The Sporkful

Somali cuisine is a mixture of many traditions, from meat prepared according to nomadic customs, to a spice mix made possible by medieval Indian Ocean trade routes. There are even pasta dishes, owing to Italian colonization until 1960 – and you’ll often find a banana served on the side. Ifrah F. Ahmed has made it her mission to document and preserve the food of Somalia in her new cookbook, Soomaaliya: Food, Memory and Migration. At...

Dan fills a taxi full of food and takes it to JFK Airport at sundown to break the Ramadan fast with Muslim cab drivers. What could go wrong? Plus a Texan talks about embracing her Muslim roots after 9/11 and fasting on Ramadan for the first time when she was in her thirties. And Arab-American teens reveal the best and worst parts of Ramadan.

This episode originally aired on June 29, 2015, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini...

The London restaurant Darjeeling Express is the place to go for an outstanding mutton kebab, and for celebrity sightings. But the chef behind this hotspot has no formal culinary training. Asma Khan started her cooking career hosting secret supper clubs in her apartment, when her husband was traveling for work. Now she's staffed her restaurant entirely with women, all of whom learned to cook as housewives and nannies. As she tells D...

Danny Trejo is a Hollywood legend. He's been in nearly 400 films, often playing the kinds of characters you wouldn't want meet in a dark alley. When he was in his seventies, his career took a turn: The L.A. native became a successful restaurateur. This new chapter is especially surprising considering that 50 years ago, Danny was a drug addict who couldn't stay out of prison. In this show taped live in L.A., he traces his path from ...

El Burrito Mercado has been a bedrock of West Side community in St. Paul for nearly 50 years. It’s changed a lot over that time, evolving from a small grocery store into a restaurant, deli, bakery, and so much more. Now, it’s had to change again, as thousands of federal immigration agents have descended on this Twin Cities neighborhood over the past few months. Milissa Silva, the co-owner and CEO of El Burrito Mercado, tells us the...

Professor Steven Alvarez believes you can read a taco. Look at the meat, the spices, and the tortilla. Each ingredient has a story that unlocks something about Mexican and American history and culture. This idea is the basis for Steve’s “Taco Literacy” course at St. John’s University in New York City. This week, we go on an end-of-semester taco crawl with Steve’s class. Turns out, you can judge a taco by its tortilla.

This episode ...

For decades, Carlos Rafael owned the biggest fleet of boats in the most valuable fishing port in America: New Bedford, Massachusetts. He was so powerful in the fishing industry there, he became known as The Codfather. That is, until an IRS sting brought it all crashing down. 

This is the first episode of a brand new series from Ian Coss and WGBH News called Catching The Codfather. Episode 2 is up now! Search for The Big Dig on your ...

Dan and his wife Janie are both white and Jewish, both raised in the New York area. In many ways it's an easy fit. But not so much with food, because Janie grew up kosher and Dan didn't. In this episode, they talk about navigating food tension in their relationship and ask Janie's mom how she feels about the choices they've made.

This episode originally aired on August 10, 2017, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Anne Saini, and Dan ...

The writer Aymann Ismail, a practicing Muslim, grew up not eating pork. But as he got older, he became curious about why eating pork was a line that even less observant Muslims wouldn’t cross. So when a new loophole product hit the market, Aymann was faced with a choice — one that brought up questions of faith, tradition, and whether changing your food habits changes who you are.

Aymann’s memoir is Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, ...

Dan’s dreams come true when he visits The Simpsons writers’ room to talk about the role food plays on the show and behind the scenes. Turns out the writers are just as obsessed with food as all of the show’s food jokes suggest. Plus, Simpsons creator Matt Groening explains how new technologies have changed the show’s food jokes over time.

This episode originally aired on August 13, 2018, and May 30, 2022, and was produced by Dan Pas...

This week, The Sporkful plays matchmaker! We put out the call for Sporkful listeners looking for love, and many of you responded. We used our proprietary algorithm (i.e. a producer looking at a spreadsheet) to set up and record two blind dates — one in New York and one in Chicago. Will their love smolder like a kebab on a hot grill? Or will they repel each other, like oil and vinegar in a salad dressing that hasn’t been properly em...

When Gustavo “Goose” Alvarez was 18, he was sent to prison for the first time. When he arrived, the other incarcerated men wanted to know if they could trust him — so they handed him a plate of cheesy tacos, and got to know him over that shared meal. From there, Goose learned all kinds of prison cooking tips, including how to use razor blades to boil water and the recipe for a coffee drink called a “Cadillac.” This week Goose share...

Michael Ian Black and Tom Cavanagh are great comedic actors and friends who love to analyze snacks in extreme detail on their podcast, Mike and Tom Eat Snacks. In this special crossover episode ahead of the Super Bowl, Dan tells Mike and Tom about the time his overly ambitious Super Bowl snack idea went very wrong. They also get into a fiery debate about chicken wings and put different shapes of tortilla chips to a taste test.

The S...

Dan gives up the hosting chair and becomes a contestant in our most popular (and only) Sporkful game show, 2 Chefs And A Lie! The game is simple. Dan talks with three “chefs.” Two are real, and one is a faker with a made-up resume. Dan gets five questions per chef to determine who’s legit, and who doesn’t know their bass from their elbow. The best part: You can play along! Can you spot the fake chef?

This episode originally aired on...

Veteran comic Tom Papa’s love of food began as a kid, when his dad recruited him for over-the-top food challenges — including eating a massive steak that won Tom a t-shirt. As an adult he became obsessed with bread baking after his daughter gave him a sourdough starter for Christmas. Tom explains how baking bread is like comedy, and what his fridge says about his current stage of life. Plus, he and Dan indulge in one of Tom’s favor...

Elle Simone Scott recently died of ovarian cancer at the age of 49. This week's Reheat is our conversation with Elle from 2021.

Elle once said that a food stylist’s job is to tell the story of the food — and in her work on shows for Bravo, Food Network, and America’s Test Kitchen, she went to great lengths to do just that. Combing through boxes of cereal for the best-looking cornflakes? Check. Throwing ice cubes across the room to c...

Jacques Pépin just turned 90, and he’s spent his career defying expectations. By 1958, at the age of 23, he had cooked for three French presidents. But he left that life to work at a high-end restaurant in New York, then gave that up to cook at Howard Johnson’s, making food for the masses. After a life-altering accident, Jacques found his next love: teaching other people how to cook. By the early ‘90s he was one of America’s best-k...

The Sporkful Family Food Court is back in session. A husband and wife debate when to eat movie popcorn, and a mother and daughter argue over whether eating salad dressing makes you an adult. 

This episode originally aired on February 8, 2016, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini, and enginnered by Bill O'Neill. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell....

French podcaster Samia Basille loves going to the movies. And she enjoys popcorn. But she doesn't think the two should ever be combined. (Many other French people feel the same way.) When Samia spent a few months living in New York, it left her wondering: Why do Americans insist on chowing down on popcorn while watching a movie? This simple question sent her on a quest to understand the history of popcorn in both the U.S. and Franc...