--- --- Jul 23, 2025 # The Sporkful Tales from the table by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/) ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent  **_Society_** The archive of this James Beard Award-winning food podcast produced by SiriusXM and hosted by Dan Pashman is a rich collection of freewheeling investigations exploring our relationship to food. The host, a radio vet who turned his love of food into a full-time gig, digs into [whether takeout burgers taste as good as the kind eaten in a restaurant](https://www.sporkful.com/is-a-takeout-burger-a-lesser-burger/), delves into [the history of politicians slipping in the polls after eating-related faux pas](https://www.sporkful.com/when-a-tamale-determines-the-presidency/), and presents [a robust defense of picky eating](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/in-defense-of-picky-eating/id350709629?i=1000651053159). Pashman’s most intriguing investigation began when he expressed exasperation over the current array of available pasta shapes. He decided to create a new shape and documented the surprisingly suspenseful engineering endeavor in a miniseries dubbed [“Mission ImPASTAble.”](https://www.sporkful.com/mission-impastable-1-spaghetti-sucks/) Pashman formed his perfect shape based on the very scientific categories of sauceability, forkability, and toothsinkability, with taste testing help from food-world celebs like [Samin Nosrat,](https://time.com/5421575/samin-nosrat/) Sohla El-Waylly, and Kenji Lopez-Alt. [TIME named it one of the best inventions of 2021.](https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2021/6112714/cascatelli/) You can now actually buy it in stores. Talk about real-world impact. 'The Sporkful': 100 Best Podcasts ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-best-podcasts/7303125/the-sporkful/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-best-podcasts/7303125/the-sporkful/"},"headline":"The Sporkful","datePublished":"2025-07-23T11:13:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:52:09.774Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-best-podcasts/7303125/the-sporkful/","keywords":["podcasts","list","Podcast","Special Project"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1772a9b21bde3453/6998c87c1500fb0ae0aa675c/Best-Podcasts-2025-The-Sporkful-086.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"creator":"Eliana Dockterman","articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1772a9b21bde3453/6998c87c1500fb0ae0aa675c/Best-Podcasts-2025-The-Sporkful-086.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/podcasts/","name":"podcasts"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-best-podcasts/7303125/the-sporkful/","name":"The Sporkful"}}]}] ```