Esculent

Corporate Power and a visit to Disneyland’s Mission Tortilla Factory

Corporate power is a relentless force in shaping how and what we eat. Join us this week with Professor Enrique C. Ochoa, author of the upcoming book México Between Feast and Famine: Food, Corporate Power, and Inequality, to discuss the role of corporations in constructing a thread of Mexico’s culinary history.
Enrique C. Ochoa is Professor of History and Latin American Studies at California State University, Los Angeles
Viewing: Disneyland’s Mission Tortilla Factory (2001-2011)
Tasting: Arbol de Fuego by Vinos Pijoan
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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.

Productive Plants, Pacific trades with Professor Andrés Reséndez

Much of food history is a history of trade: how crops, plants, and tastes move around the world. Professor Andrés Reséndez discusses a trade route often overlooked in the 16th and 17th centuries, that of the Manila Galleons, one that can be overshadowed by the intellectually exhausted narrative of the Columbian Exchange. We also eat corn puffs. And an extra special reading by poet Rick Barot from his book, The Galleons.
Professor Andrés Reséndez is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis. Reséndez specializes in early European exploration and colonization of the Americas, the U.S-Mexico border region, and the early history of the Pacific, particularly the pioneering voyages of discovery and the biological exchanges across the largest ocean on Earth. He is the author of Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery (2021) and The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (2017)
Tasting: Golden Sweet Corn from Regent Foods
Reading: The Galleons, featuring poet Rick Barot
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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.

Is meat modern? Esculent animals with Professor Marcy Norton.

Is meat modern? We explore this question and more with a historical dive into human relations with animals across the Atlantic from 1492 (yes, that 1492). Professor Marcy Norton (University of Pennsylvania) brings insights from her new book, The Tame and the Wild (Harvard University Press, 2024) We discuss colonialism, Western concepts of esculent, and pre-colonial Indigenous life with animals in the Americas. 
Tasting: Impossible Meat
Viewing: Shina Nova’s TikTok page
Professor Marcy Norton (Ph.D. Berkeley) is a historian of the early modern Atlantic World, with a focus on Latin America and Spain. Along with The Tame and the Wild, publications include Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Cornell University Press, 2008), and “Subaltern Technologies and Early Modernity in the Atlantic World” (Colonial Latin America Review, 2017). 
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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.

Handing the world a kola nut with Dr. Shantel George

Welcome to Season 2: Historians! Dr. Shantel George visits Esculent from the University of Glasgow to discuss the history of the Kola nut, West African spirituality in food history, and community in research. 
Tasting: Coca-cola
Viewing: Series finale of Mad Men, Season 7, Episode 14 (AMC)
Read more about Dr. George’s research and publications
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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 2: Historians

We are back! Season 2: Historians, is here. Join us for six episodes exploring food history: from research methods to turning points in the history of chefs to influential commodities and more. 
Read more about Dr. Amr Shahat's research.
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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 1: Chefs

A belated season trailer - we're still getting the hang of it. Listen to find out why season one begins with chefs, and get a hint at what is coming up in 2025!Cooking with Beer on Emeril Live, Food Network (Season 1, Episode 13, 2002)Chef's Table, Netflix (Season 1, Episode 1, 2015)
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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.

Towards Transparency with Chefs Norma Listman and Saqib Keval of Masala y Maiz

Our first live podcast welcomes Chefs Norma LIstman and Saqib Keval. Join us as we taste their historically complex dish of fermented peanuts, the first dish served at their restaurant, Masala y Maiz. Our conversation covers their commitments to radical transparency and rethinking the restaurant model, as well as the limits of representation in a capitalist system, including in their most recent appearance on Netflix's Chef's Table. This one is extra long, and extra good.
Check out Masala y Maiz and stay up to date on their Instagram.
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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.

"Raise your hand if you know what esculent means" with Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores

What does esculent mean? Why is it the title of this podcast? And what is the seminar that is funding this project? Professor Daniela Gutiérrez-Flores joins Elizabeth McQueen to unpack the word, and why thinking about the esculent might be useful in approaches to food justice, especially in humanities research. This episode is also a preview for the in-person research colloquium, Reimagining the Past through Food Justice, at UC Davis, December 6-7, 2024.
Tasting: Handheld Pies, DavisRebop Episode: Oakland Community School Huey P. Newton InterviewCooking Against the Grain Library Exhibit (Online version)
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Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann

Cantaloupe Seeds and Colonialism with Chef Minh Phan

A pinch of this and a pinch of that captures my conversation with Chef and Artist Minh Phan. We discuss her methods of fermentation all the way to rethinking efficiency in her anti-colonialist mindset. 
Tasting: Los Angeles River Wine Company, Palomino, 2022Spam Jingle thanks to Janine Sun RogersFollow Minh Phan on InstagramLA Times Article: This Michelin-starred chef wants to feed people. So she closed her restaurants
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Host: Elizabeth McQueenProducer: Stace BaranTheme by Ronan DelisleAudio Support from Jenevieve Bohmann

Heat of the Hearth with Chef Martin Draluck

Our inaugural episode features a tasting and conversation with Chef Martin Draluck of the Black Pot Supper Club, with a tasting of the inaugural whiskey from Uncle Nearest, the first black-owned whiskey distillery in the U.S.. It honors Nathan 'Nearest' Green, a formative distiller enslaved to Dan Call. Join us as our host Elizabeth McQueen talks with Chef Martin Draluck about the hearth in early American cooking techniques, performing for the camera in Netflix's High on the Hog, and what it means to reconstruct enslaved culinary histories.
Tasting: Uncle Nearest 1856
High on the Hog, Season 1 Episode 3: Our Founding Fathers
Black Pot Supper Club
Follow Martin's Instagram
Stay up to date on Esculent's podcast 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.