This Week On Good Food: Christmas Means KFC in Japan, Cooking Goose, Pig Ear Cheetos

Highlights from this week’s show:

1. Hank Shaw writes the award winning blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cookand his latest book is Duck Duck Goose. Shaw discusses the seasonality of geese and how it explains why we don’t eat geese more often.

2. Tracy Slater is an American writer living in Osaka. She describes the curious tradition that’s come about in Japan, where many people there eat KFC on Christmas Eve. We also hear from Kaori Sawada who worked at a KFC in Japan as a teenager.

3. Kwanzaa is a six-day celebration that was founded in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, an early proponent of Black Studies. Jessica Harris discusses some of the important tenets of Kwanzaa including a feast and its broader purpose as a time of cultural reaffirmation for the African American community.

4. Karen Schrock Simring is a science journalist. She gives us psychological insight that helps explain why some people can control the urge to eat, and others cannot. She details what she calls “the path to gluttony,” that sometimes can lead to food addiction.

5. Market Report:

Judy Babis, sous chef at Gjelina in Venice, describes the roasted root vegetable salad with lemon spiked yogurt and chili flakes currently on the menu at the restaurant.

6.Jonathan Gold is the Pulitzer Prize-winning food writer for the Los Angeles Times. This week he reviews The Church Key, a new restaurant in West Hollywood with executive chef Steven Fretz. Click here for his recommended dishes.