0:00

When

0:00

you see the Dietz and Watson name on some

0:02

meats and cheeses, you know it's gonna

0:04

be quality because Dietz and Watson, they've been hand crafting

0:07

meats and cheeses for over 80 years. You

0:09

can taste the difference. Like look at their Virginia

0:11

brand ham. It's cooked to perfection. Then

0:13

they take it out of the oven, they hand spice

0:15

it and put it back in to seal in those flavors.

0:18

That takes more time, but you can taste

0:20

the difference. And Dietz and Watson is transparent

0:22

about what goes into their food and what doesn't.

0:24

They do things the right way,

0:26

even when it's the hard way. Hungry? You

0:28

know where to turn. Dietz and Watson, it's

0:30

a family thing since 1939.

0:36

Hello? Hello. Oh, there you

0:38

are. Hi, Auntie Meryl. Hi. I

0:40

wanted to call you because I'm getting ready

0:43

to record an episode of my podcast

0:45

that I think I couldn't do it without

0:48

talking to you.

0:49

Oh, this is exciting. What is it? We're

0:51

doing an episode about Barbie. Oh,

0:54

for real? Oh, wow. So,

0:57

first of all, how old were

0:59

you when Barbie came out? Okay,

1:01

let's see. Barbie came out in 59. So

1:05

I was four. I just

1:07

remember playing with Barbies. That was my go-to entertainment.

1:12

So fast forward to today, Meryl. Approximately

1:15

how many Barbie dolls do you own? About 700.

1:19

But these are newer, special Barbies. I

1:22

have a lot of one-of-a-kind Barbies. They're

1:24

all different. They're one-of-a-kind Barbies. They're

1:26

really like works of art. What

1:29

was it about Barbie? Because there were a

1:31

lot of dolls before Barbie, and there were other dolls

1:33

around, you know, in the 60s

1:35

when you were playing with Barbie. But like,

1:37

what made Barbie special? She was

1:40

a grown-up lady. You got to play with

1:42

a lady. Baby

1:44

dolls were just boring. But

1:47

Barbie was a woman, and

1:49

she wore fancy clothes, and

1:51

she had different jobs, and

1:53

she could be a princess, and she

1:56

could be a nurse. She was a

1:58

flight attendant.

1:59

She just did everything. She was so special.

2:03

What was your impression of Barbie and food?

2:06

Did you ever think of her as cooking or being in the

2:08

kitchen? No, not really. She

2:10

was too busy working and doing all

2:12

of her important jobs.

2:15

I really never thought of Barbie as cooking.

2:17

Right. Or in the kitchen. Or

2:19

eating. She didn't

2:22

need food.

2:24

This is The Spork Fall. It's not for foodies,

2:26

it's for eaters. I'm Dan Paschman. Each week

2:29

on our show we obsess about food to learn more

2:31

about people. I'm lucky to

2:33

have not one, but three Barbie

2:35

experts in my family. You already heard from my

2:37

Aunt Meryl. She was born at exactly the right

2:39

time to become a Barbie obsessive and

2:42

she did. And as she said, she never

2:44

thought of Barbie cooking or eating. Fast

2:46

forward to today, I wanted to talk Barbie and

2:48

food with the other two aficionados in my family.

2:51

My daughters, Becky and Emily, ages 12 and 10. They

2:54

have perfect recall when it comes to Barbie

2:56

life in the dream house. A 2010s era

2:58

addition to the Barbie canon that I gotta say

3:00

is legit one of the funniest shows on TV. So

3:03

I asked them, do

3:04

you ever see Barbie eat? Here's

3:06

Emily. You do see her eat

3:08

sometimes. She has a huge, huge hot

3:11

dog and Ken's like, let me just go look at the silver. I

3:13

don't understand why you need like silver

3:15

for a hot dog. And so then he like turns

3:17

his back for a second and then you hear like munching

3:20

sounds when he comes back. Barbie just has like

3:22

ketchup on her face, but the whole entire big hot

3:24

dog is gone.

3:25

So she

3:27

did eat a hot dog. You didn't see her eat it. Yeah, it

3:29

was like a jungle off line. It was meant for two people

3:32

and she ate the whole thing in two seconds. What kind of was gone?

3:34

Yeah, you just like heard a munching sound. I

3:37

think that she seems to like cooking

3:39

and eating at least in the show that we

3:41

watched. I don't really know like

3:43

old Barbies from 1959 or

3:45

whatever when she first came out like in the

3:47

shows nowadays Barbie does seem to do

3:50

a lot of cooking and eating and enjoys it. They

3:53

never really made a big deal out of it. It was just like

3:55

part of the. Like they never really

3:57

had a whole episode centered around her eating. It just kind

3:59

of like happened.

3:59

and it happened like

4:01

it was normal. When Barbie's first dream

4:03

house came out in 1962, it

4:05

didn't have a kitchen. It was a bachelorette pad.

4:08

Barbie had shelves full of books, a record

4:10

player, and a closet full of the latest fashions.

4:13

She was too busy building her careers by day and

4:15

going out at night to cook. Since

4:18

then, Barbie's relationship to cooking

4:20

and eating has changed a lot. And

4:22

the ways it's changed tell us something

4:24

about food culture, body image, and

4:27

much more.

4:28

So let's just begin

4:30

at the beginning.

4:32

What was your relationship with Barbie growing

4:34

up? So you know, she was introduced in 1959, and

4:38

I was nine years old. And so

4:40

I never had my own Barbie because,

4:43

according to my mother, I was too old to play with dolls.

4:45

This is Helene Siegel. She's a writer

4:47

based in LA. And in the 80s and

4:49

90s, she worked for Mattel, writing Barbie

4:52

books for kids, including the Barbie

4:54

Party Cookbook. But long before that, Helene

4:56

was growing up in the Bronx when Barbie first

4:58

hit the scene.

4:59

Helene may not have had her own Barbies, but she admired

5:02

Barbie from afar because Barbie was totally

5:04

different from any doll she'd had.

5:06

I had baby dolls. You

5:08

know, we had like Betsy Wetsie. There

5:10

were little chubby dolls. And you

5:13

were supposed to be the mommy and

5:15

put them to bed and blah, blah, blah. And

5:17

then there was like an in-between stage of

5:20

girls who were maybe almost teenagers,

5:22

but nobody had breasts. And they were chubby

5:25

around the waist. So they were

5:27

more like girls. And this was a woman.

5:29

Barbie wasn't just a grown woman. She was also

5:32

successful and independent.

5:34

Creation of Ruth Handler, who

5:37

invented her in 1959. And

5:40

Ruth was not a stay-at-home

5:42

wife slash mother. She was a businesswoman.

5:45

So there was a really sharp line, I think,

5:48

back then about career

5:51

versus being in the kitchen. And you know, we saw

5:53

those housewives on TV in

5:56

the 1950s sitcoms that I

5:58

grew up with. And there

5:59

They're always like wearing high heels, pearls,

6:02

an apron, and they have a vacuum cleaner

6:04

in one hand, and they're packing

6:07

lunches in the other hand. But

6:09

I think that Mattel or Ruth wanted

6:12

to make a complete break with that. So when

6:14

the dream house and the car, I mean the car

6:17

looked, it all looked amazing, and it also

6:19

looked like the future that I wanted for myself.

6:22

How so? Well, because I knew

6:24

I would have a big career,

6:26

and in the day that was a little weird, you know? But

6:29

I knew I'd have a big career, and also my

6:31

dream, you know, like people who grow

6:34

up in the boroughs, was to live in the

6:36

city in Manhattan in a penthouse

6:38

and go out every night and

6:41

wear a mink stole.

6:42

In that era, the fact that Barbie owned

6:44

her own house and car was a big

6:47

deal.

6:47

This was at a time when many women in America still

6:49

couldn't get mortgages or even credit cards

6:51

without a man to cosign for them.

6:53

It was also a big deal that Barbie wasn't married,

6:56

didn't have kids.

6:57

Everything she owns is hers alone.

7:00

Yeah, there's Ken, but as my aunt Meryl put

7:02

it, Ken is an accessory.

7:04

As Helene says, He's eye candy, but

7:06

who really needs him? Right, right.

7:09

Maybe to carry your luggage, these days I could

7:11

use someone for that. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha

7:14

ha ha ha. In the 70s, Helene

7:16

did move to Manhattan, but her job in publishing

7:19

didn't provide the glamorous life she'd imagined.

7:21

She lived in a studio apartment instead of a penthouse,

7:24

and there were no mink stoles in her closet. Eventually,

7:27

she ended up in California. While there

7:29

wasn't much of a publishing industry there, there was a lot

7:31

of good food. So Helene got into cookbook

7:33

writing. This was the 80s now, right

7:35

at the beginning of the first wave of celebrity chefs,

7:38

which included the California chef Wolfgang Puck.

7:41

Helene Gosh

7:41

wrote a cookbook for him, among other chefs in the

7:43

area. But it wasn't always steady work.

7:46

Every once in a while, because I was a freelancer,

7:49

I would like, well, I wouldn't get another gig

7:51

and I would freak out, so I would take a job.

7:54

One of those non-cookbook jobs was at Mattel.

7:57

They hired Helene to oversee a series of barbers.

7:59

Barbie storybooks for girls.

8:01

Now the images in these books weren't illustrations.

8:04

They were photos of actual Barbie dolls, elaborately

8:07

staged in miniature scenes. Mattel

8:09

had designers who would make beautiful, tiny,

8:11

special occasion dresses, and a whole

8:13

team of hairstylists.

8:14

So you go into a room, and

8:17

you see a lot of heads just on sticks,

8:20

and then he could open these sliding drawers

8:22

with new heads. I mean, just

8:25

a wide variety. They're all Barbie heads, but

8:27

maybe different skin tones. And

8:29

a million hairstyles that they had done in

8:32

the past. But you know, they did custom

8:34

hairstyles. Like for our shoot, they

8:36

would make custom

8:38

wigs. It was cool.

8:40

In one book, Helene remembers in particular, Barbie

8:42

was an astronaut. They put her in a space suit.

8:45

They thought it'd be cute to have her hair standing on end in

8:47

the photos, you know, because she's in space, zero gravity.

8:49

But when Mattel saw the photos, they weren't happy.

8:52

And they were like, you know, what are you thinking?

8:55

First of all, reshoot this, and let me tell

8:57

you something. That girl's bangs never

8:59

come off her forehead.

9:00

So we don't care what's

9:03

happening, but you keep them down.

9:07

In addition to showing Barbie in the proper light, Helene

9:10

says she and her team also had to get the hang of writing

9:12

in Barbie's voice. One of the keys

9:15

is there's never a depressing day for Barbie.

9:18

And you know what? That was what I liked. My

9:21

life wasn't like that. But whenever

9:23

I slip into Barbie, it's just,

9:26

you know, she's happy because everything

9:28

turns out well for Barbie.

9:30

There's never a problem she can't solve.

9:33

And I mean, I think the writers

9:35

who had the hardest time getting the voice

9:38

were the people who probed too

9:40

deeply and thought too much.

9:43

Helene says Mattel paid her well, and she

9:45

enjoyed working with Barbie. But some of her

9:47

friends felt otherwise.

9:48

My friends, as you can imagine,

9:50

they're very, I don't know, they're

9:53

very lefties and we're

9:55

the granola eaters. Right. And

9:57

so.

9:59

And so I literally had my

10:02

women friends like raising their eyebrows

10:04

like, how can you work for

10:07

her?

10:08

How can you work for Barbie? Yeah,

10:10

yeah, yeah. You know, because first

10:13

of all, they were raising their daughters to not

10:15

play with Barbie. They were judgmental.

10:18

I think about the whole messaging, which,

10:20

you know, the very serious feminists

10:24

wrote these treatises about the bad body image,

10:26

the body image, obviously a thinness and

10:29

bustiness. And what

10:31

will happen to your daughter if she plays with these dolls

10:34

kind of thing.

10:36

So it was just like, she's a

10:38

bad influence on the children. You

10:41

know, why are you doing that?

10:43

Helene considers herself a feminist, but

10:45

among feminists in the eighties, there was a growing

10:47

fault line.

10:48

On one side were women like Helene who admired

10:51

Barbie for her careers and her independence.

10:53

On the other side were women who didn't see that as groundbreaking

10:56

anymore. By this time a lot of women had careers

10:58

and a lot of career women were also moms. It

11:01

wasn't one or the other. The women on this

11:03

side of the debate critiqued Barbie for perpetuating

11:05

unrealistic beauty standards. They thought

11:07

Barbie would create issues with body image or disordered

11:10

eating for their daughters. And they pointed

11:12

to a 1965 doll slumber party Barbie as

11:14

proof. This Barbie came with a scale

11:17

that was permanently set to 110 pounds and a

11:18

miniature book titled

11:20

How to Lose Weight. Inside there were

11:23

just two words,

11:24

don't eat.

11:25

And while Mattel hadn't done anything remotely

11:28

so egregious since then, by

11:30

the eighties critics were saying they were still promoting this

11:32

idea implicitly just because of what

11:34

Barbie looks like. More recently, researchers

11:37

have shown that if a real woman with her proportions

11:39

existed, her waist would be about 19 inches.

11:42

In discussing this issue, both Helene and my

11:44

aunt, Meryl said that even as kids they

11:46

never felt like they were supposed to look like Barbie.

11:49

They understood she was just a doll. And that idea

11:51

isn't limited to women of their generation. I

11:53

asked my daughters what they thought about Barbie's body.

11:56

Well, she's made out of plastic. She's

11:59

a doll. You can't. I can't judge her on her body.

12:01

She's not a real person. Yeah, plastic

12:03

can get like bigger

12:06

or smaller.

12:10

Regardless of Mattel's intent or how girls interpreted

12:13

Barbie's body, it's a fact that

12:15

for decades after Barbie was introduced, Mattel

12:17

resisted putting her around food or in the

12:20

kitchen. Helene remembers in the 80s

12:22

pitching a story for one of those Barbie kids books.

12:25

She wanted to base it on Mrs. Fields, the cookie entrepreneur.

12:27

Mrs. Fields was a real person who had built an

12:29

extremely successful business. Helene

12:32

wanted to fictionalize that story.

12:34

It was like a perfect Barbie story. And

12:36

not only that, Mrs. Field was very pretty

12:39

and she kind of looked like a Barbie with

12:41

brown hair. And so I wanted

12:43

her to

12:43

be a little home baker and then she opens a

12:45

bake shop and blah, blah, blah. And

12:48

they killed the story. It's the only story

12:50

that got killed because

12:52

of this executive decree that

12:55

she will never get her hands dirty.

12:57

They literally told me that Barbie would never

13:00

get dirty. She would never dirty

13:02

her hands. She will never sweep. She

13:04

will never wash a pot. So

13:06

she won't do anything. But they were so strict

13:08

then anything around food

13:11

was really a no go.

13:14

In 1991, Mattel's position on

13:16

Barbie and food started to change. They

13:19

weren't ready to let Barbie cook, but they

13:21

did want her to be cooking adjacent in

13:23

the form of a Barbie cookbook.

13:25

They asked Helene to ghost write it. The

13:27

final product is called the Barbie Party Cookbook.

13:30

This is the idea like a children's

13:32

cookbook for girls who are having a party,

13:34

the slumber party, a birthday party, a Christmas

13:36

party. You know, they're good recipes,

13:39

I will say, because I did that. But

13:42

they're simple and Barbie

13:44

is never cooking and she's never talking

13:46

about food. And so

13:48

what is Barbie's role in the book? Well,

13:50

let's put it this way. She is definitely on the cover

13:52

because

13:55

Barbie sells books and she's brilliantly

13:58

pink like the art director.

13:59

for this book is so over

14:02

the top and crazy. Elaborate

14:05

hair. I'm looking at it, she's an evening

14:07

garb. She's

14:09

doing a garden tea party and she's wearing

14:11

like a sort of Joan Collins purple,

14:14

you know, strapless mini dress

14:17

with veil and puffy sleeves. So,

14:20

you know, she's there as a picture. But

14:23

her voice, she does not write the recipes.

14:25

It's not coming from her. In fact, the

14:27

recipes came from Helene. My recipes,

14:30

I based it on stuff I would

14:32

make with my children. You know, they're

14:35

easy, but they're really good. I mean, just teaching kids

14:37

how to make real chocolate, you

14:39

know, hot fudge sauce. Right. There's

14:42

a few recipes I'm really proud of when I look

14:44

back. There's an Italian ices,

14:47

what we used to call granita when I was

14:49

a foodie.

14:49

All right, then that's still what they call it in Italy. And we're

14:52

just doing Italian cookbooks, you know.

14:54

And you would make it, I mean, it's so easy because

14:56

it's lemon juice, water and sugar. And

14:59

you just put it in a pan and you just keep scraping it

15:01

in the freezer. And

15:03

so I felt like if I made a contribution,

15:05

you know, to all of America,

15:08

was that they could make granita, aka

15:11

lemon ices.

15:12

The same year the Barbie Party cookbook came

15:15

out, Mattel also released its first Barbie

15:17

chef outfit. It was part of the Cool Careers

15:19

series. The outfit included a pink lace apron

15:22

and chef's hat.

15:23

So what happened to bring about this change? Well,

15:25

I think, you know, everything changed regarding

15:28

food in America. With food

15:30

TV, everything exploded. At

15:32

the same time that Barbie was dipping her toe into the

15:34

kitchen, execs elsewhere were laying the

15:36

groundwork for America's first all food

15:39

and cooking TV channel.

15:40

Food network would launch two years later.

15:43

In the decades that followed, Mattel introduced 12

15:46

different Barbie chefs from pizza chef

15:48

Barbie,

15:48

Pizza chef! Yeah!

15:50

to pancake chef Barbie.

15:52

Barbie does a nixin, Chelsea helps a nixin, pancake's

15:54

flipping it! Wow! To TV

15:56

chef Barbie. Barbie is a hot chef

15:59

on TV.

16:00

making good goods, it can be. And

16:04

now, there's your show, there's

16:06

food bloggers. But back

16:09

in the day, like when she was introduced,

16:12

the interest in food culture was really

16:14

for the elite.

16:16

It wasn't for the masses, and remember, Barbie's for

16:18

the masses. So what you're saying is that the

16:20

job of chef

16:23

in the past few decades has become

16:25

glamorous.

16:26

Well, it's become glamorous, and it's also become

16:28

attainable and popularized. So

16:31

now, for a young woman to aspire to be

16:33

a pastry chef is cool, right?

16:35

I mean, to own your own cupcake shop. And

16:38

so it's something that parents love.

16:41

In fact, I've read some of the reviews online of

16:43

the product, the pastry chef

16:45

product. And parents said, oh,

16:47

my little girl loves this because she wants to be a

16:49

pastry chef when she grows up.

16:51

It's a real different world.

16:54

Yeah, and the other thing that happened is

16:56

that it used to be that sort of women cooked in the home

16:59

and men cooked in restaurants, and that's obviously

17:01

changed. That's true. And now women are also

17:03

celebrity chefs. Yes. And

17:06

so that change opened the door

17:08

for Mattel to say, OK,

17:10

now this is a glamorous career. Barbie,

17:13

before she was an astronaut, now

17:16

she can be a chef. And so they changed

17:19

there. As the culture changed, the

17:21

rules around the doll changed. That's

17:24

right. I got

17:24

to look around. Hang on. I'm getting up for one second,

17:26

Helene. I want to see if I can find it. I have a newer

17:29

Barbie cookbook here that my daughter and I have cooked from. Let

17:31

me see if I can find it. I should have had it ready. Let me see.

17:34

In 2020, a new Barbie cookbook came out nearly 30

17:36

years after Helene's Barbie cookbook.

17:38

And this newer one is very different. Here

17:40

it is.

17:43

So I've got Barbie Bakes, 50 plus fantastic

17:46

recipes from Barbie and her friends. Barbie

17:48

is on the cover holding a pie with

17:52

oven mitts on. So she seems

17:54

to be the one who took the pie out of the oven, which suggests

17:56

she is cooking. I'm very proud of her.

17:59

And my daughter has put posted notes

18:02

on all the things that she wants to make. Oh, that's cute. To

18:04

me, my biggest criticism of

18:06

this book was that the recipes seem very complicated.

18:08

Like they're very elaborate. No. It's

18:11

like they look gorgeous, but it's like not anything

18:13

that I'm going to spend. Right.

18:15

There's no time estimates on the recipe.

18:18

My daughter looked at these things and she's like, let's make this,

18:20

like they all look amazing. You

18:22

know, but it's like these, you know, you got a cupcake

18:24

with like four different colors in the frosting

18:27

and they're somehow piped on top to make

18:29

a perfect swirl. Like, I don't know how

18:31

to do that.

18:31

No. Well, that sounds like. Barbie's

18:33

making me feel bad, Helene. I can't cook like

18:36

she can. She shouldn't. And she shouldn't be judging.

18:38

She'd never be judging. I

18:41

don't think food has ever been a priority for

18:43

Barbie. Right. You know what I mean? It's

18:45

just that it's a big thing in the culture now. But

18:48

my hunch is that she does not eat a lot. Like

18:51

we never have her eating in any of our stories.

18:54

You know, it's not like, oh, then I sat down with my

18:57

friends, my best friends, and we gorged ourselves

18:59

on ice cream. Right. Like, no,

19:02

that is not part of

19:03

this perfect universe.

19:12

That's Helene Siegel. Her blog is called The Pastry

19:14

Sessions. It's got recipes for children and adults.

19:17

And she also writes a column for the Jewish Journal on Food,

19:20

Travel, and Agent. Coming

19:22

up, I get about as close to entering a real-life

19:24

dream house as possible when I go to the pop-up

19:27

Malibu Barbie Cafe in New York. I'll

19:29

dine there with food writer Helen Rosner, and

19:31

we'll debate whether a breakfast burrito is

19:33

Barbie food. Stick around.

19:40

And now, a delicious

19:43

word from our sponsors.

19:46

It's very good.

19:48

All right, picture this. Middle of summer,

19:51

sun's beating down, you're

19:53

standing over the grill,

19:55

and it is hot. And then some lovely

19:58

human walks up to you and... hands

20:00

you an ice

20:01

cold Topo Chico hard

20:03

seltzer. In fact, it's one of their new Aguas Frescas

20:06

flavors, available in select locations. It

20:08

comes in four refreshing takes on legendary

20:10

favorites. Crisp passion fruit mango,

20:13

refreshing ripe watermelon, juicy

20:15

hibiscus lime, and tropical citrus

20:17

tamarind. And oh, on a hot day,

20:20

when you are standing over the grill, is there any flavor

20:22

better than tamarind? Sip Summer Diferente

20:25

with Topo Chico hard seltzer. Go

20:27

to topochicohardseltzerusa.com

20:31

slash

20:31

sporkful to find where you can get

20:33

yours today. Please use that link to find

20:35

the store. Again, that's topochicohardseltzerusa.com

20:39

slash sporkful. TC

20:42

Hard Seltzer Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, flavored

20:45

beer, copyright 2023, the Coca-Cola

20:47

Company. Topo Chico is a trademark of the Coca-Cola

20:50

Company.

20:51

I'm always interested to see what new

20:54

confections may be out there, but

20:57

once in a while, you just want something classic.

21:00

And to me, that's when I want a Reese's

21:02

Peanut Butter Cup. Do I even need to sell

21:04

you on a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup? Just hearing those

21:06

words

21:07

should be enough to remind you that you want

21:09

one. First of all, I don't know that

21:11

anybody has ever dialed in the combination

21:14

of peanut butter and chocolate as perfectly

21:16

as the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. You know, salty

21:18

desserts now are like all the rage in these high-end

21:21

places, but like, they were doing it

21:23

in the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup decades

21:25

ago. Sweet chocolate, salty

21:27

peanut butter, each bite gives you the perfect

21:29

proportions, and then let's talk about that

21:31

crimped edge. Does that's really,

21:34

I mean, let's, anyone can throw chocolate and peanut

21:36

butter together, that crimped edge, the perimeter

21:38

crunch,

21:40

it's an iconic bite.

21:41

Now, simply saying the words Reese's Peanut Butter Cup

21:43

didn't do it, I'm pretty sure there's

21:45

a strong chance you'd like a Reese's Peanut

21:48

Butter Cup right now.

21:50

Shop now at a store near you, wherever candy

21:53

is sold. This

21:56

episode of The Sporkful is brought to you by the Quarter

21:58

Pounder with cheese from McDonald's. Just

22:00

picture this, the 100% fresh,

22:03

juicy beef, two slices

22:05

of melted cheese, crunchy pickles,

22:08

sliced onions, ketchup, and

22:10

mustard.

22:11

Ah, it's just an iconic bite.

22:13

The quarter pounder with cheese, and now it's got a nickname,

22:16

the QPC. Don't waste all that time

22:18

saying quarter pounder with cheese, just say QPC.

22:21

The QPC is super saucy, drippy, and

22:23

oozing with flavor. It's a burger

22:25

that napkins were made for. And I recommend

22:28

you eat it upside down. That not only accentuates

22:30

cheesy goodness, but also the pickles. The pickles are

22:32

so incredibly crucial on the QPC. They're

22:35

sliced to the absolute perfect thickness. They're distributed

22:37

just so. And if you go upside down, you'll get

22:39

more pickle flavor and that really elevates

22:42

the entire QPC experience. It's

22:45

a burger worthy of a nickname. So order the

22:47

QPC. Wait before cooking

22:49

four ounces, fresh beef available at most

22:52

restaurants in the contiguous US, not

22:54

available in Alaska, Hawaii, and US territories.

22:56

If you want another great

22:58

food podcast to listen to, check out Food

23:01

with Mark Bittman. Each episode brings you a lively,

23:03

dynamic conversation about food with just

23:05

about any way you could think of, like Senator Cory

23:08

Booker, David Sedaris, Nigella Lawson,

23:10

Samantha Irby, Jane Goodall, and Jose Andres.

23:13

Now of course recipes and cooking are part

23:15

of this show. I mean, if you know and love Mark Bittman, as

23:17

I do, you're expecting that. But they'll also

23:19

talk about injustices in the food world and how

23:22

America's food policy is moving both forwards

23:24

and backwards and how food has shaped all our

23:27

lives from childhood on and the food

23:29

memories we all hold.

23:30

If you think about food like ever, which

23:32

you probably do, you're going to find something in this show

23:34

for you. Listen to Food with Mark Bittman,

23:37

wherever you get your podcasts.

23:44

Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Paschman and

23:46

I have some big pasta news to

23:48

share. As of this month, Spolini's

23:50

Cascatelli is now in Whole Foods

23:53

nationwide. And remember, it's also in

23:55

a lot of Walmart locations, so you can now get

23:57

it there too. On top of that, more

23:59

news. Our newer shapes, Quattrotini

24:01

and Vesuvio, are now in the Fresh Market. That's 170

24:04

locations across the whole eastern half of the

24:06

US. And Quattrotini and Vesuvio are also

24:09

in all locations of Texas' own Central

24:11

Market. Of course, you can always get all my shapes,

24:13

including the variety pack, direct from Sfollini

24:16

at sfollini.com. So go

24:18

get your pasta.

24:20

Okay, back to Barbie. I

24:25

love that we're the only two people who wore black to the Barbie

24:27

pop-up. Yeah, it's

24:29

like a good memoir title. Yeah, right.

24:33

This is Helen Rosner, food writer at The New Yorker.

24:36

We met at the pop-up Malibu Barbie Cafe in

24:38

New York City on a recent Thursday morning. The

24:40

way it works at the cafe is that when you make your reservation,

24:43

you also order your food. You pick one entree

24:45

and one side. Did you know we put in exactly

24:48

the same order? You're joking.

24:49

No, when I emailed my order,

24:51

I said, and if Dan happens to be

24:53

getting the same things, here's my backup order. And she replied,

24:55

she was like, Dan ordered exactly the same. I

25:01

invited

25:01

Helen, not just because she has impeccable taste in

25:03

food ordering, but also because I wanted her to

25:05

train her critical eye on the cafe, the

25:08

food, and the whole idea of Barbie. So

25:10

just look around, Helen, set

25:13

the scene for us. What do you see? What

25:15

captures your attention?

25:17

Well, we're in a very sort of sunlight-filled

25:20

space that has been painted

25:23

in bright magenta

25:25

and turquoise. And it's

25:28

really decked out

25:30

in a Barbie surf vibe. It's

25:33

an Instagram opportunity with a meal

25:35

included. Right. And

25:37

the crowd is really interesting. There are, I think, as

25:40

you would expect, a lot of young girls, most

25:42

of whom are wearing various shades of pink, but there's a

25:44

surprising number of adults in here, childless

25:48

adults. Yes. There might actually be a first date

25:50

happening over at

25:50

the bar. Oh my God. Do you see

25:53

that? But it's cool. Oh my God, oh wow. Oh,

25:55

this woman just walked by wearing the

25:58

coolest outfit. She's

26:00

like a light pink top and a long magenta

26:03

skirt, and these shoes that look like butterflies.

26:06

She's a real life Barbie, look at

26:07

her. Oh,

26:11

things are already coming. Thank

26:13

you. So this is beet hummus, OK, nice

26:15

and pink.

26:17

We started in on the beet hummus. It was fine.

26:20

We gave it points for being a naturally pink food. We

26:22

waited for the rest of our meal, a club sandwich,

26:25

breakfast burrito, wedge salad, fries,

26:27

and steamed broccoli.

26:29

I mean, my expectations of the

26:31

food coming in were admittedly low,

26:33

so they can only impress

26:35

me. What was your relationship

26:38

with Barbie growing up?

26:40

Covetous, obsessive. I

26:45

had a few Barbies. I didn't

26:47

have nearly as many as I wanted.

26:49

The other really

26:52

powerful Barbie memory for me is

26:54

the Barbie aisle at the toy store. It

26:57

was a

26:58

tunnel of pink. And

27:01

imagine being three feet tall and walking

27:04

through this, what feels to you like a cathedral

27:06

of tiny,

27:09

flawless women wearing the most extraordinary

27:11

outfits you've ever seen in your lives. Any

27:14

time we would go to the toy store to pick up a present for a

27:16

friend's birthday party or whatever it was, I would

27:19

ask to go through the Barbie aisle, and I would look

27:22

at them like I was in a museum. It

27:24

was just incredible. Like,

27:27

even as a chubby kid, I don't think I ever

27:30

had that sense that I was supposed

27:32

to look like Barbie. It was very

27:36

fantastical. It was

27:38

a form of deeply covetous,

27:41

deeply capitalistic, incredibly

27:43

joyous feminine fantasy.

27:46

And

27:49

it's still totally there. Our

27:52

food's here. Breakfast burrito, a wedge

27:55

salad. I love a wedge salad.

27:57

I know you do. That's why I ordered it. Oh

27:59

my gosh. Thank you, I feel so seen. Well,

28:01

let's dig in here. Oh, these

28:04

are good fries. They taste like McDonald's.

28:07

They have that crisp. And like

28:08

the salt level and the fryer oil composition,

28:11

that is a McDonald's fry. Do

28:13

you taste that? But they're a little more done.

28:16

Yeah, they're more deep golden brown.

28:19

If you were gonna buy fries in McDonald's and

28:21

then take them back to another restaurant and refry them, this

28:24

is what you would get. Right. Kind

28:26

of genius. This is really good. Some

28:28

of these things feel more, feel like they go

28:30

with the idea of Barbie more than others. Tell

28:33

me more, yeah. The pink beet hummus, I get

28:35

it. The wedge salad, I get it. Even the club sandwich.

28:38

It feels like I could see Barbie being at a country

28:41

club and ordering a club sandwich. I

28:43

don't know how many

28:45

mammoth, bacon,

28:47

egg, and cheese, and avocado breakfast

28:50

burritos Barbie's gonna house. I

28:53

think what you're running into is a really interesting distinction

28:56

between Barbie the brand and Barbie the person. So

28:59

for me, a breakfast burrito makes a lot of sense with who Barbie

29:01

is because she's a California surfer girl. And

29:04

a breakfast burrito to me is in many ways the ultimate

29:06

California surfer food, right? So

29:09

Barbie eats a breakfast burrito. But

29:12

Barbie

29:12

doesn't eat pink food that says

29:14

Barbie on it. Barbie eats California surfer

29:16

girl food. So

29:19

the pink hummus on the table,

29:21

that's not Barbie eating that

29:23

pink hummus. That's us eating Barbie. But

29:26

the breakfast burrito, this is what Barb eats.

29:28

All right, let's try this breakfast burrito. What

29:36

do you think this mysterious pink is? You

29:39

see that? Yes,

29:42

it's a little tiny pink dot inside the breakfast

29:44

burrito. I'm gonna guess that that's a sprinkle

29:46

from the pancakes. Yes, I bet you're totally

29:48

right. That fell in and dissolved.

29:49

That's in my scrambled eggs. I

29:51

love it. I think that's exactly the kind of fortuitous

29:54

and exciting thing that happens in Barbie's

29:56

life. Yeah. That's

29:59

fun. I happen to be a sucker

30:01

for anything wrapped in a flour tortilla. Oh

30:04

yeah. But this is good. It's

30:06

like surprisingly good. It's interesting

30:08

to me that you feel like Barbie, the person

30:10

would eat a breakfast burrito. And I

30:13

understand your, I think your logic

30:15

makes a lot of sense. But

30:17

one of the things that I've been contemplating and

30:19

talking to other folks is like, so there

30:22

was this moment when being a chef became

30:24

glamorous, then it was okay for her to be in the

30:26

kitchen when it was a career.

30:31

They still even, even then were very

30:33

careful about showing her eating. I actually

30:35

quizzed my kids because they're avid viewers

30:37

of Barbie life in the dream house. So

30:40

they said they do sometimes the Barbie does eat

30:42

in that show. Okay. But

30:44

from what I understand, it's still even more recent.

30:46

It took a long time and only very recently

30:49

that Barbie was allowed to be depicted eating. Huh.

30:54

So do we think that this is a body

30:56

image thing, a domesticity

30:58

thing, a Barbie isn't allowed to get dirty

31:00

thing or something else? The

31:03

easy answer is that Barbie is famously very

31:06

slender.

31:07

And we have to acknowledge

31:10

that one of the ways that you can get and remain

31:12

that way is by never being seen eating.

31:15

But that's a little disordered. So I don't know.

31:18

What

31:18

do you think? It's hard for me to imagine that some people sat in

31:20

a board room and said that, said like, we

31:22

can't have her eating because she's has

31:24

to be, it

31:24

has to be narratively plausible that she's this then.

31:27

Right. Right. I

31:29

mean, I think that the part of Barbie that to me

31:31

feels a little more

31:33

potentially worrisome. Because

31:37

a lot of women I've talked to, including from my

31:39

kids up to my 60 something year old aunt

31:41

who has a 700 Barbie collection

31:44

of 700 Barbies. My dream said

31:46

she's plastic. We never thought we were supposed to look like

31:48

that. The other

31:51

thing is that in all other respects,

31:53

Barbie is also always perfect. Yeah.

31:57

Maybe it's less about body image, but it's more

31:59

about like. Eating

32:01

is something that real people do. And

32:04

it's sometimes messy. We don't always look at our best when

32:06

we're shoving food in our faces. Like, there's not medical

32:08

school

32:08

Barbie. There's just doctor Barbie.

32:11

You know, you don't see

32:13

the Barbie who's like worked his 24-hour on-call and

32:15

has been cramming for the MCATs and has been doing whatever.

32:18

You see Barbie when she is in the most poised

32:20

professional, in control,

32:22

structurally and aesthetically perfect

32:25

mode of her life. Right. And so I think that

32:27

them not wanting to show her eating is more about maintaining that. Yeah.

32:30

I think that makes sense. I

32:32

think it's totally possible that there is an element

32:35

of insidiousness to it, but I

32:37

don't know. It seems a little far-fetched to me. Then

32:40

came the crown jewel of the meal. Dessert.

32:43

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh,

32:45

my God. This is fantastic. This

32:49

is the ice cream float. It's literally

32:51

a plastic pink car, like a

32:53

Barbie mobile. And in the driver's

32:55

seat is a glass jar of Jorritos strawberry

32:57

soda. And in the passenger's seat is

33:00

a big glass full of vanilla ice cream.

33:02

They're on a date. They're

33:05

going to make out at lookout point. Thank

33:07

you so much. I'm going to make them kiss,

33:10

like classic Barbie style. Ready?

33:12

Every kid who's on a Barbie knows how to make the Barbies

33:14

kiss.

33:15

Wow.

33:18

I mean, really, if I were probably making them. It's not

33:20

even noon, Helen. Take it easy. Well, I'm not making

33:22

them do you-know-what. That's a full

33:24

smash. I

33:27

poured the strawberry Jorritos over the ice cream. We went in for a taste.

33:32

Oh, my God. That is strawberry

33:35

soda poured over vanilla ice cream. I mean,

33:37

first of all, like it's serving some real

33:39

Nestle quick strawberry quick vibes, which

33:42

I love. This is pure childhood. I also have to say,

33:44

I feel like of all the dishes we've had here, an

33:47

ice cream float feels to me like

33:51

just absolute perfect for Barbie.

33:54

And I feel like it's a dessert that unites

33:57

both Barbie, the brand and Barbie, the person. Yes. I

34:00

think that's absolutely true. This is really awakening,

34:02

like, childhood stuff in me right now, playing with this

34:05

car. I

34:07

never got to have any of the larger Barbie

34:09

accessories. I just had the dolls and the clothes.

34:11

Right. And of course I coveted

34:14

a dream house or coveted the Barbie

34:16

mobile.

34:17

I might cry. This

34:20

is a big moment for me. I

34:23

really love the car. Helen's

34:25

hugging the car. I'm hugging the car. But

34:28

like, sincerely. I used to

34:30

talk about this in therapy.

34:38

Well, Helen, excuse me while I finish this

34:40

ice cream close.

34:48

That's Helen Rosner. She's a staff writer at The

34:50

New Yorker. You can follow her on Instagram where

34:52

she has a link to all her writing. She's at HelenR.

34:55

The Malibu Barbie Cafe is open until September

34:57

15th. It's located in the South Street Seaport

35:00

in Manhattan. And there's another pop-up cafe in Chicago

35:02

that also closes

35:03

then.

35:05

Next week on the show, I talk with indigenous poet

35:07

Tommy Pico about learning to cook so he could

35:09

make his own new food culture. We

35:11

also talk about his love of junk food and he reads some

35:13

of his poetry. That's next week. While

35:16

you wait for that one, don't miss last week's episode all

35:18

about ice cubes. I talked with the guy who

35:20

pioneered a way to make crystal clear ice. Plus,

35:23

we break down Starbucks' recent announcement that they're

35:25

changing their ice cubes. There's a lot going

35:27

on in the world of ice right now. Ice is hot. We're

35:30

covering it all on The Sporkful. That one's

35:32

up now.

35:34

This show is produced by me along with senior producer...

35:36

Emma Morgenstern. ...and producer... Andres

35:38

O'Hara. ...editing by... Nora Richie. ...our

35:41

engineer is... Jared O'Connell. Special

35:43

thanks to Abby Aguilar, Nia Maddy, and

35:45

Alex Gonzalez for their studio help. Music

35:47

help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful

35:49

is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive

35:51

producers are Colin Anderson and Nora Richie. Until

35:54

next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

35:55

And I'm Alexis Ruff from Burbank, California,

35:58

reminding you to eat more, eat better. and

36:00

eat more better.