Hey, Milk Street listeners. As fall approaches, I've asked Stella Parks to help me answer your baking questions.

So from spice cakes to Halloween candies and much more, we're opening the phone lines to tackle your autumn baking projects.

Please email us at questions at milkstreetradio.com.

One more time, send questions to milkstreetradio.com and we'll be in touch.

This is Milk Street Radio from PRX. I'm your host, Christopher Kimball. Have you ever eaten a farm

fresh egg? And do you remember what it tasted like?

Tamara Haspel says it was probably just like any other egg you've ever had before.

We had a bunch of people in, some of whom were food professionals, and we literally blindfolded them, and we spoon-fed them soft-boiled eggs. and the net was nobody could tell them apart.

Today, Tamar Haspel of the Washington Post is here to stop the lies we tell ourselves about food.

From the truth about diet soda to organic vegetables, nothing is sacred.

But first, we're talking about fame.

When you hear the term celebrity chef, you might think of Julia Child or perhaps Martha Stewart.

But centuries before the art of French cooking, there was a chef in England named Robert May.

And instead of earning a reputation for Kich Loren, May was known for filling his pies with live animals.

For more on Robert May's circus-like approach to cooking, we're joined by historian, Dr. Amanda Herbert.

Amanda, welcome to Milk Street.

Thank you for having me, Chris.

I'm delighted to be here.

So before we get to live frogs jumping out of pies, et cetera, this is, we're talking about someone who's a chef to the very rich and famous. So let's talk about who was this guy,

what was his background, where did he train, etc. So Robert May was born in Buckinghamshire in 1588,

and his father was a cook in a great house. And young Robert worked under his father as a child

and had so much talent supposedly in the kitchen that the owners of the household sent him to

...