Miss Me? - Listen Bitch! Taste Buds

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Miquita Oliver and Zawe Ashton answer your questions about taste.Next week, we want to hear your questions about BOUNDARIES. Please send us a voice note on WhatsApp: [phone]. Or, if you like, send us an email: [e-mail] episode contains very strong language and adult themes. Credits: Producer: Natalie Jamieson Technical Producer: Oliver Geraghty Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid Production Coordinator: Rose Wilcox Executive Producer: Dino Sofos Commissioning Producer for BBC: Jake Williams Commissioners: Dylan Haskins & Lorraine Okuefuna Miss Me? is a Persephonica production for BBC Sounds

This episode of Miss Me has a lot of strong language, adult themes, and references to very sexy taste buds. From everybody to listen, bitch, we're still with Zayashton. Zayashana, Zayashana is very much in our lives and in our family. We're not letting her go. She has no say. I'm your visiting auntie. This funky character has a role to play.

But obviously, if you listened to our last episode, we did talk about sex. We did talk about sex. And because I knew it's going to be so hot and sunny over the next few weeks. I wanted to do a listen, bitch, that was about sex. I wanted to talk about particularly penises or peni. Is that the plural? Correct. Peenai.

Because we've done vaginas and we want to cover everything. And Zowie said, I'm going to let you and Jordan do that one, actually. I do feel it's a circle that these closing, starting with vaginas. I think you do need to end with penises together. I mean, look, I can wrap all day about the P and I. We could do it, but it's right that it's Jordan and I, and I do understand. It's rightful. It's rightful.

And it's also, I'm just going to say, I just don't know if it's my speed today. Right. You've got shit going on. Can you sit for an hour and talk about penises? Maybe not. And that's just the truth. Well, the theme for this week's Listen, bitch, is pace. And that can be a bit.

sexy if your questions lead us there. So we might get what we needed or get what I needed. And then get things that we didn't even know we needed, which is very listen, bitch. Let's all join together. Actually, our first question isn't about taste. And it's something that I don't know. Something to surprise me or something like that. This is a message from Mikita, really. I took my driving theory test seven times. So I know exactly where you're coming from. It wasn't about revision. I just got in my head towards the end. After like the third time, I was just like very much in my head. And actually my scores were going down rather than up.

And I got hypnotised. And basically what he said to me is you've got to imagine that there's like three people in your brain. One of them is taking in the question. Another one is going to get the information. And then the other one is bringing it back to you to like answer the question. And it was just a way of like slowing down the process. And so once I did that, I passed with like flying colours. So yeah, it's just a bit of advice from my end.

Hope you're well. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Zowie, this is because I just keep failing my theory test. Solidarity. Oh, gosh. A little bit of solidarity. I can't drive either, you know.

Really? Yeah, I'm a virgin too. We're stunted. It does feel somewhat stunted. And I will not give up. I'm in this process, but as a person who literally doesn't know that particular three parts of your brain thing, but that is how my mind works at work. Like, I do research for a living.

It's my job to read something and fucking remember it. And I just cannot with this test. And I think it's about the environment is triggering a lot of me at school and how I felt in test environments. And so I'm confronting a lot in this journey to learn to drive. So, darling listener, thank you. you. That really helps. Thank you. I'm going to take that to heart as well. When I start my journey up again. You might have started me and... I get triggered. The teacher I had wasn't very good. The last time

I dove back into it and he was just like yelling at me and calling me Michael Schumacher saying, I love to go fast. I do love to go fast. I find that easier than that, you know, waiting forever for the biting point. You know, it's emotional and it is so triggering. And also I'm like quite on a real talk level, am I a driver in my mind? Yeah. Am I a driver in the metaphor? Well, it's like everything. Do I believe it? Do I believe that I'm a driver? Or am I just trying to pass this test? It's like you've got to believe that you can be a driver in the same way that you can be a mother or a wife or a director. It's like, you better believe it first. And I don't think I do quite yet right now after failing my sort of eighth theory. But she's a little.

said get hypnotised. I was actually calling a hypnotist this week about something else, so I'll add it to the list. Hopefully it's not like the GP where it's like just one issue at a time. Okay, don't just try. I'm sure it is actually. Scoop a few more into the drink. I need help with this because you also get me through my theory test and go. Yeah, but thank you. It really means a lot to me. We will now get back to taste. Hello, I'm Laura from Talford and Thursday. I just want to say, Makita and Zawi, what are you? I adore this podcast and I also just want to say thank you to Zawi for always being a voice of light and hope. It's an honour to support you in your work.

Taste. So I think taste can sometimes be seen as having to be expensive or luxury. But I read a quote by, I think it was Barbara Bradford that said a person with taste is merely one who can recognize the greatest beauty in the simplest thing. Which I think is really, really accurate. And I was just wondering what your own thoughts are around. the notion of having good taste. Thank you. Thank you, sweets.

Oh, lovely. Thank you. Duo shit was nice. Yeah, we are a good duo. The duo. Excuse me, the sister sister. We could have been a shit R&B band, couldn't we?

If we'd known each other, we probably would have made one. Why do you say we'd be shit? I think we would have lit the world alike. I think we would have changed culture. See, that kind of attitude would have taken us to the top. We would have been like envo.

I mean, I can see it, babe. I can see it. We can find two other girls straight to the top. I'm like the kind of the cottage core, you know, sort of. I love what you're wearing. I think you look so beautiful, by the way. Fit check. On the subject of taste, fit check.

Is this cottage core? No, because you're Zowie. Okay. Who you are in some sort of, this is like a prairie top, right? Yeah. But you're not a fucking prairie bitch. So the juxtaposition is the beauty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the confrontation that's so tasteful. It's the internal break and the pool and the coming back together. I know exactly what you're saying. That actually leads me onto an answer to this lovely listeners question, right? Because the question of taste, right, you love a bit of history. Taste is essentially racist. Taste is racist. And a friend of mine slid into my DMs after I posted about.

the today's listen bitch and she was like don't forget taste is racist shit like we don't you bet school us now okay the 18th century concept of taste was not an innocent neutral standard of beauty it was a deeply political eurocentric philosophy born out of and funded by the transatlantic slave trade colonial plunder and imperial expansion the concept of taste has an imperialistic grounding and the idea of having good taste in this colonial sort of structure literally meant consuming products generated by the slave trade. Wow, isn't that interesting? Well, I think class still comes in to taste today.

And I think there is an idea that money makes you have taste. It's fucking bullshit. Absolutely bullshit. Money does not give you taste. Trust in oneself is where taste lies for me. Love that. And I find it in myself the most. when I am buying clothes in a charity shop

because they're not presented to me on a nice hangar with good mirrors and great lighting. So my taste is everything in that particular hunt. It's like I'm confronted with who I am because of what I like, because it's just like, I like, it's like, I can't explain it. I like stripes, but I don't just like stripes. I like clothes like church clothes, really, simple, colorful, plain.

And that really harks back to like my ancestry and my aunties in Antigua. And I think that goes a lot deeper than just I like colorful, simple clothes. That's about me being close to where I'm from and who I'm from. And resistance. Everything that you're talking about right now creates this idea in my head of cultural resistance, you know, standing tall and proud and beautiful in an environment that isn't necessarily telling you that your idea of taste is welcome. Absolutely. Absolutely.

continuing to work on decolonising my idea of good taste, is actually re-inspired by today's. Listen, bitch. Wow. Because I think there is still something in the Eurocentric outlook that has influenced my own idea of what taste is. My mum thinks about this a lot in cooking and chefing on that world, the world of food,

because we still see everything through a Eurocentric lens in food. Like that is culinary excellence is French food. Why? There we go. When was that made up? Probably around the Michelin Star. But why was it started there? Why can't we have Michelin Star planted?

Yes. Absolutely. Yes. And it's something that my... And then also my mum has a lot of sometimes worry and lack of self-esteem. Literally me and my cousin were talking about this yesterday. Lack of self-esteem within her education in food.

She didn't go to culinary school. She hasn't mastered butchery. and things like that. And she is in a chefing environment where she is so hugely respected but by people who have learnt to cook in a Eurocentric kind of infrastructure and it's seen as the highest.

And so my mum, who essentially begins with Caribbean food and spice and that's not seen at the same level. But it's changing. Of course it's changing. The world's changing. But it's still very much the backbone of food is French food.

So real. That is so interesting that even a culture's culinary offerings could be marginalised. Yeah. And sideline in the quest for discovering and understanding what taste is. Yeah. But now we know it's origins. It makes quite a lot of fucking sense. Taste is racist. And yet, I have great taste. I would rate myself. I back myself. I bet on myself. What about when it comes to like, when it comes to like doing your whole? Like that's quite new for me.

What do I like in my home? I've always had really nice flats. I've really like seeked out flats with high up with good views and stuff. And I've worked since I was really young and I've been able to afford to live independently for a long time. But this flat, this flat I'm like, this shit is so tasteful. It's tasteful. It's tasteful. Because I was on the sofa at my mum's.

I'd lost my flat at very unexpectedly and horrified. circumstances. So I was really like, am I ever going to leave here? And so what I did was, and I was thinking about it the other day, it wasn't just manifesting. It was living as if. Living as if, I was like, I should probably read that Ralph Lauren home book that I've got because I've got a flat coming and I know what I wanted to look like. I did not have a flat coming. And I just sort of, I built this flat in my head for six months while I lived on that sofa.

I love that. I love that turn of phrase, living as if. Yeah, because I haven't got the flat yet. I got the flat like a month before I moved in. but the whole summer, this time last year, I was on that sofa and I was like, right, what kind of rugs do I want? Like, and now I've got like everything I want. And also I'd put my room, my sitting room, around the wrong way.

I have a really nice big table and I was still shoving it in a corner. My friend Maddie came around and said, turn it all around. And she just changed this shape and space. And I feel like there's a lot of love in this home. It's a very productive home, but I like being productive and a really tasteful place. Well, I saw a picture of your office space

the other day or your kitchen your dining space and I was like yes this is everything this is so tasteful this is so beautiful I could see I could feel the energy

coming off of it yeah your taste in your home and close I just have good taste let's just put this I have good taste and I mean talking about trying to take the Eurocentric lens of and I found out relatively recently

that I do have French lineage so I actually feel I can lean into that now as a North authentic taste point. Yeah? Because it's always been there. My taste has always been very, very French.

Did you just do your wheel? My dad started to do a family, like a massive family tree, completely Sherlock Homestar, like analog, in the lockdown. Oh. What goes, French Jewish. What can I say? French Jewish! On the paternal side.

This is why everyone should do their ancestral tree, but that's a whole other episode. It just makes sense. We have a question, but it's in text. Form Zowie. I'm going to read it. Love a text. I'm going to read this. Hi, my name's Tiffany. I'm 19 from London. Have you ever adopted a taste just because it belonged to people you looked up to

even if you never actually felt it yourself? I've been thinking about this a lot as a working class individual about to go to a predominantly upper class university where taste can feel like a kind of currency. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Oh, Tiff. Oh, Tiff. You're asking the big questions. Well done you.

Feeling you. Well, look, as per the conversation we just started, I love that Pablo Picasso quote that basically good taste is the enemy of art and I think you could probably say good taste is the enemy of authentic living. At the end of the day, all you're talking about is people who can afford more

and like you just said, doesn't necessarily equate to having taste. Be firm in your own sense of taste and do not put it through a lens. that will automatically marginalise it or somehow make it less than? Yeah, I mean, I wish I was just thinking, or is it the right of passage,

because she's only 19, is it the right of passage to know what it feels like to betray yourself in that way? Sorry. Because that's why I can be close to my own taste now because I betrayed myself for time. Like, I've definitely followed what other people, like whenever I have,

my life has looked a very certain way. Wow. That's really, really deep. No, you're right. that the self-betrayal leads us back to the authentic. Yeah, and leads us back to ourselves. I would have loved some advice like you just gave her. But like maybe at uni, it's like allow, be observant of when it's happening and when it's

not, when you're like, nah, no, no, I love that method man tune. I don't care if no one's heard it before. Right. But then when you're kind of going, yeah, okay. Like, it's just there is a sense of leaving oneself and you feel it. And the more you get close to that, the more you can not do it. genuinely been such a cultural camelea in my whole life that I don't feel like I've ever really tried to taste-wise assimilate too much. There was probably a time in life where we've talked about it before.

It was very, very dangerous to be like black and indie. And so you kind of put those tastes to the side. But they still lived inside of me. I never took them off the table of my internal world. But remember I told you I tried. I did try. for like a week. I was like, okay, I was going to get a bomb jacket, do my edges wear leggings. And I just couldn't do it. I was like, it's just not actually where I'm at.

I miss my DMs and my camo trousers. I just... I did that and thought, is this going to go really awkwardly. And then I was like, oh, this is fantastic. This is a next taste level that I had just assimilated. Yeah. There is something in me that assimulates a large number of tastes

and maybe that makes me run into different types of trouble. Do you know what I mean? Where it's like, how do I? really centralised myself, is this feeding into my chronic people pleasing that I've lived with my whole life and I'm really trying to decode and deconstructs and get rid of? Is this actually me? If I'm asking that question, do I know who I am even though I'm really good at adapting comfortably? Does anything I said just make sense? Yeah, I was about to say, I think they call it the journey of life. Like getting to know yourself. This is what it's all about. Like,

this is part of deeply getting to know yourself. It's one of the greatest parts of being alive. But also, what do you think you were assimilated to the most that made you feel apart from yourself? Was it the bomber jacket and edges? No, it would have been, I won't be specific about people. But it was around my early 30s where I felt that I had to be near a certain group of people

to feel close to my, in my head, past success that I had now lost. Oh, wow. I was like, I don't mean anything anymore. They do. If I'm close to them, then maybe that thing I used to be, i.e. on the telly. Yeah. Will feel closer to me.

And it had never felt further. It had never felt further than when I try to find it in them. Yes. Find it by proximity. I really hear that. I have a similar, something similar is coming to mind with me, but it's not about success. really enough is kind of chiming with what we were talking about in the last episode,

which is sex. There was a certain point in life where everyone was supposed to be this hypersexualized person. You were supposed to be going, looking to lose your virginity. Yeah. And I look back on that person now who was trying to keep up with that taste level. And that person is so lost. Like, it was not who I was.

I knew I had to have a sexual life that had emotional connection and had space for vulnerability. Right. Whereas because how I presented, I think, in the world was a bit bomber jacket and edges or was a bit like leather jacket and DMs. And so for some reason, people were sort of looking to me as leading the sexualized, like, revolution of that time. And I was like, that's not how I feel inside.

But I just need to find that. Like, I don't know why there's. this show Virgin Island, think of it what you will. I'm like, I don't know why virgins are persecuted in our culture. Virgins are sacred celestial. Carry that thing for as long as you can because no one's going to tell you it's a treasure chest. Everyone's going to say, break that open and give away your treasure. That's how you're going to get friends.

That's how you're going to culturally make an impact. Absolutely not. The day I had my first child, I said, how did I let those dust? He does he. Anywhere near this treasure box? How did I let you inside of me? Inside of me has sacred worlds. It can transcend life and death.

Mm-hmm. And I was made to think at one point that it was something to just be given away in order to gain power. And the fact that I didn't see through that and the rest of my teenage girlfriends did not see that at the time. is madness to me.

And that is the one time I probably betrayed myself. But thank God, I stayed on my path. I lived as if. I did find a lovely partner at the right time to go on that journey with. Fuck, yeah. And it had health and vulnerability and self-respect. And I've never been so glad to have stepped back from the precipice of trying to meet other people's taste level before.

And I think that's what we were just saying earlier to Tiffany. It's like, you did. You went through the... fiery chasm of betrayal to oneself and it pushed you straight to where you're meant to be. I had to step back. I was too close to the flame sometimes and I could have been consumed by the flame and I did, I did why I'm teaching my eldest to cross the road. You know, when you get to the, when you get to the edge, you see the yellow line and the curb, you step back. Stop and look both ways. You step back and look both ways. Stop and look at your.

life before you cross that road. Very good. I think the green cross code does work in this metaphor. Thank you very much. We'll see you after the break. Welcome back to the heady, safe

but curious place that is listen bitch. Yeah. Let's have another question. This is Tony from Walthamstow. I absolutely love the podcast and have listened since day one and got all my friends to listen to it too. So yeah, yeah, when I that you were doing taste, I was like, I have to send in my first question because I work in

wine tasting with the aim of making the wine world more inclusive and engaging and approachable with alcohol and alcohol free wines. So my question to you is, what is your favourite food and drink pairing, whether that's wine or something else? Mine would have to be a rosé wine and a Thai red curry or fish and chips and sparkling wine. And yeah, I kind of think that's wine. I kind of think all the rules that we've ever had and heard about food and wine pairing, I don't know, I don't really listen to those. I feel like it should be based on what you actually like. So yeah, have you got any nice food and drink pairings, any weird ones, anything that I could try out? Anyway, thank you so much for the podcast and yeah, looking forward to listening to this episode.

Love that. Yeah, good for you. I love you. I've been listening since day one and this week, you went, I'm going to send in a question and it was really your time as a sort of wine and tasting, cool chick in all of the, like, I love you and I love your life. Decolonize wine. Follow this woman. Decolonize alcohol, yeah. If I'm having a drink, I am having a drink. If I'm eating something, I'm eating something. I don't really pair wine and food. Who are you? Well, I know, but I feel like there's too much going on if I'm having a glass of red wine and eating like a steak. I'm like, Jesus Christ, too many. It's like overwhelming, sensational.

Oh, sensory overload. And I'm quite an uptight bitch with things. Like, like vessels. Like, I can't drink something out of the wrong cup. Makita, this is where our bond will deepen in the vessel's face. I would never drink Coca-Cola out of a mug. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. What?

Or water out of a mug. Hate that, too. But anyway, that's another conversation. but so I am quite uptight when it comes to like what I pair with things and even if I make a plate of food everything has to have an area wow like I'm very like avocado fish love that salad like it really is quite uptight it drives my mom nuts but the other day me and my cousin were in her beautiful garden best garden in the world and we had shabbly a glass of shabbly and watermelon and it was a fucking party we were like we know how

how to live. I see a lot of decolonising of wine and food pairing in that story. And it's so funny you say about the glass thing. Like even like French fries, if I'm eating French fries, if they're flat on the plate, I don't enjoy it. I need them to be up in a conical. Oh my. You've got to be in a conica again.

That's the French and me. As a vessel lover, I forgot about a conical. May we? You just elevated all our shit. Of course. I agree with you. I got a McDonald's. delivery the other day, okay?

I did. And I took the fries out, heated them up in the oven because they're never hot when they get here, and then put them back in their box because that's how to live. You needed that conical elevation.

We needed the hylo, okay? That's a classic example of high low, which I would say actually characterizes my taste in general. Yes. Jack Whitehall, when we were working together on Frush Meat, once said, I think most, the probably most accurate description of me as a human being and definitely pertaining to a taste level.

He said, you are like a can of white lightning on top of a Harper's Bazaar. And that's why he's still working. That's why they pray the big bucks. I was like, yeah, that's absolutely me. That's the high, low that makes me who I am. My taste pairing, I don't think you can get better than a rich, full-bodied glass of red

and an amazing bolognese. Yeah, that actually is quite good. Haven for me. But seeing as we're in summer, what's my summer, like heading towards summer, my summer pairing would probably... What's your summer drink? What do you like to drink in the summer

when you are drinking alcohol? When I'm drinking, oh, can you... I'm not going to be disappointed if all there is is champagne. Yeah, you like champagne, I know that. It's the French in me. It's the French in me. So I would say, I weirdly would say,

summertime, a pairing for me that cannot go wrong is a glass of champagne and a French fry. Done. Okay. Okay. Perfect conicals on both sides. May we. Exactly. Way.

Don't put any colour in that glass. I don't want colour. I don't want gold. No. I don't want that glass with any extras. In fact, I want a coop. Yeah. That is a very sensible level around rather than at all.

Right. Oh. Thank you. Oh, you. May we? Such a fancy French bitch. Round not a tool, yeah? I don't want tall.

You're more like that. Okay, I get it. What do you do with that tall glass? What are you doing? Speaking of vessel behaviour, if I ask for a gin and tonic and it comes in those round, big, like, dessert bowl glasses that they have in pubs now,

hate it, hate it. Can I get a tall glass and a straw? And should we not have this conversation again? Like, who am I? Who am I? I hate that shit. Boogey. But I didn't grow up with this.

It's important to say, this is taste that I got actually from going into the acting entertainment. You know, a taste that was developed in different spaces. That's really important in taste, isn't it? It's like experience brings taste. Like, I think my taste has got a little bit better since my uncle's moved to Kenya 10 years ago. And like, they take us to a lot of beautiful furniture shops with the most incredible wood-carved furnishings and everything. And I've got a lot of that in my house now.

And like that's because of, I've listened a lot to my uncle Chris, who's an incredible interior designer and does these huge homes and hotels all around Kenya and actually the world. And also I started being more curious. I bought Barbara Streisand's book, My Passion for Design, which is like this big.

Like it's a fucking tomb. And it's about this amazing house that she buys on a hill in Santa Barbara, I think, in California. And it's this, you know, so Barbara. It's this incredible story of how she gets. the house. She wants it. It doesn't come into her life till 10 years later, but she never gives up on it spiritually. It's just the most beautiful open plan, L.A. house, but she's obsessed with history as well

and the history of furniture, and she's extremely knowledgeable about time, periods of design dating back to like the 1600s. So she's got, I mean, some of her rooms I wouldn't want, but she's just got a really clear vision and I really enjoyed being in her vision for the book. And it made me realize how to jump into my own. Yeah again, Barba Streisand leads the way in my life. There's a very thin membrane between the two of you. Literally, her birthday is the day after mine. Oh, wow!

Yeah. You know what I hear us saying, or you say in that moment, I just thought, taste is exposure. Full stop. Taste is exposure. If you ever feel like you're in a taste vacuum, like you're in a situation or scenario that is marginalising you in terms of what might,

And again, in a racist way, more broadly is described as having taste or not taste. Just go outside and go, like you're saying, go to a high-end furniture shop. Go into those spaces. Go see things. Go to art galleries. Read that, you know, biography, cultivate. Because you have lots of people in the entertainment industry. You know, Barbara Streis, and I can't really remember what her origin story is.

But you have so many of those people. who went into the arts, came from absolutely nothing, had this incredible exposure, built this taste level, and then wrote that book, you know, brought it back round, decided to make it accessible. You are so right.

And if anyone who's been listening to Miss me a long time, you'll know this. I live for this woman, so I know her origin story. And she slept in a cot in a hallway. And, you know, they had nothing. And this is what I mean. It's not that just she's,

cultivated her taste, she's cultivated her fucking life. And she lives with deep curiosity about everything. And that's what's made her taste per se. Ah, I love taste. I knew it would take us places. You are just such a well, McKee. Honestly, how are you? I don't know if you're going to find someone who's going to easily understand and

hold the layers that live within you. Your grove, your Barbara Streisand, your, you're, Ed is, your DMs, your... It's just one big juxtaposition, isn't it? I love those layers that have come through just in that moment for me. Thanks, Alami. With regards to you.

Why do you ask the final question on taste? I want a tasty question to end this tasteful and flavourful overload of a conversation. Yeah. It's Jade from Southampton and I just wanted to start by saying I love the podcast so much

that I've been a debated listener from the beginning and I just think all of the conversations is just so beautiful. You really show us all what true friendship should look like and how we can work together to learn and grow. So yeah, thank you for that. On taste, I am a massive foodie. And when we were in Australia, I lived there with my now husband at the time. We were boyfriend and girlfriend. And we went to a pretty boozy restaurant, which was way out of our price range and had a potato. So it was like this kind of like delicious, smoky potato. And I ate the potato and instantly burst into tears because it made me think of my nan

and how she used to make her potatoes. And it sort of brought me back to that taste and that thought and that person immediately. And we'd sadly lost her a few weeks prior. So I wondered whether there was a taste that brought you back to a moment or a person evokes a memory so big that it made you feel emotional in any way happy or sad. Yeah, fuck yeah, God. Can I just say when Listen, bitch, it's just flying and at its best is when we have a great theme that takes us to loads of places and then people give us questions like that. That's just a fucking great, great question.

And thank you so much for being a listener for the last two and a half years. Like, we've really been through some stuff together, haven't we? It's been quite a ride. But emotional, I mean, I know where you're at with things like this and so does the audience. So I imagine this probably happens all the first. fucking time do you? You eat something burst into tears

about the nostalgic memory lane it takes you down. I can't go anywhere. Someone took a fab out of a freezer the other day and I was like,

excuse me for a moment. Not a fab. It's just too close. It's swimming lessons are coming out. No, but this is so good because I suppose taste can be an immediate route.

Like, you know, when you feel like you just are in a memory and you just said it's the swimming pool and I suddenly was like, oof, now I know, now I'm in it.

I'm trying to think when this is most recently happened to me. I mean, interesting, she says Nanny. Sorry, her grandmother. And I'm so sorry you lost your grandmother. I've just spent last weekend with my grandma, because I was at my mum's for a few days with Phoebe and her kids. And Nanny lives there, obviously. And my mom's away.

Nanny makes fried rice. It's like not even a big deal. But it's just Nanny rice. And it's everything from the fridge. It's ham, prawn, sweet corn, rice, cooked in a lot of oil butter, spring onions. And it's just nanny rice. And she made it last weekend.

And she hasn't made it in a while. Because my grandma's 90 in December. Wow, babe. Yeah. I mean, we're so lucky to have her. You're so lucky. And one of the projects I need to talk to you about involves, let's say, her stories. So we've been really like unraveling her stories as much as we can and recording her and stuff.

and that mixed with a bit of nanny rice, yeah, that's enough to make me want to weep. It's like that woman is why I'm here. It's too much to hold sometimes, isn't it? It is, and this is why this was, I'm going to argue a deeper subject than penises, peni, to get into for us, how taste encapsulates the metaphorical and literal

is actually really profound. It's so big actually this question. question. There is something about revisiting the foods of childhood when you're a parent. And so you'll end up tasting things again that you wouldn't necessarily, Joe. And there was something about having the other day with this heat wave, you know, El Nino, forced me to the ice cream van. Soft serve, yeah. And I was like, what am I going to have? What am I going to have? I'm going to have a soft serve

with a 99 with a flake. Isn't it? Just a 99 with a flake? With a bit of red sauce. I don't want... I don't eat that. But I wanted to taste the past. Mr. Whiffy will always take you to that past.

I wanted to call down. I walked past the fancy gelato place and I went, you know, I'm just going to go over here to... What was the name? It wasn't Mr. Whippy. It was one of the other legendary ice cream man names. Oh yeah. What were the other ones?

Yeah, Nat. What were the other ones? It's like a Georgia. There's a, oh, God, what was the other one? Isn't an ice cream van crazy now? They've got carb machines. It's fusing the past and the present in a way that is like sensory overload. But I taste that and I am transported.

Yeah. Even when the flake, the flake doesn't taste nice on a 99. Okay. Chocolate has been like, like, cooled and warmed and warmed. It's expanded and contracted to such a level that has made it undelicious. But it's familiar. But it's so familiar. And so there's something about that,

about the child me growing up in Hackney and the community of young people. Yeah. And those summer days that felt very carefree, that felt very separate maybe from, you know, other difficulties that might have been greeting you in your life. It was escapism. That's nice.

Nats just said that the other one's called Mr. Softie. Is that really what it's called? Yeah, that's it. And then it's a guy in a van with sweets for kids. It could be creepy, but it's just tasty. It is creepy in every way, show, Pop, Paul. It's just in like, the jingle. When you hear that jingle, you're like,

because I live by a park, so I hear it a lot this summer, and I'm like, it's summer, baby. It's fucking summer. Yeah, yeah, that's my nostalgic taste, summertime edition. I could have given others, but that feels, that feels right and pertinent to where we are right now with our sweaty, sweaty selves,

well, sweaty selves. Totally. It does feel good. It feels good to end with Mr. Softie and Mr. Whippy. We've been to a lot of places

and this is where we end. This is where we leave you. I actually will just do a tiny add-on, which is all these Arsenal people, little boys that are around at the moment, that are just suddenly appearing in a neighbourhood near you where they've seemed to do not exist before.

Yeah. A young man, water parsley in an Arsenal top. And he, He smelt of Lynx Africa. Whoa. And I nearly went to my knees because of the nostalgia wave. No, shit, man.

I was like, Lynx Africa processed through the synthetic threads of an arsenal shirt reaching my nostrils. Is it suddenly 22 years ago? I get that. It felt like life was kind of going to change. Oh shit. I forgot to talk to you about, someone was telling me about when we kissed. people, we do essentially taste them.

I told you that. You told me that. The biological cocktail of a kiss determining whether you might procreate or not with a certain person, yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? Because I kissed someone a few years ago and it was just a kiss.

And then I kissed someone and it fucking wasn't. So it must be this taste that you are tasting someone. You're not just kissing them. and, you know, that kind of firework shit. Oh my God. I guess that is just we like each other's taste. I know. I'm like turning myself on.

How were you going to do this as a coder? My favorite taste is a person from the past. We can't open this book. No, no. We're closing. Yeah, that's the end. It's big. And then taste.

But boy, I just want to say, one more. thing, that's where the fireworks are. It's when you like each other's taste, I think, yeah. If you think back to those really charged moments in maybe it's right to say our younger days, someone telling you that they like how you taste? Yeah. I need a Mr. Whippet, you just called out. 100.

That's the hottest thing anyone can say to you. It's the hottest thing you can say. Wow. We could do this all day. Yeah. We need a theme for next week, and mine were pushed recently, so let's do it. The theme for next week's Listen, Vitch, is... Boundaries.

Nothing bigger. And how we attempt to put them into place to protect our own energy. Can you teach me how to have some? That would be great for that episode. I'm deep in the uncomfortable learning phase, I'm afraid. But when I'm ready to teach, I will. I'll probably learn a lot about how to do it from our beautiful listeners questions. Please voice note us. 08,030, 40, 90.

08,030, 40, 90. It's our third summer together, Miss Me audience. Our third summer together. Let's have a good time and stick some fucking boundaries in place. And it will be with myself and wonderful Jordan from Rio. He's got his international summit, but he's making space for Miss Me. That's just the kind of guy he is. So it'll be Makita and Jordan next week.

we say thank you to the wonderful Zowie Ashton everybody. What a woman. What a woman. Thank you, Zowie. Don't you go changing? Don't you fucking go changing. Thanks for listening to Miss Meep. This is a Pasofonica production for BBC Sounds.

I told my dad stop immediately. This is a scam. Scam Secrets with me, Shari Val. He had actually paid £209,000 to the scammers. Each week, we expose a different scam in detail. to help you spot the red flags. I'll say things like, I carried on with it and I got great returns. With special insights from experts, including criminologists and a former scammer who now works to help prevent fraud.

When it's successful, it completely wipes people out. Scam Secrets from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.