This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
Marc Maron and I have been arguing about eating for at least a decade. Back when I was a producer on his Air America Radio show Morning Sedition, we had heated disagreements on the air about such vital issues in eating as temperature contrast in sandwiches and the merits of cheese wiz on cheesesteaks (more on that later).
In many ways, those debates were a precursor to The Sporkful. And this week on the show, Marc and I listen to tape of one of our classic feuds from years ago, and start some new ones, including:
- Are melon balls really the best shape for eating melon?
- What's the best strategy at a BBQ joint?
- Is the joy of eating sausage gravy worth the sadness that immediately follows its consumption?
Marc and I disagree on that last one. I don't think it's worth it (as the chart below, from my book, illustrates):
But for Marc, a comedian and host of the WTF podcast who's been sober for over a decade, it's how he gets his fix.
"The experience of shoving stuff into your face is amazing because everything makes sense and it feels so good," he says. "It's like coming off crack. Right when you're done, you're like what did I do...I wonder if I can eat more?"
Unfortunately for Marc, that high comes with a crash--food shame.
"I have body image issues and I have a tremendous amount of food shame because I love to eat," Maron explains.
He says his mother has often told him she doesn't think she could love him if he was fat.
"I don't know whether she could really love me either way," he tells me, "but she does her best. She's got a lot on her mind, my mom. Her life is really managing an eating disorder."
Later in the show, we dig up some old tape of Marc and I arguing about sandwiches more than a decade ago, back when I was his producer at Air America Radio:
Me: This is something I feel very strongly about, Marc, and I put a lot of study and research and thought into the creation of sandwiches. And I'm quite confident that you already have an inferior sandwich if you have hot things on the inside with cold bread on the outside.
Maron: Back up! This is crazy. You're talking crazy because you're denying the power of fresh bread. Toasting a kaiser roll that's really fresh -- it's wrong. I think you're wrong here.
It's like the prequel to The Sporkful -- though both of us talk slower now.
Marc and I listen to that tape of our old sandwich debate together and then we move on to debating the merits of melon balls, BBQ strategies, and the rise of kale.
Marc was an early adopter of kale, and he shares his recipe for a kale smoothie.
"I feel like I'm doing something virtuous [when I eat kale]," he says. "I really invest an unreasonable amount of belief in the idea that kale, or that type of green, is necessary."
This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook!
This is a rebroadcast of an earlier episode.
Interstitial music in this episode by BWN Music:
- "Skinny Jeans" by Cullen Fitzpatrick
- "Simple Song" by Chris Bierden
- "Young And Free" by Cullen Fitzpatrick
- "Brotherly Love" by Cullen Fitzpatrick
Photos: Robyn Von Swank for IFC and courtesy of WTF with Marc Maron
