wonder who the first human being was who looked at this food stuff and thought, hmm, this looks tasty?” Gastropod answers that question for me and more. I recently listened to a great podcast all about oysters and oyster farming. Gastropod also led me to discover the book Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker which is all about the culture and science around wine tasting. Gastropod is hosted by Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley and it is totally apparent that they both really respect and love food.
I’ve listened to Spilled Milk for quite a while (a couple of years, maybe?). I love its absolutely irreverent humor. It’s hosted by Molly Wizenberg and Matthew Amster-Burton who explore a new food topic in each episode. The topics range far and wide, from radicchio to gas station candy. Every now and then a listener will send in a treat box from another culture and Molly and Matthew will both taste and describe what they are eating. They post links to some of the recipes they discuss on Spilled Milk Podcast website. Strangely enough, one of the episodes that most sticks in my head is one about celery – I was driving back from a meeting on the Oregon coast and recall thinking a lot about celery as I drove through Elkton, Oregon and past a cow barn. It’s funny the memories that stick around.
I’m pretty sure I discovered Homesteady via Spilled Milk. While Homesteady is not exclusively about food, I count it as a foodie podcast. Some of the more recent episodes include how to catch a fish, whether or not to get pigs if you have a homestead, and raising meat chickens. One of the things that I love about Homesteady is that they do a cost analysis of many of their projects to see if it is really more economical to raise chickens, can your own food, and so on. I think I love this one so much because it really delves deeper into the issue of how does our food become our food? That and, someday, when I retire, I’m getting chickens and having a great big garden.
Burnt Toast is Food 52’s awesome podcast. It’s hosted by Kenzi Wilbur and has gone in a bit of new direction this season. If you listen to older episodes, there was definitely an emphasis on segments about some of the greatest foodies – like Nigella Lawson. The new direction is focused more on the story behind how food intersects with our daily lives, with episodes on things like why there isn’t a pie emoji and the Kit Kat candy jingle that almost wasn’t. In any incarnation, it’s definitely worth listening to. It’s from Burnt Toast that I discovered Food 52’s Genius Recipes cookbook, which is one of the few cookbooks I’ve dragged with me on my latest move. If you love food and pop culture, Burnt Toast is the perfect podcast for you.
The Fare Traveler is a new podcast, hosted by Stacey at Little Figgy Food. Stacey’s podcast is focused on the connections between food, travel, memory, and blogging. She highlights a food blogger in each podcast. What I love most about this podcast is that it features the real live bloggers behind some really beautiful food blogs. I love hearing more about what motivates food bloggers: what foods they love, what inspired them, their food tips and tricks. I’m also not ashamed to admit that Fix Me a Little Lunch has been featured on The Fare Traveler.
Honorable Mention:
This is not a food podcast. Its focus is entirely on true crime and not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. However, that said, they start each episode off with a martini recipe. Thus, martinis and murder. I started listening to this a few months ago and am totally hooked. Some of the martini recipes sound pretty amazing, too – I’d likely be making some of them, but I’m always driving when I listen, so never get around to writing down the ingredients after. Still, every time I listen to this one, I want to make a martini, so that’s not a bad thing, right?
Download these from I-Tunes. Let me know in the comments below – what are your favorite foodie podcasts?
