Make Me Smart With Kai And Molly

Hey Smarties! We’re on a break for the holidays and revisiting some of our top episodes from 2023. We can’t do this show without you, and we still need your support. If you can, donate today to keep independent journalism going strong into 2024 and beyond. Give now to support “Make Me Smart.” Thank you so much for your generosity. Happy holidays and we’ll see you in the new year! What can Jell-O tell us about the United States during the Gilded Age? What about Spam during World War II? According to Anna Zeide, food historian and author of the new book “US History in 15 Foods,” they can tell us a lot about the evolution of American values, government — and of course, the American economy. “We all have to eat every day, and nothing else we do can really happen without food. And yet, at the same time, I think because of how mundane it becomes in its dailiness, it recedes to the back of our, kind of, concentrated thought. And we don’t spend all that much time thinking about how central i