Jason Mantzoukas Sees Every Meal As A Threat (Reheat)

Actor and comedian Jason Mantzoukas is known for playing characters that are overzealous, exuberant, and more than a little wacky. But these characters are the exact opposite of how Jason felt growing up — like a “boy made of glass.” Jason has a life-threatening allergy to eggs, and that constant threat has forced him to live a life of vigilance.

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

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round. The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship, full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks

• 0:43Dan Pashman?

  to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment at the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long. Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com. As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean, whether it's their boots, their Scotch Plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside.

• 1:28Dan Pashman?

  Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.

• 1:36Dan Pashman?

  Hey, everyone, Dan here, back with another Sporkful reheat for you. Today, we are bringing you my conversation with actor, comedian, and podcaster, Jason Mantzoukas. When he shows up on your screen in anything, you know it's gonna be absolutely, absurdly hilarious. So, I was very happy, my family and I, we've gotten into watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and he has a guest stint in that. When he showed up, I just immediately burst out laughing, because I'm like, I'm so excited that he's in this show. I forgot that he was in it. I hadn't seen him before. And I was like, oh, he's been on the Sporkful. And my kids got really impressed. They don't know how the people I talk to, but they're excited that Jason Mantzoukas was on the Sporkful. So, as you would Expect this episode is extremely funny. I even attempted to do some improv with Jason, which might have been a terrible mistake. You can be the judge. But we also get into some more serious stuff, including Jason's allergy to eggs.

• 2:20Dan Pashman?

  Turns out he's not only extremely funny, he's also a great storyteller, as you'll hear. Now, remember, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer, please let us know. Send me an email or voice memo to [email protected]. Don't forget to tell me your first name, location, what episode you want us to reheat, and why. Thanks and enjoy.

• 2:41Dan Pashman?

  This episode contains explicit language and mature content, and it's gonna start just about as soon as the show begins. So I'm pausing here for a second. Maybe you're a parent in the car with small kids, and this just started playing. Maybe you're cooking in the kitchen, and you're chopping vegetables, and the kids over there are listening. Just take a beat. It's okay. Maybe switch to a different one. Or maybe you let your kids hear these kinds of things, and that's cool, too. It's your choice. Okay? Here we go. Quick point on the roast beef sandwiches.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09Dan Pashman?

  To me, look, there's more than one great roast beef sandwich in the Boston area.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 3:14Dan Pashman?

  But if you are not griddling your buns in butter, then get the fuck out.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  I don't know. Are we allowed to say "griddling your buns" on this show? I just wanna make sure. I just wanna make sure that's cool.

• 3:25Dan Pashman?

  We are now.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  This is Sporkful After Dark.

• 3:33Dan 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. Today, I'm talking with actor Jason Mantzoukas. You might know him from Parks and Rec, where he played the fragrance maker Dennis Feinstein.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  You guys ever been fox hunting? I have my own foxes flown in from Russia. We drug them pretty heavily. Makes it easier to just walk up and pow!

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Stupid foxes. It's deeply erotic.

• 4:01Dan Pashman?

  Or maybe you recognize him from The Good Place. He was Janet's short-lived boyfriend, Derek. But I almost have a full-grown penis now.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Riskblenden and mostly functional.

• 4:11Dan Pashman?

  He's also played Raffi in The League and currently voices Jay in Big Mouth and Alex in Close Enough. Jason tends to play characters that are a little out there, over-sexed, overconfident, exuberant, and yet somehow very lovable. Well, maybe not Dennis. Jason also co-hosts the podcast, How Did This Get Made?, about the worst movies of all time. But as he told me, more than anything else, he is an improv comic.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Doing shows is the thing I love the most. Like, and I love doing movies or TV, or I love doing my podcast and whatnot, but improv gave me a safe place to truly just take leaps of faith. That's really exciting and electric and, and for me, quite freeing, you know, from what is otherwise a life that is pretty much based on routines and rigidity and vigilance.

• 5:01Dan Pashman?

  That rigidity, that vigilance that Jason's talking about, it all has to do with food. You see, Jason is allergic to eggs.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  I'll describe it to you the way I would describe it to, like, if I'm eating at a new restaurant, right? I have a life-threatening food allergy to eggs. I can't eat anything that uses egg in the preparation at all. And that can mean trace elements that are from the cross-contamination of the kitchen itself. Can't put the, something I'm eating in the same fryer that the crab cakes just came out of, or whatever.

• 5:35Dan Pashman?

  What is your earliest memory of your egg allergy?

• 5:39Speaker 01

  It was discovered when I was like, you know, a baby. So I don't remember any of those times, but it was frequent that I would eat something and have to be taken to the hospital. And my earliest memory is probably, I was at another kid's house and the mom was trying to give us cookies. And I was trying to say, I can't have cookies. The mom and I kind of were like going back and forth. And eventually, obviously, I was a little kid, so I ate the cookie and then had to be, an ambulance had to be called and I had to go to the hospital.

• 6:10Dan Pashman?

  What was she saying? Was she like, no, you're fine?

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Oh, you're fine. Don't worry about it. I'm sure it's gonna be fine. Listen, we're talking about a time when food allergies weren't thought about and weren't frankly, like, believed. I'll get it every once in a while now, where, you know, I'll say in a restaurant, like, can you find out from the kitchen if this has eggs in it, blah, blah, blah? I have this allergy, blah, blah, blah. And the person will be like, oh, I'm sure you'll be fine. And I'll be like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't need you to be sure I'll be fine. I actually need you to talk to someone in the back and make sure this is safe, you know?

• 6:43Dan Pashman?

  Oh, my God.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  And that's the kind of vibes that I grew up with a lot in like 70s Boston. Cause in a lot of people's minds, they're picturing, is there a fried egg on this? No.

• 6:54Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  You know, they're not thinking like, oh, is there egg in the bread that that sandwich comes with?

• 7:00Dan Pashman?

  Or was it cooked on something?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Correct, you know?

• 7:02Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  And so that's how I would get burned a lot.

• 7:06Dan Pashman?

  Jason grew up north of Boston, an area called the North Shore. North Shore is actually where my mom grew up, so my whole side of the family is from there. I spent a lot of time in that area. It's known for its roast beef sandwiches. My favorite place is Kelly's Roast Beef, one of the most iconic ones. But I was curious to hear Jason's go-to spot.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  We would go to, um, Mino's Famous Roast Beef in Marblehead. And that was like a big deal, cause we were gonna go into like rival town territory, you know, where there would be a rumble.

• 7:33Dan Pashman?

  This is like Sharks and Jets type stuff.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  It literally, I was just gonna say, it literally was like a rumble, like West Side Story. But it, you know, it always started in that Boston way of like, you got a fucking problem?

• 7:45Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Hey, you got a fucking problem? You know?

• 7:49Dan Pashman?

  I'm partial to Kelly's, cause my family, when we would come from New Jersey up there to visit, we would always be a stop at Kelly's on the way to my grandmother's house in Marblehead, uh, for lobster rolls and roast beef.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:01Dan Pashman?

  My grandmother still remember going to the, um, boardwalk and an amusement park there on Revere Beach when she was a little kid. You know, but she's since passed away, but you know, it's now probably 80 or 90 years ago that she was there. Actually, it could be close to 100 years ago that she was there. And she still remembers the fact that her, her sister, her mother, my great grandmother, would only let them get one hot dog to share.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 8:24Dan Pashman?

  And like 100 years later, she was still bitter about the fact that she couldn't get her own hot dog.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Those food grievances, those will stick with you, you know? That's like a real, when you are denied food, or when you are, when your food is like, like controlled in that way, like that, you, that sticks with you. You remember that.

• 8:42Dan Pashman?

  Is there a specific food grievance from your childhood?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  You know?

• 8:45Dan Pashman?

  That you remember?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  There's a food, yeah, it's, there is a bit of one. I was staunchly not allowed to have sugar cereals, like at all. It really upset me. It was like such a, it was such a bummer. But anytime we went to my aunt's house, she would always like bring me into the kitchen and in her pantry, she would have a box of honeycomb cereal, which is the sugar cereal that I had had and I liked. And then also she would wrap and give me a box of sugar cereal for Christmas. Because that's, that would be a way to smuggle it in, that I would be able to have it. And that was also like, so there's like, it's a grievance, but the grievance also comes

• 9:28Speaker 01

  with kind of a wonderful story about my aunt.

• 9:36Dan Pashman?

  It wasn't just sugar cereal that Jason couldn't have, of course. The egg allergy made almost every meal a challenge for him. As he said, growing up in the seventies, food allergies just weren't as commonly diagnosed. So it was a struggle to explain it to people and it made him feel just really different from other kids.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  I didn't know anybody else who was allergic to anything. And as a result, I feel like my pediatrician's methodology for impressing upon me, the reality that I needed to take my allergy seriously was fear. One year he told me a story. He was like, you know, it's, it's too bad because you want to have these things, ice cream, or you want to have pancakes, or you want to have these, you want to eat these things because they're, they're so good and they're so normal. But I had a patient who was a little boy, just like you, and he went to a pizza party and he had an allergy just like yours. And that pizza had eggs in it. And when he ate the pizza, he died.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Like as and I'm like probably, I don't know, six years old, five years old. I mean, like, I was like a child. So the, the real kind of framing for me to understand the severity of my allergy was an awareness of my own mortality. You know, that every meal was an opportunity unless I was really careful and very vigilant. Every meal could end in like my death.

• 11:04Dan Pashman?

  And how, how did your parents deal with all this?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  I mean, they were great about it in terms of like keeping me safe and all of that. But it also was, I think for them, quite scary. You know, I was very, it was very clear, like my mom would make my lunch and she would be very, and impress upon me this idea of only eat what's in the bag. Do not trade, do not buy, do not get, you're not allowed essentially to eat anything except for what's inside this bag. It also applied to my birthday party. So like my birthday cake would inevitably be made with eggs. So everybody who came to the party would get my birthday cake, but I would have to eat something else.

• 11:42Dan Pashman?

  How did that feel?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Uh, super weird, you know? Years and years and years later, I was walking in New York City and I ran into a guy who I'd, who I grew up with, who I knew, and we weren't like super close friends, but we knew each other. So we hadn't been in contact since, you know, probably we, we left high school, 15, 20 years. And he goes, hey, Jason Mantzoukas. And I was like, oh, hey. And he say, he said his name and, and I was like, oh my God, well, this is we're running into each other on the street in New York. So strange. He goes, hey, I gotta ask you, are you still allergic to eggs? And it was like, oh, clearly the most defining thing about me from his point of view was that I was allergic to eggs.

• 12:22Dan Pashman?

  Right. I mean, like there are worse things to have, for, to have been known for.

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 12:27Dan Pashman?

  Right. Like you, at least you weren't the kid who like ate his own poop and.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You're the kid who went into the second grade closet and peed in the teacher's boot. True story.

• 12:37Dan Pashman?

  Wait, you did that or someone else?

• 12:38Speaker 01

  No, I didn't do it. Dan, what do you think I did that? I can't be both the egg allergy kid and the peas in the boot kid. That's too much.

• 12:46Dan Pashman?

  Maybe you invented the egg allergy to cover for your boot.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  By the way, that would be bold. That would be, it's not a bad idea. That couldn't have been me. I'm allergic to eggs.

• 13:02Dan Pashman?

  Growing up, Jason would end up in the hospital with an allergic reaction about once a year. No matter how careful he was, accidents would happen. Like the time he was egged on Halloween and broke out in a rash. Even today, it's a constant issue. Couple of years back, he went on a first date. No food, just a drink. But after he kissed his date goodnight, he started to feel a tickle in his throat. Turns out, her drink had egg whites in it.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  I have a very complicated relationship to food. Food is, in many ways, to me, first processed as a threat and has to be vetted completely before I can proceed with it. The idea of, like, a sumptuous feast laid out before me and me just indulging is, like, so attractive, but my entire life, before I can indulge in any feast, I have to have a full conversation with whoever prepared every element of that feast. Food is a source of great frustration for me. I love food, I love eating, I love being out to dinner with friends, I love being out in the world and trying new stuff.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  But all of it starts with a direct challenge to my mortality and, you know, a trust that I believe the people who are telling me, I'm gonna be okay eating this.

• 14:20Dan Pashman?

  But does that make it hard to enjoy food?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I feel like people feel about the food the way that I feel about music, or the way that I feel about movies. They have a passion and an indulgence and, like, I feel very challenged by food. Like, a real breakthrough moment for me was hearing the artist Adrian Tomine on Fresh Air talking about his peanut allergy. And he was saying, some version of, for kids with food allergies, they're not able to live a carefree childhood. No, no child should grow up so acutely aware of and in charge of their own mortality.

• 15:01Dan Pashman?

  Jason says, growing up this way, he felt like he was a boy made of glass.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  I don't know if it pushed me to be funny. I was like a funny kid, but I think being performatively funny was a way to be like, look at me because I'm being funny, not because I'm the kid who is like-

• 15:18Dan Pashman?

  Not because I'm gonna wheel that on a stretcher.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so I feel like there was a way that becoming funny made me the center of attention in a way that I could control.

• 15:27Dan Pashman?

  Right. And the peeing in the boots didn't work for you.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  You know, as many boots as I peed in, it never seemed- Nobody got the joke!

• 15:45Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Jason gets his first big break on TV and immediately ends up in the hospital. Then later, I offer him a therapeutic escape from his allergy. Stick around.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  Hope you're hungry, because it's time for some ads.

• 16:07Dan Pashman?

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• 16:52Dan Pashman?

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• 17:36Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese. And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home.

• 18:21Dan Pashman?

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• 18:48Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Passion. Hey, if you want to hear what I'm eating and reading every week, you should sign up for the Sporkful newsletter. I'll give you my weekly recommendations, and so do our producers and the whole rest of our team. We also share announcements about exciting things happening with the show, when there's special discounts on my pastas. And on top of all that, if you subscribe to the newsletter, you're automatically entered into giveaways for cookbooks featured on the show, as long as you live in the US or Canada. There's literally no downside. Sign up right now at sporkful.com/newsletter. I promise we won't spam you. We're only going to send you really good stuff. Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter. Thanks. All right, back to Jason Mazzoukas. As Jason said, he was always a funny kid, but it took him a little while to turn that into a career.

• 19:32Dan Pashman?

  He left the Boston area to go to college, studied music, played in a bunch of bands. Then he got an ethnomusicology fellowship in North Africa and the Middle East. Being in countries where he didn't really speak the language was very stressful. The first French and Arabic words he learned were the ones he needed to explain his allergy. And for a couple of years there, he moved to New York City, and that's where he first started doing comedy. This was the late 90s, around the time Upright Citizens Brigade was starting up. That's the famous improv theater in New York and LA. Jason joined an improv troupe and started performing there.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  It was like a really vibrant, really incredible kind of comedy scene. Improvising, getting on stage, being part of an ensemble, that is the thing I am most excited by, most engaged by, and it's also the place that I feel the most present. Everything goes away and it's like I enter flow state. And it's really so satisfying and it's so fun. And doing a show for people that is improvised means we're coming, we're getting on stage, and we're making up a full show right in front of your eyes that will never be done again.

• 20:34Dan Pashman?

  It sounds like a, part of it is that there's a level of focus and engagement that's almost meditative, probably.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:40Dan Pashman?

  But then like it is the absolute opposite extreme of the way your egg allergy has pushed you to function in the world, which is nothing can happen without planning and discussion.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 20:51Dan Pashman?

  In egg allergy world.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, you're absolutely speaking right to it.

• 20:55Dan Pashman?

  But in the world of improv, there's no planning and discussion.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 20:58Dan Pashman?

  It's just immediate reaction, immediate moving.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  It's just live in the moment, listen, react, and that's it. There's something about that that is incredibly grounding for me. And in a way that you're talking about, like, I don't have to worry, I don't have to be concerned, I don't have to like be vigilant, I can just be free. And it is my favorite thing.

• 21:24Dan Pashman?

  UCB became Jason's community. In addition to improv, he started writing and directing other people's shows. He took acting classes when he could. Eventually, a lot of his UCB friends started moving out to LA to do more film and TV work. After a couple of years, Jason followed them. In 2010, he got his first major TV gig, a recurring role as Raffi on The League on FX. Raffi's kind of a side character, the brother-in-law of the main character, played by Nick Kroll. Jason's first shoot for the show was in a hotel in Vegas. Day one went great. Day two?

• 21:55Speaker 01

  That morning, I went to Starbucks and grabbed a coffee and a granola yogurt fruit parfait, which had ingredients listed on the side that was, you know, I read and was safe. And so I had like two bites of the yogurt parfait and I was like, whoa, something's weird. I get like a weird, almost ticklish sensation in the back of my throat, which is usually the first sign that I've eaten eggs. And so I went back to the Starbucks and I said, "I know this ingredient list doesn't say so, but is there any possibility there's egg in this yogurt, fruit and granola?" Which, again, seems preposterous. And the woman working there was like, "I don't, I don't know. Let me see.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  We make it here in the kitchen of the casino." So she called down to the kitchen. Uh huh, okay. Yeah, he says he has an egg allergy. Uh huh. Oh, okay. Okay, I'll tell him. Okay, thank you. And then she walked up to me and she said, "The granola has egg whites." Oh, cut to I'm being wheeled past all of my castmates on a gurney into, well, my castmates who are expecting me to join them to shoot a TV show. I literally am wheeled through production into a waiting ambulance and taken to the hospital for the next like seven hours. And then have to return to set jacked up on drugs like crazy.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  I still needed to complete what I needed to shoot.

• 23:28Dan Pashman?

  Right. They have a schedule. They gotta get their scenes for the day.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yes. Whenever they give me all the drugs, it's like hitting Ctrl, I'll delete on a computer. So there is a whole series of scenes in The League where I have no recollection of having been there shooting them. I ju- the only evidence I know is that it was on the film. I'm like, what? I don't remember doing that. I don't remember being in that room.

• 23:55Dan Pashman?

  Imagine if like, those are the best scenes you ever shot and that just like became your method?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I developed a habit of like, I have to like, eat an egg, go to the hospital. This is the only way I can deliver a good performance. He's, he's really good, but the way he works is so difficult on production. He insists on being wheeled through the set on a gurney, just doing gender sympathy from his castmates.

• 24:22Dan Pashman?

  Well, if you do an indie film, you could be like, look, just paint my tongue with some egg wash and shoot me with an EpiPen and I'll be ready to go.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  And then, give me a Benadryl, let me nap for a little bit.

• 24:34Dan Pashman?

  It's not that surprising Jason could be hopped up on epinephrine and still nail the character of Rafi on The League. Because Rafi is loud, brash, and does every kind of stupid and irrational thing you could imagine. In one scene, Nick Kroll's character wants Rafi to pose as him and take his son to swim class.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  Okay. Few rules. One, no smoking. Cigarettes or drugs? Both. Oh, come on. How long does this class even last? Like an hour. What? Two, no swearing. Oh, shit on me. Three, no knives. What if there's an attack? It's a bunch of children and mothers in a pool. That's exactly when I would attack.

• 25:08Dan Pashman?

  As I said earlier, this style is a common theme with Jason's characters. He plays Jay on Big Mouth. It's an animated middle school sitcom full of graphic puberty humor. Jay is always running around yelling mostly about his sex pillow. As Derek on The Good Place, Jason played a brainless goofball who lacks any kind of self-awareness. In the recent series Pam and Tommy, Jason is the voice of Tommy Lee's penis. All these characters are the exact opposite of that boy made of glass.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  A lot of the characters I play are me exercising like a version of myself that is, that does not have the weaknesses that I perceive myself to have. These are people who don't have weaknesses in their, in their opinions. These are people who are, you know, like literally, I think Rafi from the league probably thinks he's like immortal. You know, like truly, I think, I don't think he thinks about himself as vulnerable in any way, shape or form.

• 26:06Dan Pashman?

  So I, I got an idea, Jason. I want to throw something at you.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Go for it.

• 26:10Dan Pashman?

  As a person myself who loves food and like looks forward to every meal, like,

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:16Dan Pashman?

  Like the second one meal is ending, I'm thinking ahead to the next day, you know, after dinner, what am I gonna eat tomorrow? I feel bad for any person who doesn't get, for whatever reason, doesn't get the same pleasure from food that I get. I wonder if there's a way for us to allow you to have that feeling even for a brief moment through improv.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  How do you mean?

• 26:37Dan Pashman?

  Well, what if we were to play a little improv game right now?

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Sure. Okay.

• 26:40Dan Pashman?

  We're, we're at a restaurant. I'm gonna be your server. I'm gonna name a character.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 26:46Dan Pashman?

  And you're gonna be able to portray the part of that character, and that is a person who has no allergies to food, whatever they want.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay, great.

• 26:52Dan Pashman?

  So you, so, so as an eater in this improv scene, you are totally free.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Great. I love it. I love it.

• 26:57Dan Pashman?

  All right. You're a kindergarten teacher who's skipping class to go out to lunch.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 27:04Dan Pashman?

  Ready?

• 27:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:07Dan Pashman?

  Hi, how are you?

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm good. I'm, uh, I'm playing hooky, you know?

• 27:13Dan Pashman?

  Oh, oh, really? What do you do?

• 27:15Speaker 01

  I teach kids and, you know, today they were just, I went in my closet, there was a boot full of pee and I really, I had, I really, you know, I just am at my wit's end, you know, I really, these kids have pushed me to the limit, so I'm, you know, while they're doing an assembly, I decided to sneak away and get some ramen.

• 27:36Dan Pashman?

  That's, that makes a lot of sense because I, I got kids too and um, that's why I'm here. They don't even pay me. Um, I just come here to hang out.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  You work for free?

• 27:45Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, yeah, because I just need to get, I need to get with my kids.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Listen, I don't want to tell you how to live your life.

• 27:50Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  But you should not be working for free as a waiter.

• 27:55Dan Pashman?

  They let me have some ramen out in the back by the dumpster at the end of my shift.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  You're working for dumpster ramen? Do you have a family?

• 28:01Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, I have, I have four kids.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Oh, you, you can't be supporting four kids on dumpster ramen. You should ask them to pay you here at the ramen.

• 28:10Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, you're right. But anyway, like, uh, have you had a chance to look at our menu? What, what are you in the mood for today?

• 28:15Speaker 01

  You know, I, whatever you think is like the best ramen, I've never had ramen. It looks delicious. What is the, uh, the ramen to get?

• 28:24Dan Pashman?

  Well, so I, I like the ramen with the thinly sliced pork on top. It's a big bowl of noodles, steaming hot broth, full of flavor, scallions. And then what I like to add to it is a nice egg.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, that's why I mention it because even though I'm not allergic to eggs at all, I've never had somehow a ramen with an egg. So I would love to, I would love to try this.

• 28:50Dan Pashman?

  You are in for a treat because what we do is we take the egg and after, we slice it in half and the yolk is like bright yellow and glistening and just a tiny bit runny.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Even that description is giving me a tickle in the back of my throat. I can't, I can't wait.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, great. I'll have one of those and please, I, I beg of you, ask to be paid. Ask to be paid for your work. You should be paid not being paid in dumpster ramen. Respect yourself.

• 29:16Dan Pashman?

  All right. I'm gonna go talk to the manager right now while I put in your order.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Great.

• 29:20Dan Pashman?

  Okay, talk to the manager, come back.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I like that you did an aside for talked to the manager.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Keep that in, even though you could have just come back and said, here's your ramen, sir. And I like that you looked to the side, just for the listeners. You looked to the side as if you had that conversation.

• 29:37Dan Pashman?

  Right. No, I, I felt as if I did.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Great edit, Dan. Great edit.

• 29:44Dan Pashman?

  Here's your ramen, sir.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Oh, so excited. This looks great. I can't, I'm also like so excited to have noodles. I'm not somebody who really much ever gets to have noodles like this. So this, oh wow. Ooh, this broth is so good. Wow.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  That's delicious. Holy cow. Holy cow, that is absolutely delicious. Wow. I'm so glad I did this. I'm so glad. This is exactly what I needed, you know? After I put my, my left foot into a boot full of some kid's urine. Uh, this is, this is the, this is, this is the salve I needed for this day.

• 30:22Dan Pashman?

  Yeah. Well, eggs are powerful.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  They really are. They really are powerful. Honestly, in many ways. They are, they are, they have the power to give life and take it.

• 30:35Dan Pashman?

  All right, end scene.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Okay, I'm out of it now.

• 30:40Dan Pashman?

  How do you, how do you feel now?

• 30:42Speaker 01

  I feel like I have to do an EpiPen. I was so committed to my character. I was so committed to my character that I actually felt like I, I'm having an allergic reaction. My mind convinced itself it had eaten eggs.

• 30:56Dan Pashman?

  I want to skip back for a minute. I, I know that this is against the rules of improv, but I'm not an improv pro like you and I really, and I.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  You want to go back?

• 31:03Dan Pashman?

  Well, I, I just want to go back because I don't know if it'll be obvious to all listeners that you were talking about the noodles because there's sometimes egg in the noodles.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, sure.

• 31:11Dan Pashman?

  And so I, I think we should just like make one small reference to that because I think it'll just pay off the arc of the episode.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  In the scene?

• 31:17Dan Pashman?

  Just like you were already talking about.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  In the improv scene or in our conversation?

• 31:21Dan Pashman?

  In the improv scene. I just want to, I just want to be able to be like.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I see.

• 31:23Dan Pashman?

  Well, you know what makes our ramen noodles so good is that we add egg to the dough. And that adds this just special tooth sinkable texture that's just fantastic.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, here's what I'm going to say. Because that is antithetical to the entire principle of improv. I'm going to let us do it, but we have, you can't put it in the scene. You have to put it here.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  You have to keep it here like this.

• 31:46Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  To edit into the improv scene is literally against the entire principle of what I was saying I like about improv.

• 31:53Dan Pashman?

  You're right. I understand. I will not violate that code.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  That would be like walking out front of UCB and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Everybody get back in. Get back in. I thought of a better joke.

• 32:03Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Can everybody go back to their seats, please? Go back to your seats.

• 32:06Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  But no, let's do it. Let's do it right here. And, but, but keep it here.

• 32:10Dan Pashman?

  All right. Okay. All right. All right. So, so talk again about how you're so excited to eat the noodles.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm really excited because like this broth is so aromatic and this egg was delicious. I'm excited to get, to get into these noodles. I rarely, I, you know, I don't get noodles like this all the time.

• 32:23Dan Pashman?

  Well, you know what makes ramen noodles so good is there's egg there in that batter and that gives them an extra sort of like soft and chewiness that, uh, that is unmistakable. And that's part of what makes ramen so delicious.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Hold on, I'll try them. Hmm. Ooh. Hmm. Yeah, that's delicious. Ooh, yeah, you can really taste the eggy kind of flavor, which is a flavor, of course, I know very well. Hmm.

• 32:54Dan Pashman?

  How do you think that living with this allergy for so long has affected you more broadly? I would imagine that living with a sort of constant low-grade fear of dying at any moment would have some effect.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  It, it makes me mistrustful of, of the world and people, not because they have malice towards me, but simply out of ignorance. But everybody else's life is, food is there to be eaten, enjoyed, and my relationship to it is so complicated. I want a guarantee. I want a guarantee that this is gonna work out. That's how I approach life. That's how I approached a career in comedy. That's how I've approached interpersonal relationships, all of these things. I, I would say in a lot of ways to the negative, like too, uh, rigid. You know, you should be able to proceed forward with things with less than a hundred percent guarantee of there's certainty of working out because guess what?

• 33:48Speaker 01

  That's impossible. But I, I had a therapist once say, people aren't eggs. People aren't going to kill you. They might disappoint you. They might let you down, blah, blah, blah. People aren't eggs, you know? And that was like a real like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

• 34:02Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Smart.

• 34:04Dan Pashman?

  So you talked about how like if you, if you're gonna go out to eat, or if you're gonna go to someone else's house for food, you know, it's this whole stressful production, a lot of questions, a lot of, you know, vetting. But when people do take it seriously, and the meal goes off without a hitch, and you can tell that they went to great lengths to make sure of it, how does that feel?

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Oh, it's like the greatest. It's like, because sometimes people will be like, okay, Jason, those three dishes, don't eat that. But there have been a couple of occasions where people have been like, you can eat everything. Everything, I made sure everything is safe. And that is so generous and so kind and so thoughtful because, you know, I know that a lot of probably adjustments or a lot of thought had to go into making a meal completely egg-free. And I'm telling those people, you're in charge of keeping me alive tonight. And I know that that's a burden. It stresses people out. There is a way in which people taking care of me that way, that is love.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  The way that cooking food for people is itself a demonstration of love. There is an added element to when people make me food that is, I'm going to keep you alive. Don't worry about this dinner. You are safe. Just enjoy.

• 35:37Dan Pashman?

  That's actor and comedian Jason Mantzoukas. You can hear his voice on the animated HBO Max show Close Enough. He's also a co-host of the incredible podcast, How Did This Get Made? This show is produced by me, along with senior producer-

• 35:50Speaker 05

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 35:51Dan Pashman?

  And producers- Andres O'Hara. And- Johanna Mayer. Our editor is-

• 35:55Speaker 05

  Tracy Samuelson.

• 35:57Dan Pashman?

  Additional editing help from-

• 35:58Speaker 06

  Fernanda Aguero.

• 36:00Dan Pashman?

  The show is mixed by-

• 36:01Speaker 07

  Jared O'Connell.

• 36:02Dan Pashman?

  Music help from Black Label Music. This Porchfield is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Peter Clowney and Eric Eddings. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Lillian in Boston, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 36:28Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by

• 36:29Speaker 05

  Gianna Palmer.

• 36:30Dan Pashman?

  The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer

• 36:34Speaker 05

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 36:35Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is

• 36:38Speaker 07

  Jared O'Connell.

• 36:39Dan Pashman?

  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.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. From roof repair to emergency plumbing and more. When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at angie.com.

• 37:30Dan Pashman?

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