The Geometry Of Pizza (Reheat)

A neuroscientist calls in to debate the geometry of pizza, and food science guru Kenji Lopez-Alt explains how woodworking can help us make a better bagel and cream cheese.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:43Dan Pashman?

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• 1:23Dan Pashman?

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• 1:32Dan Pashman?

  Hey, everyone. Dan here with another Sporkful Reheat for your listening pleasure. We're returning to another pizza-focused episode. In this one, food writer Kenji Lopez Alt and I took your questions, including one about pizza that involved a surprising amount of geometry. I actually, of all the food topics that I, you know, that we've done a number of times, but could do so much, I feel like pizza, we could do 10 more pizza episodes. I ought to count it up, because in the very, very early days, we did like a multi-part series. We did this one with Kenji. We did this couple Scott Wiener episodes. We did the Grimaldi's that we released recently. Anyway, here's to more pizza content in the next year. That's what I'm saying. Remember, if there's an episode of the Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer, let us know. Send me a voice memo or email to [email protected].

• 2:14Dan Pashman?

  Tell me your first name, location, what episode you want us to reheat, and why. Thanks so much, and enjoy.

• 2:31Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Joining me today to ride shotgun for this episode is our old friend, Kenji Lopez-Alt. He's the food science guru at Serious Eats and author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. Hey, Kenji.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Hey, how's it going?

• 2:51Dan Pashman?

  It's going well. Now, later on, Kenji, you're gonna be in the hot seat for the lightning round. You're gonna get three food science questions, some from me, some from listeners. So get ready for that. Get your seat warmed up for that, my friend.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  I'll work on warming the seat.

• 3:04Dan Pashman?

  All right, but first, we're gonna take a call. How is this?

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Hi, this is Ali. I'm calling from Boston, and I have a question about what makes a slice a slice?

• 3:12Dan Pashman?

  You're talking about a slice of pizza?

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Yes, a slice of pizza.

• 3:15Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  And not in terms of toppings or the preparation of the pizza, but the geometry of the slice itself.

• 3:23Dan Pashman?

  Okay. I have a feeling this is gonna get very detailed and very nerdy.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  My family and I generally have a debate about four aspects of a slice of pizza. Number one is, do you have to cut them all equally? Number two is, what fraction is too large to be considered a slice? And what fraction is too small to be considered a slice? And then finally, once a pizza's already been cut, can you then make additional cuts to the slice?

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Ali, could I ask you a question? So I think to start answering this question, we need to, I think we need to refer back to you growing up, and specifically to Sam Sifton's Pizza Cognition Theory, because I want to understand what pizza means to you. So if you're not familiar with the Pizza Cognition Theory, it's that-

• 4:08Dan Pashman?

  And Sam Sifton, editor of the New York Times Food Section-

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:11Dan Pashman?

  And a friend of the show. Go on.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, the Pizza Cognition Theory states that for any person, the first food that they eat called pizza then becomes pizza. And I'm paraphrasing, it's probably not, he said it much more eloquently, but the first thing that you recognize as pizza as a kid becomes forever in your brain pizza. So I want to find out, A, if that's true for you, and B, what is pizza to you? Where did you grow up, and what is pizza to you?

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Well, I actually grew up in Saudi Arabia, and the first pizza I had was a Domino's pizza. I've had better pizzas since, but that's still in my brain labeled as what a pizza looks like, kind of.

• 4:46Dan Pashman?

  What is that pizza experience? What role does that play in the different opinions of your family today?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Well, some of us still hearken back to those days. My brother and my father both agree that a pizza slice should fit in your hand. And I disagree with that.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  You disagree with that?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Yes, I think a slice is any portion of a pizza that's less than half.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Less than half. So you could have a half pizza minus a tiny, tiny sliver and you would still call it a slice?

• 5:15Speaker 02

  I mean, I would, but I also think pizzas should be cut in equal parts. So it would be a third of a pizza.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so there always needs to be some kind of radial symmetry when you're slicing.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  To me, yes.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:27Dan Pashman?

  But just in terms of terminology.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:30Dan Pashman?

  Forty-nine percent of a pizza is a slice to you?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  That's a unique perspective.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  It has the angle. It looks like a slice. You take a picture of it, it looks like a gigantic slice, but it looks like a slice.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Hmm, it looks like a semicircle, right?

• 5:47Dan Pashman?

  I mean, technically, it has a point, Kenji. It does have, if it's forty-nine percent, if it's a one-hundred-and-seventy-nine degree angle.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, for me, for me, I would say it has to be an acute angle. Like, I think a quarter of a pizza is just on the edge of not becoming a slice. Anything more than a quarter is no longer a slice.

• 6:04Dan Pashman?

  So it needs to be an eighty-nine degree angle?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Eighty-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine-nine. Yeah, that's what it would be for me.

• 6:11Dan Pashman?

  Ali, what do you think of that?

• 6:12Speaker 02

  A lot of people in my family agree with you. I don't know, because I went to college in Boston. A lot of places have those, like, mega slices, which are just a third of a pizza.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  And that looks like a slice to me now. Like, if you fold it in half and eat it, it just feels like a slice again.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  Well, let's go the opposite way. Have you had Pizza Down at Frank Pepe's in New Haven?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And you know how they, so when they cut their pizzas, they, I think somewhat intentionally, miss the center of the pizza when they, when they do their strokes across with the wheel. So you have things that sort, nothing is actually a perfect triangle. Everything has either, like, the tip cut off or, like, a little section on the side cut out. And then you also end up with these, all these random sort of geometric shapes in the center that I, I consider to be sort of like the treats at the end. Like, everyone's had their slice and then you have these random assortment of shapes that people in their family, the ones who have the bigger appetites, can then reach in there and grab those. Would you consider those random geometric shapes in the center to still be a slice of pizza?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  I'm a very big fan of random geometrical shapes, but when they happen by accident,

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  it's strange. I feel like when you intentionally do that, you're manipulating what the pizza is. But when you are just sectioning a pizza with the hopes of getting nice even sections, and you end up getting odd geometrical shapes, uh, or larger slices or whatever, I, I'm a fan of those.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  So you think the intent of the pizza slicer matters when it comes to the definition of

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  a slice?

• 7:38Dan Pashman?

  Wait, just so I understand, you're, you're saying that you're okay with random shapes if they're intentional or if they're unintentional?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  If they're unintentional.

• 7:46Dan Pashman?

  What's wrong with them being intentional?

• 7:48Speaker 02

  It's, it, I don't know. It doesn't feel right. It feels like you're, you're manipulating the randomness of it.

• 7:55Dan Pashman?

  Well, I mean, it's, it's either random or it's not.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 7:58Dan Pashman?

  You can't manipulate randomness, can you?

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Well, if your intention, I'm, I'm a scientist and yeah, you can, that's what we do. We manipulate, we basically create randomness.

• 8:09Dan Pashman?

  So, so, so you're saying that you manipulate randomness for a living, yet you object to pizza cutters who would manipulate randomness?

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. I do it so much in my regular day, I can't have someone else do it for me now.

• 8:21Dan Pashman?

  In what way do you manipulate randomness in your work?

• 8:24Speaker 02

  We have to create sample sizes that are a random sample of the population. So you, you have to very specifically get 50% female, 50% male. You have to try to get as much diversity in there as possible. You're, when an actual random sample ends up looking like 80% white males, and you can't have that.

• 8:44Dan Pashman?

  Ali, what kind of research do you do?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Uh, I do neuroscience. Uh, we work with, uh, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients.

• 8:51Dan Pashman?

  And what do you think it says about you that you have such a strong objection to people in pizzerias who would do the exact same thing that you do in your own work?

• 9:00Speaker 02

  I don't know. I feel like science by necessity has to be a very controlled environment, while everyone else gets to be artists. And I want to enjoy pizza as an art rather than a science.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  What, well, but you're specifically saying that they don't get to be artists because they are required to cut the pizza in a certain way that they're, they're not allowed to experiment with the, with the, the way that they cut their pizza.

• 9:22Speaker 02

  Ah. I mean, you make sense. It makes sense.

• 9:37Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, we'll attempt to reach agreement on all these questions about pizza slices. Plus, we'll put Kenji in the hot seat and make him answer food science questions from me and you. We'll learn why spreading half your cream cheese on each side of your bagel creates a different eating experience from spreading all the cream cheese on just one side. Kenji will get into the science and the explanation will involve discussion of woodworking. Stick around.

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• 13:38Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. You ever like go to our show page in your podcasting app and you're scrolling back and you're like, oh, that seems like a good episode. Why, how did I miss that? Well, you missed it because you're probably not following our show in your podcasting app, and it's really important that you do. So please, do this right now. Go to our show page in your podcasting app of choice. If it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you click Follow. Other apps, maybe it's a plus sign, or a heart, or a favorite, or the word subscribe, whatever it is in your app. It's really important that you click it. That way, you won't miss great episodes. Super quick and easy. You can do it right now. Thank you so much.

• 14:17Dan Pashman?

  Now, back to the task at hand. Food science guru Kenji Lopez Alt is here with me today, and we have Ali on the line from Boston. Ali, I want to kind of narrow our focus here a little bit. I feel like you presented us with four questions, and I feel like they actually fall into two separate categories.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:34Dan Pashman?

  There's the first category, which is, what's a slice?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 14:38Dan Pashman?

  What's the largest fraction of a pizza that a slice can be? What's the smallest fraction? So that's the first category. Your second is more one of etiquette or technique. These other questions, should all slices of the pie be equal or not? And, once you've made a slice, can you slice it again to make it smaller? Those are more, those two are put in a separate category. So let's do the second one that I mentioned first. Should all pizza slices be cut to represent an equal fraction of the pizza? I don't know why that's better. I don't understand, convince me that there's any merit to that.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  It just looks more appealing when you see someone who tried their best to get this very nice geometrical shape, rather than the just random, thin slice, thick slice, thin slice, thick slice.

• 15:24Dan Pashman?

  So it's just that you find it more visually appealing? There's no deliciousness factor?

• 15:28Speaker 02

  No, I don't think it affects the deliciousness.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I would also point out that, in New York, which is where the slice of pizza comes from, I think, at least definitely the most popular, the pizza slice as a concept, you need to divide it evenly because you're charging everyone the same, people are buying it by the slice.

• 15:45Dan Pashman?

  In that case, yes. Yeah, in that, right. If you're selling by the slice, I think you're right. You need to be careful to make slices equal. Next question, once you've sliced the slices, can you slice them again? Now, do you have kids, Ali?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 15:57Dan Pashman?

  Okay. I could tell, because someone with kids wouldn't ask this question. Are there any little children in your family running around when you're arguing about this one?

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Well, there were. They've grown up since, but yeah.

• 16:11Dan Pashman?

  Okay. Because to me, it's like, you know, little kids need smaller slices and like it just has to be done sometimes. And sometimes you want half a slice and that's okay, too. I don't know, Kenji, do you disagree?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  So I typically don't slice slices again. But what I usually do is people will get the number of slices they want and then you make up for the difference in appetite by trading crusts around. Like, my wife will give me her crust sometimes or will give me the last few bites of her pizza. The only time I ever really go for slicing a slice is when you have seven people at the table and there are eight slices and nobody wants to be the person who takes two. And then maybe you'll be like, alright, I'm gonna take half of this. And then, you know, you do the sort of Zeno's paradox where you divide it smaller and smaller until someone finally finishes it.

• 16:51Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Could I ask you a hypothetical sort of moral quandary that you might come up against in your pizza world?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Let's say that the pizza artist decided, so you and your family of four, you order one large pizza. Let's say that the pizza artist then decides that the number of slices he wants to cut his pizza into is two. And he draws one diameter across the pizza, dividing it into two slices, which by your definition are slices, 180-degree slices. They deliver that pizza to your house. Now, there's four of you who want slices of pizza, but there's only two slices. Are you then allowed to cut those two slices into smaller slices? And would you consider each of those new slices to be a new slice, even though the intent of the pizza cutter in the first place was to only have two slices?

• 17:33Dan Pashman?

  Good questions.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  I think I'd order a second pizza.

• 17:42Dan Pashman?

  All right, final two questions. Let's make sure we resolve this. The largest fraction of a pizza that can be considered a slice, you're saying?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go with anything that can reasonably held in one hand and walked down the street while eating. So if it's a very, very small pizza, maybe you can get away with 179 degrees. But in most cases, I'd say no more than a quarter.

• 18:03Dan Pashman?

  Okay. And Ali says anything less than a half or 179-degree angle.

• 18:10Dan Pashman?

  I gotta say, I feel like if you have a pizza cutter, one of those round deals.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, pizza wheel.

• 18:16Dan Pashman?

  Pizza wheel, and you've got a whole pie in front of you, and you make two crust-to-crust lines anywhere, you've just made slices. If you have a whole steak, any piece you cut off of it, like you're slicing it, the verb we use is "we sliced it."

• 18:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:31Dan Pashman?

  You know, it could be a two-inch-wide strip right out of the center of the pizza from top to bottom, and that's a slice. That's a slice of a pizza. You used a slicer, you sliced it.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Technically, I guess.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  But does it have the image of a slice? Like, when you close your eyes and you think of a slice of pizza, does it look like that?

• 18:49Dan Pashman?

  Does a half a pizza look like that?

• 18:51Speaker 02

  One seventy-nine degrees of a pizza kinda looks like that.

• 18:57Dan Pashman?

  Look, I guess in common usage, you're right, it doesn't look like that. I think technically, it's a slice. But if you wanna say in common usage, I'd say, I'm with Kenji. It's gotta have a point. It's gotta have a real point.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  An acute point, like less than nine, I'd say like ninety degrees or less point. A slice needs to encompass some amount of crust and the center of the pizza, and I think that the angle of the cut needs to be acute. That would be my definition.

• 19:24Dan Pashman?

  All right. Well, Ali in Boston, enjoy your next pizza.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  All right. Thank you very much. You guys, too.

• 19:43Dan Pashman?

  All right, Kenji, it is time now for the hot seat. This is where I'm gonna ask you three questions, some from me, some from listeners, and I'm gonna put three minutes on the clock, and you have gotta answer these three questions in three minutes, or however long it takes. Are you ready?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 19:57Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna go for the three.

• 19:58Dan Pashman?

  Okay. First question, Kenji. When I'm spreading cream cheese on a bagel, you know, you could spread your cream cheese, half of it on one side and half on the other side, and then put it together. Or you could put all the cream cheese on one side and then put it together.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 20:12Dan Pashman?

  If it's the same amount of cream cheese in either case, it's just a question of whether you do all on one side or half and half.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:18Dan Pashman?

  To me, in theory, it should make, there should be no difference once you press the two, the two bagel halves together. But I find that there is. I find that the half that did not get cream cheesed doesn't fuse well and can slip and slide. And I don't understand why.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  You know, I've been getting into woodworking recently, doing a lot of remodeling on the house and building, you know, little projects and some big projects. And this is sort of a classic woodworkers issue as well. If you read any books on beginning woodworking, you'll know that when you're making a joint with glue, you want to apply a layer to both sides of the wood so that the glue has a chance to sort of seep into the pores on both pieces of wood. If you apply it just to one single piece and then press the other one down, it'll seep unevenly. It'll seep in much more into the piece that you applied it to and much less into the one that you're pressing down on it. And you form a very poor bond. I think it's very similar to how a bagel works, that when you're spreading cream cheese with a knife across a bagel surface, you're actually pushing it into some of those little holes in the bagel crumb. So you're forming a much tighter bond between bagel and cream cheese

• 21:20Speaker 01

  than you do just by pressing it down as a sandwich because you're not getting any of that sort of lateral smearing motion that you get with a knife. The way you described it, I take it you eat your bagel as a sandwich.

• 21:30Dan Pashman?

  Yes, bagel with cream cheese sandwich.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  I usually deconstruct. Like, I'll cut my bagel, slice it in half, spread the cream cheese and then cut those, put it back together as a sandwich and then cut it in half again. So you end up with quarters. But when I eat a bagel, I generally peel the quarters apart and eat them one quarter at a time as sort of an open-faced sandwich. And if you go to a bagel shop and you get those quarters and you pull open your bagel and one of those pieces comes up with no cream cheese on it, you know that they've just spread it on that first side, which I think is absolutely the wrong way to do it.

• 21:57Dan Pashman?

  That makes a lot of sense. I will keep it moving here because it's the lightning round and I will not take issue with the fact that you just referred to an open-faced bagel with cream cheese as an open-faced sandwich because there's no such thing as an open-faced sandwich. It's a misnomer. But it's the lightning round, so we don't have time to get detoured.

• 22:16Dan Pashman?

  Now let's take a question from a sporkful listener.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  Hi, this is John Herndon in Westfield, Indiana, and my wife and I have a debate about leftover cake. I say leftover cake should be left in the fridge where it becomes more dense and the flavor gets enhanced, but she has a different opinion.

• 22:36Speaker 05

  I like to have my cake kept on the countertop because then when I get the chance to finally consume it next, it's soft and moist and it doesn't have all that sticky gooey moisture that comes from keeping your cake in the refrigerator. So definitely, let's store that cake on the countertop.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  But we'd like to hear what your opinion is and what you think of that.

• 22:57Dan Pashman?

  Well, first, Kenji, there's two issues that I want to divide this question into because they're talking about dense versus fluffy and then they're talking about flavor enhancement. And I think those are two different things that are happening. So give us a quick explanation of what is actually happening to cake scientifically when it's sitting on the counter versus in the fridge and how does that affect both the texture and the flavor?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Right. Well, cakes are made with butter and flour. They're very low gluten content. When you put a piece of bread in the fridge, it's going to go stale because starch retrogrades and the gluten network kind of toughens up. That's not really an issue with cake. You can put cake in the fridge and it doesn't really go stale. It just gets a little bit denser. And that's mainly because the butter fat in there is solidifying, you know, the difference between room temperature butter and fridge butter. That's really the difference between a room temperature cake and a fridge cake. So that's what's going to give it that sort of creamier, denser texture. The flavor wise, things that are colder tend to be more muted in flavor than identical things at room temperature. So the room temperature cake, you're probably going to taste a little bit more flavor than you would in the fridge cake. But at the same time, you're not going to get that sort of mouth melting, you know,

• 24:01Speaker 01

  you're not going to get that texture change as the cake goes from fridge temp to your mouth temperature and the butter kind of melts out. So, you know, they are different eating experiences. My, my answer would be cut the cake in half and put half in the fridge. Room temperature and then you both get what you want.

• 24:17Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, I think, I think it's a bit of a matter of taste. I love cake from the fridge. I like it when it's cold. I love frosting when it's cold. Um, yeah, maybe you want to take it out of the fridge for a couple of minutes. It's not totally fridge cold, but I actually prefer that. I like the density of it, but.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  My, my mother, one of my mother's favorite things was to get those Sarah Lee pound cakes and put them in the freezer. And then just eat them straight out of the freezer. It's kind of like a little ice cream bar, but you, as it melts, it melts into cake instead of into ice cream.

• 24:43Dan Pashman?

  That is kind of genius. Well, I guess you come by it honestly, Kenji. Next one. This is one I struggle with a lot. When I'm making a soup or a stew or a sauce, sometimes the recipe says simmer and sometimes the recipe says put it on a low boil. And I get very OCD about like, how many bubbles are there on the surface of the liquid? When has it crossed from a simmer to a low boil? Is the, is the heat too high or is the heat too low?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 25:12Dan Pashman?

  Please help me. Where's the line between a simmer and a low boil?

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Um, I, well, I think you're probably overthinking it too much. Um, is the real answer. Um, you, you know, I think what you really have to do is just look at what the goal is, you know? Usually there's some sort of cues and clues within the recipe itself. If it says, you know, simmer until reduced by half, about 30 minutes. That'll give you sort of an idea of how quickly it should be bubbling. Um, you know, you have, you have a little bit of experience cooking, so you'll know that. You know, if this is bubbling at this, at X rate, you know, which is difficult to describe on the radio, but if it's bubbling at this rate, you know that it's probably going to take about half an hour to reduce down by half. So that's a reasonable amount, you know, you don't, if, if you're simmering and you're just releasing one or two bubbles every, you know, five seconds or so.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  You're never going to reduce it down. For something like, say, a stock where your goal is to extract flavor, but maintain clarity. You don't want it to be bubbling very vigorously at all because, you know, extra bubbles can emulsify fat and proteins and other things into the liquid. That's going to make it cloudy. So in those cases, a simmer really is just a couple of bubbles at a time. I think if a recipe is well written, it will probably tell you precisely. Obviously, how many bubbles there should be. Or, you know, it'll describe to you what it should look like, if that's something that's important. When I write a recipe, I try and be precise only in the places where one actually needs to be precise. So if my recipe just says, bring to a boil, reduce to a bare simmer, or reduce to a simmer, and it's not any more precise than that,

• 26:38Speaker 01

  then most likely it's because the end results are not dependent upon exactly how strong that simmer is.

• 26:45Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, for me, it's always a tension between I want it to reduce relatively quickly because I'm a somewhat impatient cook.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:53Dan Pashman?

  But the flip side is I get worried that the bottom is going to burn.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Right, right. So yeah, you can get things to reduce faster by boiling them harder. If it's a thick thing, you probably will have to stir more frequently to make sure that it doesn't burn on the bottom. The other downside of boiling faster is that the stronger something is boiling, the more sort of volatile aromatics are being thrown off into your kitchen. You know, and if they're going out into your kitchen, they're not ending up on your plate.

• 27:16Dan Pashman?

  Right, okay, got it. Well, Kenji, the job we are called to do here is not always easy, but we power through.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, rendering justice like rendered fat.

• 27:28Dan Pashman?

  Do you render justice the way you render fat?

• 27:30Speaker 01

  At a slow simmer.

• 27:32Dan Pashman?

  But then I feel like the justice is now like it's a liquid and it's just going to spill all over the place. We'll have to sop it up with bread.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Bread soaked, yes. Bread soaked in justice.

• 27:42Dan Pashman?

  Well, Kenji Lopez, alt from Serious Eats. His book is The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science. Thanks, Kenji.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Thanks a lot.

• 28:01Dan Pashman?

  This show is produced by Anne Sannity, Shoshana Gold, and me. Dan Charles is our editor. Music help from Black Label Music. Spork was a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Jenny Rattlin. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 28:13Speaker 06

  And this is Jennifer from Bethel Park, PA, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 28:40Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

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