This special episode of Making a Meal of It features 11 short conversations with participants in the FLOW Partnership, a seven-year international food systems research project. The full team met in Montreal in mid-May 2024 to share their progress, plan future research activities, and discuss ways to enable their work to transform food production, policies, and attitudes. Next week’s episode returns to the usual format, but for now, have a listen to the many ways that food, food culture, and food systems are both different and similar around the world.

FEATURING:

Alison Blay-Palmer on the FLOW Partnership

Nicole Claasen, GIZ, Germany

Kevin Morgan, Cardiff University, Wales

Anne-Marie Aubert, Conseil du système alimentaire montréalais, Québec

Laura Gómez Tovar, Universidad Autónoma Chapingo, Mexico

Samuel Gudu, Rongo University, Kenya

Chatura Pulasinghage, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario/Sri Lanka

Lillith Brook, Government of Northwest Territories

Elodie Valette, URBAL/CIRAD, France

Rachel Carey, University of Melbourne, Australia

Victor Martinez, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, British Columbia

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Music: Story Mode

@makingamealpodcast

makingamealofit.com

This episode is all about the sweet, sour, and sometimes bitter taste of sugar—and honey, maple, and molasses! Two conversations unpack the sticky subject, one with food marketing expert Dr. Jordan LeBel, and the other with pastry artist and entrepreneur, Sonya Sammut. David and Maxime taste three sweet substances during ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, and union organizer (and podcaster sister) Elisabeth Szanto responds to the Food Questionnaire.

Guests:

Dr. Jordan LeBel professor and researcher in food and experience marketing. Jordan started working in professional kitchens at the age of 12 and has since worked as a chef, a restaurant reviewer, and an industry consultant. His research looks at how we derive pleasure and comfort from what we eat—and how that affects our consumption behaviour—and he is an expert in chocolate and maple, among other things.

Sonya Sammut a pastry artist, entrepreneur, and proprietor of Sachère Desserts. Her shop in the Centre-Sud neigborhood of Montreal is a destination for cake and ice cream lovers of all kinds, drawn by her distinctive flavour combinations and elegant visual aesthetics.

Elisabeth Szanto is a union organizer working in healthcare and higher education, trying to make sure that the people who do the work have a voice in the decisions that affect them. She has volunteered and worked in labour for nearly 40 years, improving the lives and livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people.

Also mentioned:

• the story of Sachertorte
• Miels d’Anicet (Québec honey producer)
• Le Faubourg à m’lasse (former molasses-scented neighborhood of Montreal)
• Sweetness and Power by Sidney Mintz

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Music: Story Mode

Bees sound recording by Scottish Guy from Pixabay

@makingamealpodcast

makingamealofit.com

This episode is about the dynamic, transformative, ancient, and contemporary process that is fermentation. We also get into feminist theory, the queering of food, and taste in zero gravity during conversations with fermentation experts Joshua Evans and Maya Hey. David and Maxime taste kimchi, miso, and perga (bee bread) in the fermented edition of ‘Stick This in Your Mouth’, and filmmaker Bruce LaBruce responds scrumptiously to the Food Questionnaire.

Guests:

Dr. Joshua Evans is a senior researcher at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen, where he founded and leads the Sustainable Food Innovation Group. Their work brings together culinary research and development with academic research and practice in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

Dr. Maya Hey is a postdoctoral researcher with the Centre for the Social Study of Microbes at the University of Helsinki. She is the instigator of food feminism fermentation, an organization that brings together the three themes in publications and conversations that cross culinary, health, and educational participants.

Bruce LaBruce is a filmmaker, photographer, writer, and artist based in Toronto and working internationally. He has written and directed fourteen feature films, including Gerontophilia, which won the Grand Prix at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal in 2013, and Pierrot Lunaire, which won a Teddy Award at the Berlinale in 2014.

Other references:

• a list of global fermented foods
• NewScientist article about “space miso”
• Sandor Katz’s, The Art of Fermentation

Host/Producer: David Szanto

Music: Story Mode

Stock media: ProSoundEffects / Pond5

@makingamealpodcast

makingamealofit.com