Growing up as a Black kid in Chicago, Dr. Marcia Chatelain says she learned more about Black history from McDonald’s than from her fancy prep school. Now, she’s a professor of Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, Dr. Chatelain explores the role that McDonald’s has played in Black communities since its founding in the 1940s.

Shabbat — the Jewish Sabbath – begins every Friday at sundown with a meal. But in all the years that Jews have been having Shabbat dinner, there’s no record in the rabbinic texts of it happening at the fast food chain Wendy’s. Until, that is, a group of seniors in Palm Desert, California, made it their weekly tradition.

Josh Foer and Rabbi Charlie Schwartz set out to create a new kind of Jewish space, one that would be welcoming, thought-provoking, delicious, and even cool. The result is Lehrhaus — a Jewish tavern and house of learning. This week Dan visits Lehrhaus in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he takes a tour of their “magical Jewish objects,” checks out the room where they host events on everything from religious texts to the secret Jewish history of punk music, and, of course, digs into their food and drink.

Bourbon's growing popularity is changing an industry with deep roots in Kentucky. We travel there to learn what that means for one of the oldest and one of the youngest bourbon masters.

A few weeks ago, Cracker Barrel announced it was changing its logo — removing the old man in overalls and the barrel, updating the font, and removing the words “Old Country Store.” Longtime Cracker Barrel fans went nuts, decrying the “sterile” look. Conservative commentators tied the change to a “DEI regime” and called the new logo “woke.”

This week, we’re ringing in fall tailgating season with a barbecue, featuring three different cuts of pork: ribs, pork chops, and bratwurst. The grillmaster in charge of it all is Jimmy Tchinnis, owner and executive chef at Swallow Kitchen and Cocktails and L’uccello Pizza and Italian Fare in Greenlawn, NY. Jimmy started out cooking in high-end restaurants in New York City before eventually realizing that he wanted to own smaller neighborhood restaurants that serve the community.

This week’s show is a raucous Korean-style night out, all on a weekday afternoon. Dan heads to Orion Bar in Brooklyn to learn how to drink like a Korean with Irene Yoo and Peter Kim. Irene is the owner of Orion Bar and author of Soju Party, a book of drink and food recipes that’s also a guide to Korean drinking culture.

Best-selling author Samantha Irby specializes in wringing comedy out of her own personal tragedies. Among her favorite topics: poop (she’s got Crohn’s disease), depression (which she also has), and sex. Throughout her writing, food is a recurring character.

Antoni Porowski wasn’t the obvious choice to be the food expert on Queer Eye — he’s not a chef and he has no formal culinary training. When the show debuted in 2018, many people asked, “Can this guy actually cook?” Not the most reassuring reaction for Antoni, who already struggled with impostor syndrome.

What should you cook for breakfast the morning after? How can couples share power in the kitchen without driving each other crazy? We talk food and relationships with Dan Savage, who writes the sex advice column Savage Love and hosts the podcast Savage Lovecast.

Dan Pelosi and Negin Farsad join Dan to settle your food disputes! One couple can’t agree on when they should take the first bite of a meal: when the food is fresh and piping hot, or once they’re sitting down at the table? Another couple struggles over how to reheat leftovers to maximize flavor and minimize mess.

Could listening to The Sporkful be the fertile soil out of which true love grows? We put out the call for Sporkful listeners looking for love, and hundreds of you responded. This week, we listen in on two blind Zoom dates that resulted from our extremely unscientific matchmaking.

An email from Sara Bir set us off on an adventure. She’s an author and recipe developer who’s obsessed with pawpaws, the largest fruit native to North America. “Pawpaws are tricky in the kitchen,” Sara wrote to us.

Casey Elsass is known as the “cookbook doula” because he’s helped birth nearly 20 cookbooks, as a ghostwriter or co-writer. Now, Casey has published his very first solo cookbook, What Can I Bring? Recipes To Help You Live Your Guest Life, about how to be the best guest at a dinner party.

For years, Dan has kept a Google Doc of ideas for ice cream flavors and ice cream sandwiches. But nobody asked him for it. Then, the folks at Heap’s Ice Cream in Brooklyn asked Dan to collaborate on the ice cream sandwich of his dreams.

There are a lot of desserts named after severe weather phenomena, but not all of them are created equal. We asked Tornado Alley's top meteorologist, Gary England, to help us rank some of these desserts, based on the severity of the weather they are named for.

We’re back with our annual game show: Two Chefs And A Lie! But this year, things are a bit different. Dan isn’t playing — he’s the emcee! And our contestant is Rachelle Hampton, host of the podcast Normal Gossip.

Dan and WTF host Marc Maron have been arguing about eating for over a decade. This week they revisit old feuds and start news ones, sparring over temperature contrast in sandwiches, the merits of melon balls, and whether the high from sausage gravy is worth the food shame-induced crash.

Some people say that when they eat pasta in the US it makes them feel like garbage, but when they eat it in Italy they feel great. Is that legit? What does the science say? Also, why is the food at many tony restaurants so mediocre?

Fifty years after the panic about "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" began, we explore how faulty science and perceptions of race and class contributed to the making of a food myth that persists today. And we tell you how to make the best Bloody Mary ever.