- EP 62 Unveiling the Rich Tapestry of Chinese Cuisine with Red and White Cooking
In this episode, we continue As We Eat’s journey exploring "How to Cook and Eat in Chinese" by Buwei Yang Chao, an esteemed author who invited readers to experience what it means to both cook and eat Chinese food. As we continue our dive into the world of Chinese cooking, we peel back the layers of stereotypes that have often misrepresented this diverse and complex culinary tradition.
As We Eat Episodes Mentioned
EP 48 Dumplings Around the World: Pan Asian Dumplings from Chinese Medicine to Dim Sum
EP 49: Dumplings Around the World: European Dumplings from Saints to Holy Justice in Just One Bite
EP 50 Dumplings Around the World: The Great American Dumplings Showdown
EP 51 From Temple to Table: How Rice Built Communities Around the World
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
How to Cook and Eat in Chinese by Buwei Yang Chao
How to Order and Eat in Chinese to Get the Best Meal in a Chinese Restaurant by Buwei Yang Chao
Autobiography of a Chinese Woman by Buwei Yang Chao
Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America by Mayukh Sen
Other Sources
FOOD; Chinese Characters (with recipes) by The New York Times
Red-Cooked Meat and Table Manners: Decoding How to Cook and Eat in Chinese by The Margins
The Forgotten Chinese Chef Who Taught America to Stir-Fry by Mother Jones
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
26m | May 30, 2023 - EP 61 How to Cook and Eat in Chinese: Dishing up Culture
Today we’ll journey through a fascinating cookbook whose purpose was to inform, educate and break through ingrained stereotypes. How to Cook and Eat in Chinese is a cultural road map into Chinese culture through its food and culinary traditions with some humorous and personal twists and turns along the way.
From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship, Kim and Leigh discuss the political and social constructs that informed the creation of, if they do say so themselves, a spectacular piece of culinary literature.
How to Cook and Eat in Chinese is so, so, so much more than a book filled with recipes for Peking duck, spring rolls, and congee. It’s guide book through Chinese culture and tradition.
Written in Chinese by a Tokyo-educated female women’s doctor, translated by her English-speaking daughter, and edited by her Boxer-Indemnity-Scholarship educated husband, this book, as you might expect, is rife with multi-generational and cultural perspectives. And in the case of the footnotes, familial banter.
Buwei and crew brilliantly set the table to aid in understanding a culture through the lens of its food. As Mrs. Chao reminds us, “a little thinking and and little willingness to experiment will go very far.” Oh, what wise words!
Resources we found helpful for this episode
How to Cook and Eat in Chinese by Buwei Yang Chao
Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey by Anne Mendelson
Autobiography of a Chinese Woman by Buwei Yang Chao
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), National Archives
Red-Cooked Meat and Table Manners: Decoding How to Cook and Eat in Chinese
Books we think you should read
How to Cook and Eat in Chinese by Buwei Yang Chao
Chow Chop Suey: Food and the Chinese American Journey by Anne Mendelson
Autobiography of a Chinese Woman by Buwei Yang Chao
Episodes We Think You’ll Like
EP 59: Bon Appétit! How Julia Child Made America Fall in Love with French Food
Episode 60 Coq au Whatever: Mastering an Iconic French Provincial Dish
Episode 41 Brothers in Spoons: Odd Intersections of Food, Military, and War
As a member of affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
33m | May 16, 2023 - EP 60 Coq au Whatever: Mastering an Iconic French Provincial Dish
Grab your favorite glass of Burgundy and settle in as Leigh and Kim discuss what Leigh learned about making an iconic dish that epitomizes the warmth, hospitality, and culinary traditions of French culture. Leigh even shares what she discovered about herself when making coq au vin from Mastering the Art of French Cooking while Kim talks about the traditional wine used in making this dish.
Cook with any wine you have
We’ve talked at length about how Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a cookbook based on technique. Techniques that make the art of French cuisine and cooking available to the general public. And though there are prescriptions for iconic dishes, there is also some freedom granted by Julia and Co.
Coq au vin - rooster in wine - is traditionally made with red wine, but I love the fact that in the introduction of the recipe Julia notes that you can use whatever wine you cook with. This comes from a lady who painstakingly tested, re-tested, and re-tested all of the 524 recipes in the book. She understood that in order for people to cook these dishes, it was important to grant some ownership in the creative process.
On being intentional
This recipe is not for the faint of heart. Within the recipe for Coq au Vin there are an additional 3 recipes for ingredients used. But rather than look at the recipe with trepidation, I chose to recall a visit to France where I learned to understand the importance and intention that the culture places not only on ingredients but meal-times and community.
This is a country where businesses and schools shutter for two hours each day during lunch so that citizens can enjoy a meal with family and friends. Where suppers last well into the late evening hours. And where conversations are considered entertainment.
So, to dedicate a full day of intentional cooking wasn’t a hardship. It was a pleasure. A pleasure that elicited some interesting revelations about some of my cooking habits and one of the most delicious meals we had all week.
What about the wine
Although Julia and Co. indicate that you can use “whatever wine you use for cooking,” traditionally, coq au vin utilizes a wine that is local to the region, Burgundy. Kim takes us on a little tasting tour of this earthy wine made in the region since the Romans annexed this area into their empire.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck
My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck
My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Episodes We Think You’ll Enjoy
Episode 14 Casseroles: Tuna Noodle, Green Bean, and Gleaming Vessels
Episode 38: Fire & Ice: Two Modern Kitchen Technologies that Changed Our Kitchens and Diets
Episode 59: Bon Appétit! How Julia Child Made America Fall in Love with French Food
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
28m | May 2, 2023 - EP 59 Bon Appetit! How Julia Child Made America Fall in Love with French Food
It’s no secret that Leigh and Kim are fans of Julia Child - a culinary icon who revolutionized the way Americans think about food and cooking. Julia Child made cooking accessible and fun, and her legacy lives on today through her timeless recipes, television show episodes, her cookbooks, and through the work of the many chefs and food lovers she inspired.
For todays’ episode, we take a good look at Julia Child’s fascinating life and the start of her storied culinary career - the 1961 publication of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," co-authored with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian Institute
Julia Child Biography from National Women’s History Museum
FOOD: Transforming the American Table at the National Museum of American History
Julia Child Video Collection at PBS
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
"Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961) with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle
"The French Chef Cookbook" (1968)
"From Julia Child's Kitchen" (1975)
"Julia Child & Company" (1978)
"The Way to Cook" (1989)
"In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs" (1995)
"Baking with Julia" (1996)
"Julia's Kitchen Wisdom" (2000)
"My Life in France" (2006) with Alex Prud’homme
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
As a member of affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes.
21m | Apr 18, 2023 - EP 58: Waterlily Eggs: a convenient recipe for unexpected company... and woman suffrage
Today, Kim shares her experience with a recipe intended to ease the strain of entertaining and leave time for more important matters, like gaining votes for women.
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
28m | Apr 4, 2023 - EP 57 The Right Ingredients: How the Woman Suffrage Cook Book Stirred Up the Movement
You may know that the woman suffrage movement played a significant role in winning women the right to vote. But are you aware that an important tool that they employed to educate, persuade, and build community was cookbooks?
Kim and Leigh discuss how one of the movement’s self-published community cookbooks would serve as a testament to the suffragettes’ commitment to their cause and their desire to build a better world for themselves and their families.
No Ordinary Cook Book
The Woman Suffrage Cook Book is not your ordinary cookbook. Published in 1886, edited by Hattie A. Burr with recipe contributions by suffragettes, supporters, and women across America it served as a tool for fundraising, with proceeds supporting the movement. But it served an even greater purpose. It was a way to educate the public regarding the suffragettes’ goals and aspirations. By sharing family recipes and offering tips on household management and care of the sick and infirmed, it demonstrated that they were not just political activists but also wives, mothers, and homemakers.
The recipes provide a glimpse into the food culture of the time and serve as a reminder that food is more than sustenance. It can build community, shape culture, and be a catalyst of social change.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
All Stirred Up, Laura Kumin
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
All Stirred Up, Laura Kumin
The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, edited by Hattie A. Burr
The Woman Suffrage Cook Book, edited by Hatties A. Burr PDF version
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
18m | Mar 15, 2023 - EP 56 Beef A Là Mode: A Recipe to Bring You Home
Today, Leigh shares her experience with a recipe that embodies the feeling of home: Edna Lewis' Beef a là Mode from A Taste of Country Living.
The recipes in this auto-biographical cookbook are full of warmth, flavor, and nostalgia, and Beef a là Mode is no exception. This classic comfort food was a favorite of Edna’s family during the winter months in Freetown and was often served for special occasions.
Listen as Leigh shares personal experience with the recipe and how a dish can connect us to our past, our community, and our sense of home.
Books we think you'll enjoy
A Taste of Country Cooking, Edna Lewis
Other episodes we think you'll like
EP 43 Food Pioneers: Life and Career Highlights of People Who Make Food Great
EP 45 Cookbooks: Guardians of Culture and Cuisine
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
As a member of affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
28m | Mar 7, 2023 - EP 55 Refinding Home: Edna Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking, and Me
Season 3 kicks off with a cookbook with a heartfelt message of seasonality. The Taste of Country cooking by Chef Edna Lewis provides a beautifully written canvas for Kim and Leigh explore what it means to eat seasonally, and what it means to be home.
Despite growing up in a figurative cornucopia of produce in California, Kim struggled to feel a connection between herself, the food she ate, and the place she lived. It wasn’t that the luscious fruits and vegetables were bad - it just was that the easy availability and agricultural homogeneity made everything less vibrant, less succulent, and less special.
Reading Edna Lewis’s seminal work The Taste of Country Cooking helped Kim to break through a false dichotomy between the stereotypes of “city” and “country” and encouraged her to examine the development of her own foodways and traditions grown while living in seven different U.S states.
In the pages of this loving tribute to Chef Lewis’ childhood home in Freetown, Virginia and its rich traditions, Kim found inspiration to embrace the place in which she lives now and to nurture roots in her home community by exploring new foods grown locally in season.
Together Kim and Leigh explore both the fascinating life of Chef Edna Lewis, how she came to write this marvelous book, and the enduring legacy that The Taste of Country Cooking plays in defining not only a key element of American food culture, but also how it loving marks an important time and place in the author’s life.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Biography: Edna Lewis
Edna Lewis Foundation: “About Chef Edna Lewis”
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
The Edna Lewis Cookbook by Edna Lewis and Evangeline Peterson
In Pursuit of Flavor by Edna Lewis
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Edna Lewis’ White Pound Cake the Kitchn
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
As a member of affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
29m | Feb 14, 2023 - EP 54 2022 in Review: Savoring our Second Season
2022 was an eventful year for Leigh and Kim, and we laid everything on the table for As We Eat this year. Across 20 episodes, we ladled out many stories about how the ways we cook, eat, and share meals make food such a key component of our homes, our communities, and our culture.
In this final episode for 2022, Leigh and Kim discuss our favorite episodes of the year and what we’ve learned. We especially enjoyed unpacking the intersection of feminism and food studies with a special focus on community cookbooks and American Suffragist movement. We also loved learning about and sharing stories of the cultural commonalities of many fundamental foods, like dumplings, stew, and rice. As We Eat also loved answering questions from our listeners about Black & White cookies and the differences between jams & jellies.
One episode in particular though has inspired how As We Eat is planning to approach our third season in 2023. Leigh and Kim agree that cookbooks have much to offer us - whether we’re kitchen novices or seasoned foodies - and so we’ll be devoting our time, curiosity, and research into unpacking how cookbooks, both ancient and modern, have impacted how we think about, talk about, and interact with the foods that we eat. Stay tuned for interviews with authors, discussion about cookbooks as literature, insight into how cookbooks define (and exclude) communities, and more.
Don’t miss these stellar episodes:
Episode 45: Cookbooks: The Guardians of Cuisine and Culture
Feminism, Food Studies, and Women’s Suffrage
- EP 36: Feminism at the Kitchen Counter From Betty Crocker to Julia Child
- Ep 37: From the Kitchen to the Voting Booth: Suffrage for Women and Community Cookbooks
The Dumpling Trilogy
- EP 48: Dumplings Around the World: Pan Asian Dumplings from Chinese Medicine to Dim Sum
- EP 49: Dumplings Around the World: European Dumplings from Saints to Holy Justice in Just One Bite
- EP 50: Dumplings Around the World: The Great American Dumplings Showdown
Episodes Inspired by Our Listeners
- EP 39: Fisherman's Stew - A Savory Representation of Region, Culture, and Flavors
- EP 40: Sailing the Umami Seas - Fishy Origins of an Ancient Recipe, Proper Pronunciation of a Pantry Staple, and our favorite Bloody Marys
- EP 44: Look to the Cookie! Black & White Cookies, Racial Harmony, and the Impact of Food In Media
- EP 46: By Jam. Jelly, or Conserve: the True Stories of Fruit Spreads
- EP 51: From Temple to Table: How Rice Built Communities Around the World
Thanks for sharing this wonderful season with us; see you in 2023!
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
14m | Dec 6, 2022 - EP 53 In Pie We Crust: As We Eat’s 3rd Annual Pie Episode
Pies have claimed their stake at the feast table long before there was a national celebration of Thanksgiving. Largely originating in England, pies both small and large served royals and peasants alike with fillings of meat, fruits, and spices from faraway lands. Immigrants from Great Britain brought pie traditions over the Atlantic and expanded their repertoire with new fruits, nuts, and game.
Pecan pie - an American South classic pie - is one such newcomer. As Leigh explains it, the sweet meat inside the hardy nutshell was previously known only to the Native American people inhabiting the pecan’s peak growth areas along the Mississippi River and its tributaries north to Illinois and Iowa and south to the Gulf Coast. Pecans didn’t turn into the pie darling that we love today - the first recipes for pecan pie in the early 19th Century more closely resembled a meringue pie. A certain corn syrup merchant is credited for changing around our conceptualization of what we now consider a classic pecan pie.
Curiosity, and a misplaced sense of nostalgia, drew Kim towards a thorough examination of the mincemeat pie. Mincemeat once graced royal coronation tables and has since become synonymous with a well-provisioned Christmas table, so much so that the pastries were once banned by Puritan governments in England and the United States in the 17th Century for being too decadent! These early pies earned their name from the process and product of their creation - minced meats mixed with fruits and spices served up in trencher or coffin pies (named for their shape!) - but have since gone largely vegetarian.
Please don’t miss our other episodes devoted to pie:
Pie: Crazy Labels, Cockney Rhyming Slang, and Greek Melons (Episode 2)
Revisiting Pies: Desperation, Thrift, and Brand Campaigns (Episode 32)
And an unique take on mincemeat from our 2021 Alimentary Advent Calendar
Alimentary Advent Calendar: Door Number 9 - Mincemeat
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
The History of Mince Pies - Historic UK
The History of Mincemeat Pies, from the Crusades to Christmas - Smithsonian Magazine
What The Heck Is Mincemeat? - Farmers' Almanac
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson
Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink by Andrew Smith Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life by Kate McDermott
Pie Camp: The Skills You Need to Make Any Pie You Want by Kate McDermott
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management: The 1861 Classic with Advice on Cooking, Cleaning, Childrearing, Entertaining, and More by Isabella Beeton (contains a recipe for mincemeat)
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Pumpkin Pecan Pie from Family Spice
Gluten-Free Pecan Pie from Fearless Dining
A Pie Calendar
Leigh's 2023 Pie Calendar can be purchased here
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
31m | Nov 22, 2022 - EP 52 Edible Bones and Sugar Skulls: The Festive Foods of Dias de los Muertos
Today marks the first of two festive days collectively known as Días de los Muertos, a Hispanic folk holiday to remember the souls of those departed and to temporarily welcome them home with a vibrant celebration of color, food, and music. Leigh and Kim go beyond the veil to reveal the origins of two iconic food traditions: Pan de Muerto and Calaveres du Azucar.
During Días de los Muertos, millions of Hispanic families celebrate their ancestors and deceased loved ones with special traditions and foods that acknowledge the circle of life. The air fills with sweet scents of marigolds, orange blossom, and anise to guide the family spirits home, and everywhere you turn you find pillowy sweet breads decorated with skulls & bones or brightly decorated sugar skulls. Behind these paradoxical images - macabre yet cheerful - lie the stories of ancient Mesoamerica rites transformed by European colonialism into more palatable traditions.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Pan de Muerto by Mexican Food Kitchen
Oaxaca welcomes spirits home with ’bread of the dead’ | National Geographic
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond by Stanley Brandes
Llewellyn's Little Book of the Day of the Dead by Jaime Gironés
This Guera's Guide to Dia de los Muertos: An Introduction to the Holiday and Assistance on Setting up the Altar by Lauren Alaniz
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Pan de Muerto by Good Housekeeping
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
24m | Nov 1, 2022 - EP 51 From Temple to Table: How Rice Built Communities Around the World
Of the three cereal grains consumed around the world, rice is a versatile foodstuff with an interesting history. As a food staple, it nourishes more than half of the 7.75 billion people on our planet, but it means so much more to us than merely grains in a bowl - this is the stuff upon which empires are built. For this episode, As We Eat follows the story of rice from temple to terroir to table.
Confucian proverbs run the gamut from profane to profound, and about rice it is believed that he said: “With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow; I have still joy in the midst of all these things.”
Luckily for modern eaters, we can still experience joy in the midst of our eating without having to resort to coarse rice. In fact, we have four kinds of rice to enjoy from all over the world - indica, japonica, aromatic, and glutinous rice all have found roles in our kitchens, our diets, and even our spiritual practices.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Domestication: The birth of rice
Ingrained: Sharing the Untold Stories of California Rice, hosted by Jim Morris
The "7 GODS" in a Single Rice Grain! Why Farmers are Considered Gods in Japan
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Rice: A Global History by Renee Marton
Rice: A Savor the South Cookbook by Michael Twitty
The Rice Bible by Christia Teubner
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Chicken Curry & Calrose Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash
Pork and Shiitake Mushroom Congee
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
24m | Oct 18, 2022 - EP 50 Dumplings Around the World: The Great American Dumplings Showdown
Whether served fried, steamed, or boiled, dumplings can tell the story of a geography by how it's cooked and eaten . As We Eat concludes its three-part series exploring the global cuisine of dumplings with our third installment examining the twin stories of the “dumpling” darling of a classic American comfort food. Are you Team Fluffy or Team Slick?
As we’ve discovered in our three-part series, dumplings reign as a perpetual favorite in cuisines all over the world, and North America is no different. Here in the States, two different formulations of dumplings form the backbone to an All-American classic dish: Chicken & Dumplings. In many ways, the popularity of that dish is no real mystery - people have been enjoying meat stewed with vegetables for centuries - but it definitely gains an advantage from a fluffy soft or slick chewy dumplings.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Don't Call Chicken and Dumplings Depression-Era Cheap Eats
Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph
The Kentucky Housewife by Lettice Brian
Carolina Housewife by Sarah Rutledge
Housekeeping in Old Virginia by Marion Kabel Tyre
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Pennsylvania Dutch Chicken Pot Pie from a Coal Cracker in the Kitchen
Southern Chicken and Dumplings from Pastry Chef Online
Nothing says comfort like homemade chicken and dumplings - Chesterfield Observer
Chicken Soup with Butter Dumplings from Chez Us
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
20m | Oct 4, 2022 - EP 49 Dumplings Around the World: European Dumplings from Saints to Holy Justice in Just One Bite
Whether served fried, steamed, or boiled, a dumpling filled with local ingredients feeds the mind with a taste of its history. As We Eat is embarking in a three-part series exploring the global cuisine of dumplings, and our second episode takes us over Silk Road trade routes into Europe where we explore the culinary impact of such European delights as ravioli, pierogi, Matzo balls, kreplach, and floaters.
One dumpling tells many stories - its ingredients tell stories about the people that it nurtures and the techniques of its making helps recall special times and places. Each dumpling itself is a sort of “perfect bite” showcasing a world of flavor encapsulated within a pillowy cloud of dough.
As we continue our three-part journey into the global culinary phenomenon of dumplings, Leigh and Kim share the history and culture behind some of the world’s favorite dumplings to unveil some of the rhyme and reason behind their popularity and prominent place on our plates.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Raviole du Dauphiné from Isère, France
How St. Hyacinth miraculously fed a crowd of starving people with pierogi
Giant Perogy – Glendon, Alberta - Gastro Obscura
Teddy Roosevelt tackled by Pierogi
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Dumplings for Beginners: 50 Recipes and Simple Step-by-Step Lessons to Make Your Favorite Dumplings by Terri Dien
The Dumpling Galaxy Cookbook by Helen You and Max Falkowitz
Matzo: 35 Recipes for Passover and All Year Long: A Cookbook
The Matzo Ball Boy (Picture Puffin Books)
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Learn How to Make Raviole from France
Ravioles (Cypriot ravioli) - Kopiaste..to Greek Hospitality
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
25m | Sep 20, 2022 - EP 48 Dumplings Around the World: Pan Asian Dumplings from Chinese Medicine to Dim Sum
Whether served fried, steamed, or boiled, a well-shaped dumpling offers a tasty perfect bite along with a well-intentioned wish for luck, prosperity, and good health. As We Eat is embarking in a three-part series exploring the global cuisine of dumplings, and our first episode starts with a survey of the intersection of food and medicine with a deeper exploration of two immensely popular Pan Asian dumplings - gyoza and siu mai.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
The origins of siu mai: how an iconic dim sum staple came to be | South China Morning Post
What's a dim sim? How an oversized dumpling became an Australian food icon | CNN Travel
The Oxford Companion to Food, edited by Alan Davidson
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Dumplings for Beginners: 50 Recipes and Simple Step-by-Step Lessons to Make Your Favorite Dumplings by Terri Dien
Dumplings All Day Wong: A Cookbook of Asian Delights From a Top Chef by Lee Ann Wong
Gyoza: The Ultimate Dumpling Cookbook: 50 Recipes from Tokyo's Gyoza King - Pot Stickers, Dumplings, Spring Rolls and More! by Paradise Yamamoto
The Dumpling Galaxy Cookbook by Helen You and Max Falkowitz
The Dumpling Sisters Cookbook: Over 100 Favourite Recipes From A Chinese Family Kitchen by The Dumpling Sisters (Author)
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Authentic Pork Shui Mai (Shumai) from Yum China
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
26m | Sep 6, 2022 - EP 47 From Starter to Finish: Dough Does It All
With as few as three ingredients, dough can transform into some of the world’s most seminal dishes - pizza, pasta, bread, and more. Join As We Eat as we rise to the occasion and dish up some fascinating history and cultural impacts of dough.
The Limitless Capacity of Dough
Dough has a nearly limitless capacity depending on its ingredients, leavening or fermenting process, or how the dough is shaped and cooked. Called “the spark that led to the development of state and large political units,” a humble bowl of dough represents not only all the potential of what it might become, but also as a reminder of how much humans relied upon basic foodstuffs to imagine, build, and sustain whole civilizations. In this episode of As We Eat, Leigh and Kim take you on a journey through the history of dough and its mainstay ingredients and techniques. We also discuss how dough has its place within nearly every cuisine across the globe, and still grows its impact every day.
A Culinary Building Block
Dough is a culinary building block that enriches our lives from basic nutrition to agricultural development to large-scale trade.
As a mother to all manner of popular food mainstays, a ball of dough is inherently hopeful because it could turn into so many wonderful, cherished things. It's no wonder that in the midst of a global health concern, we found space on our counters for jars of dough starters that perhaps reminded us that we could nurture and care for ourselves even as time seemed to stand still.
For today’s episode, we travel back in time to review how the mixture of a few simple ingredients influenced and was influenced by the cultures and dynasties of the people who relied upon the foods that dough created. Leigh shows how the concept of mixing flour made from wheat, rye, barley, and other cereals with water not only contributed towards the development of some of our greatest ancient civilizations, but also how long-held beliefs about the rise of agriculture were shaken by discovery of 12,000-old-old breadcrumbs
Kim enthuses about how dough represents a common, shared foodway through unleavened flatbread as a natural container for roasted meats or vegetables. This simple food is found in all corners of the planet revealing a way in which we are all alike rather than different.
We conclude with memories of a recipe for friendship bread that produce a sweet dough meant to be shared with family and friends - until it threatens to take over the house!
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
14,000-Year-Old Piece Of Bread Rewrites The History Of Baking And Farming
Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan
Friendship Bread Kitchen Website
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
You and I Eat the Same: On the Countless Ways, Food and Cooking, Connect Us to One Another edited by Chris Yang
Considered the Fork by Bee Wilson
Bread, A Global History by William Rubel
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Amish Friendship Bread Starter from Friendship Bread Kitchen
Apple Oatmeal Amish Friendship Bread from Friendship Bread Kitchen
Herman Friendship Cake from Cherished by Me
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
29m | Aug 23, 2022 - EP 46 By Jam. Jelly, or Conserve: the True Stories of Fruit Spreads
The story of fruit spreads and how they become staples of the breakfast table is as much about the similarities between fruit and techniques to preserve it as the story is of its differences. In today’s episode, we briefly revisit the origins of food preservation to show how the fundamental desire to be able to revisit the taste of fresh, sweet strawberries has led to the proliferation of all manners of jam, jellies, preserves, and more to our breakfast tables. We also explore how dishes revered by royalty - and whose costly ingredients were only affordable to those of an elevated class - made their way generously to breakfast tables across Great Britain and beyond.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Polaner All Fruit Commercial (1989)
US Supreme Court - “62 CASES, MORE OR LESS, EACH CONTAINING SIX JARS OF JAM et al. v. UNITED STATES”
De Re Coquinaria by Apicius
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Food Swap: Specialty Recipes for Bartering, Sharing, and Giving by Emily Paster
Artisanal Preserves: Small-Batch Jams, Jellies, Marmalades, and More by Madelaine Bullwinkel
Foolproof Preserving: A Guide to Small Batch Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Condiments & More by America’s Test Kitchen
The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson
De Re Coquinaria by Apicius
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Hot & Saucy Cocktail Meatballs (with Grape Jelly) by Betty Crocker
Red Wine Jelly by Creative Culinary
Bakewell Tarts by Scotch and Scones
Freezer Jam by Pookspantry
Orange Marmalade by Family Spice
Episodes We Think You’ll Enjoy
EP 2 Pie: Crazy Labels, Cockney Rhyming Slang, and Greek Melons
EP 32 Revisiting Pies: Desperation, Thrift, and Brand Campaigns
Ep 29 Kitchen Technology: Canning, Can Openers, and Cookie Cutters
EP 45 Cookbooks: Guardians of Culture and Cuisine
By Jams, Jellies and Conserves Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
25m | Aug 2, 2022 - EP 45 Cookbooks: Guardians of Culture and Cuisine
Cookbooks provide context into a specific cuisine; allow its reader to emulate royal diets; provide meaningful instruction in how to nourish and nurture others with food; or even just whet the imagination and the appetite. This latest installment of As We Eat’s Kitchen Technology series turns our attention to the cookbook - a powerhouse culinary tool that instructs, educates, and inspires.
What does your favorite cookbook say about you? For centuries, cookbooks have not only instructed us on how to prepare a dish, but also educated, entertained, and inspired our food preferences and choices. Join us as we reflect on some of our favorites and muse about how the cookbook of the future may look.
Cookbooks form a critical backbone in how we conceptualize and communicate how a dish tastes through its headnotes, the ingredients of which it is composed (ingredient list), and the means by which to make it (technique).
For As We Eat’s latest addition to our celebrated Kitchen Technology series, Leigh and Kim delve into the history of cookbooks - the oldest dating to the First Century! - with an eye towards how cookbooks instructed and informed its readers about the diets of royalty and the foods that were both delicious and healthy. These recipes often reflect the abundance and variety of ingredients available to the wealthy.
As food scarcity decreased and variety became more accessible to all classes, cookbooks shifted focus towards the needs of the common man. Technological and cultural innovations that benefitted literacy and made home kitchens more capable of producing larger, regular meals was reflected in the variety of cookbooks published by acclaimed chefs, food pioneers, and food companies. Our grocery stores and pantries filled with both fresh and canned foods that changed the fundamental question from what to cook but how to make the most of our abundance.
Kim shared how four keystone books in her personal cookbook collection serve as historical touch points to vintage recipes and special family memories, and we conclude with speculation about how today’s technology will influence how future generations might create, share, and use cookbooks and recipes.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies
The Ancient Mesopotamian Tablet as Cookbook
A Brief History of Cookbooks Worldwide
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
Apicius: De Re Coquinaria Cookbook
Plain Cookery for the Working Classes
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, two-volume set
Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1974 Ring-Bound
Episode Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
As a member affiliate programs, we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. This helps us to continue to bring you stories, history, and personal musings about food, cuisines, traditions, and recipes
27m | Jul 19, 2022 - EP 44 Look to the Cookie! Black & White Cookies, Racial Harmony, and the Impact of Food In Media
Did Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson nibble on Black & White cookies while composing their famous “Ebony & Ivory” duet? We may never know the answer to that question, but As We Eat can tell you about the origins of the Black & White cookie (and its Half Moon cookie cousin) which became a well known metaphor for racial harmony thanks to an episode of Seinfeld. Kudos to Abby Lamb for the episode topic suggestion!
Can a Cookie Solve our Woes
“Look to the cookie,” Jerry Seinfeld exclaimed in 1994 and suddenly a cookie went viral.
Thanks to a suggestion from As We Eat friend Abby Lamb, we are taking a long look into the Black & White Cookie, a sweet treat made world famous as a metaphor for racial harmony by the popular Seinfeld sitcom of the early 1990s.
In this episode, we discuss The Dinner Party episode of Seinfeld that launched the not well known black & white cookie into notoriety (without the help of social media). Leigh rounds up the history of the half chocolate / half vanilla cookie and its purported cousin, the halfmoon cookie and Kim surveys other foods that hit the mainstream with a little boost from media - brown cows, cheesecake, White Russians, and more.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
- Food Timeline Website
- Vice Website, The Real History of Black and White Cookies, Joanne Spataro
- 'Look to the Cookie': An Ode in Black and White - The New York Times
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
- Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food by Arthur Schwartz
Recipes You Really Need to Try
- Spaghetti Tacos by Kitty Johnson on All Recipes
- White Russian on Liquor.com
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
25m | Jul 5, 2022 - EP 43 Food Pioneers: Life and Career Highlights of People Who Make Food Great
The first episode of a new As We Eat series highlights the accomplished lives and careers of Leah Chase and Edna Lewis - two African-American chefs who not only had brilliant careers but whose work in the culinary world highlights how important food culture is to community-building.
We know good food when we eat it, but how often do we know the names, faces, and lives of the chefs who make those really special dishes that warm our souls? Today’s episode is the first in a new As We Eat series highlighting the interesting lives and careers of the heroes and pioneers of food. As the United States celebrates Juneteenth, we felt it appropriate to start with two amazing chefs - Lead Chase and Edna Lewis - whose work demonstrates how food can build and sustain community, particularly in times of change.
Sources We Found Helpful for this Episode
Oral History interview with Leah Chase (with video)
Dooky Chase's Restaurant Since 1941 | About the Chef
The 10 Dishes that Made My Career: Leah Chase
Books We Think You’ll Enjoy Reading
The Dooky Chase Cookbook by Leah Chase
And Still I Cook by Leah Chase
Leah Chase: Paintings by Gustave Blache III
Down Home Healthy, Family Recipes of Black American Chefs by Leah Chase
Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim by Jessica B. Harris
The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
The Edna Lewis Cookbook by Edna Lewis and Evangeline Peterson
Recipes You Really Need to Try
Gumbo 101 (Nourish with Leah Chase)
Leah Chase’s Gumbo z’Herbes (Southern Living)
Edna Lewis’ White Pound Cake the Kitchn
Transcript
🎧 Click here for the full, interactive transcript of this episode 🎧
Do you have a favorite food pioneer?
We would love to connect with you
AsWeEat.com, on Instagram @asweeat, join our new As We Eat community on Facebook, or subscribe to the As We Eat Journal.
Do you have a great idea 💡 for a show topic, a recipe 🥘 that you want to share, or just say “hi”👋🏻? Send us an email at connect@asweeat.com
Review As We Eat on Podchaser or Apple Podcast. We would like to know what you think.
24m | Jun 21, 2022
