Kenny Malone: Am I supposed to have a salad spinner as just like part of life now? Is that a thing?

Dan Pashman: I don't have one. The show we're making right now is the only salad spinner I have.

Kenny Malone: Okay. Well, it's great. I love it.

Yasmin Tayag: I'll tell you what my dad, okay, this is so crazy. This is what my dad, an avid cook, an excellent cook used to do instead of using a salad spinner.

Yasmin Tayag: He's like, Yas, if you put the vegetables in a colander, put it in a plastic bag and spin it around, it'll drain all the water out.

Kenny Malone: She’s making a lasso motion right now. 

MUSIC

Dan 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, and welcome to another edition of the Sporkful Salad Spinner, our rapid fire roundtable discussion of the biggest, weirdest, and most surprising food stories of the moment.

Dan Pashman: Today, we are going to cover everything from raw milk and the price of eggs to a new type of spaghetti that's the thinnest ever created. I'm not sure how toothsinkable it is, but scientists say it could save your life. We'll get to all that. Joining me now to break it all down are two superstar journalists.

Dan Pashman: Here in the studio in New York we have Yasmin Tayag. She is a staff writer at The Atlantic, covering science and the future of food. Hi, Yasmin. 

Yasmin Tayag: Hi!

Dan Pashman: And from D.C. we are joined by Kenny Malone, a co-host of NPR's Planet Money podcast. Kenny has investigated everything from health hackers building their own pancreas, to the origins of seemingly made up holidays like National Raisin Day. Hey, Kenny!

Kenny Malone: Dan, this is so, I am so excited. I get to say first time long time, ah I messed it up. Long time, first time. And Dan has been on Planet Money and I've never had the occasion to come on Sporkful. So I'm so excited. 

Dan Pashman: I'm glad to return the favor.

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: Before we get to the hard news, I want to take a minute and kind of establish each of your respective sort of, uh, food personalities. I asked each of you to come prepared with one food related hot take. Yasmin, I want to start with you, and I should mention, outside of your work as a journalist, you also run a pop up Filipino diner called Greenhills Diner.

Yasmin Tayag: That's true! 

Dan Pashman: So, like, where is it, when is it, how can we go there?

Yasmin Tayag: Well, it's currently on hiatus. I just had a child not too long ago. But, I was doing pop ups in the Lower East Side at Canal Street Market. Our specialty was Filipino American diner plates. In the Philippines, our breakfast plate’s meat, eggs, garlic fried rice.

Dan Pashman: I love that. Okay. And people can follow Greenhills Diner on Instagram to know when you're coming back. 

Yasmin Tayag: They can. Yes.

Dan Pashman: Okay. So not only being a great journalist, I mean, you, have a popup diner, you know, food.

Yasmin Tayag: I cook constantly. Okay,

Dan Pashman: And so what is your hot take?

Yasmin Tayag: Enough with the kosher salt. Okay, look. I'm aware. I have read the books. I have consumed Molly Baz and I have consumed Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. I understand why people like kosher salt. It's easier to spread. Whatever. It has more purchase. But you know what? Iodized salt is just fine… If you care that much about how you season your food, you can learn to sprinkle it evenly onto a pork chop, you know? And, biggest thing, it's so expensive. Kosher salt, like a box of Morton's, is like ten bucks now. I don't have money for that. I'm trying to buy the pork chop.

[LAUGHTER]

Dan Pashman: So, but one of the other, uh, arguments in favor of kosher salt is, it's not just that it's bigger flakes, it's that it's less salty, and so you can kind of like, spread it more around, but you're saying just with a little bit of practice, you don't think that's an issue.

Yasmin Tayag: I think the people who are thinking about this stuff are meticulous enough cooks that they can learn. 

Dan Pashman: As much as I was initially taken aback, Yasmin, as I think about it, I'm sure there are billions of home cooks all over the planet who use good old fashioned table salt and make phenomenal food with it. So I will accept that it's not necessary to use kosher salt.

Kenny Malone: Wow. Just a bomb out of the gate though. 

[LAUGHTER]

Dan Pashman: How about you, Kenny? What have you got for us? Hot Take.

Kenny Malone: Well, I have felt this way for some time. And, it is my belief, that if I'm with someone at a bagel place and they ask to toast the bagel, it's going to take some work to respect that person again. I just think bagels shouldn't be toasted, and if you're toasting bagels, I lose some respect for you. 100%.

Dan Pashman: Now, does it matter what type of bagel place we're talking about? Is this any place that sells bagels?

Kenny Malone: There's a continuum. I do, like the crappier the bagel, the more I am willing to accept a toasting. But once we're at a hand rolled place, that like caring about the humidity and the air and the temperature and the artisans. And they want to make sure that they're… Like, there are places here in D.C. that bring in New York water. At that point, you're going to take that beautifully crafted differentiation between crispness on the outside and chewiness on the inside and density, and then you're gonna throw that into functionally what is like, a toaster is like a countertop space heater. You're just going to zap all the moisture out of it.

Kenny Malone: Like, what are you doing? That's, that's an affront to the artisan hands that created this bagel.

Dan Pashman: I think it depends a lot on the bagel. Toasting is the great equalizer.

Kenny Malone: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Toasting makes all bagels roughly the same. And so if you take a great bagel, you're making it worse. If you take a bad bagel, you're making it better. To me, the ultimate test of a great fresh bagel is that it should make a sound when you bite into it. Untoasted, it should make a sound. It'll be very quiet. You have to whisper, you have to be very quiet to hear it.

Dan Pashman: But there should be a light crisp on the outside without toasting.

Kenny Malone: And listen, listen, I am in a mixed bagel toasting relationship. My marriage is that. And I can regain the respect for someone who toasts their bagels, for sure, as I have for my wife. But, like, it…

Dan Pashman: How long, how long did that take, Kenny?

Kenny Malone: Years. Years. 

[LAUGHTER]

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Alright, let's crank up the salad spinner.

[SALAD SPINNER SOUND EFFECT]

Dan Pashman: Our first story, the price of eggs. I mean, the price of eggs – it's gone through the roof. Let me tell you, I don't really notice how much staples cost at the grocery store. Because like, if I'm going to the grocery store I'm gonna get milk and eggs. Even I noticed the price of eggs. I was like, am I in the, like eggs-that-have-had-classical-music-played-to-them section of the grocery store? What, what, what?

Kenny Malone: Baby Einstein eggs?

[LAUGHTER]

Dan Pashman: So according to federal data, by the end of 2024, eggs cost twice as much as they did in 2023. And they're expected to continue to rise this year. Yasmin, you've done a lot of reporting on this subject. First off, the quick and dirty explanation that I hear in the news is bird flu. Is that the explanation?

Yasmin Tayag: It is the explanation. Bird flu is bad.

Dan Pashman: I feel like bird flu has been out there for a long time. It comes and goes, what's happening now that's having such an impact?

Yasmin Tayag: Well, bird flu has been around forever. But it keeps changing. It's a virus that mutates pretty quickly and the version that's circulating right now is supercharged in a lot of ways. This bird flu is carried by migratory waterfowl. Your ducks, your geese, they're flying around, but the virus has changed in a way that it can be carried by these guys, but it doesn't kill them. So that means they're just flying around, spreading it all over the place.  Unfortunately chickens do not respond the same way, so when these ducks land by a hen house and a chicken gets infected, it's dead in 48 hours. And this thing spreads like crazy, so when it reaches, like, an industrial egg facility where there's like a billion chickens next to each other, it spreads very quickly and there's no other way to control the spread other than to kill the hens. 

Dan Pashman: Are the eggs themselves, like if a hen with bird flu lays an egg and it ends up in my carton of eggs, is that bad for me?

Kenny Malone: I have been wondering this too.

Yasmin Tayag: This is a good question. It's unclear, but no is the current answer. 

Dan Pashman: The current answer is no, it's not bad for you. It's not going to hurt you. 

Yasmin: No.

Kenny Malone: Is the reason then that the prices are spiking, it is just simply a supply and demand thing? Like that is what's going on. We all still want eggs at the same rates, but there are fewer eggs being produced because we're preventatively killing these chickens. And so like it, that's it.

Yasmin Tayag: Yeah, there's just not enough eggs. The last time I saw eggs at the grocery store, there was a sign that said limit three per customer.

Dan Pashman: I saw that at my local store.

Yasmin Tayag: Yeah. And I really, I was like, am I going to be that person hoarding the eggs? And I did, I brought home three and now I've been like rationing like, Oh, we only have sunny side up eggs on Sunday breakfast. It's a special treat. That's such a crazy feeling.

Kenny Malone: As a person who has, who has already once on this podcast argued for a substitution of expensive salt for cheaper salt, do you have a recommendation for an expensive egg substitute?

Yasmin Tayag: I just spoke with an amazing recipe developer about this. She said flaxseed plus water, excellent egg substitute for baking.

Dan Pashman: Okay.

Yasmin Tayag: But for, if you want to make a scramble, she said if you mash up like mung beans, and mix them with cornstarch and a little bit of salt, turmeric. An uncanny substitute. I haven't tried it myself, but…

Kenny Malone: Uncanny is a high claim.

Dan Pashman: Yeah.

Yasmin Tayag: But she said texturally…

Kenny Malone: Let’s set the bar lower. Like, reasonable substitute.

Dan Pashman: Right. And this has become such a big deal, I mean, even Waffle House announced it'll be adding a 50 cent surcharge to all egg items sold at its more than 2,000 locations. A few weeks back, in Pennsylvania someone stole 100,000 eggs from a trailer, that's a total value of 40,000 worth of eggs.

Yasmin Tayag: Oh, I want to find that guy.

Dan Pashman: Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you're gonna do with 100,000 eggs. But…

Kenny Malone: Police grew suspicious when world's largest omelette.

[LAUGHTER]

Dan Pashman: Right. Let's keep it moving here. It's time to spin the spinner.

[SALAD SPINNER SOUND EFFECT]

Dan Pashman: Our next story is about tariffs. Kenny, I want to ask you to take the lead, breaking this one down. First off, I just want to make sure, like, really, we're going tariffs 101.

Kenny Malone: Okay. Great.

Dan Pashman: So, to make sure that I understand. Tariffs are basically taxes on goods that are manufactured in other countries, and we charge taxes on them when they're brought into America to be sold in America, in part to make money for the, as a way for the government to grow revenue, and in part to tilt the playing field in favor of domestic companies.

Kenny Malone: Well, you know, the rationale can be all over the map. You may be doing this as a, as a kind of, foreign policy, countries may do this as retaliation for some things going on, but yes, like you've got it, that's it.

Dan Pashman: And am I right that like many, many countries all over the world charge tariffs on many, many different products?

Kenny Malone: 100%. The distinction we need to make is there are generally two kinds of tariffs. There are hyper localized tariffs that are specific to one item, one industry, whatever. And then there are broad based tariffs, which is what we are talking about today.

Dan Pashman: So the specific ones are like, you know, if you're going to bring in aluminum to make soda cans, your tariff is X. Broad based tariffs are like everything from China.

Kenny Malone: That's exactly right.

Dan Pashman: So, President Trump has, you know, been talking a lot about tariffs. It's obviously in the news. What's been done so far and what's been proposed, how will it affect, or could it affect supermarket shelves? What we see in the grocery store and what it's going to cost.

Kenny Malone: Yes, “proposed” is the key word at the moment. The only tariffs that have been implemented so far are the additional 10 percent tariff on imports from China. The broad based 25 percent tariffs on items coming in from Mexico and Canada has been suspended for 30 days as of, I think it was early February. So we will revisit this topic in early March and I’m sure it’ll be something we cover at Planet Money.

Dan Pashman: And just a note, for our listeners, we are recording this on Monday, February 24th. And this 30 day suspension will be over right around when this episode airs. So the tariff situation could have changed by the time you are listening to this. Or maybe not, maybe there will be another pause. We just don’t know. Anyway, Kenny, go on.

Kenny Malone: Before we go into sort of the direct effect in the grocery store I do think a thing that often does not get mentioned at the beginning of this tariff discussion is that the vast, vast, vast majority of things that we consume are domestic products. They are produced here. It doesn't mean that they won't be touched by tariffs, like there may be ingredients that are imported, there may be packaging materials that are imported. But we are, we are talking about way more things produced here in the States.

Dan Pashman: That’s true although it kinda depends on what food you’re talking about. I looked into this also, and even though we produce most food domestically, we actually import 60 percent of our fresh fruit and 40 percent of our fresh vegetables, and Mexico is the leading foreign supplier of our tomatoes, avocados, berries. So these tariffs could touch all those things. But it’s not just produce. Mexico is also our leading importer of beer, by a huge margin. In fact, the Mexican beer Modelo is the best selling beer in the U.S.

Kenny Malone: Yes, of course. It's useful, I think, to take each of those kind of category by category. So with a product like beer, if there is a 25% tariff on products coming from Mexico, consumers in the U.S. – they will have a choice, like, there will be beers that you can switch to. I think the way that people will feel this a lot more directly is with a product like avocados. Something like 90 percent of the avocados that we eat do come from Mexico. You do not have a substitute, a substitute option for avocados. So if you need to eat avocados, if let's say hypothetically you went into your physical last Friday, and were told you have high cholesterol and you should eat better fats, I mean just hypothetically, like that didn't happen to me directly.

Yasmin Tayag: That literally happened to me this morning.

Kenny Malone: Yeah. Oh, great. Okay. It happened to me on Friday. So, uh, then I am paying attention to the price of avocados there. Sure, there are other things that have good fats, but like I love avocados and that is going to be something that you're not going to be able to directly substitute. 

We get accustomed to it like I can get blueberries year round. I can get any fruit, any vegetable year round and like someone is making that. And if it's out of season where you live, there is a chance that it's being imported and that it would be affected by one of these tariffs. A reasonable person would then ask, like, Okay, So then, how much more am I going to, in fact, be paying if these tariffs go into effect?

So just at the grocery store, the number I've seen cited is from a center left think tank. They tried to sort of calculate, like, item by item. And they're coming out at, like, 185 bucks, maybe 200 bucks per household at the grocery store, so 185 is what we're talking about. But, then it would come to the conversation about it depends on the item. Avocados, you can't escape.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Coming up, we're gonna talk all about raw milk. More and more people want it. What is it? Is it gonna kill you? We'll find out. Plus we're gonna talk about a possibly controversial change in Capri Sun. Then later on, a special lightning round devoted entirely to pasta. That's all coming up. Stick around.   

+++BREAK+++

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to the Sporkful, I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show I traveled to Centerville, Tennessee, where I met up with the pit master and preacher, Devin Pickard. During the week, Devin tends to the pit at Papa KayJoe's barbecue. And on Sundays he's in front of his ministry at Hope Church. Devon works very hard to make sure his church is inclusive, and he says that members of the community can better connect with him, knowing that he's running his barbecue restaurant when he's not preaching. 

Devin Pickard: I don't have a church office per se. But the office is out back in the pit. People seem to feel more comfortable showing up during the week. I'm out back cooking or doing whatever. You know, they may say, can we talk? I need a little bit of time. I, I think some folks would rather do that than come to a church office where things seem sanitary and things seem rigid. I hope that Hope Church and Papa KayJoe's in some ways are synonymous, not only because people can find me at either place, but because they know that they're going to be accepted and loved at either place. They're going to be fed at either place, and hopefully that they leave both places feeling better than they did when they got there.

Dan Pashman: Also, in that episode, I learned about the southern tradition of a sweet out, where you save just a little bit of savory meat to eat after your dessert, and that last bite of salty meat has so much more flavor. It's so different after eating the dessert. Love the sweet out. Anyway, that episode's up now. Check it out. 

Dan Pashman: All right. Let's get back into the salad spinner. I'm joined once again by Yasmin Tayag of The Atlantic and Kenny Malone of NPR's Planet Money. Welcome back to both of you.

Kenny Malone: Thank you, Dan. It's, I'm getting dizzy from all this spinning.

Dan Pashman: Well, you better recover because we're about to spin it again.

[SALAD SPINNER SOUND EFFECT]

Dan Pashman: All right. Next up, we're going to talk about raw milk. I'm very excited to talk about this because I'll have you both know that I did a story about raw milk when I worked at NPR, this story came out in 2008. 

Yasmin Tayag: Ahead of the trend.

Dan Pashman: 17 years ago. 

Dan Pashman: So that people understand, the milk you buy in the grocery store is pasteurized, which means that it's heated to kill bacteria. It could even be ultra pasteurized, which means it's heated to a higher temperature to kill more bacteria. And that kills potentially harmful bacteria and also gives it a longer shelf life. There are people who believe that in the process of killing bad bacteria, pasteurization also kills good bacteria. And they believe that you shouldn't pasteurize it. You should not heat it at all. And then we call that raw milk and that's better. Somehow it's more natural. It has special health benefits.

Dan Pashman: So, Yasmin, first off, what do health professionals and food scientists say about raw milk?

Yasmin Tayag: Don't drink the raw milk. It's too risky. It can carry every food pathogen we're afraid of. Listeria, E. coli, all the stuff that can make you terribly, terribly ill. Or, you know, if you're a child, an older person or pregnant, it could be even worse.

Dan Pashman: And now I did drink it when I did that story. 

Yasmin Tayag: What did you think?

Dan Pashman: It was incredibly delicious. It was almost like a milkshake. I interviewed this farmer in upstate New York and this guy that we interviewed, Rick Vreeland, the farmer, he said, we put up a sign in front of, on this rural road in upstate New York, saying raw milk. His quote, I still remember from 17 years ago, he said, It was like we put up a sign that said free drugs for addicts.

Kenny Malone: Oh my god. 

Yasmin Tayag: Oh my god.

Dan Pashman: So people really want raw milk, Yasmin.

Yasmin Tayag: They do.

Dan Pashman: One of the things that has changed though, in the 17 years since I did that story. is the people who want it. The demographics of raw milk lovers has evolved. For a long time I had always said that, you know, there's some areas where I think conservatives can be very anti-science, especially like global warming on average.

Dan Pashman: Um, but there are also areas where liberals I think are anti science, and I always felt like food was one of those areas because there's this perception that like everything natural is good and anything that has been tampered with by human beings is unnatural and therefore bad and that's not completely true as we know bird flu is natural, the bacteria in milk is natural. It doesn't mean you should be drinking it. But the demographic of people who want raw milk is no longer sort of my stereotype of hippie liberals. So who wants raw milk now? Why? What's changed?

Yasmin Tayag: I like to think that a new faction is forming. This is how I've been thinking about it. Cause yes, it used to be a hippie liberal thing, but then you have people now on the right who are also interested in raw milk. And I think what joins these two groups is an anti establishment attitude. We just don't trust the system. 

Yasmin Tayag: And you've got the influence of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now Secretary of Health, um, who is an avid raw milk enthusiast, and he, at least to me, is sort of the leader of that new group of people who are questioning science, wanting to do their own research. That's something you hear from RFK Jr. a lot, from the people who support raw milk, like, We don't trust the studies. They're compromised by industry, by academia. We're going to do our own research. We're going to find out what is best for us and we can decide what is healthy.

And I think this is so fascinating because milk consumption in general is declining. It's been crashing since like, after World War Two. And it's at a historic low, but the raw milk interest is going up. 

Dan Pashman: Well, one of the things that you've written about is, the role that milk has traditionally played in sort of, Americana and the American identity.

Yasmin Tayag: Yeah, it's, it's like a symbol of that, like the Red Barn. The Red Barn on the hillside with the beautiful pasture and the clean cows and the…

Dan Pashman: Like Norman Rockwell and…

Yasmin Tayag: Yeah, and so I think milk is so much more than just a drink now. It's a symbol of this bygone era of America that a lot of conservatives and a lot of liberals want to harken back to, and, you know, they see pasteurization as this, like, modern evil that is adulterating what is naturally good.

And the thought is that removing pasteurization, getting rid of it, would just return us back to this, like, pure state of being. I don't buy it.

[LAUGHTER]

Kenny Malone: I mean, how much milk are people drinking that they would get the bacterial benefits from it even? 

Yasmin Tayag: I spoke to a scientist who did research on, like, what is in raw milk versus what's in pasteurized milk. And yes, you know, the claim that it contains more stuff, living bacteria, this broad category of molecules called bioactives, things that you know, help your body run. Um, yes, raw milk contains more of that, because when you heat it, all that stuff goes away. And I asked the scientists, like, How much would you have to drink to get the benefits of all these things? She's like, you'd have to drink like four gallons, in a week, sa. It’s a lot of milk. No one's drinking that much. Right.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Our next story is about Capri Sun. They are introducing plastic bottles. Yes, it's true. Capri Sun has officially announced that a 12 ounce, twist top, plastic bottled version of its signature juice pouch will be rolling into stores to “meet the needs of busy, on the go families, allowing Capri Sun to grow with its fans.” Now, some millennials are very upset about this. One person on X called it, “One of the most shocking product changes in the history of food and beverage.” Another wrote, quote, “I feel like it ain't gonna taste the same. I want to taste the aluminum.”

Dan Pashman: Now, it's important to note, and this got mixed up on social media, Capri Sun is not getting rid of the pouches.

Kenny Malone: Oh, bless it. Great.

Dan Pashman: They are adding a second version of the product in plastic bottles.

Dan Pashman: Kenny, looks like you have a strong opinion on this. Was Capri Sun a big part of your life, growing up?

Kenny Malone: Well, listen, I wasn't allowed to drink Capri Sun growing up. Shout out to my parents. Probably had enough hyperactive ingredients in my system anyway, so I think that's fine. As I grew up, you know, I developed thoughts and techniques. Like, I always felt like you go for it, right? Like, you give it a little squeeze so you're playing with danger, but you get a little, a little tension in the foil cover. And then you, if you miss the stab, juice everywhere. But like, go for it. 

Yasmin Tayag: I was also not allowed to drink it, but I would, you know, swap with my classmates… Just turn it around, squeeze it, and punch the bottom.

Kenny Malone: Whoa! 

Dan Pashman: Punch the bottom, is there a hole in the bottom?

Yasmin Tayag: No, there isn't, but if you stab it hard enough and you create enough pressure, boom, it's like chugging a beer. Shotgunning a beer!

Dan Pashman: I also didn't grow up with, my mom didn't buy Capri Sun, but like, I would sit on straight for it in school, as you did, or once or twice, someone gave it to me, I don't know, but this is, this is where I, I have something to share. I've never said this publicly.

Kenny Malone: Oh,

Dan Pashman: I am almost 48 years old, and I have never successfully opened a pouch of Capri Sun.

Kenny Malone: Oh, please tell me you brought one with you. 

Dan Pashman: No.

Kenny Malone: Oh come on.

Dan Pashman: I haven’t tried in decades, Kenny!

Kenny Malone: OK I just want to be clear, when we are done with this episode taping, I want the coda to this episode to be Dan alone with a Capri Sun on mic like just haplessly trying to open it.

Yasmin Tayag: Wearing a white t-shirt.

Dan Pashman: I mean, I must have gotten sprayed at some point in like, I don't remember it specifically, but there must be some sort of suppressed memory where I was trying to open it and I couldn't, you know, I, and so I am always stabbing it too gingerly or it's spraying everywhere.

Kenny Malone: You need to confidently stab the Capri Sun, is my, is my memory, yeah.

Dan Pashman: I just, I've never done it. It's never worked for me

Dan Pashman: A little bit more seriously, I am curious, like, it does seem to me like the packaging is what made Capri Sun different.

Yasmin Tayag: Yeah, no one drinks Capri Sun for the juice.

Dan Pashman: Without the packaging, you could mix up Capri Sun with Hawaiian Punch or any other sort of like, mostly corn syrupy, quasi fruit flavored beverage.

Dan Pashman: Is this a mistake? Is this a branding mistake?

Kenny Malone: Yeah in my professional opinion, this could set this company back decades, Dan, is my feeling. So my favorite thing as an economics reporter is we have now entered the realm of stated preference versus observed preference.

Kenny Malone: Like, people may say they want a bottle or not a bottle, or maybe people are like, no, I ride or die for the pouch. Let's see, like, we will now find out what people are choosing in realityAnd like, now we get to find out.

Dan Pashman: All right, when do you guys want to take a turn spinning the spinner? Yasmin, hit the button

Yasmin Tayag: Boo.

[SALAD SPINNER SOUND EFFECT]

Dan Pashman: Next up, we have the rebranding of two major food and drink chains that have fallen on hard times. Red Lobster. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. They emerged from bankruptcy in mid September with new ownership, a new CEO, and fewer locations. Um, Starbucks also is in the midst of a big shakeup. Um, they have a new CEO who's refocusing the company on its core identity. They want to rebuild from the inside out. 

Dan Pashman: Both of these companies are struggling. Kenny, what are your thoughts? Is there a connection here even? I know it was kind of a funny punchline that part of what gave Red Lobster trouble was that they did this endless shrimp promotion and people ate too much shrimp. And that obviously didn't help, but that wasn't the only reason why they had to declare bankruptcy.

Kenny Malone: I went down that rabbit hole too. I was like, that can't be the thing.

Dan Pashman: Right. And what did you learn?

Kenny Malone: What's funny is their willingness to publicly state that that is a big part of it. I mean, there's no denying that this is something that's been mentioned in official documentation or at least official speeches.

But yes, it sounds like they're like, people changing consumer preferences is perhaps being elided a bit here, where it's like, maybe people don't want to go to a seafood restaurant as much seem to be some of my reading. I'm by no means an expert on this. I just, I'm a guy who went down a rabbit hole trying to find out about unlimited shrimp.

Yasmin Tayag: My thought is that they're both big, recognizable American brands that once meant more to Americans than they do now. It's funny, for my 16th birthday, I had my parents host a dinner for me and my friends at Red Lobster, and it was awesome, it was awesome. We had the endless shrimp, we had the Cheddar Bay Biscuits, and it was, it was great. But it's, you know, I think if Red Lobster wants to rebrand to anything, they should sort of lean all the way back into the nostalgia. Young people, I don't think have any connection to Red Lobster. 

Dan Pashman: And Starbucks, what do you think is happening with Starbucks?

Yasmin Tayag: They just became so unwelcoming to customers. My colleague, Ellen Cushing, wrote this great story about Starbucks closing its bathrooms to customers, and I think that's sort of representative of everything that's going wrong with them. They want to be this place where you can hang out and chill, when really it's become, you know, a fast food restaurant where it takes a long time to get your order, and you can't go to the bathroom. It's like the worst kind of fast food restaurant. So, uh, no wonder people aren't going anymore. 

Kenny Malone: I have a theory to spitball. 

Yasmin Tayag: Ok.

Kenny Malone: So, okay, so I remember very distinctly, like, Red Lobster was one of the fancy restaurants in my, in my somewhat small hometown. And I remember going there was kind of a thing, and you were expected to kind of dress up. And Starbucks, the original pitch was, like, coffee as a, what was the affordable luxury was the idea initially, right? 

Kenny Malone: And so I do wonder if there's been a general, like, casualification of society that has made these kinds of places like awkward to fit into the world. And maybe Red Lobster perhaps didn't adapt well, still sit down, still very kind of formal in its existence and then Starbucks tried to adapt and perhaps is trying to bring it back a little bit like they adapted too far perhaps and they think like, Okay, we need to walk it back. We need to be a place where people stay. We need to simplify the menu. We need to get good at the things we're doing. I know that's my thought that they lost their way in some, or became irrelevant in some way.

Dan Pashman: That's interesting. And I mean, what one of the general things I've observed in food is that I think like you've seen a stratification that dovetails with the general, sort of hollowing out of the middle class, which is that you have kind of one set of brands and stores that are for the top, whatever, 10 to 20 percent of people with a lot of disposable income.

Dan Pashman: Uh, and then everything else is just like, how cheap can we get it? And Red Lobster and Starbucks were both meant to be kind of like affordable luxuries for people in the middle class, like you say, Kenny, like Red Lobster is like a nice night out. But obviously it's not the same as going to a super high end seafood restaurant.

Dan Pashman: And same with Starbucks, where it's like, you're, you might not be the kind of person who has access to or money for an 8 cup of coffee at some super fancy place where they have a six paragraphs about where the beans came from, but you also have something a little better than McDonald's coffee.

You want to feel a little more special than that. So that's Starbucks. So they both kind of occupied this place and now their target customers, they don't exist as much. There's fewer of their target customers around.

Yasmin Tayag: People are either too poor or too rich.

Kenny Malone: Exactly. Do you think there's a world where they just lean all the way in into like the biscuits or something?

Yasmin Tayag: Oh just making it about the Cheddar Bay. Cause they are the best part.

Kenny Malone: I mean, that biscuit is like, I remember I was at a party once and no one had any business just showing up with a bag of biscuits, but they just did. And the mood palpably increased. It was already a good party and it just went to like 15 after that. Cause someone's like, no one ever thought to just bring biscuits to the party. So genius. I don't know.

Dan Pashman: My wife's gonna be away for a week in May, and I'm already thinking about where I'm gonna take my kids to eat.

Dan Pashman: I gotta take my kids to get some Cheddar Bay biscuits.

Kenny Malone: I mean, are unparalleled. They are

Dan Pashman: They are incredible. I did buy the freezer section ones once and I made them at home for my kids and they were, their minds were blown, but it's still, you know, getting them at the source is the best.

Kenny Malone: Fresh and hot, so good. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: All right. Spin the spinner. 

[SALAD SPINNER SOUND EFFECT]

Dan Pashman: All right, we're going to finish strong now with a pasta themed lightning round. Are you all ready for this? I want your quick reactions to these pasta themed stories. Ready?

Dan Pashman: Here we go. A scientific breakthrough on cacio e pepe. Now, you may know when you make cacio e pepe, you mix starchy pasta water with grated cheese, and if you do it right, you'll end up with a sauce that's silky smooth and glossy and amazing. But sometimes it can end up kind of clumpy, and it just doesn't really come together. Well, scientists found that the key is to wait some time before mixing the water and cheese to let the water cool down. And this feels very counterintuitive, right, because you would think the hotter the water, the more the cheese will kind of melt and infuse into the water, the more they will become one. But in fact, the scientists say that at high temperatures, cheese proteins can form clumps upon denaturation, or simply aggregate, therefore ruining the sauce.

Dan Pashman: Simply put, if the water is too hot, when you add it to the cheese, you might end up with a lumpy sauce.

Yasmin Tayag: This makes sense to me. It's like when you make a cornstarch slurry, you always do it in cold water because you want it to be suspended. Um, but if you make it with hot water, it won't work. Same idea, right? You want the starch to mix up and get into the cheese. So I think that makes sense to me.

Dan Pashman: Alright.

Kenny Malone: This still makes me happy to just buy Cacio e Pepe. Like, I don't want to deal with this. Like, I'm glad someone figured that out, but that sounds still hard.

Dan Pashman: Alright, next in the lightning round. A January article in Taste points to a trend that’s been lighting up the internet – crispy gnocchi. Everyone online seems to agree that you should not boil your store bought gnocchi, but instead, crisp it up! Now, there's nothing wrong with boiling gnocchi, but I do definitely agree crispy gnocchi is just like, it’s one of the simplest ways to make something amazing. You just buy the store bought gnocchi, throw it in a pan with some oil, and you’ve got the start to a delicious meal.

Yasmin Tayag: It slaps. It's so good. And it's so easy. So much easier. Fewer pans to wash.

Kenny Malone: Are you frying it then? Is that what functionally is happening?

Dan Pashman: I mean you're pan frying. You only need a light coating of oil. You're not deep frying. You're just crisping it up in the pan.

Kenny Malone: So this is mostly for this shelf stabilized version.

Dan Pashman: Right, the one in the vacuum seal.

Kenny Malone: Okay.

Dan Pashman: There's a crispy gnocchi tomato preserved lemon salad in my cookbook. Strongly recommend.

Yasmin Tayag: Got to check that out. Yeah, it has a texture like a tater tot almost a chewy tater tot.

Dan Pashman: Crispy on the outside, chewy in the center. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: All right, one more for the lightning round.  When this news first broke, I think 25 different people sent it to me. Researchers have published a new recipe for the world's thinnest spaghetti.

Kenny Malone: No!

Dan Pashman: It's called nanopasta. It’s just a tiny fraction of the width of a human hair, invisible to the naked eye. Now, you’re probably wondering how it tastes, but it’s not a food, it’s actually a super tiny fiber that can be used in a variety of ways. It’s called nanopasta because, just like regular pasta, it’s made with flour. I think this is really interesting, but Yasmin, you’re shaking your head, maybe you disagree?

Yasmin Tayag: Everything about this screams evil to me. It makes me think of, I don't know if you guys watch the show…

Kenny Malone: The Three Body Problem?

Yasmin Tayag: The Three Body Problem, where the nanofibers slice an entire ship and all the people on it in half. That's what the nanopasta will do to us.

Kenny Malone: 100%. It reminds me of like the stuff you're not supposed to breathe, like the microscopic fibers you're not supposed to breathe in that like it's stuck in your lungs.

Yasmin Tayag: The insulation, yeah!

Kenny Malone: Furthermore, may I read a quote from the story that you sent us about this? 

Dan Pashman: Sure.

Kenny Malone: Okay, it said, “it's made with a mixture of formic acid and flour, almost like regular pasta is with water and flour, etc, etc.” Okay, not almost like water. Cause do you know what formic acid is? Formic acid, specifically cited by NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, is a class two combustible liquid, a “colorless liquid with a pungent penetrating odor,” which then sent me down, I was like, wait, what does it smell like?

 Which will then quickly take you to a Reddit feed that talks about what do ants smell like? Apparently formic acid because of the venom in their faces. So, like it isn't like flour and water. It's like formic acid and water, but you can't see. I don't know, I don't like, I'm with, I'm with, yeah, it's evil.

Dan Pashman: Look, I think we can agree, I don't think it's going to taste very good, but we should make clear that that's not really its purpose. Okay. This nano pasta has been designed, one day they hope to want to use it to bandage wounds, to be able to go inside people's bodies and to be able to tie things together with this extra thin fiber that will be able to bandage wounds and fix you up in a way they couldn't before. Is it still evil knowing that, Yasmin?

Yasmin Tayag: I think we have other ways of bandaging ourselves that don't involve formic acid and flour.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: This has been a ton of fun. Kenny Malone is a co-host for NPR's Planet Money podcast. Thank you, Kenny.

Kenny Malone: You are so welcome.

Dan Pashman: And Yasmin Tayag is a staff writer at The Atlantic where she covers science, health, and the future of food. She's also the person behind the Filipino diner pop up, Green Hills Diner, at Green Hills Diner on Instagram. Thank you, Yasmin.

Yasmin Tayag: Thank you so much for having me.

Dan Pashman: And for those of you who are waiting for me to open a Capri Sun on mic, I’ll do you one better, I’m going to do it on camera, follow me on Instagram at @thesporkful, where I will post a video this week of me attempting to successfully open a Capri Sun pouch for the first time in my life. Again on Instagram I’m at @thesporkful.

Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, I talk with food writer, Laurie Wolliver. She's best known for working closely with Anthony Bourdain. She's written books about her time on the road with him. Now she's telling her own story about addiction, scandal, and her time both with Bourdain and another chef she worked closely with, Mario Batali. That's next week. 

Dan Pashman: In the meantime, if you're looking for more Sporkful to listen to, we just wrapped up a month in the South. I spoke to Karen Blockman Carrier in Memphis, I took a road trip visiting gas station restaurants in Alabama and Mississippi, and I talked to Deb Freeman, who released a new documentary about the iconic Virginian Edna Lewis. Then, as I mentioned last week, I met Devin Pickard, a preacher and barbecue pitmaster in Centerville, Tennessee. Come spend a month with me in the South. Check out our last few episodes.