Donate
A woman in a red shirt is standing in a commercial kitchen and is excited to try the tacos that are right in front of her.

Beyond The Menu

The story of the food on your plate is more than just the recipe. Each ingredient and every cooking technique goes back hundreds if not thousands of years, crisscrossing the globe on a wild culinary adventure. In Beyond The Menu, host Cecilia Phillips uncovers the backstory on some of today’s most popular dishes.

Don’t miss an episode! SUBSCRIBE to Beyond The Menu on YouTube.

Support for this program comes from the Krishnan Shah Family Foundation and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund.

Host of Beyond the Menu, Cecilia Philips is holding a giant paper mache pretzel pretending to eat it. The text on the image reads 'Who Invented Pretzels?'

How Pretzels Went From Human Sacrifice To Beer Gardens

A young light-skinned black woman stands in the foreground holding a bottle of chamoy. In the background, a large bottle of chamoy sauce is squeezed onto half an orange.

It’s Mexican, Asian, a Candy, a Sauce…It’s Chamoy

A young light-skinned black woman with long hair holds chile peppers in two outstretched hands. There is a bowl of spicy chile paste behind her.

This Fiery Hot Sauce Uses a Pepper Lost To History

Chicken and Waffles: from Amish Country to Harlem

The Chilling History of Ice Cream

Your Corn Tortilla Sucks…Science Can Fix It

Samosas aren’t from India…Wait, what?

Your Birria Taco Is Ancient History—Here’s Why

Hong Kong’s Most Popular Treat Has A Surprising Backstory

Player sponsored by