Comedian & Carb Icon Tom Papa On Bread, Boundaries & Being Human

0:00Today on Snacks, we are hanging out with someone who is a definite triple threat. He's a comedian, he's an accidental philosopher, and my favorite part, he's actually a baker. Tom Papa's here and he is a self-proclaimed bread aficionado, but he's going to give us a little bit of a slice of his life. What he proves is that life is better when the little dough is involved. We'll be right back after this. Are you hosting this holiday or maybe you just want to bring a dish to someone's house that's definitely going to steal the show? Well, the Delish app presented by DoorDash has you covered. From crowd-pleasing mains to classics with a twist, you're definitely going to find a recipe that everyone will love without the stress.

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0:54This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. I have to start, as I generally do, when I find out that someone's from New Jersey. So you were born in Passaic. Yes, I was born in Passaic. But where were you raised?

1:31I was raised in Bergen County, up in Park Ridge, Montville. I know where it is. Wilcoff Lake. I don't want to make this a Jersey podcast, but I will say that if you're from Bergen County, you only know Bergen County. And if you're from anywhere other than Bergen County, you don't know anything about Bergen County. I feel like all I do is get lost there. I'm from Essex County. Essex County, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but Bergen to me is just like, you can't go there on Sundays. Yeah, it was weird. What are you? Yeah, you couldn't shop up there. No, and then on Saturdays, you're just stuck in traffic. Yeah, on Route 4.

2:03Yes. Yeah, no, it's definitely, my family was from Clifton. Oh, yeah, that's very close to me. Like my grandparents and all that. And then my parents raised us up there in Bergen. It is funny, like we do, in Jersey, it's one of the only places where you quantify it by county. A hundred percent. Yeah. Well, and also, like, I do feel like the cultures are very different. What was your eating life like? I think all of... There's definitely a north-south thing going on. Yeah, it's called the Mason-Dixon line. Yeah, it's pretty... It's there. Exactly. It's right down the middle. And the... I think north...

2:43You're the same as we were up there. It's big family dinners, Italian-American. and every Sunday driving from Wilcoff Lake to Clifton. Clifton to see your grandparents. Yeah, seeing your grandparents. Did you have a good food house? Like, did you have a good snack house? I feel like this is how you define your life, I feel like, based on how your parents kept your house stocked. Yeah, we were strong with our snacks, definitely. There was definitely, you know, depending on the year, things kind of rolled in and rolled out. But there was a big Twinkie run. Oh. There was. You had a cool house. But then those kind of like.

3:20Yeah. It was just emerging that sugar wasn't great for you. Got it. So we started off strong. We started with like Lucky Charms. And Count Chocula. And Captain Crunch. And then as we started to get a little older. Then everyone was like. What are you feeding this to your kids for? And then it went. Then the most decadent. Then we were like Raisin Bran. Then the most decadent we would get would be honeycomb, which was kind of like in between a healthy and a bad. Yeah, it's one of those like kind of it didn't get the same kind of rep as like the others. Yeah, for some reason. Yeah, like Honey Nut Cheerios, which are like, it's coated in sugar.

4:02Yeah, but it says honey on it. It says honey. Yeah, exactly. And there's a little nice bee on it. Yeah, it's a bee. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It can't be bad for you. It's nature. Yeah, it was like that early marketing. Yes. You didn't learn that either. Yes. But we had a pretty good snack game. It went from Twinkies and it's devil dogs were a staple for a long time. I have to be honest with you. You are literally the first person I think I've ever spoken to in my life whose family kept Twinkies like as just like a regular snack. Like that wasn't like a special, special, special treat. You know what, like Christmas?

4:37Here's your Twinkies, everybody. Say no left Twinkies. I know, but I'm like, it's like a super, like, this is a super special treat. Like, I. Well, they came in a box. Yeah. So there was a lot of them. There were a lot. Yeah. And, you know, we were growing. I guess I, no, I just, I mean, I'm grateful to your family. But like I said, like, this didn't last. Right. You know what I mean? They realized. Yeah. Like, it kind of, they learned and then they went away. But the one who stayed, the snack that stayed the distance, that went the distance was Pop-Tarts. Oh, wow. Those didn't get shunned when sugar became bad.

5:15For some reason, Pop-Tarts stayed in our cabinet. Pop-Tarts, to me, I feel like are, they span a lot of different types of households. The reason I started asking you about this is because I do believe that you either come from a house of yes when it comes to food or a house of no. Right. Don't you? Do you agree with that? Yeah, that's a good way to put it. We were definitely a house of yes. Yeah. And do you think that established you as a dad who said yes or inverse? Yeah, I definitely said yes. What kind of stuff did you have in your house when your kids were growing up? Oh, man. Again, Pop-Tarts still around.

5:57Wow. Going the distance. There might be Pop-Tarts in my pantry right now. What's your flavor? I like the blueberry frosted. Huh. Okay. Why are you judging me? I'm just, generally I don't have judgment, but I've never heard anybody say blueberry's their favorite. What's your favorite? I like a strawberry. Yeah. Frosted? I like a classic strawberry frosted. Yeah. Those are strong. I'm not into like the chocolate. What about the s'mores when they came out with that one? You know, I'm kind of a little bit like about the new flavor stuff. Brown sugar? I love a brown sugar. That one's good. I love a raspberry, too.

6:28It was just like, or like one of the other berry. Not the blueberry, though. Blueberry. Blueberry frosted. I mean, that's. How does a frosted thing become a breakfast food is the thing I don't understand. I guess when you, I guess when parents want to express that they really love their children. That's what it is. Right? That is what it is. That's why my parents didn't love me. Yeah. Yeah, the borderline things when I, as a parent, my kids are in their 20s now. Right. And we would have Pop-Tarts, Eggos. It's not really junk food, but it's not really a great food. No, but I could see that. To me, I mean, I don't know if you have the same problem, but I have three kids and it's like getting my children to eat breakfast at all is a challenge.

7:13Right. Right. And so I guess that's sort of it, too, where it's like you have to frost it or like put it on a put it in a toaster. Solid product, though. Solid product. That thing toasts up and that butter melts in those little squares. 100%. That is pretty solid breakfast food. Also underrated. Sorry, I'm just going to take it there. Thomas's English muffins. Excuse me. And by the way, I'm not being paid by Thomas's. No, Thomas is solid. And I, you know, I bake bread all the time. So there's always homemade bread around. But I've been traveling on the road on tour a lot. So the thing that I get to bridge the gap is Thomas's English muffins.

7:50And I noticed that my wife didn't realize they weren't in the regular bread spot. Yes. So before I left with my wheelie bag yesterday, I moved the Thomas's to the bread cutting board just so she would know, hey, they're in the house. They're here. Yeah, they're here. Please make sure they take care of them. Butter or peanut butter? Butter. Yeah. But will you go peanut butter ever? I won't because I'm now at the age and I was just having this conversation with another guest, Tony Shalhoub, about how we are now. I now have to think about how food reacts to me. And peanut butter is one of those things where I'm just like, I shouldn't have eaten that peanut butter before.

8:30You know what does that to me is donuts. Ugh. I mean, I haven't eaten a donut in decades. I know. God bless. Man, every once in a while I'll be like, you know, they'll show up somewhere. You know, these snack foods are very sneaky. They have a life of their own. And nobody asked them to come. And all of a sudden they're there. But you're on the road seeing this kind of stuff all the time. That must be very overwhelming. Like, ow, you're like, that looks like a good donut shop. Like, I need to try that. I won't roll in on my own. Like, someone's got to lead me. Yeah. I'm not just going donut on my own.

9:01Do you ask for stuff in your green room or your, you know. My green room is pretty boring. What's your rider? It's crudite. Like vegetables. So yeah, like celery, carrots, broccoli with a little hummus. Nice. Fruit. Okay. Mixed fruit. Okay. And then the real crazy thing is one bag of chips. What? Yeah. You could have anything you want. I know, but I have to be like... You could have a room full of blueberry frosted Pop-Tarts. I could. But you don't. But I want to do good shows. Yeah, I guess that's it. And I want to be able to make the next one. Yeah, you don't want a sugar crash too. When you're on tour, you've got to really be...it's almost like you're an athlete.

9:38Yeah. You have, you know, there's two ways to go. Either you go really decadent. I have comedian friends who live on nothing but drinking and pizza and whatever late at night and all that kind of stuff. But I'm not 20 anymore. And so I go pretty healthy when I'm on the road. I eat more snacks and more stuff at home than I do on the road. It's interesting because I never thought about that as a like, really, it's a performance. Like it's a stamina thing. you know that you need like you because i would think of it as like late nights when i've got late nights or whatever working i'm like i gotta like keep myself up as so it's like red bull is it sugar is it caffeine it's whatever but you have to approach it like you're running a marathon yeah completely it's you really have to treat it you have to hydrate you have to exercise you have to like really keep it going because you're going city to city and you have to be you know go up there and for an hour and a half in front of this theater filled with people you've got to be on your game, you know, so yeah.

10:38I guess the thing I get excited about when I go to different cities, and I imagine there must be some of this, is like the new types of food places you could in theory experience, right? Yes. Do you do a little pre-research? Yeah, my tour manager's great about here's our hotel, coffee shops are here, there's good spots here, are we bringing in dinner, you know, that kind of thing, or if we have more time for there for two nights. Yeah. You can actually go see people. Yeah. People have the impression that and my friends, like if I come to town, they'll be like, you're coming to Austin. Yeah. Oh, you want to have dinner first?

11:17And then we'll do that. And you go. I'm like, I'm working. I'm working. I'm going to meditate at four, shower at five, be on stage at seven. Yeah. And yeah, they always picture it being like a lot more decadent than it is. But speaking of Austin, Donut Town. That is a donut town. Yeah, that is a donut town. I didn't mean to interrupt, but go ahead. Yeah, I do visit bakeries. Dinners will be tough, but mornings, coffee, bake shops. My tour is called the Grateful Bread Tour. It's the greatest name of a tour ever. It's the greatest. How many bits about food do you have in there? I don't have a lot of bits about food.

11:53People just know me from baking bread on social and stuff. Someone actually complained on social that I didn't talk enough about bread. I'm like, I got jokes to tell. But bread's not that funny. I know. But in the morning, I'll get coffee. And a lot of times, because it's called the Grateful Bread Tour, bakeries will show up with bread backstage. And they'll invite me to their bakeries the next day. So, like, I was just in Monterey on Saturday and woke up and went to this Astra bakery. And they bring you in the back. And they give you coffee. And they let you shave dough with the people. and you look at the flour that they use and completely immerse myself in these bakeries when I'm on tour.

12:39Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's a treat. That is a real treat. Also, so incredible, too, that you get to try. By the way, I'm going to say this one thing because I know he'll be listening, that my husband is a fan of yours. And when he hears that you're going around the country going to different bakeries, he's going to be very jealous and excited for you. Yeah, it's really a treat. I mean, it really is nice. I mean, it's a little weird. Like someone gave me this giant loaf of bread in San Francisco. Do you get nervous? No, I don't get nervous. No, it's funny. Sorry. I don't know why I went right there.

13:13No, my wife goes there, too. Yeah. My wife's like, you don't eat baked goods that strangers just hand you at the book signing. Yeah. And I'm like, and I tell her I don't. But I eat all of it. You have to. I mean, how evil can you? It would be rude. Yeah. Who's going to? Yeah. You can't say no. If a guy gives it to me, I'm a little. But a woman. If he's a baker, I'll trust all bakers. Do you say, show me your credentials? If it's just a woman who's just coming up with something she made in her kitchen, I'll eat it. If a guy comes up and he's like, I made this in my kitchen. I'm not 100 % sure that I agree with your logic.

13:52However, I. Which part of it? Well, the woman. Trusting the woman? The woman out of her house. is the part. And I'm also like, I'm trying to figure out how I would be able to identify someone who is like a man who was just baking on the back of his house versus a man who's like a professional baker. Like does he become fully suited in the baking outfit for you to, or do you ask him to show? Well, you can kind of tell when people show up and you can tell if they have a love of baking. You can tell, right? Like it's well done. They want to talk about flour. There's like, they're into it. Like for that guy to all of a sudden be evil would be weird.

14:29Yeah, that would be weird. But if they just show up with like a tray of brownies and they didn't, with no explanation and just some loose tinfoil. I feel like we're spitballing a movie. Like I feel like this, I feel like you need to fast track something here with Netflix. Yeah. And like get something on the docket. So I want to come back to your love of bread because where did this come from and how did it start? I started baking, I cooked all the time. Yeah. You know, I was always a cook, but I was never really a baker. Right. It just seemed too precise. Yeah. Then I was writing on a TV show.

14:59Which one? It was called Red Oaks on Amazon. And one of the fellow writers told me about Sourdough Starter. And I'd never heard about it. And he's like, you have this flour and water and yeast just like goes in and it becomes this living bacteria. And you have to feed it. And he told me this whole science fiction story of what natural yeast was. So I told my family at dinner about it. and my daughter was probably 12 or 13 at the time, she got a starter started for me and gave it to me on Christmas. She like hid it and did the whole thing. And if you don't know, it's like you put flour and water out in a bowl and the yeast that's just around us goes into the bowl and eats it.

15:43It's wild to see it live, right? Yeah, it's really amazing. That's how the first bread was made. Everybody should start, should have us, like just to see. Yeah, just to do it, just as an experiment. It's really cool. 100%. So anyway, I baked a loaf of bread off of it. And I just got hooked. It was this natural, perfect symbiosis of baking and cooking. You know, I could still be sloppy. Yeah, and be more of my cooking self. Yeah, but it was baking and some precision to it. And I just fell in love with it. I just the smell of it, the baking of it, the sharing of it, all of it, it just exploded. And And I just started baking at a feverish pace.

16:26And that was like 12 years ago. Wild. And I just haven't stopped. It is one of those things. And actually, someone said this on a previous podcast said it's the kind of thing, too, that you'll never perfect. And so it's sort of like, and every single time you do it, you could do it the exact same way and it'll still turn out differently. Yeah. Which is my experience with, I don't, I bake some bread, but I bake just in general. And I do feel like it is the kind of thing where you're like, I just did this the exact same way yesterday. Yeah. No, the environment, the heat, the cold, the humidity. Yeah, all of that stuff.

17:02I do liken it to comedy in that, you know, I've been a comedian for a very long time and I'm really good at it. But things go wrong. It's humbling. It's yeah. And baking is the same way. There's no control. Yeah. Which is great because you're constantly learning. It's kind of it makes the activity really alive. It's artistic more than scientific. Yeah. And yeah, you don't really you get really good. Like I make very consistent loaves of bread. But then when you're like, let me try this flour, let me try something a little different or adding something to it. And it changes everything. And you just have to be willing to fail.

17:42Yeah. Where do you. Oh, sorry. Which is which is, you know, a good way to kind of like learn new things. Where do you stand on Taylor Swift's Funfetti sourdough? You know, anything she does is great. So I love that she's shining a light on bread. It's so funny. She posted something about her giving, I think maybe Selena Gomez, like a gift. Yeah. And like her gifting was so, like my bags, like I give bread to a lot of people. And it comes in just a brown paper bag. Yeah. You know? And hers was... Did I miss the bread here? I'm sorry. I told you I was on tour. I'll come back. Okay. I'll come back.

18:25Welcome to LA. We'll stop by for some bread. All right. Yeah. Sorry, God. But hers was like this beautiful basket and had bread and olive oil and all. It was like, yeah. Bless her heart. Yeah, bless her heart. She's just got time. You know what I mean? Well, that's the thing that I have to, there is a selfish part of me that's like, you know, all right, she says she's into bread. Yeah. But she works really hard, so she won't be in it for long. Like a lot of people came in during COVID and were like, oh, I do bread now. And it's all these stars on TV shows. And they're like, I do bread now. And it's like, give it a couple weeks.

19:06Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Also, like, not to be whatever, but I was got into bread in COVID as as people do. And it was sourdough and it was challah. I was doing a lot of both those things. And my family was like eating a loaf of bread every afternoon at like 3 p.m. And like, that's not it's not good for you. It's not sustainable. It's like and it was so we packed on a lot of bread. I don't know what to say. Sourdough is good for you. It's good for you, but, like, no one should be eating a sourdough loaf a day. Not a loaf. No, that's. Like, a loaf. Yeah, that's a little excessive.

19:43But, and, like. But it does break down its own sugars. I mean, I don't need an excuse to get back into it, honestly. I'm, like, this close. Did you have to stop it? I legitimately did. It was, like, a hardcore addiction. Yes. But also, I have to tell you, like, the freeing thing of, like, no control. Like, I sort of started to have the inverse reaction of, like, this is annoying. Like, this was good yesterday and it's bad today. And what did I do wrong? I don't even know. And I don't like that. I don't like feeling out of control. You like control. Well, I just like to know that if I'm going to spend time to do a thing, it's going to turn out right.

20:19I will say at Delish, we're very much about like don't sweat the perfection. Yeah. Because we don't want people to feel intimidated about getting into the kitchen. Sure. But I am like, I just spent a lot of time and money. I know. And my starter. I know. And you can you can mess up. It's a two and a half, three day process. Yes. And you can mess up the last step of it. Yes. And the whole thing is gone. And you're like, this whole thing turned to crap. Yeah. It's really annoying. But man, the smell of fresh bread just going through your home. It's the greatest. It's just so great. So now and you have a line with Nambé that's all bread related products.

20:57Yeah. How did that come to be? I my cousin's daughter worked at Nambe and they're just this great under Port Marion which is like this company they have a lot of different houseware lines and Nambe is like the cool art deco Acacia wood based beautiful stuff beautiful so just through conversation the guy that runs it found out that she was related to me and he was a big fan of my comedy and knew that I was a bread baker so he asked would there be any interest in doing a collab together and developing bread products that is wild i was like yeah that'd be awesome i said but you know i really want it to be practical you know i collect bread items and stuff as i'm good but it's all i want them to be useful they're like really cool and beautiful but they they have to be okay and be useful and uh We spent about a year.

21:51They would design and present them and bench scrapers and measuring things and cutting boards and even like the feel of the spatula. And it would be like, no, this is too fat. It's not going to work. And they would go back. We went back and forth for like a year. And they just came out. And they're beautiful. That's amazing. But they're practical. It's funny to hear you so serious about this. I know. I keep waiting for you to have a funny story. You find time about it. I keep waiting. I get very sincere when I talk about bread. I really appreciate that. But they are really just these, and it's not just for bread, it's like flour containers and cutting boards and stuff like that.

22:32And they just look like, and everybody that sees it just goes, those are beautiful. Like they can't believe aesthetically. And all I'm thinking is, yeah, but if you hold that spatula, you can take the bread out of the Dutch oven without burning yourself and it's a perfect weight. I mean. So it took us a year going back and forth. And they just released. And it's really cool. I'm going to do signings. They're going to be in Williams-Sonoma and Wayfair and all these places. And yeah, who knew? I'm a comedian. But Brett has taken on. I got recognized on American Airlines. I was on a flight. And the flight attendant came up.

23:11And he's like, hey, Tom. And I was like, oh, he knows me as a comedian. And he said, I just want to apologize. The Brett on this flight is awful. You're like, I know. You're like, I've been on American before. I know what you're saying. Look like croissants. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're like, thanks. Yeah. But it's really cool. The one piece that I really love the most, we made these wooden measuring spoons. So like for the measurements that I always use, which are two tablespoons, one tablespoon, one teaspoon. But they're all wood. They look like little pipes. Oh, my gosh. So beautiful. There's something so satisfying about pouring salt into this.

23:50Yeah, it really is. It's so nice. It's really pretty great. I really was hoping that guy was like, hello, Tom, I baked you a loaf of bread. I wanted that your flight attendant to have pulled a bread loaf out of something. I don't know if I'd eat that one. I don't know. I wouldn't suggest you to eat that. Why does he just have it on the plane? I know. He's just waiting for it. Just hopefully Tom Papa was going to be on this flight. Yeah, creepy.

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24:41All right. I, well, first of all, I have a first for Snacks podcast, and I didn't even tell Sarita, but she can see it on the floor, I bet, which is, so I went to, you can't. Okay, I went to Target this weekend. Good. And Target's where you get weird Oreo flavors. Just so you know, they have a lot of exclusives. Oh, I know. And they had apple pie a la mode Oreos. Oh, man, I thought those were just going to be the vanilla ones. No, but I think we need to open them and try them. Apple pie a la mode. I know, which I was like, a la mode. It feels like maybe a bridge too far. Yeah, with the ice cream.