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 goes way, way back to the origins of civilization itself. It’s another epic journey across the ages, this time with a focus on my own chosen profession and day job. This is the long, ancient history of chefs (and restaurants). AVAILABLE ON ITUNES,   SPOTIFY, and GOOGLE PLAY. Please leave a review to help spread the word! Theme music by the incredible Michael Levy of Ancient Ly ..read more

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 populated with real people, who had lives just like we do? Come take a sweeping journey back into the past as we explore the entire history of civilization, but on a more intimate level, examining as closely as we can the daily lives, challenges, and of course foods, of your average subsistence farmer living in any time and culture. AVAILABLE ON ITUNES,   SPOTIFY, and GOOGLE PLAY. Please ..read more

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. But it wasn’t some simple flick of the switch, where some entrepreneurs decided to build some factories and invent the modern world. Massive changes to food and agriculture had to happen first. As we’ve come to expect by now, history follows food, in one last grand finale to this season of the podcast. Come listen how! (Also stick around at the end of the episode for a note about the show and next s ..read more

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 the true minds and bodies behind birthing America’s culture? It’s all true. Come listen to the story of how American ingredients , cooked by African Slaves, for the benefit of European colonists, created soul food, which created Southern food, which is the foundation of ALL American food. Period. AVAILABLE ON ITUNES,   SPOTIFY, and GOOGLE PLAY. Please leave a review to help spread ..read more

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 rarely looked back, but in this episode we finally return to the vast continent, specifically south of the Sahara desert, where more than any other qualities, feeling full and satisfied are what make a great meal, and a great chef is one who can evoke that feeling the most. Come listen for this and other perspectives on food and dining we so rarely hear about in western history. AVAILABLE ON ITUN ..read more

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, displaced alcohol and sobered everyone up, and how it would foster revolutions in finance, science, and philosophy. Thanks to coffee and the coffeehouses people drank it in, this newly caffeinated world would never be the same. This is the story of the happy (polygamous?) marriage between coffee, colonialism, and capitalism. AVAILABLE ON ITUNES,   SPOTIFY, and GOOGLE PLAY. Please ..read more

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 it never had before. Europeans, Africans, Asians, and American Indians began migrating out of their landmasses of origin. Some movement was voluntary, much was not. . . . but people of all origins soon found themselves flung around the globe, forced to interact and work with each other, mixing their cultures and genetics together to form hybrid societies. With hybrid societies come hybrid cuisine. The ..read more

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, this time even farther east. . . to Japan and Korea. Also known. . . by myself at least, as the lands of umami and kimchi. AVAILABLE ON ITUNES,   SPOTIFY, and GOOGLE PLAY. Please leave a review to help spread the word! Korean Traditional Music sampled from The National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts. Republic of Korea / 1997 BIBLIOGRAPHY medium.com – A- Brief Look ..read more

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 civilizations. . . Then one day in 1492, a guy named Columbus passed that impassible ocean, and began the momentous and tumultuous process of bringing the Old World and the New World back together, into one. Human civilization and the ecosystems of earth itself would never be the same. AVAILABLE ON ITUNES,   SPOTIFY, and GOOGLE PLAY. Please leave a review to help spread the word! Theme ..read more

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 something much more complicated, gradual, and subject to the influence of other cultures from outside? Hmm, I wonder?… Come listen for an extensive tour of the Italian Renaissance, how it began, and what it meant for people and what they ate. AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY, ITUNES and GOOGLE PLAY. Please leave a review to help spread the word! BIBLIOGRAPHY The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi (1570), tra ..read more