Episodes
10 hours ago
10 hours ago
I first smelled the freshly nixtamalized masa from Emmanuel Galvan of Bolita at the Gilman Wine Block, where the tender, vegetal umami scent carried above the crowds right into my nose. This episode, we focus on technological and labor challenges of nixtamalization in the present, specifically right in Berkeley – complicating the many ways nixtamalization makes corn esculent.
Tasting: Tessier Wine’s Pinot Noir
Viewing: “Memory,” the dish with tortillas from The Menu (2022)
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.
Tuesday May 13, 2025
Tuesday May 13, 2025
We are back with a dive into the archive featuring Chef Brandon Jew of Mister Jiu’s restaurant in San Francisco - featuring historic menus and historic buildings, and how this influences canonical Chinese American recipes like Peking Duck. We kick off Season 4: Chefs Pt. 2 with our literary inquiries into the work of Chefs, and how words, archives, and texts make the esculent.
Tasting: A whiff of UC Davis Special Collections
Viewing: Yan Can Cook: Winter Melon, Steamed Sea Bass, and Black Bean Chicken, aired on PBS in the 1980s
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.
Monday May 12, 2025
Monday May 12, 2025
Season 4, Chefs is here: we revisit the dynamic role of the chef in popular culture through culinary literatures, from 15th-century cookbooks to PBS television series.
Tasting: A Russell Stover head of an Easter Bunny (context provided, sort of).
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.
Tuesday Apr 08, 2025
Tuesday Apr 08, 2025
Can baking brownies save the planet? I’m a little embarrassed I even wrote this question out, but this rhetoric exemplifies the argument of our esteemed guest’s new book: The Problem with Solutions: Why Silicon Valley Can't Hack the Future of Food (UC Press, 2024). For our final episode of this season, we are joined by Julie Guthman, Distinguished Professor of Community Studies Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. We discuss my favorite food film, shifts in university pedagogy, and how to conceive of doing good while maintaining critical thinking.
Tasting: Renewal Mill Brownie Mix
Viewing: Bong Joon-Ho’s Okja (2017)
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.
Tuesday Apr 01, 2025
Tuesday Apr 01, 2025
Authenticity. An idea that has plagued many conversations on food. This week, we are joined by Professor Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, the Jarvis Thurston and Mona van Duyn Professor in Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. We interrogate the role of authenticity in constructing Mexican national identity through another culinary idea: that of the taco. We discuss the taco’s malleable history across regions, including Taco Bell. Stay tuned for Professor Sánchez Prado’s upcoming book on the taco and modernity!
Tasting: Taco de machado con huevo by special guest Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores
Viewing: Viral Tiktok: White People Taco Night by Keith Habersberger and the Try Guys and MC Luka’s Lupita’s Taco Shop
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.
Tuesday Mar 25, 2025
Tuesday Mar 25, 2025
How are processed and natural contested categories - rather than objective definitions- of food? These questions are at the center of Professor Charlotte Biltekoff’s new book, Real Food, Real Facts: Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge. Joined by a special guest, Dan Polsby of Best Friends Wine, to introduce our tasting and complicate “real” wine, we discuss food science, industry, and the Food Inc. documentaries.
Tasting: Sfera Bianco, 250mL can
Viewing: Trailers for Food Inc. (2006) and Food Inc. 2 (2024)
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.
Wednesday Mar 19, 2025
Wednesday Mar 19, 2025
We start off our third season featuring a conversation with Fabiola Santiago of Mi Oaxaca, exploring how indigenous knowledge is linked with mezcal and the colonial exploitation that occurs within Oaxaca today. From Mexico’s tourism board to the role of service and hospitality workers in disseminating knowledge around mezcal, this season, we are all about the big ideas that shape the esculent.
Viewing: Mexico Tourism Board’s 2014 campaign for Oaxaca, “Live it to Believe it”
Tasting: Kalawashaq Wine Cellars from Camins 2 Dreams
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Back again. This season hosts four thinkers, shaping and questioning the ideas that make food esculent.
Reading: Excerpt from Professor Kyla Wazana Tompkins' new book, Deviant Matter (NYU Press, 2024)
Tasting: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant: 2023 Coteaux du Loir Rouge “Cuvée du Rosier”
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections. Season 3 is supported by Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores.
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
The celebrity chef is not a modern concept, as we discuss with Paul Freedman, Professor of History at Yale. Joined by podcast regular Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores, we discuss early modern history, how food comes in and out of fashion, and what artistry might indicate in food history. And the conclusion of Season 2: Historians!
Professor Freedman specializes in medieval social history, the history of Catalonia, comparative studies of the peasantry, trade in luxury products, and the history of cuisine. His latest books are The Splendor and Opulence of the Past: Studying the Middle Ages in Enlightenment Catalonia (Cornell University Press, 2023) and (co-authored with Marc Aronson) Bite by Bite: American History through Feasts, Food, and Side Dishes (Simon & Schuster, 2024).
Viewing: Mark Bittman visits El Bulli in 2006, NY Times
Tasting: Chateau Thivin Cote De Brouilly Half Bottle, 2022 from Wine on Piedmont
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.
Tuesday Feb 11, 2025
Tuesday Feb 11, 2025
What does it take to understand food historically? This episode takes a philosophical turn as Jeffrey Pilcher, Professor of Food History, joins the podcast to discuss what it means to study, write, and taste food history.
Jeffrey Pilcher is a Professor of History and Food Studies at the University of Toronto, Where he directs the Culinaria Research Centre. He is the author of several books, including Food in World History, 3d ed (2023) and Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food (2012), and the newly released Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity (2024).
Viewing: Drunk History, Season 4, Episode 8, ‘Food’
Tasting: Stillwater Brewing’s Saké Style Saison Ale (special shout out to Wine on Piedmont for the suggestion!)
Stay up to date with Esculent on our Instagram
Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann
This podcast is supported by the UC Davis Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

Esculent
Esculent is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the ever-evolving concept of edibility. Through conversations with historians, chefs, artists, food justice activists, and scientists, the podcast delves into how different cultures and societies have defined what is suitable for food. Each season uncovers a new dimension of our relationship with food, blending academic insight with real-world implications. By examining the historical, artistic, narrative, and future-oriented aspects of food, Esculent offers listeners a rich and varied exploration of what we eat and why.
Esculent is sponsored by the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, Thinking Food at the Intersections.

Your Host
Elizabeth McQueen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Davis. Her writing is found in Gastronomica, Global Performance Studies, Theater Journal, and elsewhere.
She holds a Ph.D. in Theater and Performance Studies and a certificate in Food Studies from UCLA.