150: Italian Pasta Nights with an American Accent with Renato Poliafito

Throughout this season, we’ve been exploring immigrant narratives around food: roles in food systems, labour, and diasporic food stories. Part of this is making sense of the “ish” elements to identities through food, which my guest this week, Renato Poliafito, does beautifully. 

Renato is a James Beard-nominated restaurateur, pastry chef, cookbook author, designer, and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, NY. After a graphic design and advertising career, Renato pivoted to food, training as a barista to learn more about the industry, eventually opening Baked in 2005. This kicked off a culinary renaissance in the waterfront neighbourhood, resulting in several cookbooks, a line of mixes, granola, bakeware, a location in Tokyo, and multiple James Beard nominations. After over a decade at Baked, Renato embarked on a new project. He opened Ciao, Gloria in Prospect Heights in 2019, a daytime café and neighbourhood bakery steeped in his Italian-American upbringing and heritage.

Inspired by the monthly pasta events he did briefly at Ciao, Gloria, pre-pandemic, Renato opened a sister concept on Vanderbilt Avenue called Pasta Night, a casual pasta concept, in October 2024. He is also the author of Dolci!: American Baking with an Italian Accent, his first solo cookbook featuring Italian and “Italian American-ish” cakes, cookies, pies, and pastries for any occasion.

In this conversation, Renato explores how he infused his culture and background into Ciao, Gloria, and Pasta Nights, how he switches between his Italian and American heritages to build their menus, and his perspectives on creating community in Brooklyn and Italian-American eating experiences that speak to American-style dining.

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149: Unbottling the Problems of Bottled Water with Daniel Jaffee

A plastic bottle of water powerfully represents the state of our current environmental and health priorities. That water can become commodified while being an essential public service means that who gets access to water can be deeply challenged. How is water justice reached when plastic water privatization has become so embedded in our systems? My guest today, Dr. Daniel Jaffee, is here to explore the depths of these two important parts of the water spectrum. 

Dan is an environmental and rural sociologist, and a professor of Sociology at Portland State University. His research examines conflicts over water privatization and commodification, the social, economic, and environmental impacts of bottled and packaged water, and the social movements that form around bottled water and water justice in the global North and South. He is also the author of Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice, and Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about how cultural and economic shifts shaped the success of bottled water, what its commodification means for the municipal water systems that serve us, and how the global water crisis becomes socially produced.

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148: Masala, Maíz, and Movement: Ingredients for Decolonizing Plates with Norma Listman and Saqib Keval

On the show today are Norma Listman and Saqib Keval, looking at the solutions and communities that can be built when activism and ethical values are at the forefront of food creation. Norma and Saqib are the chefs and restauranteurs behind Masala y Maíz, which TIME Magazine named as one of the top destinations to visit worldwide, and its slightly more casual Indian-Mexican sister restaurant, Mari Gold. Norma and Saqib were also just featured in the most recent season of Chef’s Table on Netflix.

Masala y Maíz seamlessly blends Indian, East African, and Mexican flavours inspired by the cultures of the husband-wife team. In addition to being renowned globally for its genre-bending and deeply personal cuisine, Masala y Maíz champions a movement of social justice through food, prioritizing quality of life for their staff and farmers and serving as a testament to the idea that a values-based workplace can also be a thriving workplace.

In today’s conversation, Norma and Saqib share how they moved the idea of Masala y Maíz from a research concept into a full restaurant, even after not being so sure about staying in the industry for all its shortcomings), how experiences with local flavours on a menu can fuck with your brain and decolonize how you think about ingredients, and the importance of corn in cultural, social, and decolonial approaches to food.

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147: What Canada Ate - The Role of Cookbooks in Culinary History with Dr. Rebecca Beausaert

As most historians will tell you, the past can help make sense of a lot of the present, but maybe in unexpected or novel ways—like through cookbooks! We’re living in an intense period (I probably always say this, but it feels particularly challenging right now). With the new Trump presidency, shifts to Canada’s economic stability and food security are top of mind for many—how are we going to afford eating, how can we support Canadian-focused food systems, and who is at the centre of these domestic pursuits? My guest today is Dr. Rebecca Beausaert, here to explore how historical food cookbooks can provide valuable insights into how we make sense of food as a country.

 Rebecca is an adjunct professor in the history department at the University of Guelph. She is also the co-founder and co-director of the increased What Canada Ate website, which is an online repository of digitized historical cookbooks. She is also the author of Pursuing Play: Women’s Leisure in Small-Town Ontario, 1870-1914.

In today’s conversation, we explore the history of Canadian cookbooks from the first Canadian cookbook published in 1825 to today. She looks at how different agricultural, technological, social, and economic shifts impacted what recipes and ingredients appeared on cookbook pages, the untold stories of domestic handbooks and the women that fed farmers, and how cookbooks can paint the story of the ever-complex question around defining Canadian cuisine.

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146: Flavour's Role in Food System Fixes with Franco Fubini

The idea of industrial food systems is flat, heavy, and feels complex to access. It brings up connotations of very bland, hyper-processed foods made to reach a large number of people at a low cost. There are important consequences to these food systems choices, though some are louder ones than others. My guest today, Franco Fubini, tackles an often under-appreciated one: flavours of ingredients. 

Franco Fubini is the founder and CEO of Natoora, and takes a unique approach to seasonality and sourcing for chefs and consumers across London, Paris, Milan, Copenhagen, Malmo, New York, LA, Miami, and Melbourne. He is also a professor of Sustainability Management at Columbia University in NYC. Franco is driven by his belief that engaging people with the real flavour of fruits and vegetables, arguing that we can collectively transform how food is being farmed and supplied if we focus more on a supply chain rooted in flavour, transparency, and direct relationships. He is also the author of In Search of the Perfect Peach: Why Flavour Holds the Answer to Fixing Our Food System. 

In today’s episode, we look at the role that flavour plays in our food systems, and how flavour’s decline has been connected to wartime economies and contemporary agricultural systems. Franco speaks to the work he’s doing through Natoora, and how both old and new strategies are needed to model more sustainable, resilient, and locally-grounded food systems for the future. 

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145: Exploring the Biodiversity of Climate-Smart Crops with Shreema Mehta

Industrial food systems tend to take very mono-crop and unilinear approaches to supplying the Global North with food. But what happens when we look at more diverse crops? My guest today, Shreema Mehta, is here to talk about the traditional, climate-smart crops that get overlooked by the industrial food system. She started Climate Cookery selling tamarind hot sauce and has since expanded it to a newsletter that explores increasing biodiversity and supporting knowledge of under-utilized crops.

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