The Sporkful Dan Pashman and Stitcher

Fernando Frías was a successful cafe and restaurant owner in Havana, but when Fidel Castro came to power, the government nationalized Fernando’s businesses and imprisoned him when he tried to leave the country. Eventually he got out, settling near Miami like so many other Cuban expats. Even though Fernando never went back to Cuba, he was always searching for pieces of his homeland in the Cuban-American community in Miami.

You might know Stephen Satterfield as the host of Netflix’s High on the Hog, but he’s also one of the only Black food magazine publishers in the country. Inspired by his work as a sommelier and in the South African wine industry, Stephen launched Whetstone Media to tell stories about how food and people are connected to the land they came from. But even as Whetstone grew and became profitable, none of the hundreds of investors he met with would write him a check.

When Nicole Taylor was writing her first cookbook, publishers were expecting her to focus on soul food — because she’s Black. Like Freda DeKnight, the Ebony food editor we heard about last week, Nicole knew that Black American food was much more than that. Now, several years later, Nicole has released Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations.

Today ahead of Juneteenth we’re launching “By Us For Everyone,” a three-part series about how Black American food is represented in media, and how those portrayals change when Black people are in charge of them. In the 1940s and ‘50s, Ebony was one of the only magazines created by Black people that spoke directly to Black people.

Dan’s dreams come true when he visits The Simpsons writers’ room to talk about the role food plays on the show and behind the scenes. Turns out the writers are just as obsessed with food as all of the show’s food jokes suggest. Plus, Simpsons creator Matt Groening explains how new technologies have changed the show’s food jokes over time.

When you’re served a plate with a variety of foods on it, should you put a bit of each on the fork to create one multi-faceted bite? Or alternate between foods? A married couple comes to us for mediation in this dispute.