food and cooking podcasts

December 24, 2007 8:51 PM

please recommend food and cooking podcasts or internet radio

Specifically I am looking for podcasts where I (restaurant experiened food obsessed guy) can learn something. I am not so interested in politics (should foie gras be banned?) or issues (does eating organic actually do anything?). And I'm also not so interested in things that are typically material for food sections of magazines ("a winter stew that will really warm you up!<3").

If I was making my dream show some topics might include: cocoa powder double blind taste test, are your french copper pans really made in france?, minimalist bread experiments part 2, debunking cooking myths, focus on popular restaurant techniques and trends, simplest pasta recipe, sourcing/highlighting ingredients, discussions of "quality". Think Jeffery Steingarten plus a dash of Tony Bourdain; old world wisdom translated like Mario Batali, all combined with the experimentalism and professionalism of the eGullet forums. foodie podcasts without the pretension.

posted by Infernarl to media & arts (7 answers total)

funny you should ask, i'm an occasional customer of metrokitchen.com and they just sent me a gift subscription to something called rouxbe.com which supposedly has cooking instruction videos (i know how to cook, thank you).

cocoa powder double blind taste test...

start with two of my favorites, valrhona and pernigotti.

are your french copper pans really made in france?

mauviel cuprinox? you bet your ass they are!
posted by bruce at 9:24 PM on December 24, 2007

It perhaps leans too much into topics you've said you're not interested in, but I've got to recommend Evan Kleiman's Good Food. I've looked around, and for me it's easily best in class.
posted by boombot at 10:47 PM on December 24, 2007

Well, there's The Splendid Table, a public radio show. It has a podcast version you can subscribe to. I'd say it meets maybe 75% of your criteria — you'll get double blind salt tastings, interviews with chefs, cheesemongers, vintners, etc, and some interesting notions from out of the blue. You'll also get Lynne Rossetto Kasper, the host, who knows quite a bit, but whose radio voice can be grating. The guy from Cooks shows up not infrequently to natter-on about things. And there are lowbrow dining segments, annoying interviews, and a stump-the-cook call in. Give it a listen or two. It bugs me enough that I'm not a loyal listener, but you may be more starved for input than I.
posted by mumkin at 1:04 AM on December 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

I've got to second mumkin's take on Splendid Table--as an avid amateur chef with a low threshold for ingratiating cheesiness, I find it a total mix of things that really interest me, and things that just annoy the heck out of me.
posted by LairBob at 1:21 PM on December 25, 2007

Since you mentioned eGullet, you might be interested in the Off The Broiler podcast by Jason Perlow, the founder of eGullet.

The focus of his blog/podcast may change a bit, ever since he became a born-again-low-carber last month, but he has done many interesting and informative food-geek podcasts (including interviews with Tony Bourdain). I could do without some of his podcasts (such as the pizza & hotdog tasting "shootouts") where he eats on microphone with his mouth full, but by and large its a good podcast.
posted by melorama at 6:00 PM on December 25, 2007

I don't know what to tell you about food podcasts, but you sound like you might really enjoy John Thorne's books / newsletter. My favorite book is _Pot on the Fire_. _Outlaw Cook_ is also quite good, but out of print and a bit pricier. A large part of it covers his tumultuous affair with sourdough cultures and a backyard stone oven, though.

(Also, Cook's Illustrated may be up your alley, but I'm sure you've already seen that.)
posted by trouserbat at 7:12 PM on December 25, 2007

Hey! MeFi's own soulbarn was interviewed on KCRW's Good Food program. [iTunes link]. It's new to me, but lookss like an interesting weekly hour of foodieness that might appeal to you.
posted by mumkin at 1:24 PM on January 8, 2008