Plenty of podcast listeners catch up on their favorite shows while doing household chores like making dinner. But if you’re looking for something that will enhance the cooking experience as much as the aural one, consider these six shows, which offer a mix of innovative recipes from world-class chefs, documentary journalism about culinary culture around the world and hot takes on the food world’s contentious debates.
‘A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich’
On its surface, food seems like a safe, low-stakes topic of conversation. Yet just like on matters of religion and politics, discussions of food can become surprisingly contentious — to demonstrate this, just ask your dinner guests to consider whether a hot dog is a sandwich. In this delightful series, Josh Scherer and chef Nicole Enayati (who are both food writers with the popular YouTube cooking channel Mythical Kitchen) dig into the big questions: crunchy versus smooth peanut butter, whether ketchup belongs on hamburgers and of course the hot dog-sandwich quandary — which Scherer and Enayati tackled in a five-part series in 2022 with the help of philosophers, lawyers and food historians. The variety of subjects is vast; some episodes explore what makes the best version of a particular dish, like a burrito or a French fry, while others play like a food-based personality test (“What Your Chipotle Order Says About You”). And some dissect food trends like bone broth, cold brew coffee and air fryers to judge whether the hype is warranted.
Starter episode: “What’s The Best Type of French Fry?”
‘The Food Chain’
As you’d expect from a BBC World Service production, this series has a nuanced, global perspective on the production and consumption of food. Presented by Ruth Alexander, “The Food Chain” often examines cultural differences through culinary topics; one insightful episode from last year focused on how various countries’ lunch break practices were emblematic of their broader work cultures. The intersection of food and professional life is a recurring theme; episodes shine a spotlight on the eating habits of various professionals (like doctors, opera singers and even astronauts) or explore how to cook in extreme locations, like a nuclear submarine or an Antarctic research station. Other episodes investigate trends like immersive dining and the rising popularity of private chefs, always offering a reliably engrossing blend of detailed reporting and first-person audio storytelling.
Starter episode: “What’s in a National Dish?”
‘The One Recipe’
Pretty much everybody, no matter their level of culinary confidence, has a go-to, no-fail recipe, whether it’s a dinner party crowd-pleaser or a low-effort staple to fall back on when you’re too tired to cook. Although the guests featured in this American Public Media series are all food professionals, part of the fun is just how varied their recipes are in terms of both complexity and category. Some are meticulously crafted takes on comforting staples, like Paola Velez’s chocolate chip cookies or J. Kenji López-Alt’s perfect hard-boiled eggs, while others are gourmand creations, like Yotam Ottolenghi’s brown sugar meringue roulade with burnt honey apples. On the episodes, running under 20 minutes each, guests share back stories on their chosen dishes with Jesse Sparks, a senior editor at Eater, and give tips for listeners who want to add it to their own recipe arsenals.
