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Gastropod

Gastropod is the award-winning podcast that explores food topics through the lens of history and science. Led by enterprising hosts Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley, each episode uncovers the hidden stories and surprising science behind a different food or farming-related topic, from aquaculture to ancient feasts, cutlery to chile peppers, and microbes to malbec.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher

Can You Patent a Pizza? Ask the Alleged Inventor of the Stuffed Crust.

Ask Gastropod: Is the Burn From Foods Like Wasabi Different From Chile Pepper Heat?

The Secret Connection Between Pumpkin Spice and Manhattan

We Have the Salvation Army to Thank for the Hipster Doughnut

In ‘Prison Ramen,’ Author Gustavo Alvarez Wants to Put Inmates’ Culinary Ingenuity on Full Display

When a Lab-Grown Burger Costs $100, How Can It Possibly Compete With McDonald’s?

How Pineapples Became the Gucci Purse of 1700s Europe

Long before they were the stars of tropical drinks or controversial pizzas, pineapples were the obsessively hoarded, perpetually pursued symbols of the elite

There’s So Much More to Cod Than Fish and Chips

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Breadfruit

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Taro

Don’t let the threat of a scratchy throat scare you off from this deliciously starchy and versatile root veggie

The Weird (and Wired) Truth Behind What’s Really in Coca-Cola

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Cultivating the American Truffle

How careful science, a growers’ passion, and one adorable truffle-hunting dog combine to run the largest truffle farm in the country

Why Champagne Is the Taste of Celebration

New Jersey’s Forgotten Caviar Boom

The Great American Chestnut Revival

The Chef Cooking Up Food as Medicine

The Slippery Science Behind Coconut Oil Health Claims

How One Food Stylist Creates Otherworldly Dishes for Your Favorite Sci-Fi Show

From full-on feasts in "Foundation" to intricate meaty platters in "Hannibal," food stylist Janice Poon on how she tells stories that take place in fantastic worlds

The Way to Your Brain Is Through Your Stomach

How Caffeine Became the World’s Favorite Drug

Why Are U.S. Presidents So Obsessed With Ketchup?

Food, Fame, and Fried Chicken

The Invention of Modern Baby Formula

Reinventing the Eel

Contrary to What You’ve Heard, Toll House Didn’t Invent the Chocolate Chip Cookie

How Do We Get People to Compost?

How an Exiled Mexican President Accidentally Invented Chewing Gum

How America’s Coffee Got Bad — and Then Got Great

The Very Capitalist History of the American Coffee Break

Fortune Cookies Come With Almost Every Chinese Delivery Order in America. Here’s Why.

What Dates Have to Do With Christmas, the Temple of Dendur, and ‘America’s Arabia’

The Most Interesting Oil in the World