795: Iconic Midwestern Food with Paul Fehribach and George Motz

The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters

American Public Media

Arts, Food

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we explore some of the iconic dishes of the Midwest. First, we talked to chef Paul Fehribach about Midwestern cuisine and the history of its unique dishes as they evolved from generations of immigrants. From the evolution of Midwestern-style barbecue to Cincinnati chili, considered by Paul to be one of the oldest examples of fusion cooking. Paul Fehribach is the author of Midwestern Food, A Chef’s Guide to the Surprising History of a Great American Cuisine. Then, we take a field trip to New York City and visit Burger Scholar George Motz at his new restaurant, Hamburger America, to see what makes an epic hamburger. He walks us through some of the most iconic burgers he’s tasted, their histories, and their different cooking techniques. George Motz is a filmmaker and author. His latest book is The Great American Burger Book.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey is Francis Lamb, host of the splendid table.
0:03.0	Our show is all about the intersection of food and life,
0:06.0	and we're heading to Southern California.
0:08.0	LAS is hosting a special live taping of our show in Orange County,
0:11.0	where we'll have a chance to talk to some of the
0:13.0	stars of the O.C.'s vibrant food scene and after the show I'll get a bite of
0:17.4	something delicious to eat. So join us, February 4th at south coast rep.
0:21.6	Get your tickets now at eliest.com slash events.
0:27.0	I'm Francis Lamb and this is the splendid table from APF. You know if you could possibly stand it I would happily sit somewhere with you and talk for like an unlimited number of hours about the many
0:56.2	sub-regional cuisines of the South. We could be here a week before we even get to barbecue.
1:01.6	Or we could talk about the mix of cuisines that make up the
1:05.2	food of the southwest, or we can go on and on about the chefs of the Hawaii regional cuisine
1:10.7	movement of the 90s and so on and so forth but I have to say when we get to
1:16.7	the Midwest I probably sit there for a minute and then go, wait, what is the Western food? And I can't really even tell you why that question seems so hard to answer.
1:32.0	Maybe it's because midwesterners are famously not that
1:34.7	interested in patting themselves on the back, and maybe it's because some people ignorantly
1:39.7	dismiss the region as flyover country, but the region that gave us the deep dish pizza, the gooey butter cake, and popularized the hot dog and the hamburger, deserves to get its flowers for making a mark on American cuisine.
1:56.0	So today that's what we're going to do.
1:59.4	Later on in the episode we'll visit with hamburger scholar George Motz at his new
2:03.6	restaurant to talk about the Midwestern Smashburger and we're going to start
2:08.3	with Paul Fairbach chef of the great Chicago restaurant Big Jones,
2:13.0	and author of the new book Midwestern Food.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.