Every meal tells a story, but what stories do they weave when you’re on a journey across the country? You’ll just have to tune in to find out. Today we’re serving up 10 delicious sides as we learn of the bites and places that bring joy, frustration, and love to the team at Meat and Three as we head on a road trip of sorts. The final destination? You’ll just have to listen and find out, but we’ll give you a hint - Elvis, Vegas, and Taco Bell. Get comfy, get your snacks and let’s hit the road!

Description: In order to honor indigenous foodways and culture, we need to start talking about them in the present tense. Let’s look to the future in order to dismantle a colonial past! In this episode we explore some of the ways indigenous communities are revitalizing ancestral foodways and centering them in contemporary conversations about cuisine. Focused in the American Southwest, our reporters explore a Navajo farm producing culturally appropriate baby foods, a restaurant collectively...

On this very special bonus episode of Meat and Three, we hear from our 2024 Julia Child Foundation Writing Fellow Loan Ngyuen, and get a glimpse into the new show she has spent the last 6 months developing. Nourishing Change dives into the story of three generations behind the longest running vegan restaurant in Philadelphia, as well as Loan’s own story with veganism. In this pilot episode, Loan touches on themes of cultural food access, community health and vegan soul food.

Third spaces are having a moment. From cafes and bars to parks and beaches, these informal gathering places are central to creating community – often with food at the center. In this episode of Meat and Three, we travel across the globe and through time to explore third spaces that build community around food.

What obligations do we have to the foodways we’ve inherited? As whole ways of life go extinct in the face of globalization and modern technology, what do we save, and why? Our reporters seek out the protectors of tiny taters, bacterial breads, and Aztec agriculture to understand how the past informs our present.

When we first began reporting this episode, we wanted to tell stories about foods, drinks, and experiences that fall outside what is typically considered “authentic.” We coined the term “purposefully IN-authentic” and ran with it until we couldn’t run any further. What we found instead is that choosing the road less traveled because it is the road that feels most true, might be the most exemplary form of authenticity. From entire cuisines, to community practices, to individual choices, to...

Here at Meat and Three, cheese holds a special place in our hearts. Cheese can connect us to our past and future while making us more grounded in our present. It can bring us together and bring cultural traditions to life. This week we explore the many facets of cheese. From at home cheese-making and cheese fortune telling, to the cheese traditions of Wisconsin and Mexico, join us in celebrating cheese in all its forms.

Today on Meat and Three we’re talking acknowledgement and celebration as a tool for social change and sustainability. And we’re doing so by celebrating our own archive; our reporters look back at some of their favorite stories from the HRN airwaves.

Food and debate are a natural pairing. Whether it’s politics at the dinner table, check paying privileges, or how rare you’d like your ribeye, a meal can bring out fiery passions and strong opinions. But, have you considered that your opinions could just be wrong? This week, we're diving deep into the world of food myths and setting the record straight. We’ll be tackling sushi sexism, demystifying MSG, defending the Wisconsin Old Fashioned, and breaking down skin contact wine.

Go behind the scenes at HRN with Behind the Internship where you’ll find out  what it’s like to become a podcast producer for HRN’s flagship show, Meat + Three. Tune in to the second episode and find out how  Sophia Hooper, Danielle Flitter, and Addison Austin-Lou, three interns in HRN’s Research & Radio Internship Program, are doing in the first few weeks of their training session! Hear about their first steps into podcast production and see what it takes to begin a career in the food...

Today, we’re unraveling one of food’s biggest buzzwords to see what lies beneath. Authenticity conveys meaning, tradition, and truth wherever it’s invoked, but is it always as important as we seem to think it is? From biotechnology's influence on traditional cuisine to personal reflections from international chefs, we explore the bounds of authenticity’s usefulness as a concept. Then, we go deep on the social dimensions of culinary narratives and their misuse in the case of terroir and the...

Pralines, a sweet concoction of sugar, butter, and pecans, are more than just a staple of New Orleans cuisine. They carry with them a rich legacy of adaptation and survival, embodying the spirit of a city known for its resilience. This episode delves into the bittersweet history of pralines, revealing their deep connections to the legacy of slavery, the innovative spirit of African American women, and the enduring fight for freedom and equality. In this episode of Meat and Three, Taylor...

A food memory is never just the meal itself. It’s the people who cooked it, the chatter around the table, the distance traveled and time waited just to taste this food. Today, we’re serving up a smorgasbord of experiences from each member of the Meat and Three team. From fresh-squeezed juice in Mexico City to the late-night fast food haunts of competitive swing dancers, we’ve got messages from the whole team on the food they love, and the places that make that food come alive with meaning....

Cooking a meal is often compared to creating a work of art. From the recipes that inspire you, to your PALETTE of spices, to the smells and tastes that stir up emotions, all of it comes together on an edible canvas as an expression of the inner self. It’s no wonder so many cultures deeply intertwine food with identity. To explore this connection, we’re revisiting Meat and Three stories with our brand new interns. We’ll be talking about our loyalty to grocery store chains, the past and future...

Food sovereignty foregrounds all of our conversations on Meat and Three. If communities are unable to feed themselves freely, safely and sustainably, food cultures can not thrive. From seed banks preserving Indigenous crops, to Israeli control of Palestinian food systems, we kickstart our 16th season by revisiting stories from the Meat and Three archives that center food sovereignty as imperative to maintaining diverse, nourishing food cultures.

Go behind the scenes at HRN with Behind the Internship where you’ll find out  what it’s like to become a podcast producer for HRN’s flagship show, Meat + Three. Tune in to the premiere episode and get to know  Sophia Hooper, Danielle Flitter, and Addison Austin-Lou, three interns in HRN’s Research & Radio Internship Program. Hear about their first steps into podcast production and see what it takes to begin a career in the food media world.

Our Meat and Three Season 16 trailer was engineered by Sam Gerardi. Be sure to subscribe to the Meat and Three feed wherever you get podcasts to stay up-to-date on new episodes of Behind the Internship: a sneak peak behind the M+3 production process, brought to you by the interns themselves! Behind the Internship is produced by Rachael Markow, engineered by Armen Spendijan, and hosted by Taylor Early.

As long as there have been supermarkets there have been folks imagining and participating in alternative modes of grocery shopping. In this episode of Meat and Three, Matt is joined by HRN intern Liv Kunins-Berkowitz as his co-host. Their research focuses on alternative and community-constructed foodways. In this episode, we are leaving the supermarket behind, and unpacking the possibilities of alternative foodways including cooperatives, mutual aid, CSAs, and the black panther free breakfast...

This week on HRN we are examining how folks are changing the world of food and how food has always been a part of changing the world. We are traveling through space and time to bring stories of trailblazers and revolutionaries–those who are truly breaking bonds. First, we reflect on how the Persian diasporic community is connecting to cuisine in the context of the women-led revolution underway in Iran. We also hear about how a group of women banana workers in latin america have transformed...

In this episode of Meat and Three, we are trying to move beyond western medical definitions, and thinking outside the box to better understand disordered eating. Disordered eating has a history of visibility as a negative disease, and largely impacting a small population. Historically, young, white women and girls are depicted in the media and in literature with eating disorders. However, the phenomenon of disordered eating, which we’re using here to mean “eating outside of the norm” contains...

We’re hosting a dinner party, and you are all invited! On this week’s Meat and Three, we explore the complex meanings behind sharing a meal with friends, family, and acquaintances. We dive into how a casual dinner party can be a conduit for community building and fostering connections across diverse frontiers, and how food is central to these experiences. We will also see how some unexpected guests at these get-togethers can spark up some mystery while enjoying a home-cooked meal.

The clothes we wear day in and day out can impact our sense of self-worth, or become a fundamental form of self-expression. From books to online personas to restaurants, we can’t help but cultivate an aesthetic. This episode of Meat and Three is all about what we wear and what it communicates to the world around us. Connect with artist Lotte Ooms on instagram or via her website. Discover all things Morgan Lynzi on her instagram or her website. If you want to hear the rest of Christine’s...

Behind a great meal is often a well crafted recipe. This week on Meat + Three we are opening up the cookbook to explore how foodways are preserved through text. We talk to librarians, YouTubers, cooks, publishers, about the history of cookbooks and the state of the cookbook publishing industry today. From Black cookbooks to an artist’s reimagining of a community cookbook in Maine, we are reading widely. If you can’t get your nose out of the cookbook, this week is for you! 

You may have heard it said that “the eyes eat first”. This is especially true of the social media world, and this week on Meat + Three, we are examining the intersection of the digital world with food. We talked with people across the landscape of food media, from talent agencies to blogs and magazines in order to understand a bit more about how we, collectively, are all in-real-time experiencing changes in the food media industry.