PodcastsArtsAncestral Kitchen

Ancestral Kitchen

Alison Kay & Andrea Huehnerhoff
Ancestral Kitchen
Latest episode

140 episodes

  • Ancestral Kitchen

    #131 - Behind the Scenes (The Parts You Don't Hear!)

    04/05/2026 | 1h 50 mins.
    Ancestral Kitchen Podcast is five years old! A birthday that, when we started this adventure in late 2020, we could never have imagined. In this episode we will finally take you inside the podcast. You'll hear what goes on behind mic including plenty of the disasters we've had. We'll share with you three exciting announcements about how you can get more Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your life, We'll also go over all the ways we can support you (because we've amassed a lot more than just the podcast episodes). We'll talk about what's happened in our own lives in the last five years and finally we'll share a few things we think you'd never guess!
    To join the podcast community at the new Fellowship level, or at any of our levels, go here: ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/join
    If you are interested in sponsoring an episode of the podcast, go here: ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/sponsoranepisode
    To check out our sustainable, ethical merchandise, go here: ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/merch
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    Sign up to the pod's newsletter here.
    Get a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains
    Read our Guide to Milling Your Own Flour
    Get all three of the podcast cookbooks
    Wear our beautiful, sustainable merchandise
    Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics
    Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course
    Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop: US here and UK here.
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    Come join the podcast community! You can select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content, and a Discord discussion group Find out more here!
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    If you love the show, leave us a 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts:
    Open the Apple Podcast app and find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
    Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews', click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening

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    Resources:
    To access the podcast downloads mentioned in the show go to ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/downloads
    To access the ancestral kitchen downloads mentioned in the episode, go to:
    The Beginner's Guide to Rye Sourdough Bread
    The Heritage Oat Collection

    Alison's 10 Tips to Create & Maintain a Sourdough Starter
    The rest of Alison's courses can be found here
    Do you have memories, documents, recipes or stories of those who cooked ancestrally? Visit our website here for how to share
    The podcast has a website here!
    Stay in touch with Alison via her newsletter at Ancestral Kitchen
    The podcast is on You Tube here
    The podcast is mixed and the music created by Alison's husband, Rob. Find him here: Robert Michael Kay
  • Ancestral Kitchen

    #130 - Are We Ancestral Enough Yet? A Conversation with Jaycie of Hazy River Homestead & Ranch

    20/04/2026 | 1h 16 mins.
    How do you know if you are ancestral enough, and what really qualifies as "doing the thing"? Is there somebody out there with a list of ancestral things you need to be doing so you can "count" as being truly ancestral, or is it just a moving, non-linear line we are constantly progressing along with our intention and heart oriented the right way? It is this question, the always-haunting subject of imposter syndrome, and others that we are going to talk about today in this delightful interview with one of our podcast supporters and listeners, Jaycie, of Hazy River Homestead & Ranch in Idaho, USA.
    Jaycie and Andrea both live off the grid with solar and generator power, and we had fun discussing some of the challenges that come with that lifestyle, as well as some of the benefits! You can see Jaycie's beautiful farm at www.hazyriverhomestead.com. This was a very early-morning call before the crack of dawn and it was a heart-warming, encouraging delight, so grab a hot beverage and let's settle in.
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    Sign up to the pod's newsletter here.
    Get a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains
    Read our Guide to Milling Your Own Flour
    Get all three of the podcast cookbooks
    Wear our beautiful, sustainable merchandise
    Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics
    Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course
    Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop: US here and UK here.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Come join the podcast community! You can select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content, and a Discord discussion group Find out more here!
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    What we talk about:
    What was the last thing you ate?
    Imposter Syndrome and how to know if you are really doing the thing
    Time investment: Some rewards we only see after layers of foundational years' work
    Eating out of our pantries - how this shapes the way we cook (and the recipes we need!)
    And more!

    The personal views and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect our own personal views or opinions. We recognize that our guests are whole persons and this may include views we or our audience actively disagree with; our guests are invited to the show because we feel they have something valuable to share with us all, and we do not ask them to censor their personal views on air. Our sharing of their work is not necessarily an endorsement of their personal views.
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    If you love the show, leave us a 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts:
    Open the Apple Podcast app and find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
    Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews', click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening

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    Resources:
    You can find Mason and Jaycie at www.hazyriverhomestead.com
    Do you have memories, documents, recipes or stories of those who cooked ancestrally? Visit our website here for how to share
    The podcast has a website here!
    Stay in touch with Alison via her newsletter at Ancestral Kitchen
    The podcast is on You Tube here
    The podcast is mixed and the music created by Alison's husband, Rob. Find him here: Robert Michael Kay
  • Ancestral Kitchen

    #129 - The Science Behind Properly Prepared Beans (and how to do it at home!)

    06/04/2026 | 1h 44 mins.
    Beans, Beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you absorb valuable minerals and proteins, improve your cardiovascular function and the health of your arterial walls as well as cholesterol and fat absorption, boost your digestion and gut bacteria health, and enjoy an array of bright and colorful foods - but what about that other, turbulent side benefit?
    In this explosive episode, we will break down, like an enzyme breaks down an oligosaccharide, the compounds in beans and the processes in your body that can cause the possible noxious side benefits, as well as what ancestral peoples did to deal with this - aside from cracking ancient jokes that never get old. We will discuss in detail a patented process purported to eliminate ALL of the potentially thunderous side-effects using only water, time and heat, and we will additionally talk about herbs that can be cooked or served alongside beans to quell the claps of cheeky applause.
    There is a copious amount of additional material that I could only include in the show notes for reasons of being too inappropriate to read on air, and they can be found on our website, ancestralkitchenpodcast.com by clicking the Episodes drop-down. I tested the absolute technology limits with the length of show notes today and ran out of room on our podcast apps, so go and enjoy the mountains of links and additional text I put there for you to enjoy.
    In this episode I hope you will find the critical information you need to understand the possible pitfalls of beans and where those pitfalls come from, and leave feeling confident in how to deal with them and enjoy not only beans, but all their benefits - and none of their possible sound effects. Researching this episode left me all the more in awe of the incredible, ancient value beans bring to our diet, and more determined than ever to include them in a variety of meals across the week without what the Bard called any "strange eruptions".
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    Sign up to the pod's newsletter here.
    Get a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains
    Read our Guide to Milling Your Own Flour
    Get all three of the podcast cookbooks
    Wear our beautiful, sustainable merchandise
    Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics
    Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course
    Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop: US here and UK here.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Come join the podcast community! You can select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content, and a Discord discussion group Find out more here!
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    If you love the show, leave us a 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts:
    Open the Apple Podcast app and find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
    Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews', click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening

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    Resources:
    Check the show notes for this episode on https://ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/category/podcast/ . Additional show note material doubles the content you see here! On the website you will also see the ancestral jokes alluded to in the episode, as well as the newspaper clippings from the Duke of Windsor's wedding including the advertisement for bile beans!
    Corned Beef recipe
    How long have humans been eating beans?
    The Story of Beans in Mexican Cuisine
    Karen Hurd’s research on beans and bile - story starts at about 8 minutes in
    London Musem bile beans
    Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron utilization of RFO (raffinose family oligosaccharides)
    What is Raffinose?
    Article about Steve Sando and Rancho Gordo (behind a paywall, but new viewers are allowed an article or two before paying)
    Sumerian Jokes
    Ancient Anatolian bread
    The Rise and Fall of Çatalhöyük: A Neolithic Matriarchy?
    Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük
    Did Vikings and ancient Norse peoples eat beans?
    When were potatoes introduced to England?
    Does epazote reduce gassiness?
    Epazote seeds from Mountain Rose Herbs (organic)
    Yerba Santa
    Fonda san Miguel
    What do digestive bitters do?
    What does epazote do to beans? “Epazote’s ability to reduce gas production is thought to be due to its carminative properties. Carminatives are ingredients that help to relieve gas and bloating in the digestive system. Epazote’s carminative properties are believed to work by reducing the amount of gas produced by bacteria in the large intestine. This is achieved through the inhibition of the growth of gas-producing bacteria, as well as the reduction of the amount of oligosaccharides that are fermented. As a result, epazote can help to reduce the discomfort and bloating associated with eating beans.”
    Other carminative herbs
    More carminative herbs
    Sources - Garden Treasures (they do not sell online), Rancho Gordo, Hodmedods
    Pressure canning book
    Soaking beans
    WAPF...
  • Ancestral Kitchen

    #128 - Unprocessed Foods: The Ancestral Pantry

    16/03/2026 | 1h 53 mins.
    What foods will you find in an ancestral pantry in a modern world kitchen? Today we will share some of the foods we store in our pantries to keep our regional, from-scratch meals on the table on a daily basis, as well as talk about modern tools that help us to turn some inexpensive, bulk raw products into value-added products. We will travel back in time to visit ancient and old pantries and look at what people were eating and how they were storing it, and we will also talk about ancient tools, some of which we still use today.
    Supporters of the pod can check their private podcast feed for an aftershow where we share some of the foods we used to keep in our pantries “Before” ancestral food; and, everyone can check the show notes here for some of our favorite resources for reading about pantries and food in times past.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Sign up to the pod's newsletter here.
    Get a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains
    Read our Guide to Milling Your Own Flour
    Get all three of the podcast cookbooks
    Wear our beautiful, sustainable merchandise
    Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics
    Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course
    Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop: US here and UK here.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Come join the podcast community! You can select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content, and a Discord discussion group Find out more here!
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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    If you love the show, leave us a 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts:
    Open the Apple Podcast app and find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
    Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews', click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Resources:
    For the photos and descriptions mentioned in the show, see our show notes at www.ancestralkitchenpodcast.com
    Ruth Goodman video, “What the Tudors really ate”
    Tudor Monastery Farm, BBC/PBS
    Food in History, Reay Tannahill
    Five Children and It, E. Nesbit
    The Diary of a Farmer’s Wife 1796 - 1797, Anne Hughes
    Food In England, Dorothy Hartley
    Lost Country Life, Dorothy Hartley
    The Domestic Revolution, Ruth Goodman
    Do you have memories, documents, recipes or stories of those who cooked ancestrally? Visit our website here for how to share
    The podcast has a website here!
    Stay in touch with Alison via her newsletter at Ancestral Kitchen
    The podcast is on You Tube here
    The podcast is mixed and the music created by Alison's husband, Rob. Find him here: Robert Michael Kay
  • Ancestral Kitchen

    #127 - How to Render Fat at Home (with Q&A)

    02/03/2026 | 1h 45 mins.
    Fat is one of the cornerstones of ancestral eating. But getting hold of good saturated fat is not easy and can be eye-wateringly expensive. Making it at home, as Andrea and I do, you can cut your costs incredibly and also feel sure of the provenance and processing.
    This episode will talk you through everything you need to know about rendering fat. We'll explain the different types of fats, their names, their properties and how you can use them. We'll then demystify the ways you can render fat in your kitchen, no matter what equipment you have, giving you step-by-step instructions. We'll clarify how you'll know your fat is done, what to do with the leftovers, how to clean up, the many different ways you can store your fat and how to know if it's gone bad.
    This episode is peppered with real questions from real ancestral cooks about fat rendering – thank you to every supporter who sent in their query.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Sign up to the pod's newsletter here.
    Get a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains
    Read our Guide to Milling Your Own Flour
    Get all three of the podcast cookbooks
    Wear our beautiful, sustainable merchandise
    Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics
    Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course
    Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop: US here and UK here.
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    Come join the podcast community! You can select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content, and a Discord discussion group Find out more here!
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    If you love the show, leave us a 5* reviews on Apple Podcasts:
    Open the Apple Podcast app and find Ancestral Kitchen Podcast in your library
    Scroll down to 'ratings and reviews', click on 'write a review', give us 5*s and then tell us why you love listening

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Resources:
    Tallow price online link
    Lard price online link
    How to render lard in a slow cooker
    7 ways to use lard (including a lard crackling spread recipe)
    Pane con Ciccioli recipe
    Do you have memories, documents, recipes or stories of those who cooked ancestrally? Visit our website here for how to share
    The podcast has a website here!
    Stay in touch with Alison via her newsletter at Ancestral Kitchen
    The podcast is on You Tube here
    The podcast is mixed and the music created by Alison's husband, Rob. Find him here: Robert Michael Kay

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About Ancestral Kitchen

The Ancestral Kitchen is a twice-monthly podcast hosted by Alison, a European town-dweller and Andrea, living on a family farm in northwest Washington state. Pull up a chair at the table and join us as we talk about eating, cooking and living with ancient ancestral food wisdom in a modern-world kitchen. Find us here: http://ancestralkitchenpodcast.com Podcast theme and audio production by Robert Michael Kay, find him at www.robertmichaelkay.com
Podcast website

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