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cheese

Are Plant-and Fungus-Based Fake Meats Really Better Than the Real Thing?

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Move over, beef: there’s a new burger in town. Plant-based meats are sizzling hot right now; in 2020 alone, the alternative meat industry saw a record $3.1 billion in investment, with 112 new plant-based brands launching in supermarkets. These juicy, savory, chewy fake burgers are a far cry from the dry, weird-tasting veggie patties of the past. This episode, we visit the Impossible Foods labs to swig some of the animal-free molecule that makes their meatless meat bleed, try fungal food start-up Meati's prototype "chicken" cutlet, and speak to the scientists and historians who can help us compare these new fake meats to their predecessors—and to real meat! Can a plant-based sausage roll be considered kosher or halal? Are plant-based meats actually better for you and for the environment? And how might a mysterious protein-powerhouse fungus named Rosita help feed the world?

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Tofu for You: Meet the Cult Leader, the Spy, and the Pioneering Chinese Woman Doctor Who Brought Tofu to the West

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For a lot of Americans, tofu conjures up images of bland, squishy cubes: a sorry alternative to meat. Even in Asia, where tofu was born, the soybean was initially seen as unappetizing, not to mention flatulence inducing. This episode, we tell the story of how people in what's now northeastern China figured out how to turn this legume of last resort into an array of nutritious, delicious foods, from  slippery beancurd skins to silken puddings, and chewy soy crumbles to funky, fermented hairy tofu. Then we introduce the parade of unlikely figures—including Ben Franklin and a 1970s acid casualty who believed he could communicate telepathically with animals—who finally brought this "soybean cheese" to the Western masses. And, finally, we meet the twenty-first century immigrant entrepreneur trying to rebrand tofu from virtuous but boring into something much more delicious and desirable. Listen in now for all that plus Camembert tofu, anarchist zines, and the curious origins of that Thanksgiving favorite, Tofurkey.

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TRANSCRIPT The End of the Calorie

This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, The End of the Calorie, first released on January 26, 2016. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

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TRANSCRIPT First Class Fare

This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, First Class Fare, first released on May 25, 2021. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

NEWS CLIP MONTAGE

ANCHOR: It almost sounds too good to be true: Feed your entire family with 10 meals for just $20. But there is a catch—it’s airline food, courtesy of an in-flight food company, now selling its meals online.

AILSA CHANG: If you miss international travel, why not recreate the experience in the comfort of your own home with some airplane food? In Israel, an airline food company is offering its meals to the public as low-cost delivery options during the pandemic.

NICOLA TWILLEY: And if that’s still not enough, why not make your own airline meals at home?

NIK SENNHAUSER: Come join me as I recreate a meal I had on Swiss Airlines back in 2017 on a flight from Dublin to Zurich.

CYNTHIA GRABER: I have to admit I find this completely perplexing—there are many things I miss horribly about travel, but airplanes, and airplane food, are not among them!

TWILLEY: I mean, airplane food is something I look forward to on a long flight—it’s a little excitement, something to break up the hours. But yeah, on the ground, there are better options. At least if you’re usually flying economy, like me. I do remember the one and only time I was upgraded to business—that was actually some pretty decent food.

GRABER: And food, whether on the ground or in the air, that is what we’re all about here at Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history. I’m Cynthia Graber—

TWILLEY: And I’m Nicola Twilley, and this episode, we’re exploring the history and science of a kind of food that most of us have spent the past year entirely without: airplane food.
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First Class Fare

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Like most people around the world, you probably didn’t do much flying this past year. Maybe you miss the bustle of airports and the joy of seeing friends in far-off places—but chances are, you probably don’t miss the food handed out on planes: those sad little tinfoil-covered trays of rubbery chicken breasts, tired lettuce, and frozen cherry tomatoes. They’re a far cry from airline meals decades ago, in the golden age of flying, when lobster thermidor and rack of lamb were served on real china. So what happened? How did a zany Henry VIII look-alike revolutionize airline food, and why were stewardesses serving flaming cherries jubilee onboard? What does the tradition of serving nuts on a flight have to do with NASA? How does sitting in the pressurized cabin of a plane roaring 36,000 feet above sea level affect our taste buds, and how are airlines trying to use sensory science to make food taste better? Plus: A grisly tale to explain why both pilots can never eat the same meal! Buckle up, and enjoy the ride.

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TRANSCRIPT Where There’s Smoke, There’s … Whiskey, Fish, and Barbecue!

This is a transcript of the Gastropod episode, Where There’s Smoke, There’s … Whiskey, Fish, and Barbecue!, first released on March 30, 2021. It is provided as a courtesy and may contain errors.

MACHINERY WHIRRING

CYNTHIA GRABER: We are at the Boston Smoked Fish headquarters, and a huge rack of maybe a dozen trays of gorgeous, golden brown smoked salmon just rolled by.

MATT BAUMANN: It came out of the smoker just about an hour ago. So we’re about 2500 square feet of fish processing space here. And we’re smoking five to six times a week. So you’re always going to smell these wonderful aromas of the cherry and pecan woods that we use. The pecan would really gives kind of a nice, unctuous bacon-y flavor to the fish. And then at the end we finish it off with cherry, which has a really nice sweet, floral bouquet.

NICOLA TWILLEY: Oh god, I love smoked fish. Please tell me this is an episode all about smoked fish where all we do is eat smoked fish?

GRABER: I wish, I did at least get to smell the smoking fish and let me tell you, that cherry and pecan wood smoke, with the unctuousness of the fish? I was salivating throughout the whole visit. I wish I’d spent the whole time eating.

TWILLEY: Smoke makes everything taste great. Smoked fish, smoky mezcal, my personal favorite flavor of crisp—smoky bacon. But why is smoke so delicious?

GRABER: This is actually a question that one of our listeners and supporters asked us, too.
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Where There’s Smoke, There’s … Whiskey, Fish, and Barbecue!

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As anyone who’s spent time by a crackling campfire or a barbecue pit can attest, the scent of smoke is unmistakable—and surprisingly mysterious. Smoke clings to clothing but vanishes in the breeze. You see it, but you can’t hold it. It’s fantastic in whiskey and terrible in toast. So what exactly is smoke—and what does it do to our food and drinks? What’s the difference between cold and hot smoked salmon—and what's a red herring? Is Liquid Smoke made from real smoke? And how did barbecue— smoked meat, cooked low and slow—become a uniquely American tradition?

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