Tom Papa Quit Vegetarianism After One Visit To An Italian Deli

The Sporkful

SiriusXM Podcasts

Arts

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2026

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Veteran comic Tom Papa’s love of food began as a kid, when his dad recruited him for over-the-top food challenges — including eating a massive steak that won Tom a t-shirt. As an adult he became obsessed with bread baking after his daughter gave him a sourdough starter for Christmas. Tom explains how baking bread is like comedy, and what his fridge says about his current stage of life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sirius XM Podcasts.
0:10.0	Tom, you've written that there are sandwiches from your past that you carry with you as if they were memories of lovers.
0:18.8	Yeah.
0:19.3	Is there one specific sandwich that comes to mind when i read that line to you yeah the casa del
0:22.6	sol italian special i grew up like you know in new jersey and there was this place casa del soul
0:27.9	and they had the italian special which was like a traditional italian hero kind of a thing
0:35.3	as soon as you said it, I popped into my head.
0:38.3	And they're still there and they still make it.
0:41.1	We would save up money and we would get those sandwiches and we would just take them to the train
0:45.9	tracks or the school on a weekend and sit there and eat that sandwich.
0:50.2	And it was, oh my God, mind-blowing.
0:53.5	You going off to the train shots with your sandwich,
0:55.5	it's almost like taking a significant other
0:57.7	to the beach for the sunset.
0:59.6	Yeah, yeah, yeah, you just, and you remember them.
1:03.5	Like, you know what I mean?
1:04.8	Like, if I could go on Facebook
1:06.1	and instead of looking up old girlfriends,
1:08.6	just look up Casa del Sol.
1:11.0	The picture of that sandwich would make me just as happy.
1:15.3	I won't tell you're wife.
1:17.2	Keep it quiet.
	...

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