Time to catch up on some inspiring foodie podcasts

Home Cooking

This is a brand new podcast option from Samin Nosrat (author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat) and Hrishikesh Hirway (musician and podcast producer). It’s the perfect podcast to listen to during lockdown and covers cooking with simple pantry ingredients as well as tackling anxiety and how we are now having to adjust to a different way of life when it comes to shopping and cooking. You can submit questions and stories via an audio channel. In the first episode Samin talks about the best pantry staples to have so you can still add flavour to your basic cooking and Hrishikesh talks us through his delicious savoury oatmeal breakfast.

The Splendid Table

This could be the one podcast that ticks all the foodie boxes. Hosted by award-winning American food journalist Francis Lam, this podcast has been likened to listening to an audio version of the food section of your favourite newspaper. It includes everything from interviews with experts, short stories, history lessons, opinion pieces, recipes, and cooking tips. More recently though they have searched through their archives to bring back some of their best podcasts from over the years, which are more relevant now as we adjust to our new normal spending more time at home. So if you want to know how to properly caramelise onions listen here or how to make a sourdough starter then listen here.

The Kitchen Counter

This podcast includes live cooking lessons in real-time, where you feel like you are in an actual cooking class with someone guiding you along. The host, known only as ‘Roger’, is a passionate home cook who started this podcast to teach the basics of cooking at home. He takes you through a step by step process of his recipes. Each ‘Let’s Cook’ podcast includes his recipes so you can prep in advance, pop on your headphones and cook along as you listen. He has a knack of breaking things down in a practical, easy-to-understand home cook kind of way. He also has an accompanying blog with pictures of key steps in case you get a little bit lost. A few of my favourite episodes include learning to cook Shakshouka, a spicy North African stew, and an all-you-need-to-know about stocks, broths and soups.

Spilled Milk

If its a bit of comedy you are after, then funny friends and writer/comedians Matthew Amster-Brton and Molly Wizenberg have a long-running podcast which breaks up the more serious side of food. They manage to chat their way through one food topic per podcast bringing their humour into the mix. They chat about everything from hot sauce to cheese toast and with over 300 podcasts you have a great choice here. Each episode also includes a junk food tasting session where listeners send an array of international snacks, which they sample on air.

The Sporkful

This podcast hosted by American Dan Pashma of The Cooking Channels: You're Eating It Wrong and the book Eat More Better. He describes his podcast as not for foodies but for eaters!

In particular, their episode on writing recipes was insightful with great tips if you like to write your own recipes. The host was joined by author Chandra Ram, who judges the prestigious IACP cookbook awards. This was a fascinating episode including a story about one of the best-selling cookbooks of all times and how their technique for recipe writing is different. All cookbooks are not created equally so how do you know you are buying a cookbook where the recipes will work? This podcast episode is for all lovers and collectors of cookbooks.

Let’s Talk Food NZ

I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw our own fledgling podcast in the mix. Let’s Talk Food NZ is concerned with what's next for the food you eat. From live debates on the role of red meat in a healthy and sustainable food system, to the impact of iron deficiency on teenage girls, expect spirited and informative discussion from a variety of experts from across the food production system. You can check it out here.