Why Won’t Anyone Invite Michael Pollan To Dinner? (Reheat)

You know that friend of yours who rails against the evils of high fructose corn syrup? The one who’s obsessed with where every single morsel of their food comes from? Writer Michael Pollan — author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Rules, and Cooked — may have made your friend like that.

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. 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. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking.

• 1:23Dan Pashman?

  Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Sirius XM Podcasts.

• 1:41Dan Pashman?

  For today's reheat, we are sharing an interview that I still think about all the time. It is with bestselling author and journalist, Michael Pollan. Of course, most famously, he wrote The Omnivore's Dilemma. He's written so many other phenomenal books on food and policy. He wrote The Botany of Desire. Recently, he's been getting more into consciousness. His recent book is called A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness. And the reason why I think about this conversation all the time, I mean, partly, he's just so thoughtful and engaging. But it's also like, he's an interesting guy to me because I think that people put a lot of things onto him that aren't necessarily things that he has said or put forth about himself. Like, people read what he writes about food systems and food policy and agriculture, and they think, well, he must be a certain way. And then, as you hear in this episode, there's a moment where he got spotted and called out for buying a sugar cereal.

• 2:26Dan Pashman?

  And I just thought it was so interesting to talk with him about how he navigates the difference between what people want from him and how he actually is. Plus, he tells me why he's convinced that his line of work means he doesn't get invited to dinner as much as he would otherwise. And then, after that, we're gonna reheat another conversation. This is a deep food science dive that I still think about 12 years after this episode aired. It's a conversation with ethnobotanist Nat Bleder from Madre Chocolate in Hawaii. And Nat has a lot to say about how to taste chocolate and how to listen to your chocolate. Madre is still around. They've shifted a little bit. They're not selling as much chocolate anymore, but Nat is still doing all kinds of cool ethnobotany things like leading forage and walks in Hawaii. Of course, if there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to reheat, drop me a line. Send me an email or a voice memo to [email protected].

• 3:11Dan Pashman?

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

• 3:18Dan Pashman?

  I read that you like Cracker Jack.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:20Dan Pashman?

  Or Cracker Jacks.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  It is my, you know, my trash food of choice.

• 3:24Dan Pashman?

  This is writer, Michael Pollan. He's made terms like organic and grass-fed part of everyday conversation. He's that guy. And he loves Cracker Jacks.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  You know, good junk food has that balance of salt, fat, and sweet. And I think they've got it really dialed in.

• 3:39Dan Pashman?

  What is your ideal ratio of popcorn to peanut?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:43Dan Pashman?

  In a bite of Cracker Jacks?

• 3:44Speaker 02

  This is a problem.

• 3:45Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  When I was a kid, Cracker Jacks came in a little box.

• 3:49Dan Pashman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I don't know that, you know, I could prove this, but at, back then, Cracker Jacks had a better ratio of peanuts to corn. And, you know, also, I mean, the prizes, you know, really suck now.

• 4:04Dan Pashman?

  And what was your favorite, when you were a kid? What was the, what was the prize?

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Well, it was some piece of plastic that a little kid could choke on.

• 4:14Dan Pashman?

  You know that friend of yours who rails against the evils of high fructose corn syrup? The one who's obsessed with where every single morsel of food comes from? Well, more than just about anyone else in the country, Michael Pollan made your friend like that. But as I found when we met up, Michael Pollan himself doesn't like that at all.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not a fanatic. I don't have a kind of religious fervor about this.

• 4:38Dan Pashman?

  Is the leader of the slow food farm-to-table revolution in America misunderstood? How does it feel to write a couple of bestselling books and end up with the weight of a movement on your shoulders? And if he's so popular, why won't anyone invite him to dinner? We'll find out. Stick around.

• 5:04Dan 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.

• 5:13Dan Pashman?

  Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, changed the way I look at food. It made me think a lot more about how much meat I eat and where it comes from, what's in my food, and how it got there. I also love his book, Food Rules, which lays out really one of my main mantras for trying to eat quasi-healthy, which is eat food, meaning real food, not junk. Eat food, mostly plants, not too much. My other big mantra, which is not his, is all things in moderation, including moderation. Those are basically the two principles that guide me as I eat my way through life. So, I was really excited to meet Michael Pollan. I wanted to have a beer with the guy, but picking out a beer from Michael Pollan is stressful. He tried to put me at ease.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Stop worrying.

• 5:57Dan Pashman?

  Right, right, right. But-

• 5:59Speaker 02

  I'm a good eater.

• 5:59Dan Pashman?

  But just like coming to interview you, I was like, oh, it'd be cool to have a drink with Michael Pollan or have a snack or something. And it's like, well, what beer do you bring, Michael Pollan? And at first, I thought, well, oh, I'd be, maybe you bring him a very sort of lowbrow beer because it plays against type, and that would be entertaining. But then, that seems kind of played and obvious.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:15Dan Pashman?

  But then, if I'm gonna get a nice beer, what beer do I get?

• 6:17Speaker 02

  So, your self-consciousness is something I've run into before.

• 6:20Dan Pashman?

  Tell me, tell me about that.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know. You know, because I've written about this subject for a long time, a lot of people feel that I'm kind of, you know, I've taken up some space in their mind as a food superego. And so, they're kind of, you know, a lot of people are reluctant to feed me. And I'm convinced I don't get invited to dinner as much as I would if I wrote on something else, because some people don't wanna cook for me. They're scared. And as if I'm gonna be hypercritical and ask them the providence of the eggs and the chicken and all that kind of stuff. And I swear, I'm a perfectly good guest, and I'm not gonna criticize the beer you brought me, whatever I think of it.

• 6:57Dan Pashman?

  But how does that make you feel?

• 6:59Speaker 02

  I feel bad about it. I mean, because I think we all, you need to cultivate a more relaxed attitude about what we're eating. And I think that there is this fetishizing that's going on right now. You can take these concerns really too far and make yourself crazy, and it becomes a new eating disorder.

• 7:18Dan Pashman?

  Right, right. You kind of got right ahead into one of the nut things that I really was eager to talk to you about, which is that you've been at this for so long. Your name is like shorthand for an ethos.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:34Dan Pashman?

  And yet, every time I, when I read your work, like, you're so much more laid back and just sort of-

• 7:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:41Dan Pashman?

  -reasonable.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:43Dan Pashman?

  Do you ever worry that in some quarters, your work is misunderstood or misconstrued?

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Well, I don't worry about it. I mean, people, you know, once you put things out in the world, people are gonna do with them what they will. And you can try to clarify yourself when you are being misunderstood. But I think it's just kind of your lot when you put things out there, that people, people process them through their own filters and use them in their own ways. And there are some people who are just always gonna take things to the, to the farthest extreme because they wanna construct an identity and announce in a very quick way that you're greener than green or whatever it is. And I'm just not an absolutist. Like, I don't even understand, I mean, think about vegetarianism, okay? Which is a very legitimate way to eat.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  There are a lot of good arguments from both health and environment to argue for it. But if you're a vegetarian and you eat meat once, you're no longer a vegetarian. That's crazy. Why is that?

• 8:44Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  But we see these categories as really essential and inflexible. And I, you know, that's why I like the term flexitarian. You know, flexitarians are mostly, you know, people who eat a plant-based diet, but every now and then, they have meat.

• 8:57Dan Pashman?

  Right. Even though I think anyone who looks at your work objectively will see a very sort of reasonable approach.

• 9:05Dan Pashman?

  When it does get misconstrued, it leads to the sort of anxiety that you're often trying to abate.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, in only in the sense of whenever, one of the reasons that absolutes are really dangerous is that people feel if they can't go all the way, they're not going to go anyway.

• 9:20Dan Pashman?

  They make the perfect, the enemy of the good.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah. And, and so I see that happening a lot. Um, well, this isn't practical or this is too expensive. And then I, then I always say, well, what is this? And then when they break it down, they're thinking of some kind of ideal that they've, uh, confected and that they're letting that stand between them and doing anything.

• 9:39Dan Pashman?

  But there's a constituency of people out there who, whether or not you asked for it, have sort of put you at the front of this movement. How do you feel about being put in that position? Do you feel to some degree like you're sort of a reluctant Messiah?

• 9:53Speaker 02

  I don't, no, I'm not, no, no, no, no.

• 9:56Dan Pashman?

  Is it that you're not reluctant? You're not a Messiah? What you're saying, what are you saying no to?

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Not a Messiah. I mean, look, I mean,

• 10:04Dan Pashman?

  But I feel like there are people who put you in that position, who think of you that way. And I can imagine that that is hard. It's gotta be hard sometimes to have a lot of people out there who want something from you that you don't know if you're equipped to give them.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there was a movement to draft me to be Secretary of Agriculture after Obama was elected. That was the scariest prospect. So, look, I feel very fortunate. I mean, to the extent that these are problems, they're, as my son would say, first world problems.

• 10:33Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Right? People encouraging you to do more of your work. I mean, most writers don't get any encouragement at all.

• 10:38Dan Pashman?

  We talk about the anxiety that other people feel when you come over.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Imagine their expectations.

• 10:43Dan Pashman?

  Right. What happens when you host other people? Now you're the one feeling anxiety.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I know.

• 10:47Dan Pashman?

  Because people must expect if you're going to Michael Pollan's house for dinner, that he's going to deliver.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:51Dan Pashman?

  How do you deal with that?

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Well, I do the best I can, but I'm sure you're gonna have to interview them and see. But some of them tell you, yeah, it wasn't that good.

• 10:58Dan Pashman?

  But do you, but do you feel that? Do you feel some pressure?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  I love to cook for guests and my wife does too. Judith and I cook together and we divvy up the dishes, who's gonna do what. But sometimes it doesn't work. I blow it sometimes. I mean, I, I don't pretend to be a great cook. I mean, you can think a lot about food without being a great cook. I don't have that natural gift.

• 11:18Dan Pashman?

  And I know you talk and cooked about cooking with your son.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:22Dan Pashman?

  And, and you guys also did some fermentation projects.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. Isaac and I, we made, we made beer together.

• 11:28Dan Pashman?

  What was that like for you?

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Oh, it's great. Isaac has had a very long journey to becoming a good eater. He started out as a really, um, he was one of these white food eaters for, I don't know, eight years or so. He really would only eat noodles plain, I mean, really plain. Um, a carrot would be his vegetable, uh, rice. Um, there was very little that he would eat. And, um,

• 11:51Dan Pashman?

  And how did you feel about that?

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Well, you know, in a way, it, it's very stressful for a parent. We realized it wasn't a power play between us at a certain point and we went with it. And, uh, actually it was when he started to cook that he started to eat.

• 12:06Dan Pashman?

  And cooking with him now, like, what's that like as a parent? Tell me about what that means to you.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Now, we don't get to do it that often. We do it on vacation. You know, we'll get together and he'll come to us and we'll, you know, we'll cook dinner together and

• 12:19Dan Pashman?

  Do you miss that? Since he's not at home anymore?

• 12:21Speaker 02

  It was great. I, I really loved having him around in the kitchen and I, and I really like cooking for him and I like when he cooked for us. Cause he is a really good cook. And I, and I miss certain things he can do better than I can. Like, he can bone out a chicken really well, which I can't. I kind of hack at it. And, um, he's very good at making sauces. He'll make a reduction, you know, wine reduction. He, he thinks all food should have sauces. I, I don't, but, um, but he makes good sauces. So, uh, yeah, I miss it. It was, it was really sweet time together. And I also think when you have teenagers, you will find, how old are your kids?

• 12:53Dan Pashman?

  Two and a half and five.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay. Well, you're not there yet. But you will find there's a certain point where direct eye contact is the worst possible context for a conversation. And that the best conversations will be had in the car, when you're both facing ahead, or while you're doing something, a project together, whether it's brewing beer or cooking or something like that, where you're not looking at one another. Um, and I would get the best reports from school and about his social life while we were shopping.

• 13:20Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, my conversation with Michael Pollan continues. He'll tell the story about getting caught in the store, red food coloring handed, buying a box of fruity pebbles.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  And I'm reaching for the, the box of fruity pebbles and this tall bearded graduate student taps on my shoulder and says, I'm watching Michael Pollan shop for groceries. And I'm holding this, this guilty box of cereal. And I was like, eh, get me out of here. I have not been back to that supermarket.

• 13:57Dan Pashman?

  Plus, we'll play a game called, Is It Bad For You? In which I force Michael to take sides in long-running arguments between my wife and me. Stick around.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Time to cook up some advertisements.

• 14:24Dan Pashman?

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• 15:08Dan Pashman?

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• 15:50Dan Pashman?

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• 16:32Dan Pashman?

  all season long. They make elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was this Sporkful. It's the best way to support the show. Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. 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

• 17:16Dan Pashman?

  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 gonna send you really good stuff. Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter. Thanks. Now let's get back to my conversation with Michael Pollan. You know, when you're a bestselling author, you give a lot of talks. People come from all over to hear you speak. And then, after you speak, they ask questions. And no matter where he's speaking, Michael says there are a couple of questions he gets every time.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Well, I always get a question about GMOs in every talk.

• 18:01Dan Pashman?

  Really? Okay.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I am tired about that one. Tired of that. Cause I, I think we've put too much energy and attention to that issue.

• 18:08Dan Pashman?

  You feel like it's not as big of a concern as people say?

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Well, I wouldn't put it that way. I, I, I don't feel it's, uh, that

• 18:17Dan Pashman?

  Sorry. I just made you, I just made you give the answer that you're tired of giving.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  No, I mean, in terms of, I think it's a battle that, let's say the food movement was victorious and managed to get GMOs banned. Where would we be? We'd be American Agriculture circa 1996, which was not a golden age. We still had huge monocultures soaked in pesticides. Um, so the point is, it doesn't get at the root of the problem, which is monocultures.

• 18:44Dan Pashman?

  What other questions are you tired of getting?

• 18:46Speaker 02

  Gluten. I always get, I mean, the last couple of years, I get a question about gluten. So what's the deal with gluten?

• 18:53Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  It's usually phrased just that elegantly.

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I mean, I did look at that question and cooked and tried to figure it out. And we talk about it in the movie too, because so many people are not eating gluten. And I think it's a shame because, I mean, bread is like about my favorite food. And I hate to see it stigmatized like that, often for no reason.

• 19:12Dan Pashman?

  But do you agree, and one thing I've been thinking about lately, I just, I feel like whatever the diet flavor of the month is, there's something about us that like, you know, we gravitate towards easy answers.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  Sure. Oh, no question.

• 19:23Dan Pashman?

  And nobody wants to hear that in order to be healthier, or especially in order to lose weight, you just have to eat a little less.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  Yes. And you're exactly right. And a lot of the complication that's happened around food is a way to avoid talking about quantity. I mean, we would much rather talk about the latest dietary study, or the problem with gluten, or the problem with refined carbohydrates, anything but quantity. Quantity's boring.

• 19:53Dan Pashman?

  And nobody wants to be told you can't eat as much as you, right, right. Or everyone wants to believe that there's a diet that maybe they can't eat all the foods that they want to eat, but they can still eat as much as they want to eat. No one wants to have to feel like they're a little bit hungry.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  That's right. That's exactly right. And that's why we gravitate toward these, these stories that if you just avoid that one nutrient. And, you know, the history of the food health conversation in this country is figuring out ways to license more eating. I mean, I call it the snack wells phenomenon. If these, if this junk food, these cookies and crisps and candies are so good for you because they're fat free, I'm not gonna have one, I'm gonna have a whole box.

• 20:37Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  And so.

• 20:38Dan Pashman?

  Like light cigarettes.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And so they become excuses to eat more. And we do binge on healthy food, which will still get you fat.

• 20:47Dan Pashman?

  Right. Before I let you go, I'd like to end with a little lightning round.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 20:52Dan Pashman?

  We're gonna play a game called, Is It Bad For You? In which you take sides in long running disputes between my wife and me. Which I'm sure you're very eager to do.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a really uncomfortable place to be.

• 21:07Dan Pashman?

  And I'm not gonna tell you who's on which side.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:10Dan Pashman?

  Lucky Charms cereal.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Bad.

• 21:15Dan Pashman?

  Okay. Now.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  I have a food rule, you know, don't buy any cereal that changes the color of the milk.

• 21:23Dan Pashman?

  But one of the things that my wife will often say about cereals in general, Lucky Charms included, is, but they're fortified.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:29Dan Pashman?

  They add all these minerals and vitamins and nutrients, therefore, it's not so bad.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  And why do they add, why do they have to add all those vitamins, minerals and nutrients? Because they've taken them out of the, of the whole grain that it started with. And they've, so they've kind of ruined the nutritional value of this grain. And then they put them back to make you feel good about it. It's like Wonder Bread, you know, you sell the, the problem and the solution in one neat package.

• 21:53Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Degraded food plus vitamins. Great. How about start with some real food?

• 21:57Dan Pashman?

  Right, right, right. All right, I'm just making a note here, 1.4 Dan, got that, okay.

• 22:04Dan Pashman?

  Next one, but it's gonna get a little harder now.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:06Dan Pashman?

  Potatoes.

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Potatoes, uh, whole potatoes with the peel are a good source of starch and, but vitamin C too, actually, and vitamins.

• 22:19Dan Pashman?

  MSG, monosodium glutamate.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Well, MSG, you shouldn't be so afraid of.

• 22:25Dan Pashman?

  Yes.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  This is the opposite of marriage counseling.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, MSG is a chemical that is in a lot of foods. So we think of it as something artificial added to foods. Is it better if it's naturally produced by the food? And I don't think there's any science to support that.

• 22:43Dan Pashman?

  Last one on our game, Is It Bad For You? Yogurt.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  No, unless it's sweetened with an unreasonable amounts of sugar. Take a look at how many grams of sugar are on yogurt. You will be shocked. There are yogurts, big name brand yogurts with 26 grams of sugar per six ounces. That's much more than you get in a Coca-Cola. So my advice on yogurt is buy plain yogurt and sweeten it yourself. A little maple syrup or jelly, and you will never put 26 grams in.

• 23:19Dan Pashman?

  All right, well, I cannot wait to report back to my wife.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Tell her I'm very sorry.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  But had she chosen the issues, they might've come out differently.

• 23:27Dan Pashman?

  I consulted her. She did want me, she did want me to mention that Lucky Charms is a treat in our house. It is not common.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Well, I tell the story about, you know, my son's weekend cereal, when he was growing up, was fruity pebbles. And I was, when I first got to Berkeley, I was in the supermarket and I'm, you know, my cart is full of organic chicken and rice, brown rice and all this kind of stuff. And I'm reaching for the, the box of fruity pebbles. And this tall bearded graduate student taps on my shoulder and says, I'm watching Michael Pollan shop for groceries. And I'm holding this, this guilty box of cereal. And I was like, eh, get me out of here. I have not been back to that supermarket.

• 24:11Dan Pashman?

  But have you bought fruity pebbles since?

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Well, I did for that, you know, for a period of time. I don't know when he got off that. And he, you know, he kind of, he was just too old for sweetened cereal.

• 24:20Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  But no, we, we let him have that. There's a place, there's a place even for junk food.

• 24:27Dan Pashman?

  Right. And are you at the point now in your life and career where it doesn't bother you to know that people are watching you?

• 24:34Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it's funny. I was at a gas station and I was really hungry. I was driving from Boston to New York. And I stopped at a gas station on the Merritt Parkway and I picked up a Kind bar, or I forget what, but it was essentially a candy bar with a, a, a happy gloss on it.

• 24:50Dan Pashman?

  A hippie dippy wrapper on it, right.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  An overpriced candy bar.

• 24:52Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  And then this guy came up and said, are you Michael Pollan? And there I was munching on my candy bar. And I was like, and then I, but that was like, should I feel self-conscious? And then I said, nah. Let him tell the story, I don't care.

• 25:07Dan Pashman?

  Well, Michael Pollan, it's really great to meet you in person. I've been admiring your work for a long time. So thank you so much.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  I appreciate it.

• 25:21Dan Pashman?

  That's writer Michael Pollan. His most recent food book, Cooked, is also a four part documentary on Netflix.

• 25:36Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, I talk with chocolate expert Nat Letter about the difference between melters and chompers when it comes to chocolate eating. Stick around.

• 25:48Speaker 03

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• 26:37Speaker 04

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• 28:13Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. Now, let's get to the second conversation in this week's reheat with ethnobotanist Nat Bleder. Here on the Sporkful, we're not afraid to let our nerd flag fly. But this week, well, we're doubling down on the nerd. We'll start with Nat Bleder. He works at Madre Chocolate in Honolulu, where his title is Chocolate Flavormeister.

• 28:33Speaker 07

  I have a PhD in ethnobotany, which is basically a combination of anthropology and botany. So, we study the way people interact with plants.

• 28:41Dan Pashman?

  And you told me that three out of the 20 people at Madre Chocolate have PhDs?

• 28:45Speaker 07

  Yes, we are, I believe, already and are continuing to be the most overqualified chocolate company per capita in the world.

• 28:55Dan Pashman?

  So, you live in Hawaii?

• 28:58Speaker 07

  I do.

• 28:59Dan Pashman?

  And you make chocolate all day?

• 29:00Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 29:02Dan Pashman?

  [bleep] you.

• 29:05Dan Pashman?

  Like, that's your life? That's bull [bleep]. What sort of horrible traumatic childhood experience are you running away from, Nat? Just be honest with us, come on.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  I grew up in Manhattan. That tells you a lot, right?

• 29:18Dan Pashman?

  Well, I'll get you back to Hawaii real quick. Let's make this quick and easy, quick and painless on you.

• 29:21Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 29:24Dan Pashman?

  You are clearly an expert in so many chocolate-related issues. And you brought some samples here, which I'm very excited to taste shortly. But first, let's just talk general chocolate bar theory.

• 29:35Speaker 07

  All right.

• 29:36Dan Pashman?

  Now, you have identified a couple of different types of chocolate bar eaters.

• 29:42Speaker 07

  Exactly, yeah.

• 29:43Dan Pashman?

  Melters and chompers.

• 29:45Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 29:45Dan Pashman?

  Can you please define those two terms for me?

• 29:47Speaker 07

  Okay, so I argue about this with my business partner, Dave, all the time. I'm not going to say one is better or worse, but melter is actually better. But so I'm a melter. And that is where you put the chocolate on your tongue after smelling it and breaking it and listening to it and let it melt. And you get this really long flavor envelope. So, chocolate melts at around 95 degrees when it's well tempered. So, at your body temperature, just a few degrees above that, it's going to have a very slow melt. So, you'll get this like initial fruitiness and then the nuttiness and then the chocolate tail. Whereas if it's untempered or you chomp into it, so it melts a lot faster, it gets kind of accelerated.

• 30:32Speaker 07

  So, you have like, you know, fruity nutty chocolate and it's gone. It's out of your mouth. So, the chompers are the ones who just crunch into it. And there are some bars that are designed, including some that we make, that are made for chompers where they have inclusion.

• 30:47Dan Pashman?

  Well, I want to get to that in a moment. But wait, we've got to rewind a little bit. First of all, you said something about listening to the chocolate?

• 30:53Speaker 07

  Yes, you should use all your senses.

• 30:54Dan Pashman?

  What are you listening for when you listen to chocolate?

• 30:57Speaker 07

  The snap, which is an indication of the temper of the chocolate.

• 31:01Dan Pashman?

  What does that mean?

• 31:02Speaker 07

  That's a very important part of chocolate making. So, the temper is having the right kind of crystal structure. I liken it to growing the diamonds of the cocoa butter. So, you know, carbon can be dull, crumbly coal, or it can be slightly shiny graphite in your pencil, or it could be hard, brilliant diamond. And that's the exact same molecule, just packed differently. Like, you'd stack, you know, apples on the grocery shelf. Cocoa butter is even more complicated. It has five crystal forms. And most of them are dull and crumbly. Like, have you ever gotten a chocolate bar that you might have left in your car window and then it resolidified and has this white film over it? It looks kind of like mold, but it's not.

• 31:47Speaker 07

  So, that's when it's come out of temper. And that's one of the not-so-great crystal forms.

• 31:52Dan Pashman?

  And when you say good versus not good, these different types of tempering, I want to hear the difference.

• 31:59Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 31:59Dan Pashman?

  I want to hear the difference right now. Can we, Jason, our friendly engineer, could we please use the blue microphone and crank it up really loudly so that Nat can break the chocolate by that mic?

• 32:14Speaker 07

  All right, so this is a bar that was, even though I took it to the Dominican Republic, where I just came back from, it should still be in good temper.

• 32:22Dan Pashman?

  Man, your life sucks.

• 32:24Speaker 07

  So, you can see it's got a nice shine. And I'm going to break it right now. That had a good thud to it.

• 32:31Dan Pashman?

  There was a deep, there was bass in that. In that. And no microphone tricks being added here at WNYC.

• 32:37Speaker 07

  Nothing up our sleeve.

• 32:38Dan Pashman?

  So, next one.

• 32:39Speaker 07

  So, in contrast, you see this one went through a lot.

• 32:41Dan Pashman?

  That looks like it was in your pocket, in your back pocket, and you sat on it on the entire flight from Hawaii.

• 32:46Speaker 07

  On an oven, right?

• 32:47Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 32:47Speaker 07

  So, this is a very warped bar. So, you can see here that instead of that nice shine, it's all white and mottled and kind of funky. So, I'm going to try to-

• 32:59Dan Pashman?

  So, let's listen to this now.

• 33:00Speaker 07

  Here we go.

• 33:02Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, it was a higher pitch, a little tinny.

• 33:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 33:05Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 07

  And it can get a lot worse than that. It can just be kind of like a whoosh more than a crack, even when it's totally untempered.

• 33:14Dan Pashman?

  That sounds demoralizing. What is exactly the difference in the taste and eating experience between a bar that is not tempered or a little tempered or a lot tempered?

• 33:24Speaker 07

  So, yeah, the untempered one will melt at about 85 degrees because it has all these other low melting point crystals mixed in there besides the nice, beautiful beta 5 crystals that we want. So, when you snap it in your hands or with your teeth, it's going to just crumble, more or less, rather than have a nice snap. And then on your tongue, it's going to melt so much faster because it's 85 degrees, which is well below body temperature. So, you'll get this compressed, accelerated flavor envelope.

• 34:00Dan Pashman?

  So, what you're getting at with the temper is the same thing you were getting at in the melters versus the chompers?

• 34:05Speaker 07

  There you go.

• 34:05Dan Pashman?

  The issue of how quickly versus how slowly the flavors expose themselves to you in the eating process.

• 34:11Speaker 07

  Right, right.

• 34:12Dan Pashman?

  And you clearly, you want it to happen slowly because you want to be able to appreciate every little bit.

• 34:15Speaker 07

  Right.

• 34:16Dan Pashman?

  It's hard for me to argue with that. But if I were going to, if Dave, your colleague Dave, were here and he was sitting on this microphone next to you and saying, "Hell, no, chompers rule", what would he say?

• 34:32Speaker 07

  He would say, let me see. It's hard for me to put myself in his shoes. He would say there's definitely bars that are made for the chompers because they have nibs or nuts or something in there that you kind of need, you're encouraged to chew.

• 34:47Speaker 07

  And he's saying he's getting a good, he's exposing more of the surface area of the chocolate to his tongue. And I don't know if he would claim to be a true 100% chomper. He likes to chomp a bit and then let it melt. So, we call that a chomelter, the hybrid category.

• 35:08Dan Pashman?

  Oh, of course. There's one word that I still haven't heard you say, Nat, and I'm a little bit surprised.

• 35:14Speaker 07

  Which is?

• 35:16Dan Pashman?

  Texture.

• 35:17Speaker 07

  Ah.

• 35:18Dan Pashman?

  Crunch. What about the satisfaction of biting into a chocolate bar? The melters don't get that.

• 35:27Speaker 07

  This is true, yeah. So, there's an argument for chomelters, at least. I don't know if it's an argument for chompers.

• 35:32Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 35:41Dan Pashman?

  You talk about the temperature at which chocolate is stored. This is a big issue in chocolate bars. Some people like frozen chocolate bars.

• 35:49Speaker 07

  Terrible.

• 35:50Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, you're shaking your head. I agree, frozen is terrible. First of all, it is too hard. But also, across a wide variety of different foods, I'm sure you know, when something is frozen solid, it loses flavor, it loses aroma, it dulls the entire sensory experience.

• 36:04Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 36:04Dan Pashman?

  However, I can make a pretty good case for refrigeration.

• 36:09Speaker 07

  All right, let's get down to it. I'm ready to battle.

• 36:13Dan Pashman?

  You chill the chocolate.

• 36:15Speaker 07

  Uh huh.

• 36:16Dan Pashman?

  Well, it's interesting because I think that the sound that you made when you broke the more tempered chocolate bar sounded to me more like the sound you get when you break a chocolate bar that's been in the refrigerator.

• 36:29Speaker 07

  True.

• 36:31Dan Pashman?

  Just based on the two sounds that we heard there, it seems to me that a more tempered chocolate bar is, has more of a density to it, more of a weight to it. And I think that is something that chilling the chocolate also adds, at least in terms of a, but I don't know what's going on with the molecules inside. I'm talking about the sensory experience of eating it.

• 36:51Speaker 07

  Right.

• 36:51Dan Pashman?

  Also, also, one of your big points was you don't want it to melt too fast. If you start it off cold, it prolongs the eating experience.

• 37:00Speaker 07

  I'll give you that.

• 37:01Dan Pashman?

  What do you say?

• 37:02Speaker 07

  I give you that.

• 37:02Dan Pashman?

  Bring it on.

• 37:03Speaker 07

  But I think, uh, there's a couple of reasons. So cocoa butter is incredibly good at absorbing flavors from everything else around it. And then the other issue is that, uh, when you take it out of the fridge, you could ruin that temper that the chocolate makers work so hard on getting. It's, it'll be a superficial thing, but for a lot of people, the appearance, the shine of the chocolate is a problem. So you take out this cold bar, you take it out of the container and the humidity in the summer in New York.

• 37:30Dan Pashman?

  Condensation.

• 37:30Speaker 07

  Yep. There you go. That will ruin it instantly because water and chocolate are enemies. They really don't get along.

• 37:35Dan Pashman?

  What about like Water for Chocolate?

• 37:37Speaker 07

  I know. I always mention that movie. So that's for making drink in chocolate. That's the traditional chocolate. For a chocolate bar, if you had one single drop of water in even a giant, you know, 20 pound batch of chocolate, you would not be able to temper it. You'd get streaking like mad and it would turn out like fudge. It would never have that snap. So with refrigeration, uh, the other issue is that in terms of the, the hardness or the temperature of it, it would be good for extreme melters. But if anyone has any tendency to chomp at all, or they have a, um, or it's gonna go down faster, or if it's a thin piece, um, it will take so long to melt when it's

• 38:19Speaker 07

  at refrigerator temperature that you won't really release the aromas. And that's what's so essential to the taste of chocolate. I think, I think your idea has some validity if you could train people to be extreme melters and just let it sit in their mouth for minutes or even hours until it completely melted.

• 38:37Dan Pashman?

  I respect your opinion and I'm going to try this. We're going to try some chocolate in a minute.

• 38:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:42Dan Pashman?

  But I do, I am just, I'm deeply concerned by your lack of concern for texture and crunch. These are hallowed, sporkful terms that we come back to again and again, to me that are a crucial part

• 38:54Speaker 07

  Right.

• 38:54Dan Pashman?

  of the chocolate eating experience. And you still haven't said them. It's not a priority to you. Is that right?

• 39:00Speaker 07

  I think you'll change your mind when you taste some of the chocolate flavors I've designed that have a huge amount of texture and crunch.

• 39:06Dan Pashman?

  All right. I'm going in here. Which, which one, which one is this?

• 39:08Speaker 07

  This is the triple cacao. So you're talking about texture. This is one with an immense amount of texture.

• 39:13Dan Pashman?

  Okay. I'm going to break it in front of the mic. Let's, let's listen to how well tempered it is.

• 39:17Speaker 07

  All right.

• 39:20Speaker 07

  That was good.

• 39:21Dan Pashman?

  That's a nice, that's a nice snap right there.

• 39:23Speaker 07

  And that bar went to Dominican Republic and back too.

• 39:25Dan Pashman?

  Okay. All right.

• 39:27Speaker 07

  This is our biggest award winner. It won about seven awards in the last year. And it has three forms of cacao. So it has the Dominican, uh, made chocolate, 70%. It has the cacao nibs, um, which are the, uh, it's basically roasted, broken up beans that, that you can taste as well on their own. And then the surprise ingredient, it has the fruit of the cacao pod, which no one ever gets to taste. And it's this incredible lychee or mangosteen flavored white flesh that surrounds the beans and the fresh fruit. So when we got to Hawaii and we tasted that for the first time, like, everybody should get to taste this. This is incredible. And it's part of the history of, of cacao and chocolate because where

• 40:10Speaker 07

  cacao is from in South America, they were only using that fruit for millennia. No one was using the bean. They were throwing it out. So they're drinking that and making beer and vinegar out of it.

• 40:20Dan Pashman?

  Huh. Well, this is outstanding and I do love the cocoa nib texture.

• 40:24Speaker 07

  And what about the, yeah, the mouth feel, the texture. Does it have?

• 40:27Dan Pashman?

  But I, but I chomped it. Let me try melting it.

• 40:29Speaker 07

  All right. There you go. I think this is actually a chomper bar.

• 40:31Dan Pashman?

  Oh, well, give me a melter bar then.

• 40:32Speaker 07

  All right. I'll give you the, the base chocolate that, um, is used to make that one.

• 40:41Speaker 07

  And hopefully while it's melting, you're getting lots of different flavors coming in at once. I'm going to do some with you.

• 40:49Speaker 07

  Should be a little bit of fruitiness at the beginning, sort of dried fruit, cherries and plums in this one.

• 40:55Dan Pashman?

  Oops, I chomped it by accident.

• 40:57Speaker 07

  Couldn't resist, could you?

• 41:00Dan Pashman?

  I'm still sucking on it though, like a second candy.

• 41:02Speaker 07

  Oh, I'm discovering my inner chmelter.

• 41:08Dan Pashman?

  You might've been chmelting all along. You'd think you're a melter, but you're really a chmelter.

• 41:11Speaker 07

  Maybe.

• 41:12Dan Pashman?

  I just ch melted that piece and that was really nice.

• 41:14Speaker 07

  I was just trying to catch up with you.

• 41:17Speaker 07

  An excuse.

• 41:22Dan Pashman?

  That's Nat Bletter of Madre Chocolate. Find his chocolate in stores around the country or at madre chocolate.com. The first episode of today's reheat was produced by me along with Anne Sannie. It was edited by Peter Clowney. The second episode was produced by me along with Kristen Meinzler. 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. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, if you want to hear new episodes of The Sporkful ad free, subscribe to Sirius XM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit

• 42:04Dan Pashman?

  siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Fidelity active ETFs have the flexibility to shift and transform as markets do the same. So instead of just riding an index, they can seek to outperform it by adapting to market conditions and pursuing new opportunities as they emerge. And while you get the potential outperformance of an actively managed fund, you can still buy and sell it on your terms, just like any other ETF. Markets can change in real time. Make sure your ETF can too. Learn more at fidelity.com/activeetfs. Before investing in any exchange traded fund, you should consider its investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Contact Fidelity for a prospectus, an offering circular, or if available, a summary prospectus containing

• 43:00Speaker 01

  this information. Read it carefully. While active ETFs offer the potential to outperform an index, these products may more significantly trail an index as compared with passive ETFs. ETFs are subject to market fluctuation and the risks of their underlying investments. ETFs are subject to management fees and other expenses. Fidelity Broker Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

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• 43:30Speaker 01

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