food podcasts

– Foreword –

I initially researched and wrote this piece two years ago, during a challenging period. Sadly, it never made it to publication, an inevitable reality of the freelance writing world that never really seems to get easier. Two years on, and suddenly Aaron offered this opportunity to guest post on his blogsite. To have it revived in this way (and by someone who takes such care with his words) seemed genuinely impossible: it felt like cheating, or playing with a hand of cards that weren’t mine. Besides, would it even be relevant now?

Yet, as we mark the third anniversary of the first Covid 19 pandemic lockdown in the UK, I find myself reflecting on the past. If I were to pick a soundtrack to accompany my life at that time, it would be the voices of those I’ve listed below. Voices and stories that carried me up and away, tethering me to other places as a reassurance that they still existed. The reliable, weekly or monthly appearance of a new podcast episode or comforting reassurance of older ones I had yet to hear helped to push me through the drudgery, even if only as a dangling carrot, coaxing me back out on a walk through the same streets with new sounds and stories and familiar voices as my reward.

I now think about the overall lack of unpacking and processing we as a society have done, myself included. I wonder what lessons the last few years have taught us, or if we’re all simply doing our best to move forward and forget, afraid that stopping to unearth the real lessons might mean, we’ll never start back up again. Like making the mistake of sitting down during a long restaurant shift, it’s often easier just to keep going. Stopping is far too terrifying, especially within a society that equates productivity with worth.

The “Covid years” – in which many immune-compromised groups are still living to varying degrees – produced intense feelings of isolation, the depths of which many of us have never known. Simultaneously, amidst these circumstances and feelings of isolation came, for some, deep and resounding feelings of community, whether it be caring for a neighbour, helping to stock the local food bank or the online communities we turned to in search of connection. Never in my life had I spent more time on Twitter than I did during the first year of the pandemic (a blessing and a curse).

Reading through this piece, completed in the summer of 2021, I am instantly transported back in time to the well-worn paths around the old neighbourhood where I listened to most of these podcasts. I can almost feel the sun’s warmth on my face, a welcome distortion of reality as I tried to tune out everything else and absorb the worlds being created and described in my ears. The white house with the rod iron gate and the pink rose bushes I’d pass while listening to a Gastropod piece about smoked fish. The sight of deep green ferns are a contrast to the dusty trail I’d ascend in Richmond Park while listening to a Point of Origin episode about avocado farming, ears desperate to hear the sounds of somewhere else.

I am also transported back to each of the calls and conversations I had. The nostalgia I have for those moments sits less in the physicality of the memory, and more as feelings. I can remember how my shoulders felt as they began to drop (once I got past my nerves), as I was instantly comforted by the sounds of voices I knew well. I can remember the fizzy feeling of excitement, a feeling I hadn’t realised I was missing. Around this time, walking along the same street where I first listened to Ruby Tandoh’s recipe for miso brownies in her audiobook Breaking Eggs, I passed a young boy and his grandfather walking along on the other side of the road. The grandfather began to whistle, and instantly my chest became tight and tears leaked from my eyes. I hadn’t realised how long it had been since I heard anyone whistle. A face without a mask. A heart light enough to allow for a tune. A visceral memory that remains with me. That, too, is how I remember those calls with the strangers whose voices and stories managed to befriend me. Their familiar tones and pitch as they spoke. The human soundtracks of much of my tiny, shrunken world. I keep breaking into a smile as I write this.

Though I am someone who cringes at the sound of my own voice and much prefers to communicate considered thoughts via writing, there is something so intrinsically valuable shared simply through the act of speaking. There is a depth, softness and power to the rhythms of each voice, containing valuable and intangible information, distinctive and memorable as a piece of music.

Now, in a world that has returned to the pace it once kept, my instinct is no longer to reach for headphones to drown out the sounds of the city. Instead, I prefer to listen to it, much like someone might seek out a walk in nature for bird calls or the babble of a nearby stream. In a talk last year as part of the British Library’s food season, author, historian and professor Dr. Jessica B. Harris discussed her practice of wandering amongst her local street markets, engulfing herself in the life that flowed through them, following the passing of her mother. I often think about this idea as I walk. Perhaps this encapsulates why I no longer wish to protect my ears but instead clear any obstacles between them and the sounds of the city. It now serves as reassurance; the air that was once silent, heavy with fear, sadness, and isolation, now feels alive once more.

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food podcasts

A tethering to sound, food, and the world

In Departure from Radio: Food Podcasts Offer Diverse Perspectives

By Adrienne Katz Kennedy

 

Poet Rubí Orozco Santos reads a poem from her new book Inventos Míos, a book of poetry about nixtamalization, on Andi Murphy’s Toasted Sister podcast. Seated at the desk of my tiny home office, window cracked and welcoming in the cool English spring air scented with freshly cut grass, I close the glowing screen before me for a quick break and close my eyes to listen:

 

“Calcium Hydroxide.
‘I’m writing about nixtamal.’ I say.
white man at the table is first to speak
eagerly lists chemical reactions
molds periodic table into steeled speculum
inserts cold metal
up my grandmother’s skirt.
I nod politely – a survival strategy
imprinted in every cell for at least four generations.
Fight
Flight
Or nod for your life.”
Orozco Santos continues;
“These seeds are not for you.
These poems may or may not be for you.
You see, despite my ‘C’ in Chemistry
I connect with, listen to
percussive seeds arriving
pouring
cascading
into colander.
I observe these relatives
rinsing their bumpy, wet bodies activating, greeting
back this
human relation, this
caregiver
life taker
lineage ensurer.“

 

Podcasts like Murphy’s and stories like Orozco Santos’ have been the worn-thin thread I’ve clung to over the last year on this island, missing the sounds of home and everywhere other than this little plot to which I have been rooted (read: trapped). It’s been two years since I’ve seen my mother or sister in Ohio. The world for me, and many like me, has never felt so far out of reach. To hear the sounds of somewhere else – a somewhere or someone I don’t know – that, rather than evoking prickled feelings of longing and loss, instead sparks curiosity and excitement, like that of a new friendship. Like I, too, could know this place one day – it feels luxurious, reassuring and personal. They are speaking just to me.

These days you would be hard-pressed to throw a stone and not hit someone with their own podcast. There are currently over 2 million podcasts listened to monthly by around 32% of Americans, with rapid growth taking place in Spanish-speaking countries like Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Mexico, amongst others.

As Point of Origin podcast host, Stephen Satterfield predicted during our phone conversation a few months ago, this is only the beginning of the era of podcast explosion. This is partially because, as we can see with the growth of social media and other customer/individual-led forms of media, advertising has finally caught onto audio’s influence on listeners. A format which, though now has begun to come into its own, has grown out of works like that of producer Ira Glass and his late ’90s narrative journalism show ‘This American Life’.

Podcasts have become a way for many across the globe to reach individuals on a personal and intimate level. Food stories and narratives, enhanced through the use of audio, have grown both in number and visibility over the last few years, though as Nicola Twilley, co-host of the science-meets-history-meets-food podcast Gastropod, tells me, she and Cynthia Graber have benefited from being ‘under the radar’ just enough to have the freedom to experiment.

With so much less access to people through food-sharing, many of us have tuned in to a food-based podcast to help fill the holes. From dinner inspiration to company keeping, food-centred storytelling connects us to culture in tangible ways, satisfying to a certain extent a longing for connection during the isolation.

Though perhaps more poignant or uniquely-centred now than in years past, food-centred audio is not a new form of entertainment. Radio shows like Splendid Table have been running since 1997, and others like Kitchen Sisters, Spilled Milk, Milk Street, Burnt Toast, Radio Cherry Bomb, The Sporkful and so many others were soon to follow. In 2019 there were nearly 5,000 podcasts classified as “food-themed” on Apple Podcasts. Within this historically white, male-dominated field of podcasting, which catered to a predominantly white, male audience, the voices and stories of many other people and communities have often been left out or quieted within mainstream radio. Thankfully, this homogeneity is changing.

A new space in food podcasting is being created as producers’ and listeners’ access to technology increases. Carved out by hosts whose subject matters and identities haven’t yet made it into mainstream radio, they are no longer confined to an agenda that must cater to the masses in order to gain an audience. These hosts are building their own listening communities. This relatively new, independent form of food podcasting provides listeners with a window into a more nuanced range of cuisines, neighbourhoods, politics, and perspectives that often differ from more mainstream food radio, giving storytellers access and authority to speak to a specific subject matter or experience without the mandate to code switch in order to be heard.

Andi Murphy, who is Diné (commonly referred to as Navajo in the US), has spent the last six years showcasing, through food stories, the histories and experiences of Native Americans and Indigenous communities – voices, culinary traditions and stories that aren’t often heard outside of the Native community. Her work is part of the Indigenous food sovereignty movement building momentum and visibility in the US. Episodes are wide-ranging and rooted in details, including personal stories from Guatemalan migrant workers, a visit to a wild rice processing plant in Minnesota, an interview with a Native death doula, traditional Pueblo bread makers, and a Native, female-owned brewery, and more. Murphy says;

“Storytellers have been using audio to broadcast stories since the radio was invented. Back then radio was reserved for a few producers, hosts and shows. Today, anyone can start a podcast about any subject, and that means that people from small communities suddenly have a platform to tell their stories to an audience of 20 to 20,000. They’re taking ownership over their stories and educating the public about the issues that are important to them.“

She adds, “Food podcasts work because they can be very specific. Hosts have the ability to tell stories that are important to them no matter how small and marginalised the community they come from.“

Murphy is not alone in her quest to explore, unpack, and celebrate stories and traditions from smaller, or simply less visible, communities. As producer Stephen Satterfield reminds listeners in the trailer to Point of Origin‘s first season, diverse gatekeepers lead to more diverse storytellers, stories, points of view and cultural empathy. Whetstone Magazine, founded by Satterfield and from which Point of Origin stems, is the first of just two Black-owned food magazines in the US [at the time of writing this article]. The podcast features voices, sounds and stories from around the globe, weaving together food, history, politics and personal narratives. One episode will dive deep into the farming and political practices of growing Haas avocados in Mexico. Another is built around the revival of a Palestinian arak distillery. Another episode interviews ‘third culture’ kids in the US, now grown and working to showcase their layered identities through culture-crossing food businesses. The music and atmospheric sounds add their own invaluable depth and richness to the storytelling.

“It’s my favourite medium”, says Satterfield. “We make it sticky for listeners. Investing in the atmosphere and the transportive quality is a creative mandate for us. We owe to the people who have made it possible – doing everything we can as creators to make the product more pleasurable to listen to.”

Since first writing this piece in 2021, Satterfield and members of the Whetstone Media team have started Whetstone Radio Collective, alongside significant backing achieved through crowdfunding and seed investment. Since its launch in 2021, Whetstone Radio Collective has become an influential thought leader in the field, producing eleven separate podcasts, ten in English and one in Spanish, covering a range of topics from global sustainable foods hosted by Clarissa Wei, to the migration and commercialisation of pepper from Malaysia by Anna Sulan Masing, to the history, impact and significance of African American food culture in the US by Deb Freeman.

Creating a protected space to discuss identity through food is one of the reasons MiMi Aye and Huong Black began their podcast, The MSG Pod. Both are second-generation UK immigrants (Aye’s family from Myanmar and Black’s from China and Vietnam), mothers and in interracial marriages. Having grown up in an earlier era, they offer a perspective different from some of the other popular Asian podcast hosts in their early 20s.

Although Aye and Black discuss their Asian backgrounds and identity complexities on the show, guests are from Asian and non-Asian backgrounds, including Tim Anderson, Evelyn Mok and Nigella Lawson. Aye sees this as a way to encourage and engage an equally diverse and inclusive audience. Discussions range from rice cookers and stick blenders to cultural appropriation, Myanmar’s military coup and socialism – much under the guise of food and infused with laughter and humour. The MSG Pod works to inject lightness into serious subject matters and a bit of ‘mildly salacious gossip’ aka MSG. Aye – who is a writer-editor, and cookbook author – says:

“There is so little media out there for specifically East and Southeast Asian listeners. And [within that], there isn’t much entertainment media out there that’s actually fun… We’re trying to get people to listen to it who might have thought it was just about recipes or cooking, and then we get them to listen to wider issues. The podcast lends itself to a conversation where writing doesn’t.”

British podcast producer Lucy Dearlove also leans into the conversational aspect of audio with her podcast Lecker with her warm, often domestic-based interviews, enhanced by the recording of the environment from frying and chopping sounds to traffic. When creating a product around food, Dearlove says she never saw it as a visual-dominant subject due to how much it is talked about in daily life. “The reason that people like to talk about food so much is that we always have – that’s how recipes were passed down. It’s how people make connections. I always saw [the podcast] as an extension of that,” she says.

Dearlove started podcasting just after the popular narrative podcast Serial in the US, but the same audio culture was not yet present in the UK. By choosing to include her own voice, rather than the trend of using well-known presenters within the production, Dearlove was stepping into new territory. Recording episodes largely from the home kitchens of her guests, Dearlove works to highlight lesser-known voices and stories within the UK food scene whilst embracing the deeply personal, often messy side of cooking, domestically or otherwise. Lecker’s very first episode features an interview with the mother/daughter team behind the family-owned, female-run Pakistani restaurant Masala Wala; daughter Saima is interviewed again two years later on living and eating with terminal cancer — a moving and disarmingly honest interview — amongst other personal accounts on food cultures from a variety of perspectives and experiences. Lecker sits uniquely in a place between audio and the written word; environmental sounds are used to create a sense of intimacy, environment, and rhythm resembling that of poetry or music.

The ability to combine audio with writing to showcase rhythm and pace alongside a narrative journey is how hosts Catherine Campbell and Jonathan Ammons approach their show The Dirty Spoon Radio Hour, aired monthly out of Asheville, North Carolina. Fiction writer Campbell and musician Ammons bring together a mix of chefs, activists, and hospitality workers for their monthly show alongside carefully selected music. Those within the service industry do the bulk of the show’s writing, illustrations, and narration to gain professional experience, hopefully leading to more paid work within the creative industry.

Ammons says: “Our hope is that we are able to give people experience so they can go on and find other opportunities for paid work. That’s the thing with creative work – no one will pay you if you don’t have any experience. We want to get it to a point where we can compensate all creative people for creative work.”

Campbell remarks, “I think when people are listening, actively listening, and they hit that kernel of universal truth, that’s a really beautiful feeling. And I think when you are able to do that through the unifying factor of food, I think it just heightens that experience and the idea of humanity. If the only thing you have to pull you in is the story [rather than photos], it puts more weight on the story and makes us choose better stories.”

Ruby Tandoh’s uniquely made-for-audio-cookbook Breaking Eggs also dives into identity complexity, vulnerability and agency (alongside baking). A highly visible name in the UK food world since her appearance on the Great British Bake Off many years ago, Tandoh has worked to forge her own path with the intention of creating agency and transparency over her narrative and voice. Tandoh’s audio cookbook also provided a certain amount of accessibility for many, including those who are sight impaired, have trouble following a written recipe, prefer audio-based learning, and those who struggled with feeling overwhelmed during the pandemic, as many confessed to being unable to focus or even read at its onset — all of which are often overlooked within the cookbook publishing industry.

Breaking Eggs covers more than just baking; it addresses wellness, diet culture and class alongside a devotion to tactile and sensory-rich pleasures, like baking and eating without guilt. As Samin Nosrat does through her co-hosted pandemic-launched podcast Home Cooking, Tandoh uses the opportunity her name gives her to invest in the complex identities and issues around food that are often filtered out within more traditional media outlets.

She says, “It’s both very novel in the sense of professional cookbooks and publishing— it’s not done a lot and not new at all. Having someone in the kitchen talking you through everything is maybe the oldest form of cooking. It’s trying to put a very old way of sharing knowledge into a new format.”

Following Breaking Eggs, Tandoh has also published a second and highly inclusive cookbook, Cook As You Are, once again taking into account various common-yet-overlooked-within-the-industry factors and limitations many cooks face in the kitchen.

These storytellers and many others like them are using the podcasting platform to help change the dynamics around power and control of visibility and narrative. But not just in the name of equity; the stories are entertaining, moving, beautifully told and deeply engaging to listen to in a variety of circumstances. And, as Satterfield says, this is just the beginning of what’s yet to come.

 

food podcasts * food podcasts

food pod*casts

Adrienne Katz Kennedy is a freelance food and culture writer living in London. You can find her at https://adriennekatzkennedy.com and @akatzkennedy.

food podcasts

The MSG Pod – with Nigella Lawson and Sanjeev Bhaskar

food podcasts

Lecker – ‘Hot Pot Is For Everyone’ episode with Melanie Xu