Talk to Me About Food
A podcast about the news and trends that impact the choices we make around getting, preparing, and disposing of our foods and drinks, seen through the lens of a consumer researcher...consumer...human...me. The podcast covers a range of topics related to the cycle of consuming food. DISCOVERY of new foods and cuisines. PLANNING what you're going to make and eat. SHOPPING for food and beverages. PREPARING meals and snacks. DISPOSING of what doesn't get eaten. EATING OUT when you want someone else to work. The goal is to entertain and inform you so I muse about what's trending in the food world: new products, up-and-coming cuisines, food chain sustainability, "smart" kitchen stuff, digital shopping, and more. The recipe for each episode is simple: 1) A good handful of observations. 2) A couple of spoonfuls of insight from experts. 3) A thimbleful of first-hand experience. 4) A dash of whimsy. 5) Simmer until a story emerges.
Episodes
52 episodes
Cicadas on the menu?
The 2024 explosion of cicadas didn’t happen here in North Texas. This was going to be a once in a lifetime event. A coincidence of thirteen-year and seventeen-year broods that hasn’t occurred since Thomas Jefferson fretted over pests in his Mon...
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6:08
What's on Menus in 2024 - The Menu Itself
What follows now are musings about the forces impacting what we choose to eat AWAY from home Priya Krishna, a contributing writer to the New York Times food section shared her assessment of what she and her team discovered surveying...
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11:21
Caesar salad trending on menus in 2024?
On this episode of Talk to Me About Food I share top line findings from "The Menu Trends That Define Dining Right Now," by Priya Krishna, writing in The New York Times. I also muse specifically on Caesar salad which is one of items that's hot a...
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7:42
"Feel Better" food - Udon Noodle Soup
This episode is one in a mini-series about a range of soups and simple foods from different food traditions that are suggested, prescribed, maybe sometimes even foisted on someone feeling under the weather. I consider a basic udon soup....
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15:28
Gastronativism - food as a divisive political tool
How much, if at all, does the food you eat define who you are and where you come from? Do the choices around what food you buy, where you buy it, how you prepare it and even how you dispose of it subscribe you to a specific community (willingly...
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7:11
Overnight Oats
Brief musings around discovering overnight oats. Beats regular old hot oatmeal any day of the week.
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4:22
Fermentation 1.0 and 2.0
Sandor Katz, a self-described fermentation revivalist and author of three books on the topic helps me unpack fermentation. What it is and why it’s so engrained in all food cultures. He talks about the role of fermentation in preserving food the...
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34:46
Healing Meals
On this episode I consider healing meals; traditional dishes believed to help cure what ails you, physically, emotionally, even spiritually. First, I reflect on my conversation with Ashley Thuthao Keng Dam, a PhD candidate in Eco-g...
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25:23
"I'll have two squares of sea bass with squares of quinoa and zucchini."
In this audio blog post I consider Squareat; a start-up meal delivery company that delivers a box of brownie-sized pieces of animal protein (like chicken breast) and same-size, same-shape squares of veggie and grain side dishes. 21st century fo...
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7:43
Franken Taters
In this Halloween audio blog post I muse about the results of an experiment where a human gene that codes for obesity was implanted into the genome of a potato. The spuds grew to be 50% larger! What could be wrong with that? The research is rea...
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6:09
Farm to Kitchen: The Potential of "Local Food"
This episode looks at what it might take to make locally grown and processed food the hub of our food system. Why? For one, Covid-19 has exposed vulnerabilities in our current food system that is dependent on a sprawling, global web of co...
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1:00:56
Gastrophysics - Enjoying food with all your senses
Charles Spence, author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating defines this realm of research as the scientific study of those factors that influence our multisensory experience while tasting food and drink.The basic premise of gastr...
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30:40
The Mystery of Blue (color) Food
A brief musing about the natural absence of blue in our foods and drinks. A few food scientists are exploring ways to create a natural, bright-hued blue to replace FD&C Blue #1, but there aren't that many artificially colored blue foods eit...
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5:09
Tips from a Sustainability Minded Chef
In this Talk to Me About Food "mover and shaker" profile I share snippets from a conversation I had with Amanda McLemore, chef, and founder of Baguette & Butter, the first sustainable digital food space. Amanda tells me about how she ...
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16:17
Upcycle your thinking with upcycled foods
In this blog post I touch on the growing efforts to reduce food waste by packaging and marketing upcycled food products. This can be produce that's deemed not fit for the supermarket display or an ingredient that's in the waste stream of some f...
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8:09
Vegan food - the Next Generation
The audio blog post muses about vegan foods by comparing two very different approaches to creating plant-based foods and dishes. The owners of the Herbivorous Butcher in Minneapolis draw upon their creativity to offer a wide variety of plant-ba...
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7:02
"Big Food" and you...a co-dependency
This audio blog post muses about the relationship between consumers and producers of packaged food in light of a recent article about Nestle's admission that a good part of the world's largest food and beverage company's products "doesn't meet ...
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8:36
The Future of Kitchen Design
According to Houzz.com, one of the key tastemakers in home design today, 25% of Americans renovated their kitchen in 2019, and we spend a lot more on updating the kitchen than any other room in the house. The open concept kitchen has been on tr...
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36:31
Endangered food species
In this audio blog post I muse about the fate of some our staple foods in the face of climate change. Humans continue to contribute to the extinction of species across the kingdoms of life. Some are trying to rescue endangered or even lost food...
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8:09
Isn't all food brain food?
In this audio blog post I muse about how functional ingredients are being added to foods and beverages to enhance short-term cognitive skills, keeping in mind that Homo Sapiens has been consuming "brain food" for a very long time.
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8:23
To bee, or not to bee
Blog post musings about bioengineered bee-less honey, and other look-alike, taste-alike substitute food products.
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11:36
Foraging - harvesting what nature sows
Hunting and gathering is in our DNA. Very few of us in America subsist on doing either one these days. Major disruptions raise the profile of both activities. COVID 19 has not only reduced income for tens of millions of Americans it has also le...
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27:34
Living on the fat of the land - Regenerative Agriculture Part 2
Regenerative agriculture is practiced on a very small percentage of total farm and ranchland in the U.S., maybe 3-5%. This figure is growing by the day because it is a sustainable approach to growing and raising food that also mitigates some of...
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48:21
