Hungry Ghosts

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Hungry Ghosts

Daniel Stables, Charlie Duckworth

21 episodes

9 months ago

Join travel writer Daniel Stables and professional boozehound Charlie Duckworth on a journey through the worlds of food, alcohol, and world culture, examining the strange things we do in our search for meaning through food and drink.

In Buddhist and Hindu lore, hungry ghosts are lost souls who stalk the earth seeking in vain to sate their swollen appetites. In the wheel of death and rebirth, the hungry ghosts occupy a lower realm than humans. We think that flatters us.

We are all hungry ghosts. These are the lengths that we go to.

© Daniel Stables and Charles Duckworth. Original music © Daniel Stables

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Places & Travel,

Society & Culture

All content for Hungry Ghosts is the property of Daniel Stables, Charlie Duckworth and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Join travel writer Daniel Stables and professional boozehound Charlie Duckworth on a journey through the worlds of food, alcohol, and world culture, examining the strange things we do in our search for meaning through food and drink.

In Buddhist and Hindu lore, hungry ghosts are lost souls who stalk the earth seeking in vain to sate their swollen appetites. In the wheel of death and rebirth, the hungry ghosts occupy a lower realm than humans. We think that flatters us.

We are all hungry ghosts. These are the lengths that we go to.

© Daniel Stables and Charles Duckworth. Original music © Daniel Stables

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Show more...

Places & Travel,

Society & Culture

Episodes (20/21)

Hungry Ghosts

The Sin-Eaters | Wales

Welsh coal burns hotter. So hot, in fact, that the mistress of Welsh dandy Beau Nash was so distraught upon his leaving her that she elected to spend the rest of her life living in a hollowed-out tree.

This kind of passion is characteristic of the world of Welsh food and drink, the stranger corners of which we explore in this week's episode. Follow the link in our bio to learn about the Welsh origins of Guinness, the sin-eaters of the Welsh Marches, and the Mari Lwyd (pictured), which in an extremely crowded field may be the creepiest of British folk traditions.

Iechyd Da!

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1 year ago

46 minutes 54 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Cornish Knockers | The West Country

The boys travel home this week (not literally) to their beloved West Country, discussing scrumpy & western music, the Moonrakers of Devizes, Dorset knob and spoon races, men who eat roadkill, and other strange tales from Bodmin Moor.

This is the last one of series 2, and it's a humdinger! If you're enjoying the podcast, please remember to leave us a review and spread the good word, and we'll see you again very soon.

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1 year ago

55 minutes 28 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

The Milo High Club | History's Great Gluttons

Livers of pike, brains of pheasant and peacock, tongues of flamingoes and entrails of lampreys, anyone? Just some of the delights on offer at some of Ancient Rome's finest feasts. The appetites of the emperors pale in comparison to some of history's other great gluttons, though: the King of Rock 'n' Roll, Charles Darwin's Glutton Club, and the strange and terrible tale of Tarrare – perhaps the closest thing in history to a real-life hungry ghost.

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1 year ago

58 minutes 40 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Ignus Flatus | Halloween Special

It would be remiss of such a ghoulishly named podcast not to jump on the Halloween bandwagon, so we've put together a seasonal special for you this week. We discuss the curious tale of Stingy Jack, the pagan origins of Halloween, real-life zombies, and what happened when Dan visited a vampirologist in that scariest of places: France.

Keep it spooky!

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2 years ago

52 minutes 11 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Donde Esta El Pooper? | Spain

Where else would a nativity scene include a man with his trousers down, pooping while making direct eye contact with the Baby Jesus? That’s right – we’re in Spain!

La Piel del Toro is a land rich in cultural oddities relating to food and drink, from El Puig’s Festival of Dead Rats to the ‘goose pulling’ of Lekeitio – less rude than it sounds, but just as weird.

Apologies for the sound quality in the last 20 minutes – we had some technical difficulties. Hooray for backup recordings.

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2 years ago

55 minutes 3 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Don't Fear the Reaper | Eating the World's Hottest Chilli

For this week's episode we travelled to America and ate the world's hottest chilli. So never let our commitment to stupid content be questioned.

The Carolina Reaper clocks in at around 2.2 million units on the Scoville scale, which measures the spiciness of chilli peppers – that's about ten times the heat of a Scotch bonnet. It's the creation of Smokin' Ed Currie, the mastermind behind Puckerbutt Pepper Co., who was kind enough to sit down with us for an interview in his shop in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Ed talked us through how he came to produce the world's hottest peppers, the role that chillis have played in his recovery from addiction, and his plans for an even spicier future. And, of course, we couldn't leave without trying a Reaper for ourselves...

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2 years ago

56 minutes 3 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Fried Jesus | The U.S.A.

Deep-fried butter! Jello salad! State soils! The subject of this week's episode is the land of the free, home of the brave, domain of erotic corn-dog eating contests – I refer, of course, to the United States of America. Please enjoy the show, and remember: cooking at home and eating vegetables are unAmerican, unless you’re baking salmon in a dishwasher.

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2 years ago

1 hour 1 minute 11 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Fruitarianism | Interview with Anne Osborne

This week it's our pleasure to be joined by Anne Osborne, who talks us through her experience of 30 years as a fruitarian. Anne gives us an insight into the rewards and risks of a fruit-based diet and the reasons that people decide to follow one, from perceived health benefits to the moral imperative of those melon-headed, banana-brandishing ideologues of the dietary world: the ethical fruitarians.

Disclaimer: we're not recommending anyone follow a fruit-based diet. But if you were planning on taking any kind of medical advice from this podcast, what you eat is probably the least of your worries.

Enjoy!

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2 years ago

58 minutes 31 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

The Man Who Ate a Plane | Extreme Diets

Raw egg nationalists! Alternative milks! Breatharians! This week's episode is all about the weird eaters of the world, from self-described 'right-wing bodybuilders' to melon-bellied fruitarians, starving saints, and Monsieur Mange-Tout himself, Michel Lotito, a.k.a. the man who ate a plane.

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2 years ago

52 minutes

Hungry Ghosts

Newfoundland Screech | Canada with Phil from 2 Beers Till Takeoff

We back baby! After a well-deserved* break we've got another series of Hungry Ghosts podcasts for you, and we start series 2 by sitting down with Phil from 2 Beers Til Takeoff, a great podcast all about people's craziest travel stories.

Phil tells us about food, travel and life in his native Canada: growing up among the Inuit, making caribou sunglasses, eating raw seal, and the strange tradition of the Newfoundland Screech – and why, counterintuitive as it may sound, you can in fact eat brown snow.

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2 years ago

1 hour 12 minutes 20 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

J Webby Competitive Eater Interview | Bonus Episode

While we put together series 2 of Hungry Ghosts, we have a bonus episode for you! We were lucky enough to interview James Webb, aka J Webby, who is ranked #1 in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere and #10 in the world competitive eating rankings.

James has had a stratospheric rise up the rankings since entering the world of competitive eating during lockdown, and is returning to the legendary Nathan's Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest on Tuesday, July 4th to see if he can improve on last year's showing, where he finished in 3rd place.

Listen to hear about 7-kilo bowls of pho, 30-inch pizzas, and more gastronomic madness.

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2 years ago

52 minutes 51 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Celebrity Salami | Foods of the Future

We end series one of Hungry Ghosts with a look into our crystal balls as we discuss the foods of the future. Meat grown in a peach tree dish! Nancy Pelosi’s gazpacho police! And the ultimate measure of human progress: salami made from cells harvested from celebrities. Yummy!

Charlie had to go to hospital after this. Not even a joke. That will teach us for attempting an alcohol-free episode.

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2 years ago

54 minutes 25 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Horsemen of the Oesophagus | Competitive Eating

This week’s episode is a tribute to the greats of the competitive eating world. Joey Chestnut. Takeru Kobyashi. And our personal favourite, Sonya Thomas, a.k.a The Black Widow, a.k.a The Leader of the Four Horsemen of the Oesophagus. These guys don’t muck about. 13kg of poutine in ten minutes? 128oz of mayonnaise in eight minutes? 57 cow brains in 15 minutes? All in a day’s eats for the elite competitive eater. Listen to discover the story of the Great Eater of Kent, the early 20th century phenomenon of Fat Men’s Clubs, and what happens when you pit a professional competitive eater against a Kodiak bear.

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2 years ago

1 hour 1 minute 42 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Hobson-Jobson | Food & Colonialism

We discuss the complex relationship between food and colonialism, from the linguistic legacy of the tea trade to the real crux of the issue: dogs who are addicted to curry. Bon appétit!

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2 years ago

55 minutes 20 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Anti-Fascist Lemon | Italy

Benvenuti welcooome! This week’s episode is about all things Italian, from the masked soirées of Venice Carnival to the unlikely origins of tiramisu and the thorny subject of what can and cannot go on top of a pizza. We also delve into the unlikely story of Venetian wine and reveal why one beloved slapheaded actor is in danger of becoming the first official Enemy of the Podcast…

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2 years ago

1 hour 5 minutes 28 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

The Tapeworm Diet | Elixirs

Have you met the Comte de Saint Germain? This week we explore the very strange history of ‘medicinal’ food and drink, from tapeworm pills to arsenic supplements and cigarette diets. Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet!

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2 years ago

1 hour 14 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Delirious Tremendous | History's Greatest Boozers

Restless ghouls, pissed as newts; lost souls, drowning in a fishbowl. And that’s just your hosts.

The boys discuss a subject close to their hearts this week: the greatest boozers of all time. From Alexander the Great’s fatal drinking contests to Ernest Hemingway liberating the bar of the Ritz Hotel in Paris, history is littered with problem drinkers – and don’t even get us started on Hunter S. Thompson.

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2 years ago

1 hour 15 minutes 40 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Nation Plates | Food and Nationalism

We explore the weird and wonderful world of gastrodiplomacy this week, looking at the ways in which food has been harnessed as a marker of national, religious, and ethnic identity – from fatwas on croissants to hummus wars, and everything in between.

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2 years ago

1 hour 1 minute 15 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Abominations | Food Taboos

Is lab-grown pork kosher? Does absinthe make you hallucinate? Would you eat fruit bat at the breakfast buffet? This week the boys talk about taboo in the worlds of food and drink, from chowing down on our furry friends to the ultimate in performative priestly decadence: the eating of the ortolan.

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2 years ago

1 hour 51 seconds

Hungry Ghosts

Mystery Meat | Urban Food & Drink Legends

Neptune’s wrath descends on the podcast this week, as the boys take on the thorny topic of urban food and drink legends, from pink slime and mystery meat to spiked Halloween candy and libido-suppressant breakfast cereals.

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2 years ago

1 hour 4 minutes 37 seconds