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Podcast Picks of the Week: Voices from the Kitchen

Three shows that treat cooking as a way of talking about everything else.

Date
Category
Culture,Others
Reading time
1 min

Food podcasts mostly fall into two camps: the interview show that never leaves the studio, and the recipe show that would work better as a page. The three below do something else — they use the kitchen as a way into a subject that is not really about cooking.

The one about labour

A season built entirely from interviews with people who work the back of house — dishwashers, prep cooks, the person who breaks down the fish. No chefs. It is the clearest account of how a restaurant actually functions that exists in any medium, and it is often very funny.

The one about migration

Each episode follows a single dish across a border and tracks what changed and why. The answers are usually about what was available rather than what was intended, which turns out to be the story of most national cuisines.

The one recorded on location

No narration, minimal editing, and a microphone in a market for forty minutes. It should not work. It works because the host asks one good question and then stops talking — a skill in short supply on either side of a microphone.

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