We take you to two iconic hot dog joints in Detroit and New Jersey to find out what makes them special. Plus Kenji Lopez-Alt schools us on the science of deep-fried hot dogs, and Dan's parents make a special cameo.

This episode originally aired on June 26, 2016, and was produced by Dan Pashman and Anne Saini, edited by Shoshana Gold, and mixed by Chase Culpon. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Every Friday, we reach into our deep freezer and reheat an episode to serve up to you. We're calling these our Reheats. If you have a show you want reheated, send us an email or voice memo at hello@sporkful.com, and include your name, your location, which episode, and why.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

Dan Rossi sells hot dogs in the most coveted spot for a street vendor in all of New York City – outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He’s been in this location for nearly twenty years, and he’s spent much of that time fighting politicians, public health officials, the NYPD, the Met, and other vendors to hold on to his precious location. In recent years he’s taken to sleeping in his van next to the spot, to be sure nobody takes it. But vending outside The Met is actually Dan’s second act. Long before he was there, he rose to prominence as one of the most successful people in New York’s street vending industry – then lost it all. We hear the whole story, including how Dan clawed his way back, in this week’s show.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O’Hara, Grace Rubin, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

How the (part veggie) sausage gets made...Cara Nicoletti comes from a long line of butchers, but her grandfather didn’t want her to follow in his footsteps. It’s physical work, it requires long hours, the pay isn’t great, and the path is even tougher for women. Cara went against her grandfather’s wishes anyway and became a butcher — but she hasn’t followed a traditional path. She spent ten years developing a type of sausage that none of her ancestors could have imagined. When it came time to start selling them on her own, it took a woman entrepreneur to tell her, “You’re not thinking big enough.” Cara tells us about the challenges of getting her business off the ground, what makes her sausages special, and why she named the company after her grandfather.

This episode originally aired on July 24, 2020, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara and Julia Shu, edited by Tracey Samuelson and mixed by Jared O'Connell. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Every Friday, we reach into our deep freezer and reheat an episode to serve up to you. We're calling these our Reheats. If you have a show you want reheated, send us an email or voice memo at hello@sporkful.com, and include your name, your location, which episode, and why.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

Over more than fifty years and 16 books, Dr. Jessica B. Harris has uncovered the ways that West African food, and African American people, have fundamentally shaped American cuisine. Her seminal 2011 book, High on the Hog, brought the connection between African and American food into the culinary conversation, and led to the 2021 Netflix series of the same name. This week we talk with her about her own journey in making these connections, and she offers advice to the new generation of Black scholars and writers exploring these links: “Look ahead. What do you see ahead?” Her latest book is Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine.

This episode originally aired on August 2, 2021 and was produced by Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, and Andres O’Hara. It was edited by Tracey Samuelson. The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O’Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

Welcome to our summer cookout spectacular episode! We talk with renowned burger historian George Motz about the history of the hamburger, and about the wide range of regional burgers across the country, many of which are unknown outside their areas. Then we get an incredible burger recipe from Chef Jehangir Mehta, inspired by Indian street food, that’s made with 25% mushrooms. Finally, our old friend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt stops by for a debate that’s sure to spark conversation at your next socially-distanced outdoor gathering: Should potato salad be called a salad?

This episode originally aired on August, 9, 2020, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, and Julia Shu, edited by Tracey Samuelson, and mixed by Jared O'Connell. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Every Friday, we reach into our deep freezer and reheat an episode to serve up to you. We're calling these our Reheats. If you have a show you want reheated, send us an email or voice memo at hello@sporkful.com, and include your name, your location, which episode, and why.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

Chefs tend to have a love-hate relationship with restaurant critics, who have the power to make or break them. Critics try to enter restaurants undetected, while chefs try to spot them, then ensure a flawless experience and a good review. This week, we have a story about one critic’s very unusual encounter with a famous chef, and the bombshell article that followed. MacKenzie Chung Fegan was a relatively new critic at the San Francisco Chronicle when she visited The French Laundry, a restaurant of worldwide acclaim helmed by the celebrity chef Thomas Keller. When Keller asked to speak with her, MacKenzie assumed she knew why. But she was in for a big surprise.

Read MacKenzie’s story in the San Francisco Chronicle here.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O’Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

As civil war erupted in Yemen, Mokhtar Alkhanshali found himself imprisoned, with $5,000 stuffed in his underwear and his coffee samples confiscated. To get those samples to the biggest specialty coffee expo in North America, he’d have to survive more than one near-death experience. Would his coffee be worth the risk?

This is the second half of our two-part episode about Mokhtar Alkhanshali. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 from last week, please start there.

This episode originally aired on October 10th, 2022, and was produced by Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Tracey Samuelson, and Jared O'Connell. Editing help from Devon DiComo. The Sporkful team now includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Giulia Leo, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. This update was produced by Gianna Palmer. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Every Friday, we reach into our deep freezer and reheat an episode to serve up to you. We're calling these our Reheats. If you have a show you want reheated, send us an email or voice memo at hello@sporkful.com, and include your name, your location, which episode, and why.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.

Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Get all your favorite podcasts, more than 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, and live sports coverage with the SiriusXM app.

Thomas’ English Muffins are so famous for their nooks and crannies that the recipe that produces those iconic features is a closely guarded trade secret. Only a select group of people know it, and as you’ll hear in this week’s show, when one of those people took a job at a competitor, all hell broke loose. This story comes from our friends at Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. In this episode, the show’s senior producer Ben Naddaff-Hafrey examines the beloved Thomas’ English Muffin.

This is part one of the story -- head to the Revisionist History feed to hear part two, in which Ben attempts to reverse engineer the coveted Thomas’ recipe.

The Sporkful production team includes Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O’Hara, Kameel Stanley, and Jared O'Connell. Publishing by Shantel Holder.

Transcript available at www.sporkful.com.