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My guest today, Sarah Oresnik, is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University. Their research interests centre around food insecurity and its impact on our health and wellbeing. Within their PhD, their focus is on how youth navigate food insecurity, looking at youth experiences in Southampton, UK. Sarah grew up in the kitchen learning recipes from their parents and grandparents, which has translated to their continued investigations and reflections on their own food environment.   In our conversation, Sarah shares about their current research working with teens in the UK to explore the merits and challenges of their school nutrition programs. They highlight the limitations of daily food allowances and electronic payment options, the impacts that food insecurity and cultural experiences have on shaping food preferences and values, and does a brilliant deep dive challenge the very idea of what "cultural foods" can be for teens in diasporic communities. Resources: Email: [email protected] Open access paper: A syndemic perspective on food insecurity, gestational diabetes, and mental health disorders during pregnancy in Social Science & Medicine 

Here in Canada, we have a food security crisis—and a cost-of-living crisis. While there are many, many factors that are shaping this continued issue across the country, one of the challenges of navigating food insecurity here is that we rely primarily on non-profit food banks to support those in need. One non-profit food organization in Toronto, Daily Bread, is on a mission to eliminate food insecurity and advocate for solutions to end poverty. Daily Bread prepares over 250,000 meals annually, including more than 43,000 heat-and-eat meals delivered through the Red Cross Mobile Food bank to individuals facing barriers like mobility challenges, inadequate housing, or mental health conditions that make traditional food access difficult.  In 2024, Toronto food bank visits hit an all time high of 4.1 million, and Toronto declared a state of emergency about food insecurity. In response, Daily Bread has seen their visits increase, with their Food Services Manager Michael Greenberg overseeing a kitchen that produced more than 270,000 meals between 2024-2025. Mike is on the show today to speak about the work he and his team do at Daily Bread to ensure that their food bank kitchen can logistically maintain itself with such high demands, the nutritional and social impact of food insecurity for clients who cannot prepare their own meals, and the vital role food banks play in advancing equity and dignity in food access. Resources:  Daily Bread website Who's Hungry Report 2025 Instagram: @dailybreadto

To kickstart the second half of AnthroDish season 10, we're shifting to a topic I generally feel very intimidated by: wine. But, as my guest Cha McCoy reveals this week, there is a lot to unearth in making sense of why wine feels intimidating or harder to access. Cha is an entrepreneur, educator, and event producer. As a certified sommelier, she developed The Communion, a wine dinner series that offers an inviting, accessible approach to gathering and enjoying wine. This experience inspired her to open her first brick-and-mortar store, The Communion Wine & Spirits.  Today, Cha talks about her new book, Wine Pairing for the People: The Communion of Wine, Food, and Culture from Africa and Beyond. This book is unique in how it approaches the concepts of terroir, and the pairing ideology of what grows together goes together. Cha expands wine pairings, where traditional foods and cuisines from Africa, Asia, and the Americas are given pairings of wines that celebrate heat, tang, spice. In our conversation, Cha shares her refreshing approach to terroir for regions of the world that aren't known for their grape wines, and describes how certain taste preferences are shaped, what flavours are valued or looked over under colonial approaches to wine pairings.  Resources:  Book: Wine Pairing for the People  Cha's Website   Instagram: @chasquared  LinkedIn: Cha McCoy

Edomae sushi is an Edo style of sushi making that underscores marinating, curing, and aging techniques. Within that, there is one chef, Cheng Lin, standing out for his attention not only to these techniques, but bringing an emphasis on seasonality and sourcing of ingredients.   Born and raised in Fujian, China, chef Cheng Lin began his culinary career in 1997 when he moved to New York City and worked in restaurants such as Hatsuhana, Sushi Seki, and Blue Ribbon. Continuously looking to refine his skills at trailblazing culinary concepts, he eventually joined Chef Masa Ito and Kevin Kim at ITO Tribeca. Chef Cheng Lin was captivated by the comic "Shota No Sushi," a tale of a boy whose passion for sushi mirrored his own, and dreamt of creating a haven for sushi enthusiasts that he would call Shōta. Now, over two decades later, Chef Cheng Lin helms Shōta Omakase in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and it is the culmination of his near 30-year commitment to perfecting the art of sushi making. Combining traditional Edomae-style sushi with modern flair, and a painstaking dedication to sourcing the highest quality ingredients, Chef Cheng Lin shares his love through attention to detail, refined technique, and unmatched flavor. In today's conversation, we explore his commitment to sourcing ingredients that honour the traditional techniques used in Edomae-style sushi, considerations of seasonality when selecting which fish to incorporate on the menu, and how Cheng and his staff have adjusted to their dining services in the wake of receiving a Michelin star within one year of opening.  Resources: Shōta Omakase Restaurant Website Instagram: @shotaomakase Chef Cheng's Instagram: @sushi.chef.cheng.lin

My guest today, Sonia Strobel, is here to explore the idea of community-supported fisheries. Sonia is co-founder and CEO of Skipper Otto, a Community Supported Fishery based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Through her innovative, sustainable seafood subscription model, members pre-purchase a share in the catch before the fishing season. This unique partnership between fishers and consumers guarantees harvesters a fair price for their catch, protects a traditional way of life in BC's coastal and Indigenous fishing communities, and disrupts a seafood system fraught with social and environmental injustice. Skipper Otto is a certified B Corp and certified Living Wage employer. They educate consumers about important issues in fisheries and the value of eating with the ecosystem while advocating for just policy reform. Today, we discuss these vital themes, and Sonia shares stories from her own family's fishery as well as the additional challenges faced by Indigenous-owned fisheries in Canada. We speak about some of the main challenges facing the seafood industry in Canada amidst climate change and American tariffs, how Skipper Otto is navigating these challenges to support their fishing families, the proactive measures they are taking to increase transparency and build more sustainable fishery management, and considerations that the public should bring with them the next time they're seeking out fish foods for dinner.  Resources:  Skipper Otto Website Instagram: @skipperotto

Why are we seeing such a boom in non-alcoholic drink options, and how do they stand out from wellness beverages as their own specific category?  I invited my dear friend Ren Navarro back to AnthroDish to explore these trends in the beverage industry. Ren is a culture consultant, drinks expert, and founder of B. Diversity Group. With over 20 years of experience in corporate management and over a dozen years in the beer industry, she's helped everyone from family-run breweries to multinational brands build spaces people want to be a part of. What started as honest conversations over pints has evolved into company-wide transformations: policy audits, inclusive hiring systems, value statement creations, and real community engagement across industries. Whether she's teaching, advising, or helping revamp policies, her mission stays the same—build cultures that reflect the values people say they believe in. She loves tattoos, goats, and gives pretty good hugs. Today, Ren and I explore some of the experiences, tastes, and forms that non-alcoholic beverages are taking, what hop water is, and why these non-alcoholic options offer much more inclusive and diverse experiences than their wellness counterparts. Resources:  Website: https://bdiversitygroup.com/  Instagram: @bdiversitygroup Previous episodes:  On Craft Beer's Diversity Problem Creating Safer Communities for Breweris and Vulnerable Neighbours Beer (and Everyone) Still Has a Diversity Problem   

My guest this week, Emma Atkins, is here to explore the role that refrigeration has played in our food waste. Emma is a PhD researcher at the University of Bristol in the UK. Her research looks at how fridges influence food waste, whether through design or its place in a food system geared towards overconsumption. She has a background in policy and advocacy, and recently wrote two reports tackling policy solutions for food waste and quality of food donations with Foodrise, which is a UK and EU-based NGO. Her website Food Waste Stories features articles about food waste in art, culture, policy, and academia, and advocates for a sustainable food system.  In today's conversation, I speak with Emma about how fridges have evolved from earliest 1920s designs to become embedded in our modern food culture, the relationship between fridges and Costco hauls, the extreme fridge organization trends on TikTok, and the possibilities of more sustainably-minded fridge designs to reduce food waste in the future. Resources:  Food Waste Stories website  Instagram: @foodwaste_emma Policy Document: Used By - How businesses dump their food waste on charities  Policy Document: Actions to End Food Waste   

In Nigeria, the word chop is used for food and feasting, and to say "come chop" is an invitation into sharing and community. This is precisely how Ozoz Sokoh's debut cookbook, Chop Chop: Cooking the Food of Nigeria begins. It is warm, inviting, and open to all those who are interested in learning about Nigerian cuisine, and the role of home cooks in creating the most beloved classic Nigerian dishes.  Ozoz herself is a food explorer, educator, and traveler by plate. She is a professor of Food and Tourism Studies at Centennial College, and makes her home with her three teenage children in Mississauga, part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation in Ontario, Canada. Her work documents and celebrates Nigerian and West African cuisine, and she is particularly fascinated by all the ways we're similar. Be it through dishes, drinks, material culture or more, Ozoz explores these across geographies, cultures, and histories, in spite of our apparent differences.  In today's conversation, we explore a wide range of the history and future of Nigerian cuisine, including the stories of how ingredients came to be in Nigerian dishes, the homegrown love of protein (and why it's not the relationship to protein you'd expect in a Western lens), and how Ozoz approaches exploring the histories of recipes and cuisine across Nigeria. Resources: Ozoz's Website Kitchen Butterfly Blog Instagram: @kitchenbutterfly Feast Afrique Website  TikTok: @ozozsokoh  

My guest today, Dr. Bryan Dale, is here to explore these nuances. Bryan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environment, Agriculture, and Geography at Bishop's University. His research interests include food sovereignty, agroecology, climate change, environmental justice, social movements, and alternative economic initiatives (especially in food and farming). He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and a PhD and MA in Human Geography with a specialization in Environmental Studies at the University of Toronto's Department of Geography & Planning.  He has a new paper out in Canadian Food Studies on consumers' roles in a just food system transition, going beyond individualistic or household behaviours to explore the broader frameworks required to achieve these goals in post-capitalistic food systems. These observations are based on his research and interviews with farmers and alternative food organizations in Ontario and Québec. Today, we explore these ideas, the tensions between farmers and consumers, and the role of state interventions in these food system potentials. Resources:  Bryan's Website Article on Just Food Systems via CFS 

My guest today, Kat Lieu, is a Vietnamese-Chinese cookbook author, and here to share more about how she's challenging this through her new cookbook, 108 Asian Cookies: Not-too-Sweet Treats from a Third Culture Kitchen. Kat is the founder of the popular online community, Subtle Asian Baking, and is the author of best-selling cookbook, Modern Asian Baking at Home as well as two others. Kat brings a third culture approach to Asian baking, baking and cooking by blending Asian ingredients with Western techniques. She also is an activist, donating her cakes and cookies to various events in Seatle, and raising thousands of dollars for charities and causes important to her. This year alone, she raised $10k for charity selling cookies through Instagram stories. In today's episode, Kat shares how she approached 108 Asian Cookies as a cookbook that breaks down barriers being the first Asian-themed cookie cookbook. The cookbook incorporates savory ingredients and playful, incorporating matcha, black sesame cookies, pandan, ube, as well as more savoury and spicy cookies that feature fish sauce, MSG, miso, soy sauce, and Gochujang. Our conversation looks at how Kat has found healing through baking during challenging life moments, how her third culture identity infuses creativity into her kitchen experience, and the importance of challenging misrepresentation of Asian ingredients through a celebration of their culinary adaptations in cookies and the global community this shapes.   Resources: Buy 108 Asian Cookies Kat's Website: Modern Asian Baking Private Facebook Group: Subtle Asian Baking Substack: https://katlieu.substack.com/ Threads: @katlieu Instagram: @katlieu

As this episode airs, it has been just over two years of Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinian people have been killed, and entire cities have been reduced to rubble. And with this, there is a slow and brutal erasure of the rich histories of Palestinian gastronomy.  My guest today, Lama Obeid, is here to explore the state of Palestinian food culture and the impact of the genocide on how people eat and break bread. Lama is a Palestinian writer residing in Palestine, with her writing focused on gastronomy, politics, culture, and travel. Lama's food writing before the genocide speaks to the vibrancy and communal nature of Palestinian cooking and hospitality, though she has since shifted to document the impact of the genocide, and speak to other Palestinian chefs, activists, and cookbook authors through her podcast and newsletter I Come From There.  In today's conversation, we talk about the role that hospitality has played in Palestinian cooking and eating, the ways that preservation of food and recipes is maintained as resistance by Palestinians at home and in the diaspora, andhow the genocide has affected traditions around bread baking and eating, and how to look out for Palestinian food being appropriated by Zionist and Western attempts to make it vague and just Middle Eastern. Resources: I Come From There newsletter by Lama  Other writing by Lama: https://www.newarab.com/author/72243/lama-obeid 

If you grew up in the Western world, it's entirely possible you've heard of a singular Silk Road used for trade between two major entities, Europe and China. And maaaybe Marco Polo. But the reality is so much more deeply textured and layered with transitions of food, spices, ideas, and cultures along along a wide array of travel and trading routes across Asia. My guest this week, Anna Ansari, speaks to this through her new cookbook-cum-memoir Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing. In this thoughtful and rich cookbook, Anna celebrates her Iranian-American heritage with the world's most storied trade routes through 90 recipes and essays. Anna is an Iranian-American writer, cook, and former international trade lawyer whose work explores the intersections of food, family, and history. Her work as appeared in Pit Magazine, Eaten, and Fillerzine. She lives in London with her husband, son, and cat. In today's conversation, Anna talks about her own journey into writing Silk Roads and researching culinary narratives across Asian trade routes, the expansive history of food and ideas travelling along the Silk Roads, and why the apple isn't so quintessentially American as people would think.  Learn More From Anna! Buy her book, Silk Roads Website Instagram: @thisplacetastesdelicious Substack Newsletter: Where in the World is Anna Ansari

What makes food queer? Is it possible to name and list it out as simple, clearcut elements? In their new co-edited volume, Queers at the Table, Drs. Alex Ketchum and Megan Elias explore this question with a community of writers, illustrators, and recipe creators. As an anthology of essays, comics, and recipes, the book reveals the dynamic and transformative ways that queerness informs food production and restaurant culture, and how food empowers, transforms, and unites queer and trans folk.  Alex is an Associate Professor at McGill University's Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, and the co-organizer of the Queer Food Conference. Since she was last on the show to discuss her DIY zine, How to Start a Feminist Restaurant, she's also written Ingredients for a Revolution: A History of American Feminist Restaurants, Cafes, and Coffeehouses, and Engage in Public Scholarship! A Guide to Feminist and Accessible Community. Megan is the director of Food Studies Programs at Boston University, and a historian of American foodways. They are the author of five books about food history, with the most recent being Food on the Page: Cookbooks and American Culture. She teaches courses in food history, food and gender, and food memories, and the Introduction to Gastronomy. Together, they share behind-the-scenes about how Queers at the Table came to be after the Queer Food Conference, the intersections of queer identity and food culture, including the important of community in queer food work, challenging traditional culinary and gastronomic norms and binaries through cooking and sharing food, safety in cooking and kitchen spaces, and expansive considerations for queering food spaces in the future. Resources: Queer Food Conference Alex Ketchum Website Megan Elias Website Instagram @queerfoodconference

A solo episode to kickstart season 10 of AnthroDish - exploring diverse themes of community this year relating to food, culture, and identity.  Website: https://www.anthrodish.com Newsletter: https://sarahduignan.substack.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anthrodishpodcast/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anthrodishpodcast 

As season 9 of the podcast draws to a close, it's feeling like a full circle moment thematically. The conversations began this season around what it means to value labour, specifically whose labour is and isn't valued to power a global food supply, and an exposé of the cruel treatment of migrant workers coming to the U.S. But the process of migrating, and the experiences that come with it, are incredibly important stories. What does it mean to carry culture through food when you've been displaced, and how can food serve as the foundation to continue resilience and pass along important cultural heritage through recipes? I spoke with Hawa Hassan today to explore these questions. Hawa is a James Beard Award winner and culinary triple threat: dynamic chef, TV personality, and entrepreneur. She's the founder of Basbaas, a line of sauce and condiments inspired by her home country of Somalia, a fast-growing brand that has been featured in Forbes, the New York Times, Eater, and more. Her first cookbook-meets-travelogue, In Bibi's Kitchen, shares recipes and stories from grandmothers—or bibis—in eight African countries bordering the Indian Ocean. In our conversation, Hawa talks about her latest cookbook, Setting a Place for Us, and how she built this stunning series of recipes from eight countries impacted by war and conflict. Hawa explores how she structured the recipes for the pantry, working with photographers and local experts to shape the stories conveyed through the recipes, and the importance of challenging single-origin stories about conflict and its impact on culture, food, and identity. Learn More from Hawa: Buy Setting a Place for Us Cookbook Instagram: @hawahassan