Hungry for History with Eva Longoria and Maite Gomez-Rejón

This week, Eva and Maite trace the layered history of Los Angeles through four places that reveal the city’s shifting identity: the Los Angeles River, Placita Olvera, Chinatown, and Boyle Heights. Long before freeways and concrete channels, the LA River sustained Indigenous communities and shaped the city’s earliest settlements. From there, they move into the heart of Los Angeles at Olvera Street, where questions of her...

Maite is joined by artist Monica Martinez, the founder of Don Bugito, a pioneering edible insect business that blends design, sustainability, and food innovation. The conversation moves between industrial design and the realities of industrialized food systems, highlighting Monica’s work raising edible insects on an organic farm in Oakland, CA. They trace the deep culinary roots of insects in Mexico, explore flavor combinatio...

In this episode, Eva and Maite explore the long global history of eating insects—an ancient practice shared across cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. They unpack how insects have moved to the forefront of modern food conversations, reshaping what we consider food in a changing world. Along the way, they consider the nutritional power of insects as a rich source of protein and their growing role in sustainable food sy...

Eva and Maite trace the evolution of the fair from holy day marketplaces to the grand World’s Fairs of the 19th and 20th centuries, where visitors encountered sensational visions of the future. Think electricity and dishwashers, but also popcorn machines, ice cream sundaes, and even tequila! Yet these spectacles were far from democratic: intellectual, artistic, and technological contributions from non-Western societies were o...

Eva and Maite continue their burger series with the invention of the Happy Meal and the powerful marketing of fast food to families. Along the way, they spotlight the often overlooked contributions of women and trace the evolution of the burger from fast food staple to gourmet icon, including the rise of the smashburger. As the burger crosses borders, it transforms, absorbing local flavors and traditions. This episode reveals how o...

Eva and Maite kick off a two-part series on burgers by tracing their roots long before the bun. They begin with the global history of minced meat, follow its path to the United States, where the hamburger starts to take shape, find its perfect match in the bun, and win the heart of America. From early 20th century fears around contaminated beef to the rise of drive-ins and drive-thrus, they explore how car culture transformed the b...

Dinnerware tells a story far beyond the table—it’s a history of technology, aesthetics, trade, empire, and everyday life. In this episode, Eva and Maite begin with a simple question: what came first, the dish or the bowl? From humble clay vessels to fine porcelain and paper plates, they trace how what we eat from is a reflection of how we live, how we dine, and how we connect with one another.

Sevres Porcelain Manufacto...

This week, Eva and Maite sip the history of Mexico’s aguas frescas, from pre-Columbian fruit waters to the sweet, creamy evolution of horchata. Explore how these refreshing drinks traveled across continents, transformed with local ingredients, and became beloved in markets from Mexico to Central America and beyond.

Maite’s Horchata Recipe: https://www.artbites.net/recipes/mexicanhorchata 

See omnystudio.com/lis...

Eva and Maite head to the kitchen to prepare a deconstructed bacon wrapped hot dog recipe from Eva’s new cookbook. And they share lots of history of course! From the earliest references to sausages in antiquity, to how said sausage found two warm pieces of bread to snuggle into, how immigrants transformed it into our favorite baseball food and how the humble sausage found bacon and chiles in Mexico. This episode is all about creati...

Eva and Maite explore how cooking shifted from open flames to enclosed heat, tracing ovens from communal hearths and clay domes to cast-iron and white enamel ranges, Easy-Bake Ovens, microwaves, and the sleek stainless-steel kitchen aesthetic. Once sites of ritual and gathering, ovens migrated into private homes, reshaping daily life and defining who controlled heat, food, and time. These changes cast fire as clean, modern, orderly...

The Industrial Revolution didn’t just remake factories and cities, it transformed how the world eats. In this episode, Eva and Maite trace its origins in England and its uneven spread across the United States and Latin America, shaping labor, extraction, and global trade in very different ways. They explore how these industrial systems laid the groundwork for today’s climate crisis, then zoom in on tuna and tinned fish....

Breakfast hasn’t always been sweet, crunchy, or aimed at children. In this episode, Eva and Maite trace the surprisingly strange history of cereal: from its origins as a moral prescription and digestive aid in the 19th century, to the rise of sugary cartoon mascots, toys in boxes, the nostalgia of Saturday-morning cartoons, and the modern return to ancient grains. Join them for a crunchy look at how breakfast reflects our shi...

What do arepas, gorditas, and pupusas have in common? Each is a golden pocket of corn masa — crisp on the outside, tender within — stuffed with everything from beans and cheese to meats and vegetables. In this episode, Eva and Maite explore the histories behind the Venezuelan and Colombian arepa, the Mexican gordita, and the Salvadoran pupusa, and ask a bigger question: why do stuffed foods taste so good?

Along the way,...

Butter is so ordinary we barely notice it — until you stop and ask how it’s made, who made it first, and why it once symbolized power, wealth, and even ritual life. In this episode, Eva and Maite trace butter’s story from its accidental invention to its central place in religious and ceremonial traditions. They explore how butter became one of the earliest globally traded foods, prized for its portability, shelf l...

Eva and Maite opened the season with a series on revolutions, asking a simple but urgent question: what does it take for people to finally say, enough? 

This week, Maite talks with Clémence de Lutz of Santa Monica’s Petitgrain Boulangerie about bread, strikes, and social responsibility. A baker and activist, Clémence reflects on food as a political act and how our everyday choices carry real weight. It&rsqu...

Spoiler: mushrooms aren’t plants, they’re fungi! Eva and Maite dig into the history of mushrooms and why they exist on every continent on Earth. From the sacred mushroom ceremonies of María Sabina in Oaxaca to the ritual significance of huitlacoche, the Mexican corn fungus, and the global obsession (and hunt for) truffles, they uncover how fungi have shaped food, medicine, myths, and culture.

See omnystudio.com/li...

From its origins in Indigenous South America to its rise as a global symbol of wealth and migration, Eva and Maite explore the surprising history of the pineapple. They trace its journey across the Atlantic, where it became a prized status symbol among European aristocrats—so rare it was sometimes rented for dinner parties instead of eaten!

The story then moves to Hawaii, where plantation agriculture turned the pineapple into...

In Aztec mythology the fertility goddess, Mayahuel, is the personification of the agave plant - the source of some of the most delicious spirits in Mexican culture. Eva and Maite talk about the ritual significance of pulque, a fermented drink, to the introduction of distillation techniques post-conquest and the first mezcal, all while drinking margaritas! Ivan Vasquez, owner of Madre Restaurant in Los Angeles, shares his thoughts o...