Making a Meal of It is for eaters of all appetites who want to reimagine and reinvigorate their relationships with food, food culture, and food systems. Taking a deep dive into the ways we feed our bodies, psyches, and societies, the podcast helps make sense of the complexity that makes food so fascinating. Each episode unpacks a specific subject or theme, while host David Szanto—a professor, writer, and artist from Montréal ...
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This episode ends season one of Making a Meal of It on a sweet note, but also a savoury one, as well as a lofty (but reasonable) proposition for using pudding as an icon for systemic change. Conversations with food scientist Richard Hartel and saucissier-philosopher Nick Amberg show that the proof of the pudding is not just in the eating, but also in a whole series of steps both before and after. Maxime and David ponder the pleasure of nostalgia during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth!’, and the episode concludes with questions proposed by past Food Questionnaire respondents. Guests: Dr. Richard Hartel is a professor of Food Engineering with the Department of Food Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on phase transitions in foods, primarily sugar confections, chocolate, and ice cream, and he teaches courses in manufacturing and preservation, as well as candy science. His book, Food Bites: The Science of the Foods We Eat, is a lively read about everything from skunky beer to marshmallow peeps. Nick Amberg is a CÉGEP instructor, food maker, photographer, improviser, and self-trained charcutier. He is also a maker of connections, a process idealist, and an excellent host. Host/Producer: David Szanto Music: Story Mode @makingamealpodcast makingamealofit.com
Mushrooms are the magical focus of this episode, though we only just touch the tip of their mycelial majesty. Conversations with entrepreneurs Nanae Watabe and Judith Noel Gagnon bridge the worlds of foraging, restaurants, humans, and mycelia, while Maxime and David taste two fungal flavours during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’. Closing things off is the Food Questionnaire with artist and food scholar, Annika Walsh. Guests: Nanae Watabe is a Japanese and Mexican mushroom enthusiast, spreading fungi to the culinary-minded people of Mexico City. She is fluent in the languages and flavors of Mexico, Japan, and Italy, and has been involved in such food-related projects as managing a ranch and owning a sushi burrito stand. Her book, Estado de Hongos, reflects on and describes all things mushroom-y. Judith Noel Gagnon is a biologist and co-owner of the Mycoboutique in Montreal, Québec, the “general store of mushrooms.” The shop offers dried mushrooms, mushroom-growing kits, mushroom excursions, and hundreds of other products from art to books to fermentation equipment. Annika Walsh is a master student in Integrated Studies in Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. A transdisciplinary artist who was born in Chuzhou, China and adopted at 11 months of age by her family in Canada, Annika works with a wide variety of ingredients, materials, and collaborators to form her conceptual pieces. Also mentioned: le Cercle des mycologues de Montréal (the Montreal Mycological Society) Anna Tsing’s article, “Unruly Edges: Mushrooms as Companion Species” Host/Producer: David Szanto Music: Story Mode @makingamealpodcast makingamealofit.com
This episode is all fish, fishing, and fisheries, including the fluid and dynamic ways that things change when water and humans meet. Conversations with fisheries researcher Kristen Lowitt and pisciculture entrepreneur Nicolas Paquin net out with a hefty catch of ideas about relationships, livelihoods, ecosystems, and innovation. For the fish edition of ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, Maxime and David peel the metallic lid off a couple of cans of fish, and we close with art-scientist Christy Spackman’s responses to the Food Questionnaire. Guests: Kristen Lowitt is a settler scholar working in the School of Environmental Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek. She grew up near the Great Lakes and recently returned to the region after many years in Atlantic Canada. Nicolas Paquin is the co-founder and operator of Opercule, an urban fish farm in central Montreal, and part of the Centrale Agricole, a cooperative of agrifood producers and actors working to develop businesses within a circular economy. Christy Spackman is an assistant professor at Arizona State University, where she runs the Sensory Labor(atory), a research-creation collective exploring how to disrupt the status quo of how institutions and infrastructures make sense of sensing. Her recent book, The Taste of Water, which explores the increasing erasure of tastes from drinking water over the 20th century. Also mentioned: Opercule’s Instagram the documentary “Lake Superior, Our Helper” and its distributor, Collective Eye Films more about Batchewana First Nation ‘Emergent Aliens’: On Salmon, Nature, and Their Enactment by Marianne Lien and John Law Host/Producer: David Szanto Music: Story Mode @makingamealpodcast makingamealofit.com
This episode is all about the meaty meatness of meat, including power and privilege, language and taste. Conversations with food scholar Julie Guthman and charcutier-and-butcher Phil Viens cut to the bone when it comes to politics, technocracy, artisanship, and trust. David and Maxime moderate their meat intake during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, and physicist (and chili-sauce lover) Liz Ainsbury responds to the Food Questionnaire. Guests: Dr. Julie Guthman is a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on food system transformation in the United States, including Silicon Valley’s recent forays into food and agriculture. Her new book, The Problem with Solutions, addresses this new research. Phil Viens is a former restaurant chef turned butcher and charcutier. His Montreal shop, Aliments Viens is a nexus of trust, artistry, and care for both people and what they eat. Liz Ainsbury is a radiation protection physicist who is based in the UK and works with research scientists and other colleagues from around the world. Also mentioned: Alex Blanchette's Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm the speculative films Soylent Green and Snowpiercer Julie Guthman on the Thriving Farmer Podcast and “The Food Police” the history of vegetarianism the Maillard Reaction Host/Producer: David Szanto Music: Story Mode @makingamealpodcast makingamealofit.com
This special episode of Making a Meal of It features 11 short conversations with participants in the FLOW Partnership, a seven-year international food systems research project. The full team met in Montreal in mid-May 2024 to share their progress, plan future research activities, and discuss ways to enable their work to transform food production, policies, and attitudes. Next week’s episode returns to the usual format, but for now, have a listen to the many ways that food, food culture, and food systems are both different and similar around the world. FEATURING: Alison Blay-Palmer on the FLOW Partnership Nicole Claasen, GIZ, Germany Kevin Morgan, Cardiff University, Wales Anne-Marie Aubert, Conseil du système alimentaire montréalais, Québec Laura Gómez Tovar, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Mexico Samuel Gudu, Rongo University, Kenya Chatura Pulasinghage, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario/Sri Lanka Lillith Brook, Government of Northwest Territories Elodie Valette, URBAL/CIRAD, France Rachel Carey, University of Melbourne, Australia Victor Martinez, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, British Columbia The FLOW Partnership is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Host/Producer: David Szanto Music: Story Mode @makingamealpodcast makingamealofit.com