New Worlder

By: Nicholas Gill
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • The New Worlder podcast explores the world of food and travel in the Americas and beyond. Hosted by James Beard nominated writer Nicholas Gill and sociocultural anthropologist Juliana Duque, each episode features a long form interview with chefs, conservationists, scientists, farmers, writers, foragers, and more.
    Copyright Nicholas Gill
    Show more Show less
activate_primeday_promo_in_buybox_DT
Episodes
  • Episode #91: Richard McColl

    Episode #91: Richard McColl
    Jul 19 2024
    Richard McColl is a British Canadian journalist, podcaster and hotel owner based in Bogotá and Mompós, Colombia. I’ve known Richard for at least a decade. I first knew of him from his work as a fellow foreign correspondent covering subjects all around Latin America, writing for international publications. In 2013, we met in person when I was writing for a story about Mompós for The New York Times. It’s one of my favorite stories I ever written for The Times because Mompós is such a special place. It’s this stunning 500-year-old colonial city on an island in the Magdalena River that was once a major port but was then mostly forgotten as that part of the river stilted up and war cut it off from society. It’s a strange, kind of mystical place with so much history and so many stories and quirky characters. It’s a place that was a big inspiration for Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel Prize winning author and you can feel the imagery from his books everywhere there. Richard’s wife has family there and he was enchanted by it and ended up buying two of these colonial houses, which he turned into small hotels, La Casa Amarilla and San Rafael. We talk a lot about Mompós and its ghosts and how it’s much easier to reach than when I went there and had to take a 10-hour ride in a truck from Cartagena.

    While I was in Mompós he asked me if I wanted to be on a podcast he just launched, called Colombia Calling, where he interviews all kinds of subjects about Colombia, in English. This was in 2013, and it was probably one of the original podcasts anywhere in Latin America, and honestly, I hadn’t even listened to a podcast at that time. It’s still going and has now recorded more than 500 episodes. Juli was on a recent episode and they talk a lot about Colombian food and it’s a great listen.

    Richard also runs the Latin News Podcast and he recently started a small publishing company. They are books in English, about Colombia, and includes titles such as Better than Cocaine: Learning to grow coffee, and live, in Colombia, by the writer Barry Max Wills, and Richard has two books forthcoming, a general guide to politics, history and culture called Colombia at a Crossroads, and The Mompós Project, about his life in that incredible place and the stories he has gathered and witnessed. Anyway, it was great to catch up with Richard after all these years.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 18 mins
  • Episode #90: Pablo Díaz

    Episode #90: Pablo Díaz
    Jul 5 2024
    Pablo Díaz is the chef and owner of the restaurants Mercado 24 and Dora La Tostadora in Guatemala City, Guatemala. His restaurants have never been about tasting menus or getting rankings but serving good food using the best ingredients at fairly reasonable prices. He has been one of the driving forces in Guatemala’s modern culinary movement, helping small farmers and artisan fishermen connect with restaurants in the city in a fair way, while also changing the perception of diners of the quality of local ingredients.

    I first met Pablo in 2018 in Guate. It was my first time back in the country in years and it was just a quick stopover for a few days and it opened my eyes to how much was going on there at every level, from street food and markets to fine dining restaurants. I went with Diego Telles of the wonderful fine dining restaurant Flor de Lis on an intense whirlwind tour around the city and there was one very unlikely restaurant that stood out called Dora La Tostadora. It was a tostada shop, set in an old shoe store. I ended up writing about it for The New York Times and it was maybe one of my favorite restaurant stories I ever wrote there.

    There were just a couple of sidewalk seats and a sort of thrown together interior. “Inside the former shoe store are just a few wooden tables and a two-stool counter that’s lined with a dozen or so bottles of different hot sauces,” I wrote. “The décor has a haphazard, thrown-together feel: Christmas lights, a poster of the ruins of Tikal on the wall, a cartoon cutout of Dora the Explorer, the tiny restaurant’s namesake.”

    The restaurant began as a pop-up months before while his market driven restaurant Mercado 24 was in the process of moving locations and his staff still needed a job. I absolutely love tostadas, maybe even more than tacos, and these were some of the best I ever had. They had the absolutely right combination and proportions of proteins like fish and beef tongue with different herbs, oils and spices on a crispy tortilla. They moved to a larger location, and more recently into an even larger location, but it began with such a simple idea that makes so much sense, as does Mercado 24. Pablo’s restaurants are creative and cool, but they aren’t flashy. There are no tasting menus and he’s not doing what he does for international appeal. He has been doing it for his community and after 10 years you can see the impact it has had.

    READ MORE AT NEW WORLDER.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Episode #89: Matthias Ingelmann

    Episode #89: Matthias Ingelmann
    Jun 21 2024
    Matthias Ingelmann is the bar manager of Kol Mezcaleria and Kol Restaurant in London England. Matthias is German born and has worked in a lot of great bars around Europe, but once he started drinking mezcal he went down the rabbit hole with agave spirits, as many of us do. He has now built one of the UK's largest mezcal collections at Kol Mezcaleria and is continually expanding that collection as Kol expands. They just announced another restaurant with a cocktail heavy menu, called Fonda, which will open later in the year.

    Like at Kol the restaurant, there is a strict policy of only importing a few basic ingredients like corn, chocolate and dried chiles. So there are no limes to use in cocktails. No grapefruit juice for palomas. He talks about how he started importing verjus, unfermented grape juice, as one of the ingredients to provide the acidity in some drinks. And how he uses seasonal herbs like pineapple weed to bring tropical flavors into the bar. We also talk about Kol’s partnership with the Sin Gusano project in Mexico, which is allowing them to work directly with several small producers for their own line of 6 different agave spirits from different parts of Mexico, to be used in the bar and sold at the bar nut not commercially.

    There is a lot going on with mezcal as it becomes more mainstream that you, the consumer, should be aware about. Commercial brands are coming in and locking small distillers into contracts, they are monocropping espadin all over Oaxaca and they are putting pressure to try to produce more and more mezcal in unsustainable ways. It’s not at tequila levels yet. There are no Kardashians selling mezcal. At the rate mezcal is increasing in popularity we are not that far off. That’s why it’s extremely important if you are a bartender to buy mezcal from sources that champion small producers and educate your clientele.

    Read more at New Worlder.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 7 mins
Art Food & Wine Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
Show more Show less

What listeners say about New Worlder

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.com reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Martin Rosberg

A great podcast about food

I loved the relaxed talk and the time it's allowed to the guest to go into the details of what went on in his life.
I'd recommend it to any cook, or anyone interested in cooking

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!