Delicious and thought-provoking stories about food, served fresh from the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery.
Produced by Anna Sigrithur.
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May 2019
Episode 8 Bel Castro – The Grandeur that was Lipa May 29, 2019
Food scholar Bel Castro tells the oft-repeated story from the Philippines about a mythic era in the late 19th century in which wealth abounded for Philippine coffee growers thanks to…
May 2019
Episode 7 Joshna Maharaj – Taking Back the Hospital Tray May 22, 2019
What responsibilities do public institutions have in resisting the corporatization of food? Chef and activist Joshna Maharaj shares the trials, the quirks and the successes of a one-year project to…
May 2019
Episode 6 Bee Wilson – Why Kitchen Technology Matters May 15, 2019
Food writer Bee Wilson traces the genealogy of kitchen utensils and how they shape our lives– from vegetable peelers to paleolithic knives, chopsticks and even the mortar and pestle. She…
May 2019
Episode 5 – Zona Spray Starks – Family, Freezing, and Fermentation in the Arctic May 8, 2019
Arctic culinary scholar Zona Spray Starks explains the diverse culinary techniques of the Iñupiat people of Alaska, and how the seasonal food landscape shaped family relations. While doing so, she…
May 2019
Episode 4 – Andrea Maraschi -Acorns and Civilized Panic May 1, 2019
What do famine foods throughout history tell us about the world in which they were eaten? Medieval food and magic scholar Andrea Maraschi makes a mythical and historical foray into…
April 2019
Episode 3 – Elizabeth Hoover & Sean Sherman – Seeding a Movement for Health and Culture April 24, 2019
Many indigenous communities around North America (Turtle Island) are reclaiming their ancestral seeds after hundreds of years of disconnection due to colonial violence. Chef Sean Sherman and scholar/writer Elizabeth Hoover…
April 2019
Episode 2 – Aylin Öney Tan – The Opium Poppies of Anatolia April 17, 2019
What happens when one people’s traditional food is also an international controlled substance? Turkish architect and food researcher Aylin Öney Tan does a deep dive into the history of opium…
April 2019
Episode 1 – Sandor Katz – Fermentation as Co-Evolutionary Force April 10, 2019
World-renowned fermentation revivalist Sandor Ellix Katz embarks upon a philosophical and biological journey into the origins of multicellular life, and how the multi-species activity of fermenting foods has played a…
May 2018
Episode 6 – Charles Perry, “The Bulls Head Breakfast” May 23, 2018
Food historian and retired LA Times food writer Charles Perry explains how the 19th century Los Angeles practice of earth-pit barbecuing whole bulls became a culinary craze for settlers who…
May 2018
Episode 5 – Amanda Couch, “The Liver is the Message” May 16, 2018
English performance artist and food scholar Amanda Couch reprises the ancient Mesopotamian art of liver divination, and tries to answer questions from mortality to Brexit by reading the lines and…
May 2018
Episode 4 – Voltaire Cang, “Slurp!” May 9, 2018
In Japan, ‘slurp’ is more than just eating-related onomatopoeia. Japanese cultural and food historian Voltaire Cang researches and explores the significance of this important sound in the complex role it…
May 2018
Episode 3 – Fozia Ismail, “More Than Just a Cup of Tea” May 2, 2018
Fozia Ismail, a British-Somali social anthropologist and food activist, challenges the unthinking consumption of foods with roots in colonialism by exploring the ways different people in Brexit-era Britain see the…
April 2018
Episode 2 – Guillemette Barthouil, “The Quantum Offal” April 25, 2018
Third generation French foie gras producer Guillemette Barthouil takes you on a history lesson that spans thousands of years and an ocean as she makes the case that foie gras…
April 2018
Episode 1 – Laura Shapiro, “Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puff” April 18, 2018
What do the Pillsbury Bake Off and molecular gastronomy have in common? Culinary historian and food writer Laura Shapiro unwraps the significance of gender to the prestige afforded to different…
