374: Dan Pashman

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. After that experience, I cut that recipe from the book and I made a very important decision that guided me throughout the process, which was I am not going to include any tomato sauce recipes in this cookbook unless they are either really different from anything I've had before or incredibly easy.

0:52This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbart.

0:59Today on the show, I welcome in Dan Pashman. Dan's the host of The Sporkful and author of a great new book, Anything's Pastable. Now, this book was inspired by Dan's creation of a pasta shape, and really, it's a tribute to pasta cookery around the world. Dan is such a great talker, and I so enjoy catching up with him. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:29Hey, Dan Pashman, welcome to This Is Taste. What is up, buddy? Hey, Matt. Great to talk to you. It's great to talk to you and have you back on the show. And first off, way to capture the drama of a cover cookbook photo shoot. You have aired or will be airing a four-part series that details anything's possible, your fantastic new book and I have made five five cookbooks myself so I understand the drama you captured it so well I appreciate it yeah I mean I I I wanted so so we're doing this multi-part series on the sporkful that tells the behind the scenes story of the making of my cookbook and yeah I I was when I first embarked on the project I a lot of friends would say to me like how do you actually come up with the recipes like what's the actual process of making a cookbook even people who bought a lot of cookbooks didn't know.

2:19And I thought it would be cool to really kind of like get into all the drama and the angst and the ups and downs and the triumphs and tragedies. And so I recorded hours and hours and hours of audio to put together this four-part podcast series. And I was rolling for a lot of the photo shoot and there was definitely, as you know, Matt, picking the cover is a big decision. A lot of people have opinions about it, including my family. Yeah. And it was fun to capture that on tape. And this Anything's Pasta-able book is full damn passion. And I mean this. I'm going to say some things about the book real quick.

2:56You have done something that is very hard, which is do a pasta book or a general concept book and make it new and fresh and interesting. And you've really done a cool job of not just weaving in cool recipes from a number of contributors and yourself, but also just really smart editorial decisions, really readable. I love this book. Thank you. I mean, that means a lot coming from you because I know that you know your way around a cookbook. Since I was a kid, I've always kind of been allergic to doing whatever everyone else is doing. You know, when we had to pick a language to study in fifth grade, it was the choices in my public school were French and Spanish.

3:32And then I filled out the form and I picked Spanish and I got into school the next day and all the kids are talking. What are you taking? What are you taking? And everyone else was taking Spanish. So I crossed out Spanish and took French, which was a terrible mistake. and I really regret it. But in other respects, my instinct to go against the grain has served me well. And I just felt like the world doesn't need another cookbook of the same 25 to 50 pasta recipes. You don't need another lasagna recipe. You don't need another marinara recipe. I'm not against those dishes. They're delicious. But I just didn't think that I had anything to add on that front.

4:07But I feel like there's so much more that people can and should be putting on their pasta beyond the basic five or ten pasta sauces that tend to dominate. And so that was really, I kind of set out with that goal of like, how can I broaden this base and get as creative as possible? I mean, your pasta fairy godmother, Evan Kleinman, a fellow podcast host and radio host, calls you or your ethic to Dan Pashman weirdness. And I think she's articulated a point of view that I respect. And what was she talking about when you guys were talking about in the early days of this book that there needed to be some Dan Pashman weirdness going on?

4:47Well, yeah, because I was sort of saying to her, I want to employ other cuisines. I mean, that's a big part of this cookbook. It's not, I wouldn't call it Italian. Certainly, obviously, it's pasta and there are some Italian dishes in it. But we're doing kimchi carbonara. We're taking the South Asian spiced meat dish, kima, and turning it into kima bolognese. To me, like sort of anytime you're starting with a ground meat dish, and of course there are amazing ground meat dishes in cuisines all over the world, that lends itself to a meat sauce. But why do we have to just make a bolognese over and over again?

5:14We're doing quima bolognese. And so things like that or shakshuka and shells, which is something I do. I make a lot of shakshuka at my house. Throw pasta in there. And there's a million other examples like that of using ingredients from other cuisines. cacio e pepe with chili crisp and optional Sichuan peppercorns. Yeah, and I think you've got like La Bish Cascatelli, which is the pasta shape you invented. We'll talk about that. You've got the Samjong Aguiolio, which I think is really, I want to try it. I'm skeptical, but I'm open-minded about it. But I do think, just to your point, that pasta has been put in such a narrow box in the publishing world.

5:54And what you've done here is have an open mind and open hearted take on expanding the possibilities to quote your title. And you've done such a cool job with it because it really is cookable cuisine. Yeah. And I mean, look, I'm not a trained chef. And before I wrote this cookbook, I had never developed a single recipe in my life. So first off, I hired I worked with an incredibly talented team of recipe developers and collaborators for the book. But also, I started off in the process, to be honest, kind of having a certain amount of imposter syndrome, feeling like, who's going to want my cookbook?

6:30Why should anyone listen to me? And by the end of the process, I came to see my lack of professional culinary training as a strength and not as a weakness, because I think that it helped me to put myself in the shoes of the reader, because I'm not a pro, but I'm an avid home cook. And so I really put a lot of thought and effort into the way that the recipes were written to try to make them as clear as possible, to not use jargon, to not assume that the readers know things they might not know. Because I felt like if something comes in from a recipe developer and it's confusing to me, it's probably going to be confusing to readers.

7:05So I wanted the book to be fun. I wanted it to feel like this is going to broaden your horizons. You're going to cook pasta dishes you've never dreamed of before. but it's going to be written in a way that you're going to be able to, you're going to have success. It's not going to be confusing and you're going to have great results. Absolutely. Let's talk about your pasta sauce decision tree. Because I think this is a really smart editorial tactic because you, of course, have all these global, you know, pantries and pallets that are really touched upon. But then you get into some of the nuts and bolts of actual cooking with pasta and you have made this decision that we obviously cook with pasta sauces and jars, but you know what?

7:43We don't love them. Most of them are kind of not great, but there's ways to make them better. And I think a lot of recipe developers have tried to do this, but you've done it with a flow chart, man. God bless a good flow chart. Nice work there. So what are you trying to fix and what is the ultimate outcome? Well, I actually, I don't know that I think of it as fixing. I mean, I think that there have been in recent years, the introduction of some really great jarred sauces. I mean, jarred sauce, maybe, 10 or 20 years ago was a bit of a wasteland. But I think now there are some really great ones.

8:16But my feeling was like, so early on in my cookbook process, I tested a recipe for a sirloin ragu. It was basically an upscale tomato-based meat sauce. And it took close to two hours. There was a lot of simmering and cooking down. And it was very good, but it didn't taste that different. It tasted like a slightly better version of something that I'd eaten a lot of times before. After that experience, I cut that recipe from the book and I made a very important decision that guided me throughout the process, which was I am not going to include any tomato sauce recipes in this cookbook unless they are either really different from anything I've had before or incredibly easy.

8:57And the incredibly easy section is just start with jarred tomato sauces. Buy a really good one and use this decision tree. Do you want it spicier? Well, what kind of spice do you want a sweet spice do you want a peppery spice do you want a savory spice you know follow the follow the flow chart and this will tell you things you can add do you want to make it you want to make the jar more substantial here's a vegetarian way to make to make it more hearty here's a meaty way here's here are ways to add texture here are ways to add to incorporate different cuisines or make it more savory make it indian for example that's like one of the like like little boxes you can go down which i think is so genius right add a little bit of cream to it add a little bit of texture make it lighter i mean it's add some like liquid i I mean, it's really, really sharp.

9:37Thank you. And I think there's probably like 15 or so different kind of destination points in that one flow chart of different types of tomato sauces you can end up with just by buying a jar of sauce. And sometimes it's just as simple as adding a couple of tablespoons of something. Sometimes it could be like, OK, roast an eggplant and then scoop out the insides and mix it with your tomato sauce. And now you just sort of made this jar of sauce much heartier. And so I love that part of the book. and testing it was a lot of fun and I think it's certainly one of the highlights. This journey started with you inventing a pasta shape, which I'm gonna link to in the show notes along with your cookbook journey.

10:14You've done a four-part series or multi-part series on creating the cascatelli, which is waterfalls in Italian and really a cool story. And so you went to like North Dakota, State University's pasta lab. You created this pasta shape. It went even to the world of bonza, which is amazing. It became a gluten-free pasta. But let me ask you, how the hell is it going with this pasta shape? I mean, is it like hitting your Chase account? Are you hitting getting some residuals these days, Dan? Yeah, I mean, the pasta shape is going better than I possibly could have dreamed. I mean, Cascatelli is in stores all over the place.

10:49The original version is made by Svelini, based in upstate New York. They're in a lot of stores around the country. You can also order it online from their website, Svelini.com. And Bonza makes a version, as you say. and it's you know it's it's been incredibly exciting i still like sometimes i'll go into a store and see it there and i'll buy it just because i'm like i'm just still excited i'm like oh my god my shape's here i'm gonna buy it i can get it for free but i'm gonna buy it anyway we all done that we've all done that with our books and right for sure it's just it's just fun um so yeah i mean you know it's been incredibly exciting and um it's also just like cool that i can share with my family you know i have kids who and when i started on the cascatelli journey they were seven and five they're now 13 and 11 and you know most of the time you have a success in your job you know your kids don't really care uh but the inventing a new pasta shape was something they got excited about and like their friend they'd see their friends on the school bus their friends would say i tried your dad's pasta shape um so that's been like super exciting you know what i know you can't pick favorites but you know i think you're 11 year old i mean get her a show hilarious what is her name and give her some credit because i think emily my younger one i mean they're both you know and it's been they both are they're both in the cascatelli podcast series and then they're both in this new cookbook series about the making of anything possible you really hear them growing up and you know the older one is sort of in like pre-teen early teen phase of just sort of like whatever i say she's going to shoot it down in a very snappy way the younger one uh i mean she is yeah she's hilarious and she um funny right i mean they both did dish it out they both get tired of me.

12:27I mean, one of my favorite moments is, you know, I talk about this dish called pasta pizza with the younger one, Emily. And I say, so I have this idea for this thing called pasta pizza. She goes, oh, so it's like a pizza, but the crust is pasta. And I'm like, yeah. Do you want to know more about it? She goes, no, because I know if I ask you, you're just going to go on for like an hour. So I'd rather just avoid that. No, it's really good. Well-timed. I mean, really funny. And by the way, that pasta pizza is super good. And I like the way that you unpack how you discovered it and developed it. I think it's a really, really smart idea.

13:00And obviously, you're embracing the kind of cookability of pasta. Everyone loves pasta in restaurants, but also we love making it at home because it really is a 30 minute meal in most cases. For sure. It's super easy. And also to me, and this was important to me with Cascatelli too, and it's important with this new cookbook, Anything's Pastable, that I I just feel like pasta should be fun. Pasta is fun. It's a comfort food. Like, yes, there are high-end dishes. And yes, I think there are some very thoughtful dishes in this cookbook and recipes and ingredients. But at the end of the day, I think that eating pasta should always tap a little bit into your inner kid.

13:39It is a comfort food. And I wanted the book to be fun. And I wanted the dishes in here to feel fun. You know what's not fun, Dan? And I'm going to be honest, and people are going to not be liking this statement, but you know what's not fun? Making fucking fresh pasta. That is not fun. No, and that's the two things that are not in this book. You agree with me, I assume? Yes. I did it once in home ec class. I brought freshman year of high school with my home ec teacher, Mrs. Flaker. Yes, that was her name. And we made fresh pasta, and it was very delicious, and I never did it again. um i i it's like making it's like making marinara sauce from scratch i don't know why you would do it you can buy for good fresh pasta in the grocery store or and dried pasta is just as good and dried pasta is really good and right so and really yeah i don't know there is a part of me matt that kind of like looks forward to the day when my kids are out of the house and i have like a cold winter day i have all day on a saturday for a project and i i'm just gonna like put on some music and pour myself a drink and have a relaxing day in the kitchen.

14:45And then sure, maybe I'll make some fresh pasta because I want to do something that takes a very long time and produces minimal results. I mean, bro, I'm watching, I'm watching process, bro. I'm watching Lioness. I'm watching Tyler Sheridan TV. Like I'm not making project cooking and I'm, I'm really kidding. Cause I know a lot of our listeners do that stuff to decompress and have different jobs because we're obviously very privileged to be part of this as our world. and we get to do food stuff for our day jobs. If you enjoy the process, then have fun. I'm not saying, if it makes you happy, then do it.

15:18I'm just saying that it's not worth it to me and I think it's not worth it to a lot of other folks and I think that a lot of books that just are going on and on about making fresh pasta and spending three hours making marinara sauce are kind of like awfully aspirational. It is and I think to your point, there's wonderful products, both fresh and dry available and you can definitely work on the sauces in that 30 to 45 minute window, which is not a short amount of time. And I just think you honestly aren't getting a better product by doing your own gnocchis. I mean, I'm just being honest. But we don't need to troll anymore on the fresh pasta game.

15:54I want to let you troll something else that you are very adamant about. Yeah, let's troll. And it's a pasta shape called spaghetti. I've heard of it. You, quote unquote, sucks in your opinion. and I would say, you know, explain yourself, sir. Not sure I agree. And also, aren't like wagon wheels worse? Because I feel wagon wheels to me is the worst pasta shape. Wagon wheels are worse. Okay, good. The wagon wheels are, it might be the worst shape. They were invented in, I believe in the 1930s by an Italian company called Benedetto Cavallieri and the eponymous founder, Mr. Cavallieri, he said, yes, I understand that the shape cooks unevenly, unevenly but that's part of its charm um and he was wrong with all due respect from one pasta shape inventor to another signore cavallieri um it cooks too unevenly i've bought benedetto cavallieri's own wagon wheels which cost like 15 for a pound um just to try them and they cooked more unevenly than cheap wagon wheels um i mean it's like eating pasta mixed with uncooked rice i guess they call that dente uh in some parts of the world well there's actually an italian term I think it's called al chiodo, which is like more than al dente.

17:09It's like similar to a nail that you would hammer with, which to me is not what I want my pasta to be. But yes, wagon wheels are worse. But spaghetti, look, a quality spaghetti cooked well can be delicious with just the right sauce, but it has very minimal uses. It does not hold most sauces very well. if the sauce has any kind of thickness or weight to it or any kind of pieces, it's going to be very difficult. We've all had the experience of eating a plate of spaghetti with marinara or some kind of bolognese or meat sauce, and you finish the pasta and half the sauce is still on the plate. That's not a feature.

17:46That's a bug. And, you know, it's also just like difficult to get a good bite on the fork. I mean, it's not very well engineered. You twirl a bite of spaghetti on the fork, and usually you're either going to get too much spaghetti on the fork or not enough. You're going to get danglers that are going to get all over your face. It's sloppy. It's sloppy. Look, spaghetti was one of the first pasta shapes invented, and I believe the first that was industrialized and mass-produced. So it's important in pasta history, and it has a lot of nostalgia and romanticism attached to it. But for the same reasons, it's also very primitive.

18:23It's a very primitive pasta shape, and I just think that we can do better. what about angel hair then i mean is angel hair part of it are they catching strays is angel hair catching strays in your in the statement of i don't i don't like angel hair because it's just it's very flimsy people say oh well when it's cooked right it's very good well i mean you know the window of optimal cooking time for angel hair is like three to four seconds long yeah completely so it's almost impossible to cook it right it's almost always going to be mushy and all clumped together. And so to me, it's just like, I like a pasta that's meaty and tooth-sinkable that I can stick my teeth into.

19:00And that was certainly one of the priorities when I was inventing cascatelli. And it's one of the priorities for me when I'm doing other pasta shapes. Let's dig into the quimbo-bolognese. I jumped at that recipe right away when I got the PDF of the book. And I know you talk about it on the episodes, and I was happy to hear that. But I think it's such a cool idea. And I'd like you to give us a little sense of that dish in particular, kind of how it was developed with your, you have many, I think four or five developers you worked with, maybe more, but how did that like kind of come to light and what is this dish?

19:29Yeah. So, so, you know, this one is one that I worked on with one of my recipe developers, Asha Loopy, who we nicknamed in the process, the saucy spicetress. Asha is on Instagram at from head to table. She's an incredibly talented recipe developer. She does stuff for Diaspora Co. She's also contributed to a lot of the top publications out there. She's got a great newsletter that I recommend people subscribe to. And, you know, she and I just like have very similar, we just like a lot of the same flavors. So like, you know, I explained to her, here's the concept of the book. I want to push beyond Italian food.

19:59She also used to work in Market Hall Foods in the Bay Area, which imports a lot of Italian goods. So she knows pasta, but she also has a very, you know, diverse palate. And so she was the one who was like, how about chemo bolognese? You know, she grew up eating chemo. She loves it. And it's very much like we're going to make kima it's you know ground meat indian spices um and we're gonna toss it with pasta and it but but it's kind of you know it's it's got it's got the spices of a traditional kima but it's also got dairy like a bolognese and so it's all and so it brings together a lot of the same flavors and then we do it with an egg pappardelle which is so good and then originally when she wrote the recipe she said it's optional if you want you can add yogurt so i tried that and i was like this is not going going to be optional this is mandatory i mean real ones know that adding a little bit of yogurt to pasta is like a real killer uh killer move i mean i i really love adding um a zero fat um yogurt it's not too heavy and cloying like sour cream and it adds that like mouthfeel and texture that i think like a lot of butter will do but it doesn't add that like kind of heaviness and obviously the extra calories so i just like i love that call i think you could add yogurt to a lot of different pastas i i think that's that's smart and and in the way that i think a lot of Italians will put a scoop of ricotta cheese on top of a pasta dish.

21:19Yes, yes, yes. You could instead do yogurt, and it will do a lot of the same work, but with a little bit more tang. Yep. Let's talk about pan grittato. I hope I pronounced that right. You make this very smart move of you have four or five recipes in the front of the book, and you're adding it to many of the dishes. And it's kind of this idea that we have seen in recipes, but for me hasn't been fully articulated as this kind of flexible way to add some great texture and additional flavor to bowls of pasta. So what is this? So first off, I'm a huge texture eater. Texture is a big part of why I gravitate towards certain foods.

21:57And so I knew going in that I wanted texture to be a big part of this book because in Italian pasta culture, they combine a lot of different textures in their pasta dishes. And certainly, as you know well, Matt, across Asian noodle and rice dishes, texture is a key component in so many different dishes. And I feel like somehow when the classic pasta dishes came to America, they didn't get that memo. I'm very fascinated with this concept that sensory scientists call dynamic contrast. And it's the idea of different textures coming together in the same bite. It's something that you might not know that term, but you gravitate towards dynamic contrast.

22:34It's the same reason why all the best candy bars have a sort of crispy exterior chocolate shell and then your teeth hit something gooey and then something chewy and then something crunchy and there's nougat and there's wafers and there's caramel and there's chocolate chips, whatever it is, as you bite through a candy bar, you experience the different textures. And I wanted bites of pasta to have that experience. And one of the best ways to do it is pan grittata, which are seasoned toasted breadcrumbs. Now, in Italy, they're typically going to do just like breadcrumbs, maybe a little garlic, parsley, oregano, some herbs.

23:06I wanted to expand the idea of what a pan grittato can be. So we did one that's corn nuts, a lime corn nut pan grittato. You smash up corn nuts and toast them in a pan with some lime zest. So smart to add lime. Like lime is not, you don't connect lime zest and pasta, but it's clearly essential in bringing acidity and adding it to pine nuts. It's just like such a smart move. For sure. And honestly, I had a tough time getting that one all the way to the pasta because I'd be eating it out of the bowl with a spoon. Yeah. But you sprinkle any one of these pan grittatos, seasoned toasted breadcrumbs over a pasta dish, and it adds this not only flavor, but crisp.

23:46It adds crisp to every single bite and completely takes the texture and the eating experience of a pasta dish to a whole other level. And, you know, these pan grittatos take five, maybe 10 minutes to make. You can freeze them and defrost them and sprinkle them on a pasta anytime. time. You should just always have them around. I mean, also just to say, you know, take away the pasta, add like a steamed broccoli, a steamed or boiled green bean, and you're adding pan grattato to a vegetable side and you've got like that really nice Italian style vegetable. 100%. But I know this is not a vegetable book, so you're not even going to talk about those.

24:24No, but in the pan grattato section, I do list like, oh, you can put this on these pasta dishes in the book, but you can also put it on green beans. You can also put it on this or that, because I wanted people to understand that these pan grattatos are very all-purpose. They're very useful. You can make a big batch and freeze them. One of them goes great on a Caesar salad. I do an everything bagel pan grattato. You can sprinkle that on buttered pasta, and it's like eating a buttered bagel. They're incredibly useful, and it's such a quick and easy way to make a huge difference in something you're cooking.

24:56This is a really smart book, Dan. Bravo to you and your team just for pulling it off. It's wonderful to hear about it. Let's talk a little bit about the sporkful because I want to get a sense. I mean, are you still like super into podcasting and radio content? Because I'm joking. I mean, we're in almost our 400th episode here, so we're obviously into it ourselves. But honestly, it's a really interesting time right now for this medium that we love so much and that our listeners love. And what is your take on like the future big F of podcasting in the food and drinks and lifestyle space? Yeah, I mean, you know, certainly there's been the podcasting boom has receded.

25:35There's been some shows that have been canceled. And sadly, a lot of really talented folks have lost their jobs. It's not the first time I've been through a phase like this. I mean, I started this work after getting laid off from six jobs in eight years, most of those in radio before the time of podcasting. I started this work in 2010, largely in response to that. So no one likes to go through these times. And my heart goes out to folks who've lost their jobs. You know, that being said, there were an awful lot of podcasts being created because it got hot and there was probably a bit of a bubble.

26:06I think that the idea of human beings connecting via the spoken word is about as old as time and it's not going to go anywhere. The distribution system may change, the business model may change, but the idea that human beings are going to be connecting this way won't change. and right now for the foreseeable future I think that podcasting is going to be the way that human beings connect through spoken word and so I think that as a concept it's going to continue to remain strong and there will be ups and downs like there are in any industry in any medium and so you know I think that we probably needed this this reset in our industry a little bit but I think that the other thing Matt as you know that people human beings have always done is connected over food So we've always connected by talking to each other and sharing stories, and we've always connected over food.