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Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Margaret Cho: Spam Musubi

Your Last Meal with Rachel Belle

Rachel Belle

Music Interviews, Arts, Food, Comedy Interviews, Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Comedy, Music, Science, History

4.4709 Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Margaret Cho has been a standup comedian for four decades (since she was 14 years old!) but she also LOVES to cook and collects specialty cookware and gadgets – she has her very own mochi machine!  

Her last meal takes us to Hawaii, where Spam is so popular it’s even served at McDonald’s. But here on the mainland, Spam is often stigmatized. Robert Koo, author of Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA, walks us through the complicated history of the world’s favorite canned ham.  

True food fanatics appreciate the highs and the lows; they can equally enjoy caviar and Cap’n Crunch, and Margaret is no different. Margaret shares her strangest cravings, and listeners call in to talk about theirs.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Alaska Airlines has teamed up with Hawaiian Airlines to create new nonstop international flights.

0:05.8

Go to Alaskaair.com or Hawaiian Airlines.com and I'll tell you more details later in the show.

0:20.0

I'm Rachel Bell and this is your last meal.

0:23.6

The show where celebrities share stories about the foods they love most,

0:27.1

and we dig into the history, culture, and science of those meals with experts from around the world.

0:31.7

Today on the program, legendary comedian Margaret Cho.

0:36.2

Yeah, I've been doing comedy for 40 years, and I still love it.

0:40.3

Margaret has countless comedy specials and albums, is an Emmy-nominated actress and an activist.

0:46.4

She is just about to take off on a new tour called The Live and Livid Comedy Tour,

0:51.0

doing stand-up around the country from April through September.

0:54.6

When you talk to Margaret about food, it becomes clear very quickly that she's a cook,

0:58.8

she is a food lover, she loves food from all around the world.

1:02.0

Basically, stars are just like us.

1:04.1

Margaret is obsessed with eating.

1:06.0

But sometimes it gets a little bit weird.

1:08.2

Margaret shares some of the stranger things that she craves,

1:11.5

for example, AirPods. And then we'll hear from you, my lovely listeners, about some of your

1:17.2

favorite out-of-the-ordinary food combinations. Plus, the dichotomous world of spam, an ingredient

1:23.2

with a fascinating history that is equally loved and judged. All of this coming up later in the show, but first, my conversation with Margaret Cho.

1:39.5

I've read so many things that I don't know if they are true or not about your start in comedy,

1:45.1

like you opening for Seinfeld when you're 14 years old. So why don't you go ahead and tell me,

1:50.2

how did you get your starting comedy? So I was a little bit older. I didn't open for Seinfeld

...

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