'Anything's Pastable' and 'My Life in Recipes' explore viral pasta and family history

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4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2024

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

Anything's Pastable and My Life in Recipes, new cookbooks from Dan Pashman and Joan Nathan, get personal in very different ways. Pashman, the James Beard Award-winning podcaster, sets out to revolutionize our relationship with pasta, while Nathan's 12th cookbook blends recipes and memoir to trace her family history through Jewish cuisine. In today's episode, Here & Now's Robin Young talks with Pashman about food innovation, his viral pasta shape and why home cooks shouldn't sweat over homemade sauce. Then, NPR's Ari Shapiro joins Nathan at her home to discuss Jewish holidays, her family's immigration story and the perfect matzo ball soup.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's MPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Probably the most important ingredient in any
0:07.6	recipe is time. I'm not talking about how long it takes to make something, but that as time passes
0:13.5	and food traditions get passed down, recipes change. Sometimes they get tweaked here and there with
0:19.4	each generation, adding just a slight
0:21.4	signature touch, and sometimes people take big swings with the changes they make. In a bit,
0:26.5	we'll hear about a cookbook author who takes a very classic approach to matzabal soup, but first,
0:31.8	the big swings. Podcaster Dan Pashman went viral for inventing a brand new pasta shape,
0:38.7	putting in tons of research and development to find a shape that maximizes forkability and sauce clingage.
0:43.6	He took that approach and wrote a whole cookbook that expands what we think is possible when
0:47.7	it comes to combining pasta with sauce.
0:50.3	It's called Anything's Possible.
0:52.1	And he spoke with here and now as Robin Young about why experimenting with food shouldn't just be the realm of professional cooks.
1:00.1	Our next story tells the tale of a lowly intern who worked with a radio icon.
1:05.7	Now, let's make that worshipped at the feet of a radio icon and went on to become a James Beard and Webby Award-winning
1:13.9	podcaster who now has a new book.
1:15.7	Hey, wait, I'm not in the book.
1:19.8	Dan Fashman is the creator and host of the wildly successful podcast, The Sporkful.
1:24.9	And as his fans know, he also created his own kind of corkscrew pasta
1:28.8	in 2021. His cascatelli went viral. It was on the cover of Time magazine intern, Dan. Are you
1:36.6	kidding me? That's right. And Dan Pashman joins us in the studio. Welcome. It's great to see you,
1:41.3	Robin. I mean, I was your intern. My first real gig and radio was with you right here in Boston, so I'm so excited to be with you. Well, I'm claiming you. And not only a James Beard Award winner, two-time James Beard Award winner, how did this happen? Because I remember you liking donuts and bagels. Where did it go to food? Well, I liked food. I mean, I look, I always,
2:04.2	I obviously had an interest in radio from the time I graduated college, was interning with you.
	...

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