Author and podcast host Malcolm Gladwell immigrated to Canada when he was young, the child of an English father and Jamaican mother. He’s always felt like an outsider. He hated maple syrup, in a town that hosts the largest one-day maple syrup festival in the world.

Scott Wiener, founder of Scott’s Pizza Tours, has made a name for himself as one of the most knowledgeable and passionate pizza experts in America. (He has the Guinness Record for the world’s largest collection of pizza boxes -- nearly 2,000.) This week, Dan and his family join Scott on one of his famous Sunday tours, in which pizza pilgrims board a school bus not knowing what pizzerias Scott plans to take them to.

When Dan hit 40, he noticed his body wasn't feeling as good. So recently, he embarked on a journey to change his lifestyle. Today, you'll meet the three people who've inspired him. (This episode is a satire. Please enjoy it as such!)

Indie musician Michelle Zauner (leader of the band Japanese Breakfast) always had a complicated relationship with her mother, Chongmi. Michelle was born in Seoul and raised in Oregon, where she never felt like she was fully Korean or American. While it was sometimes hard for mother and daughter to understand each other, the thread that kept them together was their shared “Korean appetite,” as Michelle writes in her memoir, Crying in H Mart.

For two decades, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos has been one of the most popular snacks in America. In recent years its legend has grown, as word spread that they were invented by Richard Montañez, a Mexican-American janitor at Frito-Lay who went on to become a company executive. The story made Montañez something of a Latino icon, with two memoirs and a biopic based on his life. But when L.A. Times reporter Gustavo Arellano started looking into this feel-good story, he found a very different tale.

Is wine actually better than beer when watching football? What would a Thanksgiving feast prepared with recipes from Tom Brady’s cookbook taste like? Do you really need to wash your vegetables? We’re tackling your food disputes and hot takes this week, with someone who’s seen plenty of tackling — Katie Nolan.

What do a great bartender and a great priest have in common? We ask a Catholic priest who moonlights as a mixologist. Plus, Dan revisits a beloved pub from his past to find out what makes a great bar.

Laurie Woolever is a food writer in New York, but she’s probably best known for two other jobs she’s held: an assistant to Mario Batali, and an assistant to and collaborator with Anthony Bourdain. Laurie was working with Bourdain when he took his own life in 2018. After his death, she published Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography.

81-year-old Patsy Grimaldi may be the last person making pizza today who trained under someone who trained at Lombardi's—the first pizzeria in American history. Dan sits down with Patsy and his wife Carol to discuss slice folding technique, the art and science of using a coal oven, what she taught him about pizza, and the scourge of pineapple pizza, along with several other trends Patsy deems "ridiculous."

Why is the bird flu outbreak that’s currently driving up egg prices different from past outbreaks? Are new tariffs about to make your groceries more expensive? And, perhaps most importantly, are Capri-Sun pouches about to disappear?

Mimi Sheraton has seen it all in her 92 years. In this Reheat of our spinoff podcast, Ask Mimi, the legendary food critic offers advice on food and life to live callers and celebrity guests. The Sporkful's Dan Pashman moderates. In this episode, humorist Mo Rocca joins Mimi and Dan live on stage to ask for help with an issue involving his mom.

Monday through Saturday, Devin Pickard and his family run Papa KayJoe's BBQ in Centerville, Tennessee. But on Sundays, Devin trades the BBQ pit for the pulpit at Hope Church, the non-denominational congregation where he preaches. In many ways, food is a natural fit for a southern preacher, but there are other, less obvious ways Devin's two professions come together.

We're reheating this episode in honor of Chef Charles Phan, owner of The Slanted Door, who recently died. In 2016, he showed us the right way to eat the Vietnamese noodle soup pho. Then we take a deep dive into the science of soup slurping with a researcher who studies the mechanics of eating.

Edna Lewis was one of the first Black women to write a successful mainstream cookbook about the South. She talked about seasonality and farm-to-table cooking long before it got trendy, and she tied that approach to the way she grew up in Virginia. So why isn’t Edna Lewis better known?

In the last 15 years, Nashville hot chicken has become a hot trend. But for decades before that, hot chicken was well known among Nashville’s Black community. For generations, you could only get it at the place where it was invented: Prince’s Hot Chicken.

The South is known for fantastic gas station food, and on today’s show, Dan takes a road trip from Birmingham to Memphis to try some out for himself. He travels across Alabama and Mississippi, eating pimento cheese sandwiches, tacos, fried chicken on a stick, sushi, and a very specific regional pasta dish.

Dan talks to Matt Reynolds, director and star of the new documentary comedy The Great Chicken Wing Hunt, about the search for perfection in love and wings.

Dan is live on stage in Memphis with famed local restaurateur Karen Blockman Carrier! Karen grew up Orthodox Jewish in Memphis, and she wanted to be a painter. But after a chance meeting with a caterer in a smoke-filled bathroom stall in New York City, she decided to focus on food.

We're revisiting two "Call-In Smorgasbord" episodes from 2011, which were all about settling scores, issuing opinions, and learning about your kitchen innovations. In part one, we tackle a debate between an engaged couple, both philosophers, who want help answering the existential question: "Is it soup?" Plus, a woman in California shares a novel way to reheat pizza.

Why do some recipes just work while others are hit-or-miss? And is there a better way to write recipes overall? This week we look at what makes a great recipe.