Top Ten Episodes of All Time
The end of the year is as good a time as any to review our statistics and see what episodes have proven to be major hits! We’ve compiled some fun podcast facts – are you surprised by these top episodes, or did you see this coming? Did you lead the charge by listening to these already, and are these your favorites — or are these new to you?
#10 Episode of All Time: #67 – 50 Ways to Save Money on an Ancestral Diet – Part 2 – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
When we released the Part 1 of the “50 Ways to Save Money” episode, we didn’t know that podcast gurus say that Part 2 episodes don’t tend to do as well — but our listeners stuck around for Part 2 and you will shortly see it is not but a few episodes behind Part 1 in popularity, meaning almost as many people downloaded both parts! This pivotal episode shares many of the ways we have learned to make eating an ancestral, organic diet part of a frugal lifestyle and even more affordable than cheap industrial food! This episode has been supported through many further episodes over the years such as #91 – 7 Meals in 1 Day!, and #103 – 10 Nourishing Traditions Dishes – Cheaper Than Supermarkets! , one of our oldest episodes updated in Encore: The 5 Cheapest (& Yet the Most Expensive) Foods and most recently #124 – Five Family Meals Around Five Dollars Each: budget-friendly, ancestral peasant food, which have all continued to support our opinion that eating like a peasant is the best hack around!
#9 Episode of All Time: #60 – What Fermented Drinks Can I Make? – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
The world of ancestral beverages is many and varied with drinks from around the world hydrating, nourishing, and refreshing folks in different circumstances for thousands of years. We decided to highlight a few of our favorites with some easily approachable, as well as more complex options; supporters also enjoyed a 4-recipe ebooklet with some of our most-used beverages! With a steady stream of listeners slaking their thirst for knowledge and ideas coming to this episode, we are happy and not surprised to see it landed in the top ten! Other beverage episodes which are highly popular (but not quite in the top ten) include Alison’s thoroughly researched #54 – What Have We Done To Beer?! (& What Can We Do About It?) and #89 – ‘Snotty’ Ferments, Ale Recipe & Convincing Those Who Won’t Listen, a guest interview on #109 – Meagan Francis Spills the Tea: History, Sourcing, and Brewing a Good Cup, and an episode featuring Rob’s expertise, #113 – Coffee: Sourcing, Roasting & Brewing in a Mindful Ancestral Kitchen
#8 Episode of All Time: #72 – All About Spelt Sourdough – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
Alison’s heavily-researched and heavily-tested spelt sourdough episode and companion cookbook Spelt Sourdough Everyday took the internet world by storm! Baking with ancient grains is slowly gaining in popularity, but often they are still refined ancient grains. Baking with whole-milled flour is growing in popularity, but often it is wheat that is being used! In this book and episode pair, Alison addresses both ancient grains and whole-milled ancient grains, along with detailed research from her own kitchen and oven, presenting a gift the baking world was desperately needing. To this day, we continue to receive reviews and comments acclaiming the cookbook, and it is no surprise the episode that launched a thousand loaves also made it into the top ten! Bakers also zeroed in on our fully nerding out episode about baking tins, #110 – Baking Pans With Elly from Elly’s Everyday, learning in-depth about rye baking in #41 -Wholegrain Sourdough Rye: Mastering The Basics as well as all things fresh grain in #42 – How To Get (& Grind) The Best Flour For Bread.
#7 Episode of All Time: #70 – Fermenting Oats – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
If oats didn’t make the top ten, you know there’d be a riot! With Alison’s years of research and study on oats and their place in history and more specifically the British isles, her depth and breadth of knowledge is constantly expanding. She shared not only about history and the life behind oats, she also shared about bringing them into our modern kitchen and some surprising information about the ways to prepare them. Listeners loved this and Alison further discussed the topic in an article in the WAPF journal which she reads aloud here, as well as in her Fermented Oat Bake recipe. Current listeners have kept up with her research with her latest article, The Heritage Oat Collection, and we can’t go far from oats without addressing breakfast, which got a thorough chatting-up in #105 – 16 Breakfasts with Traditional Foods (Fast, Prep-Ahead, and On the Go!).
#6 Episode of All Time: #66 – 50 Ways to Save Money on an Ancestral Diet – Part 1 – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
It’s all well and good to talk about ancestral food — but how does one afford it? We know what it means to pinch pennies and we also know what it feels like to be staring at uncompromising values for our food and environment. If you just relied on the wider internet, you’d would think saving money and eating well while also caring for our planet were impossible ideas to combine, but we are here to prove that they not only can go together, they must go together, they were born together and they are twin flames from the same fire! This episode also includes a free download to help listeners get started saving money and thinking like a peasant. Frugal peasants also find themselves enjoying #116 – Leftovers and Scraps in a Frugal Ancestral Kitchen to learn how to put every last bit to work on the table, #122 – Why We Eat Local & Farm-Friendly Food to address growing concerns over food affordability, and our detailed chat, #94 – 7 Ancestral Swaps That Will Save You Money.
#5 Episode of All Time: #34 – Our Favourite Nourishing Traditions Recipes – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig was foundational to both of our early stories in discovering ancestral food. For many, this book opened the door to a world of foods long maligned and despised in modern Western culture – saturated fats, fermented vegetables, raw milk, raw eggs, and many more lost secrets from ancestral foods found their revival in the pages of this book. Sharing some of our favorite recipes, including a download of recipes that Sally gave us permission to give to supporters of the podcast, was a joy in this episode. Nourishing Traditions was also featured in one of our earliest episodes, #11 – Nourishing Traditions: THE Ancestral Cookbook, and Holistic Hilda of the Wise Traditions Podcast was one of our first guest interviews in #25 – Holistic Hilda from the Wise Traditions Podcast. We also chatted about our group read-along of the cookbook in #114 – Nourishing Traditions Read-Along, Eating Everything on Your Plate & Handling Nay-Sayers!
#4 Episode of All Time: #50 – 20 Small Steps to an Ancestral Kitchen – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
This episode is one of our absolute favorites, because it encapsulates so much of what got our homes and our kitchens enlivened with ancestral foods. We asked many, many friends and listeners where they began their ancestral journey when building the notes for this episode, and the most profound thing we learned was this — it doesn’t matter where you begin, it simply matters that you begin. Each step leads to the next step, and they can happen in almost any order. This episode also comes with a downloadable of the 20 small steps! Listeners also loved the episode where I talked to Anita, author of many of my favorite recipes – it almost made the top ten! – #55 – Anita from Weston Price Recipes and the 20 steps would not be complete without Alison’s 50 Nuggets which brought us all here in the first place! You can hear them at #117 – 26 Nuggets of Ancestral Wisdom! and here #121 – 24 More Nuggets of Ancestral Wisdom!.
#3 Episode of All Time: #56 – Preparing Nutrient-Dense Meals From Scratch Every Day – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
When there is NO fallback — there’s no takeout, there’s no quick fix — due to various reasons including health needs, rising cost of food, accessibility and not to mention nourishment — how do you do it? How do you crank out meal after meal, day after day? In this episode we not only shared our survival techniques, we also launched our first ever cookbook, Meals at the Ancestral Hearth! In this book we collected some of our most used recipes ever and included never-before published essays and articles from our own kitchens. We knew we weren’t alone in the desire to cook nourishing meals every day when we saw how popular this episode grew — you are all in the trenches right alongside us, and it ain’t always glamorous! Listeners who enjoyed this episode would also love #115 – Four of Our Favorite Easy, Ancestral Meals, our discussion of when to take a shortcut in #35 – The Easy Way, ideas for structuring and planning menus in #83 – Meal Planning and Ancestral Food Rhythms with Rebecca Zipp, and our weekly menus wouldn’t be complete without #118 – At Least a Dozen Treats for Ancestral Kitchens.
#2 Most Popular Episode Ever: #53 – Raw Milk: Our Ancestral Heritage – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
The question of raw milk has been burning for — well, not that long, as it turns out! For all of known human history, as long as we had dairy animals, we had raw milk. So what changed the tide? Where did raw milk step wrong, and is it even a safe food to eat today? This episode is both shocking and rewarding and has joined the ranks of our greatest episodes for good reason — it won’t leave you wondering where we stand on this rich ancestral resource! Those curious about raw milk and working with dairy will also enjoy #68 – Naturally Fermented Dairy in the Home with Robyn Jackson and a listener favorite, #107 – Easy Dairy Products to Make at Home covering some simple and approachable home dairy ideas.
#1 Greatest of All Time: #51 – Your Sourdough Questions Answered – Ancestral Kitchen Podcast
In this incredible episode, Alison gathered the most burning questions on sourdough bread that have come through our emails – how to use ancient grains, how to store bread, why doesn’t my bread look like Instagram – and so many more! With over a decade of dedicated bread baking and research, Alison had the answers to all your questions. With millions of bakers bringing bread back to their hearths and turning to sourdough for heath and frugality, it’s little wonder this episode rose to the top rank! Not surprisingly, sourdough and the topic of baking with grains cover an astonishing number of episodes in our podcast, not least of which include a guest appearance with #10 – Elly from Elly’s Everday; Sourdough-Baking & Soap-Making, our introduction of sourdough in our early episode #7 – Sourdough, as well as #104 – Baking with Ancient Grains which includes a 30-page booklet with recipes, wisdom and advice, #82 – Home-Milling Flour for the Best Bread! which also includes a free article all about milling grains, #19 – All About Grains: Preparing, Processing and Digesting!, an episode on grain growing in #120 – Using Ancient Grains & Ethical Growing with Jade from Grand Teton Ancient Grains and last but not least, for those who are gluten-free, if you just want to clear your mind you can go and enjoy #106 – Gluten Free Ancestral Eating!
OK, what did you think? Are these all classics deserving of a top ten spot, or do you think there is another episode more deserving of the title?
Naturally, the numbers tend to be biased towards older episodes because they have had longer to be downloaded — but then again, our listenership has grown and so newer episodes get more initial exposure, so maybe the numbers balance themselves out.
What are your top episodes of all time, and are any of them on this list?
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