This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts. (And please subscribe!)

"My mom's biryani is the best," says Hasan Minhaj this week on The Sporkful. "And I really think that every South Asian mom has a distinct spin on biryani. It's our gumbo -- it's a food that allows you to remix and put a lot of unique elements in it."

But for the comedian and Daily Show correspondent, biryani is more than a delicious food -- it's a guide to life. In his new Netflix special, Homecoming King, he says life is like biryani, "where you push the good [stuff] towards you and push the weird [stuff] to the side."

And when you're a "third-culture kid", as he calls it -- a child of Indian-American Muslim immigrants who's neither fully Indian nor fully American -- you pick and choose which parts of the two cultures to make part of your life.

"That's the sort of biryani sifting that I do when I create my third-culture kid identity," Hasan explains.

Listen in to the full episode to hear Hasan's take on how performing stand-up comedy is like eating, and get Hasan's tips for mastering the art of eating with your hands:

"Think of it like an alien attack movie. [Your bread] comes over [the food] and then just comes down and claws it up."

This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts. (And please subscribe!)

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Interstitial music in this episode from Black Label Music:

- "Hound Dog" by Jason Mickelson

Photos: Courtesy of Netflix