Science Friday - SciFri Extra: After 20 Years, The ‘Cosmic Crisp’ Has Landed

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

This fall, there’s a new apple all around town. After 20 years of development, the Cosmic Crisp has landed. Today, we're bringing you an episode of another podcast called The Sporkful. They’re a James Beard Award-winning show that uses food as a lens to talk about science, history, race, culture, and the ideal way to layer the components of a PB&J.  This episode is all about the Cosmic Crisp, how scientists developed it, and how it got that dazzling name. Guests: Helen Zaltzman is the host of The Allusionist podcast. Dan Charles is a food and agriculture reporter at NPR. Kate Evans is a horticulturist and the leader of the pome fruit breeding program at Washington State University. Kathryn Grandy is Chief Marketing Officer for Proprietary Variety Management. Footnotes & Further Reading: For more episodes, subscribe to The Sporkful podcast. Credits: The Sporkful is produced by Dan Pashman, Emma Morgenstern, Andres O'Hara, Jared O'Connell and Harry Huggins. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hey there, it's that time of the year again. Apple season. You know, I'm usually more of a green apple guy, but this year there's a new apple in town. I haven't had it yet, but it was in development for 20 years. And it's got to have a great name to live up to all that hype. And it does. It's called the Cosmic Crisp. You can just hear it, right? So we've got a special guest episode for you from our friends at the Sporkful. Oh, you haven't heard about the Sporkful. Sporkful is a James Beard award-winning podcast that uses food as a lens to explore science, history, race, culture, and the ideal way to layer a PBNJ. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. And this episode is all about the Cosmic Crisp, how scientists developed it and how it got that flashy name.

So, here it is. Thus, Sporkful, take a bite. So basically, like, first you make the apples have sex, then you have to raise the kids. Right. And then you've got to choose which kid you want to keep, and all the rest of them you just get rid of. So that's when it becomes a little kind of, you know, you want to dissociate it from humans at that point. This is the sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. You know, when you go to the grocery store, you see strawberries, blueberries, blueberries, orange, Most of the time, it's one kind of each, right?

Yeah, maybe there are like two types of oranges. They're red and green grapes. Apples? Apples are different. Red delicious, golden delicious, Granny Smith, Gala, Fuji, Honey Crisp. The list goes on and on. So many apples. When I was a kid, we didn't have Honey Crisp.

That's how old I am. So where did that come from? How are new apples developed? And what's wrong with the old ones? That's what we're going to learn about today, because this fall, there's a new Apple coming. It's been 20 years in the making, and its launch will be the biggest in Apple history.

It had a limited release last year, but in November comes the real test when the Apple ships out nationwide. I've already had a chance to try it. We'll talk about that later. But first, I have a co-host for this episode. Hello. What a time for us to join together

in this very significant moment in Apple history. It's very exciting, and long-time listeners will recall you, from our discussion about the term brunch. Yes, a controversial word. Right. Because you're a language maven. You host the podcast, The Allusionist, with an A.

There's a lot to talk about with Apple names. We'll get into that. That's right. So, Helen, real quick, before we get started, what is your relationship with apples? It's a cordial and platonic. How's yours? It happens to be hot and heavy right now.

I can tell you. I was kind of mad on apples. growing up. Then I developed an allergy to apples in my 20s. I'm allergic to pollen, so the spring I always get, you know, when everything's blooming. But there's this kind of like mouth allergy that you can develop where like I would eat an apple and half the time I would get like stuffy runny nose, itchy roof of mouth. It would go, and then it would go away in 45 minutes. It wasn't that serious, but it made me not eat many apples. And at some point I I overcame it. And then I, in recent years, have developed a real love for apples. A nice

cold, crunchy, juicy apple is like one of my favorite afternoon snacks. I'm very impressed that you came back. I'm so happy for you. Thank you. I appreciate it. So, Dan, where shall we begin the story of this new apple? You know, maybe the first thing people should know is Washington State is like the superpower of apples. You know, more than half of all the apples in the country come from Washington State. This is Dan Charles. He's a food and agriculture reporter at NPR and a former editor of the Sporkful. Dan's been following this new apple for years.

Historically, this just kind of emerged in the apple industry that there was one dominant apple variety, and everybody knows what it was. You know what it was, right? Red Delicious. Red Delicious. You know, going back, what is this, almost 40 years, 1986, three quarters of all the apple orchards in Washington State

were planted with Red Delicious. How was the Red Delicious? Delicious got away with it for so long. You know, the story people tell you is that the supermarkets had no interest in anything else. They said we sell, you know, the green apple, the Granny Smith. We sell the yellow apple, the golden delicious. And we sell the red apple, the red delicious. Who needs anything else?

Am I right that one of the draws of Red Delicious, aside from the fact that it was red, was that it kept very well? They were very durable. Well, it lasts forever because no one wants to eat them. And, you know, the Washington industry in particular is really dependent on apples that store well. They have these vast buildings, you know, climate-controlled. Because they, you know, they harvest, obviously, in the fall, but they ship apples throughout the year. So that's really important for them.

And was there a time when people thought red delicious apples were delicious? Yeah, I think there was. But there is also a theory that Red Delicious actually deteriorated over. over time, because, you know, sort of apple trees have this characteristic, like a branch of the tree will start producing apples that are just slightly different. They're called a sport of the original variety. The theory is that, you know, through this process, they actually were just selecting for color, and so that, and the taste actually deteriorated over time in that variety. But sort of skipping forward, Red Delicious is falling out of favor, and these new varieties are coming in. You know, over time, there was Fuji, there was Gala, obviously.

And then, you know, Honeycrisps really kind of shook up the industry because here was an apple that people were, consumers were willing to pay crazy amounts of money for because, you know, it was seen as a superior apple. You're like, I'm not allowed to buy Honeycrisp in my house. Like, if I come home with Honeycrisp, my wife will be like inspecting the receipt. She'll be like, if these were not on sale, you are going back to the store. Like, we are not, we don't make Honeycrisp money. Right, right. So you have these new varieties coming into the marketplace, and they're selling and they're selling for better prices. And it's partly because there was this innovation.

The innovation Dan's talking about is something called Club Apples. And we're not talking about apples that sit in a VIP lounge, glugging crystal to music that goes, inch, inch, inch. Club Apples are actually new types of apples developed and tightly controlled by cooperatives. Yeah, so the cooperative only. the license to grow a new type of apple and only issues licenses to a few growers for a fee. If you're not in the club, you can't grow the apple. You've probably seen one of these club apples at the store or the farmer's market. Pink Lady was the first, but there's also Kiku, Jazz, Snapdragon, Lady Alice.

The names of these club apples are not generic plant names. They're trademarked brand names. So, you know, Helen, it's kind of like with pharmaceuticals. You know how the actual name of the medication is like 27 letters and it's unpronounced? But then the brand name of the drug is like Shazam. You know, I was shocked that apples are also like that. My big question for Dan Charles was, do these clubs actually produce better-tasting apples?

I think there's a good argument that this has stimulated the proliferation of new apple varieties that come onto the market, and some of them are good. There were breeding programs coming out with great apple varieties in years past, but there was kind of this chicken and egg problem. The growers didn't want to buy those. trees and grow those varieties because they didn't think that consumers would demand them. And so consumers didn't have a chance to taste them.

And you know, you can understand why growers would be reluctant to plant new varieties. It takes a long time to grow an apple tree. They have to commit to planting years before the apple's going to hit the market. So they have no idea if anyone's going to want to buy it when it's grown. That's where the apple clubs do really help. They control how many growers get licenses, so they control support. Apply, which helps ensure the growers get good prices. And the clubs provide marketing.

They make sure that when the new apple is ready, there's a well-funded push to get people to buy it. All that makes it a lot easier for growers to commit to new apples. Now, the club concept isn't exactly new. The Pink Lady was developed in the early 70s. But it's only recently that club apples have reached the same level as the classics. However, while this revolution has been happening, the growers in Washington State have largely been left out.

As John Charles explains, they're still stuck growing red delicious. So they're looking for a new variety to grow that'll sort of get them into this game of, you know, sort of premium higher-priced apples. And along comes Washington State University. Because they started up on Apple Breeding Program, and they come along with one that they think is really pretty good. And Washington State University says, we're going to play this game too. we're going to play the club Apple game. So they hire a marketing company,

and they come up with a name and a trademark, and the name is Cosmic Crisp. Cosmic Crisp. Cosmic crisp. Cosmic crisp. Cosmic crisp. We'll get more into the name later. Oh, you better believe it.

They said we're going to put a lot of money into marketing this variety. And at least for the first few years, We're only going to let growers in Washington State grow this thing. So it came along at the right time and under circumstances that made growers, you know, really go for it, like gangbusters. Washington State University spent more than 20 years and a lot of money developing Cosmit Crisp. They're spending $10 million on marketing alone. Having another Big Apple will really benefit the state's growers. Meanwhile, the school has its own reasons for investing.

so much. They're going to be making, I'm guessing, at least $100 million. They have put nowhere close to that into their breeding programs over the last 20 years. That's pretty good, $100 million on apples. You know, and that's so quick. You know, these other varieties like Honeycrisp actually took 20 years to like build a following. So is there a risk here? Yeah, there is a risk. And I think the growers in Washington know that it's a risk. I mean, the risk is. that they flood the market and consumers are just not overwhelmed and end up not buying the production. Our consumers are willing to pay, you know,

$2.99 a pound as opposed to $1.20. That's what, you know, everybody's waiting to see. And if it goes south and the demand is not there, who gets hit the hardest? I'd say the growers. The growers get hit because they've invested a lot of money in planting these fields in this new variety of apple trees, and they're not getting the return that they were hoping for. Have any apples really flopped before?

I don't think there was ever a launch like this before. So the stakes are high. Growers in Washington have planted millions of cosmic crisp trees, essentially on faith. In part, they're counting on the big market. push the university will provide. But marketing only gets you so far. At the end of the day, this apple better be good. Well, it's certainly an exciting time. You know, I think that we've seen for a long time the potential of this apple. And there's certainly, I believe, space for it out there. So I hope that consumers enjoy it as much as we have. This is Kate Evans. She oversees

the breeding program that developed the Cosmic Crisp. I am the leader of the poem fruit breeding program at Washington State University. I'm a professor of horticulture. Did you just say pomfreet? I said, you're a good one. Poem fruit, I said. So apple is a poem fruit, as is pear and quints and other similarly related fruits. So I cover apples and pears. So what's that word? How do you spell it? Poem, P-O-M-E. Helen, have you heard this word poem? I'm very excited to hear it. It sounds like it comes from French apple. It does sound like that. Yes, I presume that there's some relation between the two, but yeah, I'm not a, I'm not a word specialist, so that's why I'm here.

All right. Is it connected to pomegranate? Yeah, pomegranate is, I don't know whether, well, Kate would know whether they are connected fruit-wise, but etymologically, pomegranate meant apple with many seeds. Oh, look at all that we're learning here. So, Kate, start at the very beginning here. When you are breeding an apple variety, What are the basic qualities that you're judging the apple by? Well, that's the fundamental question, right? What is it that you want in an apple? What is it that consumers want in an apple? Good textural traits, and that, you know, texture itself is complex.

It's firmness, crispness, juiciness, all of those things combined. And then, of course, you have the effect of the skin, because the skin to the flesh makes a difference in terms of how you perceive the texture. Yes. And then you've got all those. those flavoral traits. You've got tartness, sweetness, aromatics, but also trying to combine that with those traits that would make it work for the grower and for the whole production line. So how well a piece of fruit will store in refrigerated storage makes a big impact to the eating

quality of that piece of fruit in, say, May or June. And so that's an important trait. Right. I like, though, Kate, that you separate, there's the texture of the skin and then the texture of the interior. Right. And for me, I think that I really want the skin to feel thin, but yet still firm, so that there's like a snap when you bite through that skin. And then I want the apple inside to be very firm and crunchy. Right. But I don't like a thick skin.

Right. And nobody does, you know, it's not something that we'd be selecting for. Is there such thing as? as too firm or crunchy of an apple interior? Oh, yes. So it's kind of funny. Yesterday I was out walking my orchard rose with a student intern that we've got at the moment. And I was explaining about evaluation of seedlings.

And there are certain, when you pick an apple off the tree, you've never tasted that fruit before. It looks nice. You think, oh, I'll, you know, I'll give it a bite, see what it does. And you can't actually get your teeth in. That's too firm. Right. Right. Is there such thing as an apple that's too juicy? Ooh, too juicy.

Um, I would say probably not. Coming up, Kate breaks down the science of how the Cosmic Crisp was born. Then later, we will taste the Cosmic Crisp. Dun, da, da. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Stick around. Welcome back to this porkful. I'm Dan Pashman. This week over on our show, we're celebrating our 10th anniversary by re-releasing three all-time

favorite episodes selected by our listeners, each with a brand new update. This includes one called Searching for the Aleppo Sandwich, about a beloved sandwich shop in Syria. Some corner in your stomach will test that food. Maybe you will feel that your stomach is smiling, happy. What made this sandwich shop special? What exactly was in those sandwiches? Has it been destroyed? Are the owners alive or dead?

And what can the fate of this place tell us about the same? the fate of Aleppo. We'll take you from Aleppo to Austria, from Detroit to New York to Istanbul, all in search of a sandwich. That episode of The Sporkful is up now. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to Apples. And I'm joined once again by my friend Helen Zaltzman, host of the Illusionist podcast. Hey, Helen. Hello, Dan. So the Cosmic Crisp was first developed by an apple breeder at Washington State University named Bruce Barrett. He's since retired. Yeah, That's how long this apple has been in development. The guy who came up with it originally, retired before the apple could come out.

It is really a job for the incredibly patient. So Bruce Barrett retired, and in comes Kate Evans, who is now Professor of Horticulture and Head of Apple Breeding at Washington State. She's continued to oversee the program. She was the one we were speaking with before the break. We heard about the traits they want in an apple. But how did they actually make that happen? The technology has been used for hundreds of things.

years. So walk us through the basic steps of it. Right. So once you have chosen your traits that you're looking for, the characteristics you're looking for in a new Apple, you've got to choose which two parents you think might combine produce offspring that would have the quality characteristics that you're looking for. So in the case of the Cosmic Crisp, who are the parents? Honeycrisp, which most people are aware of now, that was its pollen parent or male parent. and then its female parent was Enterprise. And so Honeycrisp we know is sweet, juicy, crunchy, like it's a very popular prized apple in the U.S.

What does Enterprise bring to the table? Enterprise was chosen really because of its appearance. It looks really nice, very pretty apple. And am I right? One of the shortcomings of Honeycrisp has also been that it's not so easy to grow. Correct, yes, yes. Honeycrisp as well, certainly in Washington, is challenging to growers.

Right. And so would Enterprise help to address that? Well, that was the hope at the time. And certainly it seems as if we've achieved that with this particular cross. So how do they actually do that? Well, like all fruit, apples start out as apple flowers. When pollen fertilizes the flower, the flower makes apple seeds, which grow into apples. Do we have to put an explicit rating on this episode down? I think we're okay.

But to do across, scientists like Kate take the pollen from one apple flower, in this case on a honey crisp tree, and they brush it onto another apple flower, in this case, on an enterprise tree. That fertilized flower then makes hybrid seeds that will grow to become cosmic crisp apples. But in the early going, each one of those apples has four to six seeds inside it, and each of those seeds is different. Some of them might not make such great apples.

And so in the same way that you and your siblings are offspring of your two parents, but you're all different. You've all inherited a slightly different combination of genes from your mother and your father. That's how it is with the seeds that are in the apple. And so you get differences in those seeds. And the only way to know for sure which seeds are best is to actually grow them into apple trees. And trees don't grow overnight. In the end, it took the team at Washington State 20 years.

20 years to grow the trees, select the best seeds, grow more trees, select the best seeds, and so on until you have seeds that consistently produce the apple you've been chasing. But the work isn't over then. That's right, because as Dan Charles said earlier, the big problem in the past has been that growers didn't want to plant the trees for a new apple, because they were afraid it wouldn't sell. Kate and Washington State University had to convince growers,

that this apple would sell. And that's especially hard with an apple because we all know about so many different varieties already. You've got a lot more diversity in the marketplace. You have consumers that know that diversity. They've got their own favorites. You've got consumers that love Granny Smith. You've got consumers that love golden delicious.

Kate, do not say that you've got consumers that love red delicious. You have, absolutely. Your credibility is going out the window here. Kate, come on. Well, you know, people buy them. They're people who hate themselves. So because of that, you know, you have to market an apple in a different way. You know, it has to come out with a name. It has to have some kind of market recognition, right, as the individual variety. So a new apple needs to stand out from the others. It needs to be memorable. And for that, it needs a great name. The naming took somewhere about a year, six months to really do sensory testing and come up with the name and then consumer testing probably another six months. This is Catherine Grandy. I am chief marketing officer for proprietary variety management, and we have been contracted by Washington State University to commercialize the WA-38, which is,

now called Cosmic Crisp. It's a catchyer name. Catherine has been naming and marketing fruit for more than a decade. Her company is one of the big guns in this industry. They've worked on apples like Pink Lady, Snapdragon, Lucy Rose, and more. So could you take us through the kind of process it usually takes to come up with an Apple name? Sure, you know, as a marketing group, we look at what's the parentage. What does it look like? And then we taste it. And, you know, what's the flavor profile? Is it sweet? Is it crunchy? Is it juicy? And then we do sensory testing with consumers. Catherine's company brings consumers in for blind testing. Each person gets the apple and they feel it and smell it and then bite into it. And they share their impressions. And the company uses those impressions to brainstorm names. Catherine says there are some name suggestions that always come up, but that aren't as good as people think.

You know, people love to name fresh fruit after candy, and we've had candy cane, candy apple, candy crunch. And it's just like, you know, taking a fresh piece of fruit that's very nutritious and calling it candy or sugar this, you know, just didn't feel right. Another challenge with apple naming, uniqueness. To qualify for a trademark, your name has to be unique. So common names like Red Beauty wouldn't work. Protecting their trademark is key to Washington State's success. That's a big part of how they make sure that anyone who wants to grow Cosmic Crisp has to pay royalties to do it.

The last Big Apple was Honey Crisp, but the program at the University of Minnesota that developed the Honey Crisp didn't invest in trademark protection for it and so lost out on a lot of potential revenue. With Cosmic Crisp, Washington, The Washington State is trying to learn from Minnesota's mistake. They say most of the revenue will be reinvested into the apple breeding program. But all that doesn't explain the name itself.

What was the inspiration for Cosmic? So at the consumer focus groups, somebody said, you know, this apple, the lenticels, the little dots in the apple, it makes it look like the night sky. And so they kind of started brainstorming off that and said, yeah, you mean like the cosmos. And then somebody else said, well, there's Honeycrisp is one of the parents. So how about Cosmic Crisp? I wonder if the sort of evolution from a name like Red Delicious to a name like Cosmic Crisp is also reflective of just a larger change in language and marketing in that, like, I feel like nowadays marketing is more evocative and less literal. The way that you have like

Gatorade flavors that are like not flavors, like Arctic blast or whatever, like that's not Nothing tastes like Arctic Blast, but it just evokes a feeling. That's right. So I wonder if that's a larger trend. Oh, definitely. And, you know, in naming that apple, we're looking at, you know, what is our story? And how can we make this really intriguing to the consumer? There's an apple called strawberry.

How is that allowed? That's just confusing. Well, maybe it looks like a strawberry. Maybe it has hints of strawberry in its flavor. Not good enough. I like that there's one called Jonathan as well. That's the Normcore Apple. I think, though, my favorite might be Laxton's Epicure.

Ooh, classy. Yeah, it's very fancy sounding. But the internet says it bruises easily, Helen. Oh, no, no one wants that. All right, Catherine, before we let you go, we're going to play a special game. You and Helen are both contestants. This game is called Apple Variety or New England Town. You're ready to play?

Okay. Ashmead's Colonel. Oh, town. I was going to say town. Ashmead's Colonel is an apple. Oh. Cumberland. Apple.

What do you think, Helen? I'm going to go Apple. Cumberland is a town. Oh, come on. Man, you guys are struggling. I thought I was going to make this game harder. I mean, this is a game that I have played many times before because I'm very cool. Next one, Lemonster.

I mean, that's an interesting. England-England town called Lemster, would they have bothered exporting that as a town to New England? Hmm. I don't think you'd call it up all that. So you're saying town. I'm going to go town. Catherine?

Very insecure. I have no idea, but I'd say town. You are both correct. Lemonstr is a town. We've saved face, Helen. Yes, it's spelled L-E-O-M, but it's pronounced like the fruit lemon. That's why I thought the one was tricky. Next one, Adams-Perman.

I'm going to go out. Apple for that, even though it says pear in the name. Yep, Apple. You are correct. Apple. See, we're warmed up now. All right, now you're getting good. Now we're coming down the home stretch.

Here we go. Baldwin. Apple. Apple. That one is both. It was a trick question. Curse you, Dan Pashman. Next one, strong.

Apple? Town. It is a town. Point for Catherine. Oh, I'm feeling quite cocky over here. You've earned it. You sound like you've got more swagger right now, Catherine. Yeah, yeah, completely.

One more for you. Apple variety or New England town. Cumberbatch. Oh, boy. Town. I would say it's a town. The correct answer is neither. Oh, that's not fair.

Come on, Cumberbatch. It's not a town or an apple variety. It's a heartthrob. Then it doesn't belong in this quiz, Dan. And that was a fun game, Helen. But as we've made clear, the folks at Washington State aren't playing. Decades of work and millions of dollars are on the line with Cosmic Crisp. Last season, they launched a limited release with 350,000 boxes of apples.

On November 23rd, their official wide release begins with 2 million boxes of Cosmic Crisp. That means 80 million pounds of these apples. But even before last year's limited release, I managed to get my hands on one. It's time. It's time for the moment of truth. I understand you already ate yours? Well, I couldn't wait any longer to understand what all the fuss is about. Also, I had to fly to Canada and I couldn't take it over the border.

Oh, come on, Helen. Really? You're worried about, you know, is you going to find out? Is that really what the TSA is most concerned with? I got fined 400 New Zealand dollars for accidentally bringing an Apple into New Zealand earlier this year. So I'm not taking the risk. So you're already a renowned international apple smuggler. Yeah.

Well, failed apple smuggler. Right, right, right. Okay, so I want to hear what you thought, but I don't want to be biased by your opinion. So let me take a bite and then we'll discuss. All right, they sent me four. I'm checking each one to see which one seems most perfect. They're all in... They're very perfect looking apples.

Like, you'd cast one of those apples in a production of Snow White. Yes, they're round. But there's some variation for you. from each one. Some are more uniformly dark red, others have more of a light red area. But then I do see the cosmic. I don't know that I would have equated them to stars, but I understand what they're saying. I think freckles is a better analogy. Remind me a bit of a dappled horse. Yes, it is a nice deep, dark shade of red, which I find very satisfying.

E. T it. A Tick. All right, I'm going in. Mmm. That is very juicy, very juicy. The juice is running down the side of the apple. How do you feel about that? Do you feel like it's adding a level of stress? I would never say an apple was too juicy.

I'll get my hands messy. It does feel like, you know how like the screens on devices keep getting brighter and brighter and brighter? The entire sensory experience of this apple is just amped up and elevated. It's a very good way of putting it. It's extremely crunchy, extremely juicy, extremely sweet and also acidic. Like it's just, it's like a technicolor apple. I did think before tasting it,

will any apple live up to 20 years of development? And then having eaten it, I thought, yeah, maybe. What I admired about it is that it's sweet, but it's not too sweet, which I think is a hard balance. And also, it is very crisp. So maybe if it was not as sweet as it, is, then it would be a little sharp in one's mouth. Well, hold on one's there.

This is how he dies. Oh, no. No, yeah, right. No, I wasn't choking on apple. The, the juice, the apple is so juicy that I had an apple juice go down the wrong pipe. That's what just happened to me. Jeepers. This might be the juiciest apple I've ever eaten. At what price? It's not worth dying over it. You said it couldn't be too juicy, but. Maybe that's the marketing employee Cosmic Crisp. going after. The apple so juicy, it killed Dan Pashman. All right, Helen, that was a

delicious adventure as expected. Thanks, Helen. Apple's out. Okay, so it may not be green, but I might just have to give the Cosmic Crisp a try one of these days. Oh, by the way, the Spork Bowl is celebrating their 10th anniversary by sharing some of their listeners all-time favorite episodes, each with a brand new update. So, you'll hear from Chef Kwame on Wachi, author of Notes from a Young Black Chef. Plus, get this, the Sporkful's search for a beloved sandwich shop in Syria. What made it special? Is it still there?

Are the owners alive or dead? The Sporkville takes you from Aleppo to Austria, from Detroit to New York to Istanbul, all in search of a sandwich. You can find the Sporkful wherever you get your podcasts.