The Elements of Life
The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters
American Public Media
4.3 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2011
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Award winning author Su-Mei Yu introduces us to the ancient Thai tradition of looking at "food as medicine". Her new book is, The Elements of Life, A Contemporary Guide to Thai Recipes and Traditions for Healthier Living. Jane and Michael Stern are in Tucson at the Tucson Tamale Company and National Geographic's Keith Bellows brings us their list of "food journeys of a lifetime".
Broadcast dates for this episode:
- January 16, 2010 (originally aired)
- January 22, 2011 (rebroadcast)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this complicated country. |
| 0:08.1 | We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories, their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing. Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts. It's Lynn Rosetta-Castro with the splendid table. |
| 0:50.8 | If you flipped open a cookbook, say, 700 years ago, you'd find a recipe maybe for candied turnips, |
| 0:56.7 | and where we now see nutritional information, in that old recipe you would see a medical note. |
| 1:01.8 | These turnips are moist to the second degree and warm to the first degree. |
| 1:08.9 | Also back then, you'd understand that medically each person and most foods had four humors, |
| 1:11.3 | wet, dry, hot, and cold. |
| 1:15.5 | The trick was to match what you needed for health to what you put in your mouth. |
| 1:20.1 | Well, that kind of balancing is true in Thailand today. |
| 1:32.3 | So it's dinner as a balancing act and much more this hour on The Splendid Table. This week's Splendid Table is a repeat of an earlier broadcast. |
| 1:36.7 | Hi, it's Lynn Rosetta, Casper, and you're listening to The Splendid Table, the show for people who love to eat. |
| 1:43.3 | Our program is produced by American Public Media. |
| 1:47.0 | How many times has a whiff of something brought back a memory so alive that you're back in the |
| 1:52.6 | middle of it? Wet autumn leaves are like that for me. In a nanosecond, I'm walking to kindergarten. |
| 1:59.6 | And then it's lunchtime, and I can feel the wax paper and taste the cream cheese and jelly |
| 2:04.5 | that I brought every single day. |
| 2:08.0 | Well, that sensation of time travel is the bailiwick of Professor Rachel Hers from Brown |
| 2:13.5 | University. |
| 2:14.8 | She researches scent, what it does to our brains and what it does to our emotions |
| 2:19.7 | and our memories. She's written the book, The Scent of Desire. Rachel, welcome. Thank you, Lynn. |
| 2:27.5 | Why does that scent evoke such a strong memory for me? Well, it's probably, and I love that, by the way, cream cheese and jelly. |
| 2:37.8 | Does that set you on your food career? |
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