Ox Tales

What responsibilities do public institutions have in resisting the corporatization of food? Canadian chef and activist Joshna Maharaj shares the trials, the quirks and the successes of a one-year project to overhaul a Toronto hospital’s food system, taking it from frozen pre-packaged foods to fresh, local fare. "If there's any place on this planet that should have a rolling broth pot, I think it's a hospital." -- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause. Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter, and Bensound. Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk -- SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085). And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Arctic culinary scholar Zona Spray Starks explains the diverse range culinary techniques of the Iñupiat people of Alaska, and how the seasonal food landscape shaped family relations. While doing so, she shares the story of her later-in-life return to Alaska and the connections she's built there. "Frozen is a way of altering food and cooking is a way of altering food, but freezing does the same thing. …And in fact the taste is very different when the meat is almost thawed, it's still a little bit Frozen, but it's almost thawed." -- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause. Music in this episode was by Ava Glendinning, Uuriter and Hit of the Week Orchestra. Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk -- SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085). And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Many indigenous communities around Turtle Island (North America) are reclaiming relationships to ancestral seeds after hundreds of years of disconnection due to colonial violence. Chef Sean Sherman and scholar Elizabeth Hoover tell the tales of seeds, seed-keepers, and indigenous chefs who are bringing traditional foods back into focus. "Thinking about seeds as living relatives-- how do you ensure that they continue to have a relationship with other people in your family, in your community, so that people can continue to plant them and learn from them and eat them?" -- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause. Music in this episode was by Thomas Krause, Ava Glendinning, Uuriter, and George Lewis and his New Orleans Stompers. Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk -- SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can conveniently make a one time donation of any amount by texting OXTALES and the number you'd like to donate, to 70085. (For example, donate 10 pounds by sending OXTALES10 to 70085). And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

World-renowned fermentation revivalist Sandor Ellix Katz embarks upon a philosophical and biological journey into the origins of multicellular life, and how the multi-species activity of fermenting foods has played a central role in the evolution of microbes, our bodies-- and even our culture. “To embrace bacteria particularly as part of our food is a great way to make sure we are increasing biodiversity in our own bodies and maximizing our adaptive potential by embracing the presence of bacteria within us.” -- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur, edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair and mixed by Thomas Krause. Music in this episode was by Thomas Krause, Ava Glendinning, Sara Afonso, The Jungle, the Cavern, and Sam Bikov. Find out more about Ox Tales and the Oxford Food Symposium by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk -- SUPPORT THE PODCAST Donate via our website or listeners in the UK can donate twenty pounds by texting OXTALES20 to 70085. And don't forget to rate and review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen!

Retired LA Times food writer and food historian Charles Perry explains how the 19th century Los Angeles practice of earth-pit barbecuing whole bulls became a culinary craze for settlers who saw the eating of the bull’s head as a wild west delicacy, and how the rise of Hollywood changed the practice into what we know today as the backyard barbecue. “People had this obscure sense that they had been having too much fun in the 20s and they now were being punished and so everything became suave and elegant and the idea of being able to invite people as if on the spur of the moment for a steak was very appealing.” --- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur and edited by Naomi Duguid and Fiona Sinclair with production help by Thomas Krause. Music by Thomas Krause and Ava Glendinning. Find out more by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk/podcast/

In Japan, 'slurp' is more than just eating-related onomatopoeia. Japanese cultural and food historian Voltaire Cang researches and explores the significance of this important sound in the complex role it plays when people eat noodle dishes (ramen, in particular) and during the refined tea ceremony, Chado. “it's not because people here aren’t taught about manners. It's because it IS manners to slurp your noodles.” --- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur and edited by Fiona Sinclair and Naomi Duguid with production help by Thomas Krause. Music by Thomas Krause and Ava Glendinning. Find out more by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk/podcast/

Third generation French foie gras producer Guillemette Barthouil takes you on a history lesson that spans thousands of years and an ocean as she makes the case that foie gras is the quantum offal- a food that is both loved and reviled. “I think foie gras is really an interesting topic because it is an offal and is not an offal at the same time. That is why I call it the quantum offal.” --- Ox Tales is produced by Anna Sigrithur and edited by Fiona Sinclair and Naomi Duguid with production help by Thomas Krause. Music by Thomas Krause and Ava Glendinning. Find out more by visiting our website at https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk/podcast/

Hello dear listeners, We are delighted to announce the official launch of Season One of Ox Tales, beginning on April 18. Please enjoy this trailer of highlights of what's to come! Ox Tales is the podcast that serves up rich and surprising stories about food and how it makes us who we are- from the Oxford Food Symposium. Every year since 1981, hundreds of scholars, writers, chefs and enthusiastic amateurs from all around the world gather at the Oxford Food Symposium to share their ideas in the form of published papers and lectures. Now, Ox Tales brings those stories to you. ... ... ... Season One launches April 18 with an episode every week for six weeks, and we are hard at work on Season Two, which will launch this fall.