Podcasts by THE HISTORY OF FOOD
What makes us human? Humans are just animals who know how to cook. Come explore the story of humans and their civilizations through the lens of what they ate.
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HOF Episode 28: The Ancient History of Chefs from 2021-06-08T15:41:40
Everyone knows the saying about what the world’s “oldest profession” is, but you will find a very close runner up in the kitchen. The history of those who cook professionally to make their living g...
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HOF Episode 27: A Day in the Life (of a Peasant Farmer) from 2021-02-04T18:00
Have you ever wondered if there’s more to history than dates and major events, what some of the stories and daily lives of regular people looked like? Do you need a reminder that history is populat...
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HOF Episode 26: Factory Food (Industrial Revolution) from 2020-09-08T00:57:25
When Britain industrialized in the late 1700s and the rest of the western world soon followed, humans were transformed to a degree not seen for 10,000 years when we first settled into farming life....
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HOF Episode 25: The Soul of American Cooking (Colonial USA) from 2020-07-19T17:00:52
Who founded America? George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? America had founding fathers alright, but they aren’t the ones you’re thinking of. Would you believe that African slaves and Indians were t...
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HOF Episode 24: The Feeling of Fullness (Sub Saharan Africa) from 2020-05-30T21:55:03
Is good cooking defined by ingredients, skill in preparation, style of cuisine, or is it something even more fundamental and deeply human? We left out of Africa all the way back in Episode 1, and r...
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HOF Episode 23: The Great Sobering (Coffee and Colonialism) from 2020-04-17T16:56:31
Save this episode to go with your morning coffee. Sip that dark and bitter brew, maybe with cream and/or sugar, maybe not, and listen along as you learn of coffee’s origins, how it came to Europe, ...
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HOF Episode 22: Melting Pots and Fusion Foods (Globalization) from 2020-03-25T14:24:26
The “American Melting Pot” is far older, larger, and even more diverse than most people imagine. After Columbus reconnected Eurasia and Africa with the Americas, the world began to change in ways i...
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HOF Episode 21: Umami and Kimchi (Japan and Korea) from 2020-02-13T14:13:03
What does it mean for one culture to “steal” from another? How often does it happen? Is it a bad thing when it does? Listen to explore those questions and more, as we visit the Far East once again,...
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HOF Episode 20: The Columbian Exchange from 2019-12-20T00:56:20
For millions of years, the two main hemispheres of planet earth were separated by an impassible ocean. North/South America and Eurasia/Africa, two divergent ecosystems, food chains, and human civil...
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HOF Episode 19: Europe Wakes Up (The Renaissance) from 2019-10-09T13:45:51
Did Europeans suddenly wake up one day, tired of Medieval living, and decide to change course, to rebirth themselves in modern ideas and start creating good art? Or, as usual, is the story somethin...
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HOF Episode 18: Crusades and Plagues (later Middle Ages) from 2019-09-03T14:19:19
How did Europe get out of its dark ages? It’s not a wholesome story, as the secret to their success was mainly the conquest and plunder of other peoples’ luxury goods, namely their foods and spices...
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HOF Episode 17: The Power of Tradition (China revisited) from 2019-07-24T20:27:10
What makes humans special? What makes us rise above all the other animals across the planet, to discover and make great things? Before you answer with the obvious, ” our big brains and intelligence...
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HOF Episode 16: The Dark Bread Ages (Medieval Europe) from 2019-06-16T23:56:29
In Late Antiquity, without the Roman Empire around to control everything, forest and wilderness reclaimed Europe and its people went local. Start with that, then stir to combine with a rising Catho...
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HOF Episode 15: Princes of Flavor (India) from 2019-05-14T14:00:03
Which ancient civilization made the most flavorful cuisine? Perhaps you could make a case for any of the cuisines and civilizations we’ve covered thus far, and no doubt each one has been best at so...
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HOF Episode 14: People of the Book from 2019-04-04T13:48:34
In what capacity can food serve a spiritual need? The answer is a whole lot! A little over two thousand years ago, the way people thought about themselves and the Universe was beginning to change. ...
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HOF Episode 13: Empire of Shepherds (Iran) from 2019-02-21T15:38:40
Many great moments in civilization happened when cultures of the Far East, interacted with those in the West. Through all those moments, there was one region which sat between them, one which was ...
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HOF Episode 12: Herders of the Old World from 2019-01-14T19:05:07
Welcome to the second Season of the History of Food! To kick things off, we’ll be walking ground we’ve tread before. The history of pastoral nomadism, that is the animal herders in Europe, Asia, an...
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HOF Episode 11: Bread and Circuses, but Mostly Bread (Rome) from 2018-10-24T15:32:19
Rome. Probably what most people think of when they think “Ancient World”. In this episode, however, we discover that in terms of the culinary, the Roman Republic and then Empire was most distinguis...
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HOF Episode 10: Hombres de Maíz (Mesoamerica) from 2018-09-03T23:48:37
Of all the food discoveries made across the ancient world, few are more impressive than the domestication and then nixtamlization of maize (corn) in the lands that would one day be called Mexico an...
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HOF Episode 9: Raw and Cooked (China) from 2018-07-23T23:40:44
What does it mean to be a raw (barbarian) person vs. a cooked (civilized) person? To find out, our culinary and historical journey heads east. Far East, to the lands of the Yellow and Yangtze River...
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HOF Episode 8: Hunger and Collapse (Mesopotamia and Bronze Age) from 2018-06-16T00:22:50
No civilization lasts forever. In fact, it’s kind of a miracle any starts at all. The conditions must be exactly right for people to come together into urban environments. So like an overextende...
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HOF Episode 7: Age of the Aegean (Greece) from 2018-05-01T00:38:08
Here we are at last, on the shores of Greece. It’s a brief retelling of Aegean history, a story you’ve heard before, though perhaps not from a chef’s point of view. Come for the history, stay for ...
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HOF Episode 6: Lands of the Nile (Egypt) from 2018-03-27T15:00:18
Egypt needs no introduction. But here’s one anyway! The ancient people along the Nile built a civilization out of grain like Mesopotamia, but diverged on their own unique path, transforming their ...
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HOF Episode 5: Un Otro Mundo (Andean Civilization) from 2018-02-20T16:30:54
Sumer was the oldest urban civilization, but not by much. Second place followed quickly, and incredibly was across the ocean in South America. People on the coast of modern Peru kickstarted a mult...
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HOF Episode 4: How to Turn Food into Wealth (Sumer) from 2018-01-15T17:00:56
We’ve done it. We’ve finally crossed into the realm of written records and recorded history. Join me on an odyssey going back 6,000 years ago, when the Sumerians of what is today southern Iraq, to...
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HOF Episode 3: Early Farming Around the World from 2017-11-21T17:27:44
Come travel around the world and follow the Neolithic cultures that spread across it, including very early farmers of Egypt, China, and Old Europe. Then come across the oceans to Mesoamerica, one o...
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HOF Episode 2: Gardeners of the Neolithic from 2017-10-11T18:39:25
The second episode of our History of Food concerns the greatest turning point in human history since the taming of fire. The New Stone Age, when farming was invented and our species forever changed...
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HOF Episode 1: Human Ancestors and Prehistoric Foragers from 2017-09-14T18:23:52
What makes us human? Humans are just animals who know how to cook. This first episode attempts to explain what humans and our hominid ancestors have been eating for the 6 million years since we fir...
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