

Smart Mouth
Katherine Spiers / TableCakes Productions
An addictively illuminating, often hilarious, conversational podcast about the surprising histories
behind the foods we love.
Hosted by independent journalist and food anthropologist, Katherine Spiers (LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET, Eater, How to Eat L.A.). Guests include Anthony Bourdain, Georgia Hardstark, Jacques Pepin, Llewellyn Clarke, Sarah Kuhn, Claudette Zepeda, Jon Garbus, Danny Trejo, Flula Borg and many other compelling people who eat food!
behind the foods we love.
Hosted by independent journalist and food anthropologist, Katherine Spiers (LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET, Eater, How to Eat L.A.). Guests include Anthony Bourdain, Georgia Hardstark, Jacques Pepin, Llewellyn Clarke, Sarah Kuhn, Claudette Zepeda, Jon Garbus, Danny Trejo, Flula Borg and many other compelling people who eat food!
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 3, 2021 • 57min
Breakfast with Kate Willett
Intuitive eating wasn’t always a monetized concept - it’s just how people ate. (If you don’t have to clock in at work, you can eat whenever you want.) Listen to Smart Mouth: iTunes • Google Podcasts • Stitcher • Spotify • RadioPublic • TuneIn • Libsyn Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Kate on IG Kate on Twitter Reply Guys Dirtbag Anthropology Music: Breakfast Can Wait by Prince Sources: The Guardian Telegram The Atlantic 1,2,3 BBC 1,2 Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal Breakfast: A History Check out Moesha Meets a Gay Guy at Gayest Episode Ever

Feb 24, 2021 • 48min
Tabbouleh (and Lebanese Food) with Nicole Georges
A vegan who ate raw meat as a baby now finds joy in parsley. Listen to Smart Mouth: iTunes • Google Podcasts • Stitcher • Spotify • RadioPublic • TuneIn • Libsyn Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Nicole on IG Nicole on Twitter The Gaymazing Race Music: Debra by Beck Related Episode: Filipino Food with Karen Tongson Sources: San Francisco Chronicle Ornaments of the earliest Upper Paleolithic: New insights from the Levant The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant: C. 8000-332 BCE Mediterranean Grains and Greens

Feb 17, 2021 • 1h 6min
Coconut Shrimp with Julia Loken
“Mercury in retrograde” is finally explained. Julia is an astrologer with a sense of humor about it, and a lover of exquisite foods such as coconut shrimp. Tiki: still acceptable? Music: The Song of Delilah by Tak Shindo You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Julia on Twitter What's Your Sign? Julia on IG Related Episodes: American Chinese Food Onion Dip Sources: Washington Post Serious Eats 1,2 Taste LA Times NY Times 1,2,3 Food Science, Technology and Nutrition Encyclopedia of Food Sciences and Nutrition American Catch: The Fight For Our Local Seafood Let Them Eat Shrimp

Feb 10, 2021 • 54min
Tracing the West African Diaspora with Ozoz Sokoh
West Africa’s influence on global cuisine: it’s there if you look for it. You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth merch Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Feast Afrique Kitchen Butterfly Ozoz IG Related Episode: West African Food with Eric Adjepong Links: The Jemima Code Calas of New Orleans Sources: Feast Afrique From the Humble to the Sublime: African Influences on Brazilian Cuisine Hotel Keepers, Headwaters and Housekeepers Guide Practical West African Cookery Cooking in old Créole days The Influence of Africa on Brazil and of Brazil on Africa Hitchcock Woods The African Origins of Brazilian Cuisine

Feb 3, 2021 • 1h 8min
Broccoli in Iceland with Jewells Chambers
Expat vs immigrant, explaining Trump to foreigners, what are we doing on social media - no, really, what are we doing. Plus being a vegan in Iceland, and the joys and sorrows of broccoli! You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth merch Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Jewells IG Jewells YouTube Related Episodes: Sweet Potatoes with Jenné Claiborne Vegan Life with Matt Donnelly Boiled Peanuts with Neil Young Sources: Nature Colorado State University USDA Texas A&M University Indiana Public Media New World Encyclopedia

Jan 27, 2021 • 52min
Lunch Counters with Max Falkowitz
Lunch counters vs delis vs sandwich shops - is it all semantics? Sometimes. But not when we're talking about the 1960s. (And, no, tuna melts were not created by accident.) You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth merch Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Max Twitter Max Flickr Related Episode: Ladies Who Lunch Link: The Fight to Save Alaska's Bristol Bay Salmon Sources: Washington Post Jackson Free Press American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food Sitting for Equal Service: Lunch Counter Sit-Ins, United States, 1960s Coming of Age in Mississippi: The Classic Autobiography of Growing Up Poor and Black in the Rural South Signs of the Times: The Visual Politics of Jim Crow

Jan 20, 2021 • 52min
Community Cookbooks with Paula Forbes
Canned tamales and the mysteries of Reese Witherspoon (ham parties?) with journalist and cookbook author Paula Forbes. And hey: just how WASPy are community cookbooks? You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth merch Paula Twitter Stained Page News Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Related Episodes: Pimento Cheese with Andrew Knowlton Christmas Cookies with Kim-Joy Links: Whiskey in a Teacup White Gloves and Party Manners Ask a Clean Person Vietnamese Home Cooking Emily Nunn's Spice Cake H-E-B Cookbook Sources: NPR Gutenberg Project What America Ate The Church Ladies Divine Desserts Favorite Recipes of Home Economics Teachers: Casseroles, Including Breads The Gasparilla Cookbook Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee

Jan 13, 2021 • 1h 1min
Coffee with Nick Cho
Secretly good German coffee, filthy British pamphleteers of 17th century England, and the port of Mocha with Your Korean Dad, Nick Cho. You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. This episode brought to you by Wünder, makers of European-style quark. Go to Wünder Creamery and enter code SMARTMOUTH for 15% off on your first order. Smart Mouth merch Smart Mouth newsletter Nick Twitter Nick IG Nick TikTok Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Sources: The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug The Worlds of Tea and Coffee: Patterns of Consumption BBC Folk-lore of the Holy Land Suave Molecules of Mocha The Early History of Ethiopia's Coffee Trade and the Rise of Shawa The Women's Petition Against Coffee Representing to Publick Consideration the Grand Inconveniencies Accruing to Their Sex From the Excessive Use of That Drying, Enfeebling Liquor.

Dec 16, 2020 • 55min
Diversity in Native American Food with Loretta Barrett Oden
"Native American food" is incredibly diverse. Loretta Barrett Oden, chef and member of Citizen Potawatomi Nation, has studied the foodways of North and South America - which has proven useful as she creates a pan-Oklahoma (39 Nations!) menu for the new First Americans Museum. Her thoughts on fry bread are ... nuanced. You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Links: First Americans Museum Judy Wicks Recovering Our Ancestors' Gardens Native Food Alliance Vinny Thomas Sources: Journal of American Indian Education US Forest Service Government of the Northwest Territories Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems Native Food Systems National Geographic 405 Chef's Collaborative

Dec 9, 2020 • 44min
Peppermint with Niccole Thurman
What is “childhood”? When was it invented? The same time as candy canes? You can listen to Smart Mouth on iTunes, on Stitcher, on Spotify. Check out all our episodes so far here. If you like, pledge a buck or two on Patreon. Niccole IG Niccole Twitter Smart Mouth newsletter Smart Mouth IG Katherine Twitter Related episodes: La Dolce Vita with Erica Firpo Christmas Cookies with Kim-Joy Sources: The Imperfect Child Child labor and the division of labor in the early English cotton mills Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England ‘A Prospect of Flowers’: Concepts of Childhood and Female Youth in Seventeenth-Century British Culture Time New York Times Snopes Today I Found Out