A life-changing food podcast

Fran Magazine crossover episode!

Good morning from New York Freaking City! I am back home from Vermont, my houseplants have survived my absence, and after I post this I’m going to give myself the brain-massaging pleasure of organizing my fridge.

Next week we’ll be back to our standard programming—me yapping on about cooking—but today we have a very exciting guest post from Fran Hoepfner, EIC of Fran Magazine. I’m allergic to most food television and food podcasts¹ but Fran has sold me on Off Menu, which is perhaps the most delightful example of the latter. Once you have read this beautiful appreciation of Off Menu please share your dream restaurant in the comments :)

A few years ago, I was on an artist’s residency in Boise, Idaho, where I did not know anyone prior to arrival. I was working and writing, sure, but mostly I was lonely, and I started doing something I hadn’t done in years: I listened to a new podcast. For years, I’d only listened to podcasts hosted by my friends. I only really want to hear the voices of my friends come out of my earbuds, and in this case, I include Marc Maron as a friend though we’ve never met (the rest of the podcasts, though, are hosted by tried-and-true “friends of Fran”). How did I wind up on the Timothy Spall episode of Off Menu? Someone must have recommended it. I listened to the Timothy Spall episode of Off Menu, and lo and behold, it changed my life.

The Off Menu podcast works a little like this: hosts and comedians James Acaster and Ed Gamble welcome their guests into their “dream restaurant,” where the guest is instructed to come with their ideal drink, starter, main course, bread, side dish, and dessert. Basically it’s as simple as: pick one of each of your favorite foods and cobble it into a meal. I have spent years of my life analyzing what makes something funny or interesting, and Off Menu’s premise––concocting a list of your favorite foods, basically––spits in the face of all of that. Where’s the conflict? People might as well be talking about their favorite color. But against all odds, Off Menu is always riveting, always funny, always charming. You don’t have to know anything to listen to it. You don’t really have to know who James Acaster or Ed Gamble are. You don’t really have to know who the guest is. There is lore, but not a ton of it, and any episode is listenable and engaging if you have had food of any kind before and can understand a variety of accents from the United Kingdom². You can listen in any order. The canon does not matter, not in a real sense, at least. Only comedians could come up with a premise so frustratingly simple and effective. 

The Timothy Spall episode of Off Menu was, and is, one of the duo’s best. I laughed, I cried, I loved. Do you know who Timothy Spall is? You do, even if you think you don’t. Spall is a character actor, known best to a certain generation for his three lines-per-movie work as “Peter Pettigrew” in the Harry Potter films. But he is in all of my favorite Mike Leigh films and most recently Spencer alongside Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana. Spall, like his son Rafe (also an actor, who appears on an earlier episode—more later), picked more than one type of food for each entry, his meal consisting of everything from oxtail stew to fried artichokes to his wife’s focaccia to a banana split. In other words, he broke one of the podcast’s few rules, an arbitrary method of limitation. Spall does this for two reasons: first, because who gives a shit about the “rules” of a podcast, and also because, as Spall explains, he was once overweight and has since changed his lifestyle to better accommodate his health, and so his visit to the dream restaurants includes all the foods he loves that he must consume in moderation. Here he can truly indulge, and besides, how can you limit what you love?

This is the deceptively easy allure of Off Menu, why I return to it time and time again in moments of doubt or boredom or joy. It is just a podcast about the food people like to eat. These are not necessarily foodies so much as they are food enthusiasts. They like restaurants and snacks and treats and beverages, with preferences that feel loving, not picky. What guests choose doesn’t have to be––and often isn’t––expensive or fancy—often these are meals made up of creature comforts. The guests don’t have to be particularly funny (do not let the phrase “comedian hosts” deter you). They have to be willing to share, describe, tell stories. We learn what meals mean to them, whether they dine with family or friends, whether they want a leisurely long supper or a bite to go. 

Yotam Ottolenghi discusses the joys of street food—how unobserved, casual eating is often the most pleasurable. Fern Brady tells a story about a waitress who tells her about a mysterious kind of bread that won’t toast. Bob Mortimer divulges an insane practice that involves mixing mustard and ketchup with his index finger atop a movie theater hot dog not only for himself but also his son (whether this is true—which I suspect it is—or not, it is too funny to be denied). Rafe Spall, Timothy’s son, provides such a delightfully deranged series of foods—breaking the rules of the podcast by “ordering for the table”—and lays the groundwork for his father’s later masterpiece episode.

I have affection, of course, for the Grub Street Diet and restaurant reviews and deep dives into food trends. I have allowed myself to be influenced. I have had more espresso martinis than I care to admit. I have made wholly ironic plans to go to Bad Roman. But none of these really remind me why I love food the way listening to Off Menu does. So un-zeitgeisty, so un-trendy, so often funny in the way that spilling on yourself at dinner is. I come away with no kitchen hacks, no dieting tips, no restaurants to add to an ever-growing Google doc. I just think about food, which I love, and eating, which is even better! Imagine me going to bat for a podcast hosted by two male comedians. It must be that special.

🌭🍦🍔 what is your dream restaurant??? tell us in the comments……. 🍔🍦🌭

1. Let it be known though that I hold a candle for Spilled Milk! And yes I know about the Jessie Ware podcast, I haven’t been able to get into it yet.

2. I understand that this being a British podcast might be a huge undertaking to some. It is my cross to bear that I consider myself an anglophile, trained and radicalized, so to speak, on Tumblr and then set forth into the world to make recommendations like this. — FH