The Sporkful

Dan Pashman

3x James Beard Award winner. Named one of TIME's 100 Best Podcasts Of All Time. We obsess about food to learn more about people. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. Hosted by Dan Pashman, inventor of the viral pasta shape cascatelli.

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of The Sporkful ad-free. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Play

Open in

34 episodes
a few times a week
Avg 37 min
English

Episodes 34

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

#922
Yesterday · 40 min
Live: The Great Yogurt Feud
If someone asked you to name the country that dominates American yogurt aisles, you would undoubtedly say Greece. Thick Greek yogurt makes up more than half of all US yogurt sales. But shaking its fist from the shadows is another country that’s even more obsessed with yogurt: Bulgaria.
#921
Friday · 40 min
Traveling Back In Time For Coconut Cake (Reheat)
Dan goes on an adventure around Los Angeles, starting at the airport. Where is he going? He doesn't know.
#920
September 14 · 33 min
Why Did Carla Lalli Write A Cookbook About Her Divorce?
Thirty years into her career as a chef and cookbook author, Carla Lalli is releasing a book many people told her she shouldn’t write. It’s called Food Is A Feeling, and it’s a lot more personal than her others.
#919
September 11 · 36 min
Why Won’t Anyone Invite Michael Pollan To Dinner? (Reheat)
You know that friend of yours who rails against the evils of high fructose corn syrup? The one who’s obsessed with where every single morsel of their food comes from? Writer Michael Pollan — author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and Cooked — may have made your friend like that.
#918
September 7 · 36 min
After His Father’s Murder, Carlos Frías Found Solace In Miami’s Ventanitas
Fernando Frías was a successful cafe and restaurant owner in Havana, but when Fidel Castro came to power, the government nationalized Fernando’s businesses and imprisoned him when he tried to leave the country. Eventually he got out, settling near Miami like so many other Cuban expats. Even though Fernando never went back to Cuba, he was always searching for pieces of his homeland in the Cuban-American community in Miami.
#917
September 4 · 30 min
"No Murder, Yes Pork Chops," Says Comic Negin Farsad (Reheat)
Negin Farsad loves to negotiate. And when it comes to negotiating, nothing is off-limits — even religious law. "I feel like Allah would be like, 'Get the pork chop but don't kill anybody,'" the Iranian-American Muslim comedian and host of Fake the Nation says. This week, Negin uses her lamb kebab to school us on campaign finance reform.
#916
August 31 · 40 min
Does The World Need A Better Tomato?
In New Jersey, the tomato is king. Almost a century ago, a scientist at Rutgers University developed a variety that became the tomato that lined grocery store shelves for decades. Now, Rutgers scientists are at it again.
August 28 · 18 min
The Single Mom Who Changed Myrtle Beach Dining Gets Her Due
When Dan had to plan his mom’s big 80th birthday dinner, he knew just where to take the whole family: Myrtle Beach, SC. The group of ten celebrated at Hook and Barrel, a sustainable seafood and wine restaurant owned by restaurateur Heidi Vukov, who’s a legend in Myrtle Beach. She started out as a single mom who opened a small bakery, and 31 years later became the city’s first James Beard semifinalist.
#915
August 24 · 45 min
Why Are People Hooked On A Fake Food Delivery App?
Can “functional” candy be delicious? Why are people ordering from a fake food delivery app? And should tomatoes be banned from sandwiches?
#914
August 21 · 31 min
Marcus Samuelsson Says French Cuisine Isn't The Gold Standard (Reheat)
Chef Marcus Samuelsson was taught in culinary school that French cuisine is the gold standard of cooking. One day, he realized, “somebody lied." Samuelsson, a black Swede and the youngest chef to ever receive a three-star review from The New York Times (at age 23), has forged a new culinary ethos that permeates his restaurants in Harlem, Montreal, and London.
#913
August 17 · 47 min
Who Killed The Florida Orange?
Like palm trees, the Everglades, Disney World, and “Florida Man,” the orange is a classic symbol of the Sunshine State. But maybe not for much longer. Production has declined more than 95% in less than 25 years, setting off alarm bells across the industry.
#912
August 14 · 44 min
The Rise, Fall, And Redemption of Belgian Waffles (Reheat)
At the 1964 New York World's Fair, Belgian waffles were introduced to America. They became a sensation. But a half-century later, the woman who sold those waffles says her family's legacy has been co-opted.
#911
August 10 · 44 min
This Rare Condition Causes Extreme, Insatiable Hunger
The Rao family in Maryland knew that something was different about their younger daughter, Ayoni, almost as soon as she was born. But it took them until she was five to get a diagnosis of Prader-Willi Syndrome, a rare genetic condition that causes extreme, insatiable hunger. Food needs to be locked away from many of these patients, or they might eat until their stomachs actually rupture.
#910
August 7 · 30 min
Meat Pies In Sweeney Todd On Broadway! (Reheat)
The musical Sweeney Todd is about a barber who goes on a killing spree and disposes of his victims by baking them into meat pies. In an off-Broadway production, they serve you an actual meat pie before the show begins. Dr. Pamela Dalton, a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, helps us understand how food flavors and smells can affect our brains while we’re watching this kind of immersive theater.
#909
August 3 · 39 min
How Do You Prep For The Hardest Beer Test In The World?
Mandy Naglich is an award-winning home brewer who also writes and teaches about beer. Now she wants to become a Master Cicerone — basically the beer equivalent of a master sommelier.
#908
July 31 · 25 min
This Is Your Brain On Cheesesteak (Reheat)
Why do our brains go crazy for the melted cheese on Philly's iconic cheesesteak? What is it about scrapple’s crispy fried goodness? How does surface-area-to-volume ratio make the roast pork sandwich more delicious?
#907
July 27 · 44 min
The Ice Cream Truck Kingpins Of Southern California
Is there anything better than hearing the sound of an ice cream truck approaching? Today we’re bringing you two stories of ice cream trucks, past and present. First, Sporkful managing producer Emma Morgenstern tells the tale of her great-uncles, who owned a fleet of trucks starting in the 1940s — complete with sibling rivalries, California dreaming, and the exact right speed to drive a truck to maximize profits.
#906
July 24 · 36 min
Carla Hall Isn't Going Back To The Frozen Food Section (Reheat)
Carla Hall is known for her quirky, energetic personality on TV. But in some ways she’s very different today from the woman who first appeared as a contestant on Top Chef almost two decades ago. "I didn't want to show up as my Blackness if it wasn't going to be accepted," the former co-host of The Chew says of her first foray into food media.
#905
July 20 · 42 min
2 Chefs And A Lie 2026 With NPR’s Rachel Martin
We’re back with our annual game show: Two Chefs And A Lie! This year our contestant is Rachel Martin, host of the NPR podcast Wild Card and an old friend of Dan’s. The game goes like this: Rachel talks with three guests.
#904
July 17 · 52 min
The Man Who Made 5 Million Burritos (Reheat)
Is the perfect burrito a feat of engineering or art? We debate burrito construction and the Los Angeles/San Francisco rivalry with Jesse Thorn (founder of Maximum Fun and host of Bullseye) and Evan Kleiman (host of KCRW's Good Food). Matt Yglesias (cofounder of Vox Media and author of the Slow Boring newsletter) compares Chipotle burritos to iPhones. And then, Dan and cookbook author/YouTuber Kenji López-Alt take some calls: A wife objects to her husband's embarrassing food hacks, and Kenji expl

Showing 1–20 of 34 episodes