We chat with curator Samuel West about the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö, Sweden, where the tickets are vomit bags, the exhibits feature fermented shark, fruit bats, and root beer, and visitors walk away with a new understanding of what disgust really means. Plus, we try cocktail hour the French way; we learn how to build a better meatball in Belgium; and Dr. Aaron Carroll demystifies alcohol calories.

Questions in this Episode:

“My question is about quick breads. I have inconsistent results when I make things like banana bread and pumpkin bread. Sometimes they turn out great and other times they don’t seem to rise well and are still underdone. I can’t figure out if it is my oven, the pan or something I do when I make the recipe.”

“Could you recommend a book on the history of food and eating?”

“I have a question about cinnamon buns. I’ve been making them for 40 years, but after a while, I started seeing inconsistent results.”

“I recently made an Orange Blossom Cake using olive oil and then the following week made Meyer Lemon Cake that called for all butter. I liked the texture of the Orange Blossom Cake so much but wanted to keep some of the butter for flavor so I swapped out half the butter (½ cup) for 6 tbsp of olive oil after a bit of studying/hypothesizing. I also added ½ tsp more of baking powder since I figured I’d be getting less lift from half the butter not being there. My question is, am I doing this right? The Meyer Lemon Cake turned out even better than the Orange Blossom. Can I swap some of the olive oil out for some butter when I see oil cakes?”

“I called a few weeks ago about making my chocolate cheesecake with buttermilk and now I’m calling back to tell you how it turned out.”

“My neighbor raises and provides me with fresh organic inch-and-a-half pork chops. My question is to get it cooked thoroughly in the oven, do you recommend that I do the flash cooking first so they don’t dry out?”

This episode is sponsored by King Arthur Flour and Robinhood.