Your pantry's sweetest ingredient has an extremely bitter history. The sap-producing grass known as sugarcane has been grown and enjoyed by humans for at least 10,000 years, but it was only relatively recently that it went from a luxury to an everyday ingredient—a change that also triggered genocide, slavery, and the invention of modern racism. In this episo ... Show More
Jun 24
Ask Gastropod: Bubblegum, Meal Kits, and the Real Truth About Rooibos
What do bubblegum, rooibos tea, and meal kits have in common? They’re all topics that puzzle and fascinate you, dear Gastropod listeners. This episode, we're getting to the bottom of your most pressing culinary questions! Such as: Are meal kits really better for the planet than b ... Show More
50m 13s
Feb 2025
539. Horror in the Congo: The Crimes of Empire (Part 2)
“A secret society of murderers with a king for a ringleader”.
In 1885 King Leopold of Belgium; an awkward, ruthless, selfish man, was recognised as the sovereign of the Congo. Long determined to carve out his very own private colonial domain, he had alighted upon the Congo - Afri ... Show More
1 h
Feb 2025
Tao Leigh Goffe, "Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis" (Doubleday Books, 2025)
In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean Island of Guanahaní to find an Edenic scene that was soon mythologized. But behind the myth of paradise, the Caribbean and its people would come to pay the price of relentless Western exploitation and abuse. In Dark Laborator ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 2024
Pourquoi le sucre a-t-il longtemps été un produit de luxe ?
Au Moyen Âge, le sucre était une denrée rare et précieuse en Europe, largement inaccessible au commun des mortels et réservé aux élites. Plusieurs raisons expliquent sa valeur, notamment la difficulté d'approvisionnement, le coût élevé de production, et l'usage spécifique qu'on e ... Show More
2m 15s
Feb 2025
540. Horror in the Congo: A Conspiracy Unmasked (Part 3)
Exposing the dark pit of human suffering, cruelty and corruption that had long been secretly festering in King Leopold’s Congo, would reveal one of the greatest abuses of human rights in all history, and instigate a human rights campaign that would change the world. Having establ ... Show More
1h 6m
Oct 2021
Robert Hellyer, "Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups" (Columbia UP, 2021)
Robert Hellyer’s Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups (Columbia UP, 2021) is a tale of American and Japanese teaways, skillfully weaving together stories of Midwesterners drinking green tea (with milk and sugar, to be sure), the recent and complex origi ... Show More
46m 25s
Aug 2024
How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe
We have long been taught that modern global history began when the 'Old World' encountered the 'New', when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492. But, in a groundbreaking book, Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows that for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, T ... Show More
43 m
Feb 2025
538. Horror in the Congo: The Nightmare Begins (Part 1)
The story of King Leopold of Belgium’s brutal regime in the Congo Free State, during the late 19th century, is one of the darkest and most important in global history. It is a story of horror - the murky depths of the human soul pushed to its primal limits, European colonialism a ... Show More
1h 5m