Food for thought: podcasts for every appetite

Posted on 30 October, 2018

It’s not often that we explore food purely through sound.

Listening to someone speak about food adds a new depth of understanding to a topic that is an integral part of our lives. With a seemingly never-ending stream of content available, there’s something for every taste.

BURNT TOAST

Burnt Toast is the podcast of Food 52: a much-loved blog of home cooks and community for food lovers featuring recipes, cooking tips and profiles. Michael Harlan Turkell has taken the reins as host for season three of the podcast, but former host Kenzi Wilbur is utterly delightful: relatable and capable of extracting the most sparkling conversation with her guests.

Episode 30: The Genius Recipes that Change the Way We Cook is a highlight, showcasing Kirsten Miglore’s popular column about game-changing recipes from the Food52 community.

THE DAVE CHANG SHOW

Dave Chang rose to fame with New York restaurant, Momofuku Noodle Bar. The Momofuku Group now has 19 restaurants globally, including the recently-opened Majordomo in Los Angeles. This relatively new podcast focusses on the re-opening of the latter; although it touches on many aspects of food and life in general.

Dave is charismatic and engaging—if you’ve seen Ugly/Delicious on Netflix, you can expect the same passionate flavour.

THE FOOD PROGRAMME

BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme is multi-faceted, covering issues such as food history, trends, and biology.

British food journalist Sheila Dillon shares hosting duties with producer Dan Saladino and investigates everything from the sugar tax to agriculture, the diets of athletes and food cultures.

The Future of Bread is an especially interesting episode, featuring Modernist Bread author Nathan Myhrvold

THE PASS

Host Magdalena Roze quizzes food insiders on their businesses, cooking and life, then sits down with them for a meal at one of their favourite restaurants.

The Pass gives a unique insight into Australia’s best dining experiences from those inside the industry—whether you’ve been to James Viles’ Biota or not, you’ll appreciate his discussion around locally foraged and sustainable food.

SPILLED MILK

It’s “the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all, and you can’t have any”, hosted by writers and comedians Molly Wizenberg and Matthew Amster-Burton. If you like your podcasts with a side of humour, this is the show for you.

The duo dive into linguistics, history, cooking methods, culture and science, all with an air of jocular charm. Episode 306: Tokyo is insightful and, of course, hilarious.