The Sporkful

Afleveringen

• 
  How Do You Prep For The Hardest Beer Test In The World? 03.08.2026 39min

  Mandy Naglich is an award-winning home brewer who also writes and teaches about beer. Now she wants to become a Master Cicerone — basically the beer equivalent of a master sommelier.
• 
  This Is Your Brain On Cheesesteak (Reheat) 31.07.2026 25min

  Why do our brains go crazy for the melted cheese on Philly's iconic cheesesteak? What is it about scrapple’s crispy fried goodness? How does surface-area-to-volume ratio make the roast pork sandwich more delicious?
• 
  The Ice Cream Truck Kingpins Of Southern California 27.07.2026 44min

  Is there anything better than hearing the sound of an ice cream truck approaching? Today we’re bringing you two stories of ice cream trucks, past and present. First, Sporkful managing producer Emma Morgenstern tells the tale of her great-uncles, who owned a fleet of trucks starting in the 1940s — complete with sibling rivalries, California dreaming, and the exact right speed to drive a truck to maximize profits.
• 
  Carla Hall Isn't Going Back To The Frozen Food Section (Reheat) 24.07.2026 36min

  Carla Hall is known for her quirky, energetic personality on TV. But in some ways she’s very different today from the woman who first appeared as a contestant on Top Chef almost two decades ago. "I didn't want to show up as my Blackness if it wasn't going to be accepted," the former co-host of The Chew says of her first foray into food media.
• 
  2 Chefs And A Lie 2026 With NPR’s Rachel Martin 20.07.2026 42min

  We’re back with our annual game show: Two Chefs And A Lie! This year our contestant is Rachel Martin, host of the NPR podcast Wild Card and an old friend of Dan’s. The game goes like this: Rachel talks with three guests.
• 
  The Man Who Made 5 Million Burritos (Reheat) 17.07.2026 52min

  Is the perfect burrito a feat of engineering or art? We debate burrito construction and the Los Angeles/San Francisco rivalry with Jesse Thorn (founder of Maximum Fun and host of Bullseye) and Evan Kleiman (host of KCRW's Good Food). Matt Yglesias (cofounder of Vox Media and author of the Slow Boring newsletter) compares Chipotle burritos to iPhones. And then, Dan and cookbook author/YouTuber Kenji López-Alt take some calls: A wife objects to her husband's embarrassing food hacks, and Kenji explains the science of tomato storage.
• 
  Can You Be On A GLP-1 And Still Love Food? 13.07.2026 30min

  Recent studies say that somewhere between 12 and 16 percent of Americans have used GLP-1s like Ozempic, Wegovy, or Zepbound. Many people who take these drugs report that the meds have fundamentally changed their relationship to food.
• 
  The Great Office Coffee Election (Reheat) 10.07.2026 28min

  “The time has come for us to change the coffee brand that we offer and we want your input!” The email came from Myiesha Gordon in the HR Department at WNYC. Like many others, Myiesha hated the office coffee.
• 
  Does McDonald’s Want Their Soft-Serve Machines To Stay Broken? 06.07.2026 32min

  McDonald’s soft-serve machines break down so often that a corner of the internet is awash in memes and videos about their unreliability. Enter Jeremy O’Sullivan and Melissa Nelson, two entrepreneurs who wanted to fix the broken machines. They thought they'd succeeded — until McDonald’s told its franchisees to stay away.
• 
  The Enslaved Chefs At Monticello Who Created American Cuisine (Reheat) 03.07.2026 33min

  This week in honor of July 4th, we’re exploring an important part of American history – the contributions of enslaved Black chefs, whose work influences American cuisine to this day. In 1784, Thomas Jefferson brought the enslaved chef James Hemings, brother of Sally Hemings, with him to France to train under the French culinary masters of the day. Hemings created a cuisine that was half French, half Virginian, and brought it back to Jefferson's plantation, Monticello.
• 
  Welcome To The Clam Capital Of America 29.06.2026 48min

  Summer is here, and for years, Dan has spent part of his summer in New England visiting family and friends. This week he’s visiting two New England summer institutions. First is Woodman’s—known as the place where fried clams were invented—in Essex, Massachusetts, the clam capital of America.
• 
  Inside The Consumer Reports Test Labs (Reheat) 26.06.2026 36min

  Dan goes inside Consumer Reports, the independent nonprofit that tests and rates everything from toaster ovens to frozen pizzas to luxury cars. CR takes testing very seriously, and Dan gets to see their process in action. It all starts with an undercover shopper who goes by the pseudonym Jim.
• 
  How Much Should You Tip At A Coffee Shop? 22.06.2026 43min

  How do restaurants decide who gets the worst tables? Why are Americans obsessed with the German supermarket chain Aldi? And should iced coffee only be consumed in hot weather?
• 
  Modern Family’s Ty Burrell Cases Hollywood Parties For Free Food (Reheat) 19.06.2026 34min

  As a struggling young actor, Ty Burrell pretended to be a guest at hotels to get the free breakfast buffet. Now he fights the urge to pocket food at the Emmys. He talks about his hors d'oeuvres strategy at fancy Hollywood events, getting his kids to eat slower, and how Utah's arcane liquor laws actually benefitted the two Salt Lake City bars he owns.
• 
  What Will America’s 250th Birthday Cake Look Like? 15.06.2026 49min

  In just a few weeks, the United States will mark its 250th birthday, with celebrations all across the country. But when cake artist Grace Pak started looking into it a few months ago, she realized the festivities were missing something crucial: a birthday cake! Now, she’s been tasked with making it.
• 
  Hasan Minhaj Says Life Is Like Biryani (Reheat) 12.06.2026 37min

  For comedian and former Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj, biryani is more than a delicious food. It's a guide to life: pulling out the good bits and pushing the weird stuff to the side. And when you're a third-culture kid, Hasan says, you pick and choose which parts of the two cultures to make part of your life.
• 
  The Table Freda Built At Ebony Magazine 08.06.2026 28min

  For decades starting in the 1940s, Ebony was one of the only magazines created by Black people that spoke directly to Black people. It showed Black Americans falling in love, playing sports, dressing in style, gathering together – and eating. Freda DeKnight was the magazine’s first food editor, publishing recipes that were international and sophisticated, challenging the stereotype that Black American food was limited to soul food.
• 
  Rachel Maddow Fixed The Pina Colada (Reheat) 05.06.2026 29min

  Piña coladas are way better in theory than in practice. Take it from MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. "The tragedy of the pina colada is that it was never wholesome."
• 
  Why Would Someone Run 31 Miles While Eating Taco Bell? 01.06.2026 36min

  Last year we got an email from a young woman named Eleanor Sigel that said: “I’m training for the Taco Bell 50k. With ten Taco Bell stops in thirty miles, it should be a fun run, so I thought I'd invite you to join me.” While Dan had absolutely no interest in running 31 miles, eating that much Taco Bell, or combining the two endeavors into one, we decided to follow Eleanor as she took on the challenge. How do you train for this race?
• 
  Reheat: What's "Poor People's Food"? 29.05.2026 39min

  Nicole Taylor went through a phase where she rejected the soul food she grew up with. She called it all "slave food." Truth is, we all make judgments about what food is for which people, whether or not we realize it.