Should potato salad be called a salad? Do places make smaller sandwiches for women? Is vanilla ice-cream too vanilla? WNYC’s The Sporkful (iTunes) asks the most thought-provoking questions without pretence. “It’s not for foodies, it’s for eaters,” says host Dan Pashman, who brings a big bowl of enthusiasm and humour to the table.
The Sporkful is about so much more than food, as the new four-part series, Who Is This Restaurant For? demonstrates. Race, culture and dining out are explored, and Pashman politely recommends you listen to all four episodes in order. Take his advice and you’ll come out with more questions than answers, in a good way. When you go into a sushi restaurant, do you expect to see Japanese staff? Is it wrong to assume that white people won’t get the best food in an Indian restaurant?
Facing your prejudices around dining out is tough and the final instalment is where The Sporkful hits hard, with the extremely likable comedian W Kamau Bell talking about why he doesn’t wear hoodies in restaurants. As one half of an interracial marriage, he jokes about going out to dinner with his wife. “If we’re going to a nice place, and they’re super busy and super uptight, I’ll go: ‘Honey, why don’t you go and use some of your white people skills to get us a table?’”
“The more mixed a place is, the better I feel about it,” he admits. “The room is warmer, it’s friendlier, it’s smarter. The food’s probably better because they have to serve a lot of different palates.”
But one horrifying incident comes out when he tells the tale of a visit to a “fancy coffee shop” in Berkeley. He stopped to talk to his wife, who was sitting outside with their baby and her friends. The staff told him to go away because they thought he was trying to sell something. In fact, he was showing his wife a book he’d just bought. “It just reminded me that wherever you go, you’re still black,” he says. “Mark Zuckerberg can walk in dressed in a hoodie and jeans, whereas if I walk in dressed that way, it means something completely different.” Hearing that he feels like he needs to come across as ultra-friendly (and smaller) to feel comfortable in a restaurant is hard to swallow. As ever, in talking about food The Sporkful opens up a warm and friendly discussion of so much more.
If you like this, try: Spilled Milk
