816: Crumbs with Ben Mims and Wild Chocolate with Rowan Jacobsen

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

American Public Media

Food, Arts

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2024

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s the holiday season, and we’re kicking it off this week with some sweet treats. First, food editor and recipe developer Ben Mims joins us with his latest project, covering over 300 cookie recipes from Asia to the Levant to Scandinavia to the Caribbean. The varieties are astonishing. We get into cookie styles, the fascinating ingredients in regional cookies, and the hundreds of flavor combinations. Ben is the author of Crumbs: Cookies and Sweets from Around the World. And he left us with a recipe for Guava-Filled Butter Cookies from Brazil. Then, we step into the world of wild chocolate with Rowan Jacobsen. We hear about the new breed of cacao farmers and the amazing flavor profiles found in wild chocolate and meet some of the farmers who are making it. Rowan is the author of Wild Chocolate: Across the Americas in Search of Cacao’s Soul.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

December 6, 2024 (originally aired)
December 12, 2025 (rebroadcast)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The Splendium Table was supported by Vitamix. You know, there are some essential cooking tools that have spanned generations, cross continents, and found their way into kitchens around the world. I'm thinking of the cast iron pam, the rolling pin, the mortar and pestle. But all of those were innovations at one point, and the high-powered Vitamix blender takes its place in that pantheon.
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1:11.8	I'm Francis Lamb, and this is The Splendid Table from APM. You know, in life, there aren't a whole lot of pleasure simpler than cookies and chocolate.
1:38.5	Or are there?
1:40.1	Today, we've got a couple of guests who love their cookies and chocolate bars, but also find so much more to them than you might think.
1:48.4	Now, I don't mean to be obtuse. It's holiday time, and that means it's time for treats.
1:53.4	And we'll start with Ben Nims, author of a massive new book of over 300 cookie recipes from around the world.
2:00.7	Ben is a pros pro. He's been a food
2:03.8	editor and recipe developer for savor, food and wine, the Los Angeles Times, and many more.
2:09.9	And it's a pleasure to get to talk butter and sugar with him today. His new book is called
2:14.8	Crumbs, Cookies and Sweets from Around the World.
2:19.0	Hey, Ben, it's great to see you.
	...

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