Spice Bags
Sometimes the clearest way to see yourself is through a foreigner's eyes. Named after everyone's favorite Chinese-Irish deep-fried drunk snack, Spice Bags is a podcast about food in Ireland and beyond. Multi-cultural hosts Blanca, Mei and Dee--a Spanish food researcher, a Chinese American writer, and an Irish writer and editor--ask questions like: How did one enterprising Indian expat create a market for Indian cuisine in Dublin? Why are so many Irish cheeses made by women? Why is Irish tea different from that in the rest of the world? We also talk to the immigrants who are shaping the new Irish culinary scene. Find answers, laughs and interviews with Ireland's most interesting chefs and authors here. Spice Bags is part of the HeadStuff Podcast Network (https://www.headstuff.org/spice-bags)
Episodes
May 12, 2023 • 41 mins
After four wonderful years of episodes, we at Spice Bags are bowing out. While we do announce this with a heavy heart, we – Blanca, Dee, and Mei – wish to end on a high after publishing our very own cookbook Blasta Books 5: Soup, and at a moment when we are still passionate about the issues Spice Bags has uncovered, and the individuals we have befriended.
In this final episode, we recount our journey from its foundation to our man...
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April 6, 2023 • 58 mins
While Dee and Mei have bonded about their passion about fast food over the years, it was a surprise that our elegant Blanca nurses a passion for White Castle and corn dogs.
What is fast food? Is it simply chains like McDonalds, Super Macs, and Burger King? Or does fast food also encompass street food stalls, where generations of families have perfected one dish, which – as it is in McDonalds – is made for the customer in minutes....
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March 9, 2023 • 56 mins
Nigeria is a complex place, in terms of food, history, geography, and its three hundred
plus ethnicities. Edizemi Onilenla, or Emi, founder of the culinary brand Mama Shee,
grew up in Nigeria. Victory Nwabu-Ekeoma, founder of Bia! Zine is from Dundalk. Emi
is Yoruba, and Victory is Igbo. Emi says, ‘every tribe has its own vegetable.’
Emi came to Ireland as a social worker and then started cooking the food of her home,
which she sta...
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February 20, 2023 • 55 mins
Journalist Ali Dunworth and Blanca talk about their recent trip to the Asturias region in
Spain, where they were pampered with cider, veal, cheese, and conservas. Oviedo, the
capital, is on the Camino Norte, the famous pilgrim walk that winds its way through the
north of Spain.
Listen to them as they chat about cider, which ranges from a champagne-like fizz to an
uncarbonated brew that is pungent with apples, and which is often po...
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February 1, 2023 • 49 mins
We talk to American-born editor, writer, and publisher, Kristin Jensen, who has had
quite the year. Founder of Blasta Books and Nine Bean Rows Books, as well as the
long-form magazine Scoop magazine (helmed by our own Dee Laffan), Kristin has been
shaking things up on the Irish food scene.
Her first endeavour, Tacos, written by our friend and guest Lily Ramirez, attracted
international attention. She’s published our mate and guest ...
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January 19, 2023 • 43 mins
Welcoming Lunar New Year the K-Way with Gunmoo Kim & Soonie Delap
South Korea is a country that is a pioneer of pop music, cinema, television, fashion, and cuisine. In this episode, we talk to Gunmoo Kim and Soonie Delap as they reminisce about the Korean Lunar New Year.
Our guests are from different generations and backgrounds. Gunmoo came to Ireland in 2010, founded Jaru, a food enterprise that meshes modern Korean cooking wi...
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December 28, 2022 • 44 mins
In our Spice Bags Christmas Special Episode, we celebrate with Marcus O’Laoire, DJ, chef and owner of D8 pubs Anti-Social and Jackie’s, and Chris Mellon of Blackberry Café and creator of Dublin Social.
Marcus and Chris are also the co-hosts of the award-winning HeadStuff podcast That’s Bangin’, which makes them friends, colleagues, and occasional rivals!
We are all from different cultures and upbringings, so it was joyful to rem...
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December 14, 2022 • 61 mins
Shamzuri (Sham) Hanifa, is a beloved denizen of the Irish food scene. Based in Leitrim, he is the award-winning chef and owner of the Cottage Restaurant, Buffalo Boy, and Chef Sham Sauces. His new restaurant, My Kitchen, will also feature cooking classes.
Vikkineshwaran (Vik) Siva Subramaniam is a medical doctor and surgeon whose South Indian father founded Babas, the leading spice and curry mix brand in Malaysia.
Our two guests wa...
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December 1, 2022 • 37 mins
Cake is more decadent than brioche or stollen, in that it is leavened with eggs, enriched with butter, and sweetened with sugar.
To quote Nicola Humble, author of Cakes, A Global History: “Cakes are very strange things, producing a range of emotional responses far out of keeping with their culinary significance.”
The idea of cake opens many questions. Did the ancient Romans, who nibbled on honey flatbreads, have “cake”? Can a cake ...
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November 16, 2022 • 51 mins
Blanca, Dee and Mei recorded this special live episode in Kells Courthouse, Tourism and Cultural Hub at Samhain Festival 2022 – Celebrating 5,000 years of Food and Culture.
Samhain is such a special time of year and the ladies were delighted to be invited to be a part of the festival in County Meath celebrating it and highlighting incredible Boyne Valley food and drink.
They kicked off this episode by delving into the traditio...
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November 2, 2022 • 37 mins
Hui-Wen Angel Cheng and Julien Thibault, owners of the award-winning Miso Izakaya Sligo restaurant, are not a conventional Irish culinary couple. Angel is a 23nd generation Hakka from Taiwan with a biomedical doctorate; Julien is a butter-loving chemist from France. They met and fell in love in Ireland; even while they pursued their day jobs in this country, their passion for eating endured.
Tune in to get a glimpse of the differe...
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October 19, 2022 • 44 mins
In the first episode of our new season we delve into one of our favourite topics: shopping!
In the shopping trolley: What are our number one food shops both nationally and internationally? What shops did we grow up with? What do snobby French people think of Eataly? Why the shopping trolley is essential? What is the special night time ingredient men can get at Pinoy Pinoy Sari?
While Mei as a child was fascinated with the deli ...
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April 6, 2022 • 66 mins
Sally Barnes, the only exclusive smoker of wild salmon in Ireland and a legend in the artisanal food world, was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Irish Food Writers’ Guild.
Born in Scotland, Sally washed up on the shores of West Cork with a fisherman husband. With a kiln that she procured from a man with a drinking debt, the young woman made sea-smoking history.
In our chat, Sally talks to us about her passion...
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March 19, 2022 • 30 mins
For Part 2 of our St. Patrick's special minisode and in celebration of the Celtic Ross Hotel's 25th birthday, we talk to two of the hotel’s local producers – Jeffa Gill of Durrus Cheese and Caroline Murphy of West Cork Eggs. Both multi-award winning women were born in England. They also belong to two distinct generations of producers, and hence have different stories to tell.
Legendary cheesemaker Jeffa Gill of Durrus made her fir...
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March 17, 2022 • 26 mins
We were honoured to be invited to the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery to record as part of their celebration of their 25th birthday! Like many ventures in West Cork, the hotel is a family-owned business. Operated by the Wycherley family for over two decades, its welcome is cozy and warm and with ease, you’re made to feel at home.
West Cork is widely recognised in Ireland as the cradle of modern Irish artisan food. However, it is...
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March 9, 2022 • 61 mins
Aziz Krouch has been a chef in La Mamounia in Marrakesh (recently featured in Netflix's show Inventing Anna), La Medina in New York, and now he is the head chef of Marrakesh By Mindo on Capel Street in Dublin. As a child, he harvested cumin and made warqa pastry with his grandmother in the Atlas mountains. He has worked in Paris and has a pash for boeuf bourguignon.
From shopping in souks, tagines, and bisteeya, to almond ghrib...
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March 3, 2022 • 33 mins
In this mini-episode, Mei quizzes Blanca on one of her favourite topics – Kitchens in Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar's movies.
From the tenebrous kitchen in What Have I Done to Deserve This? to the airy 90s kitchen in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, some of the most famous kitchens of the Almodóvar universe are discussed.
Plus Mei and Blanca discuss foods like flan and gazpacho that are quintessential to unde...
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February 17, 2022 • 38 mins
It’s a trip down memory lane! As children, Blanca, Dee, and Mei inhaled the glossy pages of food magazines and the promises of far-flung worlds from the recipes and the stories that they contained. As a result, the three of us have written, fact-checked, test-kitchened, and been editors for magazines throughout our adult lives. Magazines are dear to us.
In this episode, we talk about long-form food journalism, gourmand elitism, an...
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February 2, 2022 • 23 mins
We celebrated the first day of Lunar New Year, on February 1st, in a very special way this year by recording this mini-episode of Spice Bags in the Guinness Storehouse!
We are delighted to have been invited to record in the Guinness Storehouse as part of their celebrations for the Dublin Lunar New Year Festival. Guinness has exported its dark, iconic brew to East Asia starting from the early 19th century, and so we were honoured t...
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January 26, 2022 • 62 mins
We're back after our mid-season break with a jam-packed episode, which we're delighted to say is sponsored by the Dublin Lunar New Year festival, whose lineup (from 26 January – 6 February) of food, art, music, and lectures pays tribute to the different cultures that celebrate this holiday here in Ireland.
Chúc mừng năm moi, Saehae bok mani badeuseyo and Gongxi facai!
To mark the Lunar New Year starting on February 1, Mei, Bl...
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