A Taste of the Past

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Episode 284: The South, A - Z Oct 26, 2017

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The American South is a diverse region with its own vocabulary, peculiarities, and complexities. Even Southerners can't always agree on all things Southern. A new book by the editors of Garden & Gun Magazine is a good source for answers. S is for Southern is an encyclopedia of Southern life, culture, and history, covering age-old traditions and current zeitgeists. Executive managing editor Phillip Rhodes, born and bred in the south, talks about the fun facts.

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Episode 283: Gourmands Way... Oct 19, 2017

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Following WWII, France--particularly Paris--became the world's most stylish tourist destination and capital of fine dining. Americans were smitten. Justin Spring follows the lives of six American writers-adventurers who adopted Paris as their home, and tells how they transformed the way Americans talk and think about food and the way they eat.

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Episode 282: How Tea Shaped the Modern World Oct 05, 2017

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Tea has been one of the most popular commodities in the world. Over centuries, profits from its growth and sales funded wars and fueled colonization. Erika Rappaport talks about her new book, A Thirst for Empire, in which she delves into how Europeans adopted, appropriated, and altered Chinese tea culture to build a widespread demand for tea in Britain and other global markets and a plantation-based economy in South Asia and Africa. She shares her in-depth historical look at how men and women—through the tea industry in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa—transformed global tastes and habits and in the process created our modern consumer society.

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Episode 281: Paris: History of a Food Lover's Paradise Sep 21, 2017

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Paris has been associated with fine dining for centuries and the city remains a veritable walking tour of historic gastronomy. David Downie, a travel and food writer living in Paris, takes a deep dive into this history for his new book, A Taste of Paris: A History of the Parisian Love Affair with Food. He shares with us stories, events and locations that brim with passion and flavor--a true food lover's paradise.

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Episode 280: Big Chicken, History of How Antibiotics Changed Modern Agriculture Sep 14, 2017

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Award winning journalist Maryn McKenna reveals the fascinating history of chicken in her new book, Big Chicken. She talks with us about chicken's rise in popularity through the routine use of antibiotics, a practice that would transform agriculture, change the world's eating habits, and contribute to the deadly rise of drug-resistant infections around the globe.

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Episode 279: Vinegar: The Alchemy of Acid Aug 10, 2017

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In his new book, ACID TRIP: Travels in the World of Vinegar (Abrams Books), Michael Harlan Turkell takes us on a fermented look into vinegar's soured past and bright future. He shares tales and experiences from his travels throughout North America, France, Italy, Austria, and Japan to learn about vinegar-making practices in places where the art has evolved over centuries.

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Episode 278: Culinary Biographies of Women with Laura Shapiro Jul 27, 2017

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Most biographers pay little attention to people’s attitudes toward food, but once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Historian Laura Shapiro uses the lens of food to look at the lives of six women, each famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table.

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Episode 277: Ancient Syrian Cuisine Jul 20, 2017

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Scents and Flavors is a 13th century Syrian cookbook which historian and Arabic scholar Charles Perry has edited and translated. Unlike many early recipe manuals this book gives us a glimpse of the social history of the medieval period in Syria. Charles talks about an inventive cuisine that elevates simple ingredients by combining various aromas of herbs, spaces, fruits and flower essences. He shares stories and descriptions of ingredients and recipes for food and drink as well as the fragrances that garnish the meals and perfume the diners.

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Episode 276: Baking Powder Wars: a History Jul 13, 2017

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First patented in 1856, baking powder sparked a classic American struggle for business supremacy. For nearly a century, brands battled to win loyal consumers for the new leavening miracle, transforming American commerce and advertising even as they touched off a chemical revolution in the world's kitchens. Linda Civitello chronicles the titanic struggle that reshaped America's diet and rewrote its recipes.

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Episode 275: The Evolution of Grocery Stores Jun 22, 2017

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From early trading posts to retail chains and superstores, award winning author Michael Ruhlman--The Soul of a Chef, The Elements of Cooking--traces the history and evolution of the American grocery store in his new book, Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America. On this episode Ruhlman shares his views of grocery stores as a reflection of our culture. He examines how rapidly supermarkets—and our food and culture—have changed since the days of your friendly neighborhood grocer.

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