About the Podcast

Why Food, culture & Identity?

AnthroDish is a podcast that explores the powerful relationships between between food, culture, and identity through the lens of anthropology. Hosted by anthropologist Dr. Sarah Duignan, each episode explores the stories behind what we eat and drink, reflecting larger social, political, and historical systems. Featuring conversations with chefs, scholars, writers, and food experts, each episode blends current issues with anthropological ideas to highlight how food shapes (and is shaped by) the world around us. AnthroDish invites you to look at food not only as nourishment, but as a window into our ever-shifting world.

Hosted by anthropologist Dr. Sarah Duignan, this podcast is to explore the many ways that food relates to our cultures (and sub-cultures) as well as our personal or community identities. On the show, we dig deep to explore how food cultures are maintaining age-old traditions, how new undercurrents in food cultures emerge, and how broadly foodways influence our world and occupy space in everyday lives.

While AnthroDish began as a way to showcase new and exciting research coming out of academia, the show features guests from all backgrounds that have stories and knowledge shaped by their relationship with food. Anthropology can be an amazing tool to understand human behaviour, but we often fall short of sharing this with the public. Given our current political climate and the alarming rise of untruth, xenophobia, and harmful attitudes about race, gender, sexuality, social status, and so much more, it’s important to highlight the experiences and perspectives of those most impacted by this, which is a main goal of AnthroDish.

Knowledge comes in many forms: years spent in school, cultural knowledge and traditions passed to new generations, apprenticeships, personal and self-taught crafts, and in so many other ways! All of these forms of knowledge offer important lessons, and come together to shape how we understand our food, our selves, and our sense of belonging and community.

Check out our most recent episodes here.