Dan Pashmnan: And now, LeVar Burton reads an excerpt from the 1883 cookbook, Practical Housekeeping: A Careful Compilation of Tried and Approved Recipes. This is a recipe in poem form, for Sidney Smith’s Winter Salad.

LeVar Burton:

Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve. 

Unwanted softness to the salad give;

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,

Distrust the condiment which bites too soon;

True flavor need it, and your poet begs

The pounded yellow of tow well boiled eggs

Let onion atoms lurk within the boil 

And half suspected animate the whole

And lastly, on the favored compound toss

A magic soupçon of anchovy sauce.

Then, though the green turtle fail,

Though venison's tough, though ham 

And turkey are not boiled enough

Serenely full, the epicure shall say,

“Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.”

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Today on The Sporkful, I sit down with longtime Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton. As you just heard, he can make just about anything he reads sound good. So we’ll have more dramatic cookbook reading, and the passages are gonna get weird-er. Plus, we’ll hear stories that might surprise even LeVar’s most hardcore fans. Like the time he bought stolen steaks as a teenager to bring home to his badass mom. And we’ll talk about the power of food memories.

CLIP (LEVAR BURTON): I've spent my lifetime as an adult trying to find sausage that tastes like my grandmothers. 

Dan Pashman: By the end of this episode, you’re gonna know LeVar Burton a lot better. Stick around.

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. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, I’m sure it was a bit different, but I hope you managed to connect with people close to you in one way or another, and eat some good food in the process. I couldn't even get my hands on a reasonably sized turkey. All the smaller turkeys sold out. So I had a 14-pound turkey for four people, my family of four. But it was nice. It was different. We missed certain parts of our tradition but it was also nice to be home, just the four of us. I hope it went as well for you. 

Dan Pashman: Quick reminder, now Thanksgiving's over we can look toward the end of the year. I need your New Year's food resolutions. Record a voice memo on your cellphone. Tell me your name, tell me where you're from, and then answer this question: What food do you resolve to eat more of in the New Year and why? Send that voice memo to me at hello@sporkful.com and you could hear yourself in our year end spectacular. Alright, let's get into it. 

Dan Pashman: LeVar Burton first rose to fame in 1977, when he starred in the seminal TV mini series Roots, based on Alex Haley’s novel. He went on to play Geordi Laforge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was the character with the metal band over his eyes. But these days LeVar is best known as the longtime host of the PBS Kids show Reading Rainbow.

[Reading Rainbow theme song]

Butterfly in the sky

I can go twice as high

Take a look

It's in a book

A reading rainbow

I can go anywhere...

Dan Pashman: A few years after Reading Rainbow went off the air, LeVar acquired the assets to the show and did a Kickstarter to create an online virtual library for kids. These days he hosts a podcast called LeVar Burton Reads, in which he reads his favorite short fiction. He credits his mom for his love of books. She was an English teacher and in her house, reading was mandatory. She was also a single parent, which meant she couldn’t spend hours in the kitchen making dinner. Meals were often pretty basic. But that didn’t stop LeVar from developing a real love of food.

LeVar Burton: I remember one summer, I had started working so I must have been 15, 16. I discovered the guy, who would come around once every couple of weeks selling steaks out of the back seat of his car. Steaks that had, "fallen off a truck".

Dan Pashman: Right. 

[LAUGHING]

LeVar Burton: And that was a great summer. 

Dan Pashman: So tell me the story about—so you just...

LeVar Burton: So I went to one of my first jobs was working for a man named Bernard Basptiste in Sacramento, California. He had a tuxedo store called Mr. B's Formal Wear, 505 Stockton Blvd. Sacramento, California. And we rented tuxedos for weddings and proms and formals and the like. And one of the managers there was a guy named Joe Cornish. And Joe was like the ultimate, cool, hipster in what—this is 1975. Huge afro, rode a motorcycle, always had a great car, a cool whip. And Joe was connected. Joe was connected. I mean, if you wanted anything Joe could get it for you. And one day, one of Joe's friends, the guy with the steaks came in the shop and that was my introduction to the finer things in life that you didn't get in the store.

Dan Pashman: Right. 

LeVar Burton: Right?

Dan Pashman: And did you guy steaks that...

LeVar Burton: Of course! Steaks, lobster...Yeah, you name it. Absolutely. 

Dan Pashman: And did you bring it home?

LeVar Burton: Of course!

Dan Pashman: And when you walked in the door with a bunch of steaks and lobsters, what did your mom say?

LeVar Burton: Where did you get these? And I told her, "From a guy. They fell off a truck." She was like, "Let's do it! Steak and lobster for dinner tonight and tomorrow." Right? Well, my mom's from Kansas City. OK? She wanted to raise her kids right but she was certainly no stranger to vice. You know what I mean? No stranger at all, my mom. 

Dan Pashman: Like what?

LeVar Burton: My mother graduated from college at the age of 17 and was my grandfather's book keeper. You know, my mom carried a pistol from the time she was 15, 16. My mom's always had a gun, always knew how to use it. 

Dan Pashman: Did you ever see her use it?

LeVar Burton: Never saw her use it, but I was familiar with all of her guns. She used to have a ruger, a German ruger, which was really—it was a cool pistol. I remember I got in big trouble because I snuck it out of her purse once to show my friends at school. That wasn't such a smart move on my part, showing up at St. Ann's Catholic Elementary School with a freaking German ruger. The nun's didn't like that too much. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. Well, I guess better that you did that however many decades ago that was than....

LeVar Burton: Than today. Yeah.

Dan Pashman: Yeah. 

LeVar Burton: Absolutely. 

Dan Pashman: Are there certain recipes of your mom's that you've especially remember or have fondness for?

LeVar Burton: By her own admission, my mom's not a great cook. I think my favorite dish from my childhood was mom's shrimp fried rice. My mom tried to serve me beef tongue once and passed it off as roast beef, but I wasn't going for yokey toke. Those bumps stood out. I knew. I knew this was some other part of the cow. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

LeVar Burton: This was not roast beef. 

Dan Pashman: That's funny because my six and a half year-old loves tongue. 

LeVar Burton: Really?

Dan Pashman: But I don't think that she understands that it's actually tongue.

LeVar Burton: That it's actually tongue. Yeah, right. 

Dan Pashman: And there's gonna be a reckoning when she does. 

LeVar Burton: I was I think in fifth grade. I was an altar boy. I had come home from serving the evening mass and was very excited because she said roast beef sandwiches were for dinner and I got into mine and I was like—and my mom's not really the sort of person you question. You know? She was a working mom, so when she came home and made dinner, you know, that was effort that you need to respect. 

Dan Pashman: Especially, if you didn't bring you up a bag full of steaks and lobster. 

LeVar Burton: No, that came much later. Right? OK, much later. 

Dan Pashman: Are there foods that you eat now that kind of connect you to your childhood? Are there foods that you eat in a restaurant or recipes of your mom's that you recreate?

LeVar Burton: I'm a big fan of a nice nice PB & J and, you know, that takes me back to my childhood. 

Dan Pashman: What's your PB & J strategy? How do you layer the peanut butter and jelly?

LeVar Burton: Um...first, edge to edge with the peanut butter, always creamy, never chunky. And then glop the strawberry preserves, which is my favorite. With seeds and smooth it out all on the same piece of bread, not peanut butter one and jelly on the other. Peanut butter is the first layer. Then jelly and then a piece of bread on top. 

Dan Pashman: Interesting. Why not spread on to piece of bread?

LeVar Burton: I think that's wrong. I have a fundamental issue with that. 

Dan Pashman: Why? What's the issue?

LeVar Burton: The issue is that then you have to try and put the two halves together and you're gonna lose something in that transfer. Something's gonna glop. Something's gonna spill.

Dan Pashman: The peanut butter will stick to the bread for that spilt second. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah, but the jelly...

Dan Pashman: But if you leave the jelly laid flat and then....

LeVar Burton: And then you use the peanut butter.....

Dan Pashman: Lift up the peanut butter and put it down on the jelly...

LeVar Burton: Lift up the peanut butter...Dan Pashman, this is a revelation to me. You may have just altered my life. 

Dan Pashman: Well LeVar, seeing that you've done that for so many others, now we're even. 

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: One more PB & J tip I'll give you. 

LeVar Burton: OK. 

Dan Pashman: I, actually, recommend Jelly on both sides, peanut butter in the middle. 

LeVar Burton: Wow. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah, because...

LeVar Burton: But how does it...but does it spread well when you got jelly already on the bread?

Dan Pashman: Well, I don't like that much jelly. 

LeVar Burton: Ahhh. 

Dan Pashman: And if you're gonna do jelly on both sides...

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: I'm not saying increase—I'm not saying double jelly. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. 

Dan Pashman: I'm saying half and half. So it's a thin spread of jelly on each side, so it's not gonna fall off or glop off. 

LeVar Burton: I get you. I left out one detail. 

Dan Pashman: Oh, please. 

LeVar Burton: Heavy on the jelly. 

[LAUGHING]

LeVar Burton: I'm a heavy on the jelly kind of guy. 

Dan Pashman: OK. Alright. Alright.

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: So my system may not work quite as well. 

LeVar Burton: No, maybe not but I love the taste of peanut butter. And I love the taste of jelly in the summer time. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. When people diss peanut butter & jelly...

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: As being a kids thing, it really bothers me because it's still one of my favorite sandwiches. It's one of the greatest sandwiches in the world. 

LeVar Burton: Ever. Yeah. My wife doesn't eat...she will never eat...she calls peanut butter & jelly peasant food but I think more than anything else it's a texture thing for her.

Dan Pashman: Hmm. 

LeVar Burton: She has texture issues. So the texture of peanut butter is not to her liking. 

Dan Pashman: Well, that I can understand. But I'd be curious to see if you try for her. 

LeVar Burton: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: Cause one of the reasons why I like jelly on and bottom and peanut butter in the middle...

LeVar Burton: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: Is because if you layer it with the jelly on the bottom, then the jelly will hit your tongue sooner, so you'll taste more sweetness. 

LeVar Burton: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashman: But if you have peanut butter solo on the top, then the peanut butter can get stuck on the roof of your mouth. 

LeVar Burton: Mm-hmm. 

Dan Pashmn: So the jelly on the top protects the roof of your mouth. The jelly on the bottom gets the sweetness on your tongue and then you get the peanut butter in the middle. And so I wonder, you know...

LeVar Burton: Clearly, you've thought about this. 

Dan Pashman: Some might say too much. 

LeVar Burton: Maybe, but appreciate a man who really thinks through his PB&J strategies. 

Dan Pashman: You did a Reddit AMA and you said that you love water.

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: How do you like your water?

LeVar Burton: Chilled. I drink water all day everyday. 

Dan Pashman: OK. 

LeVar Burton: I carry the perfect tool for the job, a thermos that keeps the ice ice for a long spurts of times. 

Dan Pashman: Slow down on all those technical terms, LeVar. 

LeVar Burton: Well, if you don't have the right tool, your ice will turn to water really rapidly. 

Dan Pashman: Yes. 

LeVar Burton: And then you have warm water after a time, but I like my water chill. 

Dan Pashman: Is it ever too cold for you?

LeVar Burton: Never. It can never be too cold. Water can never be too cold. Now, I don't always drink water cold. When I'm eating I drink it room temperature. Especially, if I'm eating something that tends to be a little greasy cause you don't want the coagulation to go on in your throat or in you gullet. Right?

Dan Pashman: Interesting. 

LeVar Burton: Right?

Dan Pashman: Is that something you learn with like voice acting because I don't normally every put that together?

LeVar Burton: Experience. Experience. 

Dan Pashman: That's very...that's deep. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: So the cold—if you have a lot fat sort of lining your esophagus. 

LeVar Burton: That's right. 

Dan Pashman: Cold water will make it...

LeVar Burton: Congele. Boom. 

Dan Pashman: Right. And now you're like your insides are coated in grease. 

LeVar Burton: That's not good.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: Coming up, LeVar favors us with another reading, this one from The Star Trek Cookbook. Plus, he tells about Sir Patrick Stewart’s weird lunches on the Star Trek set, and we’ll talk about one of LeVar’s favorite children’s books, Enemy Pie.

CLIP (LEVAR BURTON): What kind of things are gonna go into this Enemy Pie, like what rocks and chewing gum. I mean, what would you put in a pie for your enemy to eat?

Dan Pashman: That’s all coming up, stick around.

MUSIC

 

+++ BREAK +++

 

MUSIC 

Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. In last week’s show I talk with writer Bryan Washington, who often uses food in his storytelling to reveal things about his characters and to help them communicate with each other when they don’t know what to say. He does this in his more personal essays, where he talks about his own experience as a queer black man in Houston. And he does it in his fiction:

CLIP (BRYAN WASHINGTON): As a device for telling stories, I don't know that I have found something as just structurally useful as the cooking of meals and also of the sharing of meals to tell many different tiny stories within the sort of larger story. 

Dan Pashman: In this episode Bryan reads several extended pieces, I could listen to him read his work all day, as I did when I was waiting in line to vote by the way. This one's called is called “A Writer Who Finds His Characters Through Their Food”, it’s up now, check it out. Now, back to LeVar Burton. 

[Star Trek theme song]

Dan Pashman: As I said, he was in Star Trek: The Next Generation, so asking him to read this passage was kind of a no brainer…

LeVar Burton: This one's from the Star Trek Cookbook. It's for Borg Triquarter pie. 

Take 10 spent triquarter and crush them with a procto hammer. Add half quart plasma oil, stir. Mix in one pound of class four probe buckling, one minced and assailed discharged socket and some finely chopped bioneural gel pack casing. Bake for three hours in a destabilized hyposheild convex warp container and serve on a bed of transporter room console siding. 

Dan Pashman: My mouth's watering. 

LeVar Burton: Yes, as well it should be.

[Star Trek music]

Dan Pashman: In Star Trek, LeVar starred alongside Sir Patrick Stewart as Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge. Geordi was blind, but gained the ability to see thanks to a metal band over his eyes that ran from ear to ear. It was called a visor.

LeVar Burton: When I put the visor on I lost about 80% of my vision, which was ironic because I was playing a blind man, who could see more than everybody else. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

LeVar Burton: So I couldn't see my feet, which made navigating a challenge. And I had to learn to walk around without that reference of knowing where my feet were. Because Geodi was the chief engineer, so it was really important to me that he moved alacrity and confidence and so I couldn't be halting in my step or stride at all. So...

Dan Pashman: Did you ever eat with the visor on?

LeVar Burton: Boy, I must have but not like a full meal. Like, you know, just going to the craft service table and grabbing a grape or something like that. It's not the sort of thing you would want sit and do a meal in. 

Dan Pashman: Right. I just wonder because it's one of the—you know, they say that like the way that a blind person may have better hearing, when one sense is deprived, others are enhanced. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah. Right. 

Dan Pashman: So I wonder if wearing the visor would somehow enhance the eating experience in some way. 

LeVar Burton: No. 

Dan Pashman: Or detract from it. 

LeVar Burton: No. No, it didn't enhance it in any way that I was able to discern. 

[LAUGHING]

Dan Pashman: And I get the impression that you and the rest of the cast members, you guys were a tight knit group. 

LeVar Burton: Oh, still are. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Did you guys eat together?

LeVar Burton: We do all the time. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah? 

LeVar Burton: Yeah, all the time. 

Dan Pashman: Any personal favorites of cast members? Personal favorite foods?

LeVar Burton: Patrick used to eat the weirdest things. He would like go to his trailer and make an apple and onion sandwich. Now, that must be a British thing? Is that British thing, Dan Pashman? Or is that just a Patrick Stewart thing?

Dan Pashman: I lived in London and I don't remember ever having that. 

LeVar Burton: OK. 

Dan Pashman: I'm gonna google it now. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah. Apple and onion sandwiches, which I just thought was just wacky. 

Dan Pashman: Well, Epicuious has a recipe for toasted Gruyere golden onion and apple sandwiches 

LeVar Burton: Well, there you go. Alright. 

Dan Pashman: If you cook the onion, then I can get behind that. 

LeVar Burton: I don't know if he was cooking the onion or not. 

Dan Pashman: This is caramelized onions. 

LeVar Burton: A caramelized onion.

Dan Pashman: That's a whole other thing. 

LeVar Burton: That's a whole other thing. Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. 

LeVar Burton: Well, that I actually could—I can see that. 

Dan Pashman: But if you're talking raw onions...

LeVar Burton: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, that's Patrick though.

Dan Pashman: For the record I did tweet Patrick Stewart to ask him if the onions were raw or cooked, I’m still awaiting a response. Sir Patrick, if you’re out there – tweet me! I did hear from a listener named Dana in St. Louis, who says she has a great recipe for an apple and raw onion sandwich. It also includes ham, mustard and apple butter. Apparently it’s in the Twilight cookbook. Man, this episode just keeps getting weirder. Anyway, back to LeVar…He is beloved for his role in Star Trek. He still goes to some of the fan conventions, although he says he’s never had Romulan Ale. But when he walks down the street, you can bet most of the people who come up to him love him because of the PBS Kids show Reading Rainbow. LeVar hosted Reading Rainbow for more than 20 years, from 1983 to 2006. Before we talked, I rewatched some old episodes…

Dan Pashman: I also watched bit where you ran over eagerly to an ice shop cart and you ordered an ice cream cone and you took one lick of the ice cream cone and the ice cream fell off the cone and fell and landed on your shoe. 

LeVar Burton: Uh-huh. 

Dan Pashman: And then it was it was quick cut to a close up of our face and it said, "How does LeVar feel?" I think it was relating to a segment about feelings. 

LeVar Burton: Ahh. Really?

Dan Pashman: Yeah. And I wondered if you've been scarred at some point in your life from the traumatic experience of dropping ice cream. 

LeVar Burton: Who hasn't? Certainly, I'm not alone in that. 

Dan Pashman: Right. Right. Is there a specific recollection that you have of that ever happening to you, maybe as a kid?

LeVar Burton: Yeah. Yeah, and more than once. It wasn't always ice cream. Sometimes it was a popsicle. I used to love Missiles. 

Dan Pashman: Mm-hmm. 

LeVar Burton: And on really hot day—I grew up in Sacramento, California. So in the summer it gets like 110, 112 for days running. And you got to be quick, otherwise it's gonna melt. 

Dan Pashman: Was it Missiles or Rockets? It's a Rocket, right?

LeVar Burton: Well, I think a Missile on the west coast. It's a rocket on the east. 

Dan Pashman: Oh, regional differences. 

LeVar Burton: Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: So if your Missile was melting too quickly and a big chunk of it, or most of it, feel on the ground...

LeVar Burton: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Would your mom get you another one?

LeVar Burton: No. You get one shot. And by that time the ice cream man was gone. You know?

Dan Pashman: Right. 

LeVar Burton: So you really had to pay attention. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

LeVar Burton: Otherwise you were, as my mother would say, SOL.

Dan Pashman: When you got older and had your own kids and they dropped their Missile or Rocket, would you buy them a new one?

LeVar Burton: Yeah, because we spoiled millennials. We've given them everything they want and then some. 

Dan Pashman: Right. Well, then isn't partly your fault, LeVar? You raised almost all the millennials. 

LeVar Burton: I own my part in it but...yeah. It's just, you know. 

Dan Pashman: I think they're turning out OK anyway. 

LeVar Burton: They are, actually. They are.

Dan Pashman: Of the many children’s books LeVar has read over the years, he says his favorite is one called Enemy Pie. It begins with a boy who’s looking forward to a great summer. Actress Camryn Manheim reads an excerpt…

CLIP (CAMRYN MANHEIM): 

It was all good until Jeremy Ross moved into the neighborhood. Right next door to my best friend, Stanley. I did not like Jeremy Ross. He laughed at me when he struck me out at the baseball game. He had party on his trampoline. I wasn't even invited but my best friend Stanley was. Jeremey Ross was the one and only person on my enemy list...

LeVar Burton: And his dad resolves to help him with his enemy problem by making enemy pie. And the kid is just curious as to what kind of things are gonna go into this enemy pie, like what rocks and chewing gum. Like what would you put in a pie for enemy to eat? The dad says, "I'll make the pie. You have one job today. You have to go and spend the entire day with your enemy while I make this pie."

Dan Pashman: You have to gain his trust before you can get him to eat the pie. 

LeVar Burton: Right. And so by the end of the story when it's time to eat the pie and the pie looks good and smells good and finally the dad cuts it and serves it, and the kid is like, "No! Don't eat the pie because we've become friends." 

CLIP (CAMRYN MANHEIM): 

"Well if it's so bad...", Jeremy asked, "Then why is your dad already eaten half of it?" Well, I turned to look at my dad. Sure enough, he was eating enemy pie. "Good stuff," he mumbled through a mouthful. And that was all he said. And I sat there watching him eating enemy pie for a few seconds. Dad was laughing. Jeremy was happily eating. And neither of them was losing any hair. It seemed safe enough. So I took a tiny taste. Enemy pie was delicious. I still don't know how to make it. I still wonder if enemies really do hate it or if their hair falls out or their breath turns bad. I don't know if I'll ever get an answer because I just lost my best enemy. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: What is it about the story of Enemy Pie that resonates with you so much?

LeVar Burton: Well, I love the ingenuity of the dad in using food to help his son out of what is clearly a traumatic event. And I think that the link is pretty well forged between human beings, our emotions, and what we eat. And food can be a powerful emotional trigger. You know for me, going to Kansas City and visiting my grandparents and for a long time they had a farm in the country. And my grandmother made her own sausage, which was a combination of the pork and the beef that they raised. And my grandmother—just the taste of my grandmother's sausages...I've spent my lifetime as an adult trying to find sausage that taste like my grandmothers. You know what I mean? And just even thinking about it evokes such warmth for me and fondness for this woman that I loved, who was the quintessential nurturer. She was the essence of nurturing. 

Dan Pashman: Have you found anything that comes close?

LeVar Burton: I've found in one or two country kitchens something similar but not it exactly and I don't think I ever will.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That’s LeVar Burton, his podcast is called LeVar Burton Reads. In it he reads short fiction from a wide range of genres, it’s really great, get it now wherever you got this podcast. And while you’re checking that out, make sure you connect with The Sporkful. You can do it right now while you’re listening. If you listen in Spotify, click follow. In Stitcher, favorite. In Apple Podcasts, hit subscribe. Thanks. Remember that I want to hear your New Year's food resolutions. Record a voice memo on your cell phone. Tell me your name. Tell me where you're from and tell me what food you resolve to eat more of in the new year and why. Send it to me at hello@sporkful.com.