People think Jalapenos come from Jalapa in Mexico, which is why they're called Jalapenos, but they're not chilies native to Jalapa.
That's the first place that canned them.
So that's why they named the first place that canned chilies.
Right.
And they just called them jalapenos.
You see, Eva, this is why I'm excited to talk with you because I feel like.
We're kindred spirits.
Yes, 100%.
But also, I think that deep down, you're actually a huge nerd.
I'm such a nerd.
Oh, my God.
I'm such a nerd.
And specifically with like aliens.
Okay.
Yeah.
And food.
Okay.
You might not have time to get into the aliens today.
Oh, come on.
Okay.
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.
Quick note before we start that our live show in Boston is this Friday, May 1st.
I'll be at WBUR City Space.
There are only a few tickets left.
Grab yours if you want to join us to see my conversations with Matt Shearer, aka reporter Matt, cookbook author, Omi Hopper and Ian Koss, host of Catching the Codfather.
It's an all-star lineup.
For info on tickets, head on over to sporkful.com slash live.
All right, let's get into it.
This week, I'm talking with Eva Longoria, actor, director and now host of a CNN food travel show.
In that series, Eva eats and drinks her way around a different country every season.
First season, searching for Mexico, then searching for Spain.
Now she's searching for France.
Citeau Abbey cheese is renowned for its earthy aroma and dense texture.
Mmm, it's creamy.
In summer, the color is a little bit yellow because cows are eating grass.
In the winter, hay.
I can taste the grass.
That's the idea of terroir.
That's important to say, Eva is not just a celebrity who happens to be hosting a food show.
She is really, really into food.
She hosts a food podcast called Hungry for History with her friend Maite Gomez-Rejon, who's an educator with a focus on culinary history.
They talk about all kinds of food stories like the history of breakfast cereal to how ovens have evolved over the years, and much more.
As Eva said, she's a big food nerd.
And a lot of that food nerdery is filtered through the lens of her identity as a Texican.
When she came into the studio, we immediately bonded over our shared love of a Texas specialty.
You make your own flour tortillas?
Every day.
Every day because I live most of the time in Spain now.
You can't find Mexican food, first of all, because they don't eat spicy.
The Spaniards don't eat spicy.
But so I have to make everything because it's just not like flour tortillas and corn tortillas.
All of that's just not there.
But my son, my son is addicted to them.
That was my breakfast every day.
Every day for my entire life was a flour tortilla with butter or a flour tortilla with beans inside.
And that's my son's breakfast.
And if I give him a store-bought flour tortilla, he's like, what is this?
I'm like, gosh.
There's such a difference.
Such a difference.
I love flour tortillas so much, I order them from a place in Kansas.
There's a guy, he set up this company called Caramello.
And they make insane tortillas and they send them vacuum sealed to you.
And are they like raw and you heat them up?
I mean, they're cooked, but you still heat them up.
Okay.
Oh, interesting.
Are they thick or thin?
Pretty thin.
And you can get them made with pork fat, duck fat, or avocado oil.
Wow.
Flour tortillas and bean tacos were standard where Eva grew up in Corpus Christi.
But one of her early memories of venturing outside her community was when she started at a new school a gifted and talented program in another part of town.
I was the only Mexican at the school.
And I remember getting on the bus with my bean taco and everybody had a Pop-Tart.
And I'd never seen a Pop-Tart.
I was like, what is that?
It was like sparkly, sprinkles.
I want that.
And I remember going home and begging my mom to buy Pop-Tarts.
And she was like, absolutely not.
Like, it's just sugar.
Right.
What did the kids say when they saw what you were eating?
They didn't know.
They were like, what's that?
And I was like, it's a bean taco.
Doesn't everybody eat bean tacos for breakfast?
And they were like, no, not here.
That's like she's Mexican.
And they whispered it.
And I was like, what's that?
I was never called that because I grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood.
So we were all Mexican-American.
And so it was really interesting.
To hear that for the first time and I was like, oh, okay, I'm different.
That was what you took from it.
Yeah.
I was like, mom, what is Mexican?
She's like, well, that's, you know, that's our heritage.
That's our culture.
But I remember quickly being proud of it because I did think my bean taco was superior.
Really?
Did you end up trying a Pop-Tart and you were like, oh, it's not as good as it looks?
Absolutely.
And to this day, I'm not a sugar person.
I don't like donuts for breakfast or I don't like a sugary breakfast.
I love a salty, hot breakfast.
And so to this day, I'm like, yeah, my bean taco won out over the Pop-Tart.
Growing up, Eva says her mom was an okay cook, but Eva's Aunt Elsa was the real chef of the family.
My aunt was a caterer.
So she would do quinceaneras and weddings and we would have to go help her.
So she would she only had recipes for like 500 people.
Right.
But and also, how do I make it for just, you know, me?
Right.
She had this amazing biscuit recipe and it was for 500 people.
And I remember having to figure out the math.
For just 10 people.
Right.
I don't need 10 tons of flour.
Yes.
Aunt Elsa made flour tortillas, of course, but she also made carne guisada, which is stewed beef, and fideo secco, a vermicelli dish.
Eva was a very independent child.
Her parents worked and had four kids, one of whom had special needs.
So Eva was used to fending for herself.
When she was nearing her 15th birthday she decided she wanted a quinceanera.
But it was too expensive and her parents said her sisters hadn't gotten one so she couldn't either.
Eva decided she'd get the money herself.
So I went into Wendy's and got a job.
And didn't tell my parents.
I snuck in.
That you had a job.
That I got a job because I was like, I'm going to pay for it myself.
And so I remember applying and I was like going after school somewhere.
And my mom would smell like I smelled like French fries.
But yeah, I loved working at Wendy's.
I think every kid should work in fast food or any kind of customer service.
Yes.
Because it really teaches you.
You have all these responsibilities, you know it's assembly line work and you got to do your part in that assembly line.
And if not, it could all fall apart.
I remember I was making minimum wage.
It was like $3 an hour at that time.
And then I've got a 10% raise because I got promoted.
And I thought...
I was the greatest thing.
I was like, mom, I got a 10 cent raise.
It was a big deal.
Make it rain.
Here we go.
But I just remember wanting to move up.
And I was like, I don't want to be fry girl.
I want to do the grill.
I want to be a cashier.
I want to be a manager.
I was like very goal oriented.
So what do I have to do to go over there?
But Eva's secret job couldn't last forever.
My teacher came in to Wendy's and was like, are you working here?
And I said, nope, I don't.
I've never seen you before in my life.
You're like standing behind the counter with a Wendy's shirt on.
With a name tag and everything.
I don't know who you think I am.
Right.
And she told my mom and my mom, she wasn't mad, but she was just like, what are you doing?
And then I said, I just, I want to continue.
And when she saw, like, I was super determined to do it, then they, they did help out.
So you did end up.
We did.
I did end up having, I had it with my best friend, Claudia.
So we could split the cost.
Right.
And you get padrinos for everything.
So you get sponsors for the food, sponsors for the music, sponsors – and I was good at that.
I was like – I would ask – I went to my neighbors who barely knew me.
I was like, will you sponsor the DJ?
So that's like a traditional part of – I don't know.
That's what we did.
Right.
I'm sure there's families that pay for it all.
Not my family.
So it's interesting because just in that story of your experience at Wendy's and the quinceañera, I see two personality traits that I think I still see in you today and that have served you well, which is ambition, goals wanting to achieve and then also hustling.
Yeah.
Like getting those sponsors.
Like we're going to, this event's going to happen and I'm going to make it happen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know how, but it's going to happen.
Right, right.
Yes.
Definitely a theme in my life.
Coming up, Eva makes more things happen for herself with the help of a beauty pageant.
Stick around.
Saute, you stay, because it's time for some ads.
Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman.
Last week in the show I get a rare look behind the scenes at Disney World to see how they use food and drink to build whole universes.
I learned the surprising story behind Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which features what might be the most famous gumbo recipe in the world.
And I get to try a few items at the Toy Story Roundup Rodeo Restaurant and the Star Wars Cantina.
A little morning pick-me-up.
Yeah, there's caffeine in here.
I like that.
There's some caffeine.
You might get a hint of the bourbon that's in that as well.
Oh, that's what it is.
It's 8.30 in the morning.
We're in the cantina having bourbon.
Okay.
Whether or not you're a Disney person, I think you'll find this one to be a fascinating look behind the curtain.
It's up now.
Check it out.
And one more quick note.
Make sure you stick around to the end of today's episode for a special segment sponsored by Bonnie Plants.
I talked to a horticulturist to get answers to your gardening questions.
All right.
Let's get back to Eva Longoria.
Eva's a household name, but her origin story is lesser known.
After college in Texas, she entered a beauty pageant and won.
Part of the prize package was she got sent to L.A.
Well, she never turned back.
She went from acting in soap operas to starring in the hit show Desperate Housewives.
In recent years she's been producing and directing, including the feature film Flamin' Hot, about the guy who claims to have invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
Through it all, the constant for Eva has been her love of cooking.
She's even said that the first thing she does after getting off a 12-hour flight is head straight to the kitchen.
It's therapeutic for me.
Not eating at home really, it just throws me off.
I have to cook.
I have to cook.
So I will get off a flight from Europe. into my kitchen in LA and start a big meal.
Beyond the therapeutic part, there's another reason why Eva cooks.
You know, this chicken's too dry in the restaurant.
You know, the eggs.
I could have made it better.
I could have made these eggs way better than this, you know, room service.
Like, so I get bored and tired of like not having it done right, which is my way.
Aren't you particular about your eggs?
Yes, I am.
Do you like to eat breakfast out?
I like to go out once in a while because I find it relaxing.
I don't have to do the dishes and all that.
But I love to cook when I have time.
If it's like a weekend afternoon and I can go shopping and I have a couple hours to cook and no one's bothering me.
Yeah.
I really enjoy that.
I agree though.
I mean, there's sometimes I go out to eat and I'm like, Oh, I couldn't have made this.
I'm the opposite.
I love going home, opening the fridge and figuring out a meal.
That's what's in the fridge.
That's like a fun game.
Like I'm like, Ooh, okay.
Ooh, I'll do this.
And my husband's always blown away.
He's like, how did you make this?
And I'm a fast cook.
I can have something on the table within 15, 20 minutes.
Can you think of something recently that you looked in your fridge, saw random ingredients and made?
Yeah.
I mean, I always have staples.
So usually fideo is like a go-to.
I always have a package of ground beef.
And so I got home and I
I looked in the fridge and I made albondiga soup with fideo.
Ooh.
Yeah.
Which sometimes you think like, oh, you got to plan that.
You really don't.
You really have everything.
You have cumin.
You have paprika.
Right.
You have the fidel.
You have the chicken broth.
How would you feel about pickled red onions on there?
Love pickled red onions.
I love pickled anything.
Yeah.
Pickled red onions is like so easy.
It's so easy.
And it really brightens any dish.
It has anything.
You just slice them thin, salt.
And then I just use white vinegar.
Yep.
Like the same stuff that like we used to clean the house.
My wife's like, that's a cleaning product.
I'm like, no, this is how you make pickled red onions.
Yes.
I always have a can of cannellini beans because I think the apocalypse is going to happen.
So I have a lot of canned beans.
Cannellini beans with olive oil and red pepper flakes.
Done.
That's a meal.
Phenomenal.
A phenomenal meal.
Throw some greens in there if you can.
Salt.
That's another thing that'll be great with pickled red onions.
Yeah.
Most of Eva's food opinions are not controversial, but she does stir up some trouble online.
You recently posted a video on TikTok in which you were eating tamales with ketchup.
Haha!
But let me tell you something.
That's a Texas thing.
Right, right.
A lot of you read the comments.
I let them battle it out in the comments.
People are like, of course I eat with ketchup.
It has to be Whataburger ketchup.
And then some people are like, ay dios mio, why are you doing that?
My husband can't even be in the room with me when I do that.
I'm like, I'm sorry.
Eva's husband, Jose Bastón, is from Mexico, which explains why that habit of hers pains him so much.
Anyway, Eva's obsession with food and cooking led her to start the podcast Hungry for History.
Then she signed on to host the series Searching for Mexico with CNN.
It was a similar format to Stanley Tucci's Searching for Italy series.
Visit different corners of the country, meet interesting people and stuff her face with regional cuisines.
Mexico seemed like a natural fit for the series, not just because Eva is Mexican-American, but because of everything Mexico has to offer.
You know, there's only two cuisines protected by UNESCO in its entirety, and that's French cuisine and Mexican cuisine.
And I thought we should do Mexico.
And they said, OK.
And I love like I told you, I love the history of countries.
I think if you want to know a country, the easiest way in to culture is food.
You can go to China and not speak Chinese but experience the culture because of the food.
Right.
So what did you learn about Mexico working on that series that you didn't know before?
So much, so much history of ingredients and colonization, specifically Veracruz, the episode on Veracruz, which was where the conquest happened and the main port was.
So if you go to Veracruz, it's African influence.
The slave trade went through Veracruz but because of the amount of cultures that came through that port that had such an influence on the food.
So in that area, there is platanos from the Caribbean.
There is West African spices.
There is Asian spices, you know.
So it's pretty fascinating how colonizations change.
Before colonization, before the Spaniards came, Mesoamerica was pretty vegetarian. except for fowl.
They would eat wild fowl, wild turkey.
But then when the Spaniards came, they brought the cow and the goat and the pig.
So they brought pork and they brought not only red meat, but the milks.
So then cheese became a thing.
Right, right, right.
And so it's amazing how much cheese the Mexican diet has now when it never had dairy.
Never.
It never had the milk of an animal.
And then there was so much endemic to Mexico.
Vanilla, chocolate, the chile, the tomato.
People think, you know, Italy is associated with the tomato.
Right.
It's endemic to Mexico.
So much of European and Asian cuisine is actually like.
I think we tend to think of history moving from
Africa and Asia and Europe to North America.
Yeah.
But that's there actually has been.
There was the indigenous cultures that were here, but also a lot of things started here and moved in the other direction.
Exactly.
Well, and you know, Switzerland's known for chocolate because they put milk and sugar in it, where chocolate in Mesoamerica was a bitter drink.
It wasn't sweet.
It was bitter and they used it for ceremonial things like it wasn't.
And so you go, oh, Switzerland really made it its own thing.
Same thing with the tomato.
You think of Italy, but it wasn't that Italy...
It's endemic to Italy.
They just were the first to can it.
They were the first to really embrace it as an ingredient.
And so that's why they're the famous ones for the tomato.
Right.
I mean, when I think of tomatoes, I think of Italy and New Jersey.
Do you?
My home state.
We have good tomatoes.
You have good tomatoes.
Yes, yes.
Jersey tomatoes.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, you got to eat them from Mexico.
On the heels of searching for Mexico, Eva wrote a cookbook called My Mexican Kitchen.
It has recipes, of course, but also a lot of history.
As we've made clear, Eva's a food nerd.
There are deep dives into vanilla and agave, the difference between Old World and New World beans, the variety of chilies in Mexico.
But as Eva told me throughout this interview, she's more Tex-Mex than Mexican.
So I was curious why she chose to write a Mexican cookbook.
I was really trying to honor my travels.
And so all the things that I had learned and saw from you know, the leña, the firewood that they use for grilling, to these Mayan, old Mayan techniques for folding tamales to pozole, and kind of the history of A pork broth, and all of that which I didn't grow up with.
I didn't grow up with pozole.
I grew up with menudo.
I didn't grow up with, you know, Mayan tamales.
I grew up with Texas tamales.
And so I really wanted it to be more Mexican.
But it seems like this sort of relationship between your upbringing in Texas and that kind of Tex-Mex, which is a distinct culture and cuisine versus Mexico. that kind of relationship between Tex-Mex, Mexican-American, and Mexico-Mexican is something that especially interested in.
I know you directed a documentary called La Guerra Civil about these two boxers, Oscar De La Hoya and Julio Cesar Chavez, who had this huge rivalry.
And part of the rivalry was kind of it epitomized this Mexican-American versus Mexican.
Are you Mexican enough?
Right.
And who gets to say that?
What interests you about that subject?
Because I'm a hyphenate.
I'm a Mexican-American.
And so I'm 100% of those things at the same time.
I'm 100 percent Mexican.
I'm 100 percent American.
And so to navigate the world with that identity can be complicated.
So anytime I could put that lens on my work, Flaming Hot was that.
You know, Flaming Hot was a kind of a point of view with that lens.
I do feel like that experience is somewhat unique because.
Huge parts of America were Mexico.
Yeah.
So it's different from being on another continent and coming.
Yeah.
Like your family could be in the same place for generations.
My family was.
Right.
Nine generations.
Like the old saying, Mexican people will say, we didn't cross the border.
The border crossed us.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So yeah, so it's almost like we're grounded in that history here and proud of that history.
And a lot of that history is being erased as well.
And so I think food is a way to hold on to that storytelling.
After Eva finished searching for Mexico, she followed her roots even deeper.
She did a season called Searching for Spain.
Her ancestors came from a province called Asturias on the country's northern coast.
There's even a town there called Longoria, like Longoria with two L's.
Eva learned about all this when she went on the PBS show Finding Your Roots.
That was the first time she visited Youngoria.
Then she got to go back doing Searching for Spain.
Because it's in the mountains, it's very cold.
The best dairy comes from there.
The cows, the cheese, the milk in Spain comes from Asturias.
But it is...
Cold there.
And so they have a lot of stews, so many stews.
And in the original Asturian language, there was no word for fork.
It was just spoon.
What was it like the first time you went back there?
Amazing.
I went to my little town.
It was like 40 people lived there.
I saw the ruins of the Longoria Palace.
Um, and I was like, I want to buy this.
And my husband's like, it's, I was like, I want to buy this house.
And my husband's like, it's not a house pile of rocks.
I was like, can we be great?
And he's like, we're, we're never coming up here.
I was like, come on.
There's more sheep than people.
Yeah.
Tell me more about the stews.
Oh my God.
So the best thing you'll ever eat in your life is fabada, which is this white bean.
Basically like fava, but fabada.
It's a different white bean that's grown there and they make this broth of four different porks.
So it's like bacon and the stomach and a pancetta and a sausage.
And you boil that in water and you put the beans and, oh, a little bit of saffron.
It's like a red broth.
You eat the beans with all four of those porks.
It is to die for.
And then there was another one pote, which is another bean stew, but it has like Almost like kale or some sort of green in it.
And it's a white broth.
Oh, they had so many.
I was just laughing because I love a soup.
I love a stew.
That all sounds incredible.
I know.
And hearty.
They're very hearty.
Right.
What surprised you the most about spending time in Spain?
How diverse it is and how, oh my God, the Basque country is incredible.
The pinchos, the food culture in San Sebastian and Bilbao.
Oh my, you're just.
It's what didn't surprise me.
But what was really hammered home is how important meal time is to Spaniards, the time to sit and eat.
And they have a thing called sobremesa, which we also have in Mexico.
But like after you eat, you sit there and you talk.
They have a thing called hora de vermouth, which is vermouth hour.
And you have to eat bar snacks and sardines.
And they have the best canned seafood in Spain and Galicia.
And so you have canned mussels, canned oysters, canned sardines.
When they're drinking, they're eating.
When you're drinking, you're eating.
And a lot of this food, a lot of this is not just tapas, but they're like pinchos, tapas.
They just come out in a restaurant.
I think that episode with Vermouth was also the one where you had the jamon.
It was like these pigs that had been raised, especially eating all the acorns.
One of the guys at the farm was just like the master slicer.
They had the whole leg, like you would see with prosciutto, but he was slicing it.
So thin.
It made me.
I had just eaten and I was watching those slices of jamón and I was like I want that so bad right now.
And that's jamón ibérico, which is very The black foot.
They eat the acorn, they fatten them up.
There's many different jamons, but that one's like the award winning leg.
It was like room temperature, I assume.
It has to be room temperature.
It was glistening.
Yeah.
Well, that's how you know if it's a good plate of jamon is they do a thin layer on a plate.
And if you turn it upside down, it won't fall off because of the amount of fat that's sticking it to the plate.
It doesn't slide off.
And you have to slice it the right way.
They get very.
I mean, it's a whole.
You saw me, I was sweating sweating, going.
I'm going to ruin this leg of jamon.
Yeah.
How did doing those shows in Mexico and Spain affect the way you thought about your own identity?
It's so interesting to have the gift of doing this show.
I mean, CNN has an insane research team.
And the thing we try to do on each show is like high-low.
So you have the Michelin star, amazing chefs really, you know, doing molecular gastronomy, doing that.
And then you have the chiringuitos who are still cooking these little sardines over open fire on leña.
And they're equally amazing.
The other thing that I was surprised about Mexico, Spain and France is food is political.
And specifically in Spain, the Franco era, when the dictator was in charge, he wanted one Spain.
So he forbid recipes, ingredients, regional food, regional languages.
And the minute he died, there was this resurgence of like this is what our area was about, our region.
And it's beautiful to see that.
And then France was really affected by World War II.
The rationing of food and the potato, right?
The potato was a sustenance food and it was a food of the poor.
Bread once the French Revolution happened that was when restaurants started was because all of these people were out of work and they were artisans, these master bread makers for the monarchy, and they had nothing to do now.
And they said well, should I bake bread for the town and patisserie shops and boulangeries and cafes and restaurants?
All of that was birthed out of the French Revolution from a political situation.
Coming up.
Eva goes searching for France and gets reprimanded for one of her misconceptions about the food there.
Stick around.
Hope you're hungry, because it's time for some ads.
Welcome back.
Eva Longoria's latest CNN series is Searching for France, which is airing new episodes now.
She's long had an affinity for France.
Her ex-husband is a French NBA player, Tony Parker.
So it was yet another dream come true for her to film the series there, but it was also grueling in its own way.
I don't eat sugar.
Oh, okay.
Like I said, I'm not a sugar person and we did a whole episode, which is when we shoot nine days of patisseries, and it was just patisserie.
My stomach was hurting.
I had migraines only because it's so rich and so good.
But it was like chocolate croissant to these insane creations that they're doing with custards.
I also have to imagine that when you're doing that, It's like on the sixth day of pastries.
You have to lean a little bit on your acting ability.
Oh, gosh, yes, yes.
One region.
I forgot what the pastry was called, but it was just sugar and butter, like literally, and a little bit of flour.
Right.
And when you pick it up, it's just you're just soaking with butter.
But it was so good.
But at the same time, I was like, I can't eat one more sugary thing.
It was the same thing in Mexico when we had so much tequila.
Yeah.
And depending on our shooting order, it might be nine in the morning.
And I was like I might have to fake that this is really good right now because it's nine in the morning.
But I hope you don't see that.
Well, did I read correctly that Stanley Tucci, because he had done Searching for Italy before, his advice to you was like Yeah.
The drinking is a challenge.
Well, he said, he's like, because I finished Mexico.
And he goes, you did all the episodes back to back.
I guess he would like go for two weeks, come home.
I see.
Go shoot another region, come home.
And I did them straight through.
And he goes, you're going to need a detox.
I was like, yeah, yeah, I think I do after Mexico.
But yeah, so working my way through France was really amazing.
We did Paris as an episode.
We did Provence, which is the south.
Brittany, which is the north.
Bordeaux and Burgundy, which are enemies.
And we did Alsace, which is the German side.
In the Burgundy episode, you go to this abbey.
That's where wine comes from.
The monks were the first to plant vines.
Our Grand Cru, Premier Cru, the whole ranking system comes from the monks.
Because they would just go, oh, this area of land produced a better grape.
And so we're going to call that this.
And then this area of land didn't do so well.
So we're going to.
And to this day, we still use the system that the monks invented.
Right.
Well, and I mean, that's sort of one of the themes of the whole season is.
So much of how we think about food, how we talk about food, comes from the French, comes from French culinary history.
Cuisine.
Fine dining was birthed in France.
Right.
And even like the idea of, you know, Escoffier's mother sauces, which every culinary school student learns.
Has the Bible. the brigade system in kitchens.
So that's all fascinating.
And I love that part of the series.
What's also interesting to me, though and this is what I'm curious to ask you about is, In the last 10 or 20 years at least, here in America, and in Europe as well, there's been a little bit of sort of like a backlash against French, because it's sort of like all right, come on, you've had your turn.
You know, like, yeah, French food's great, but like you're not the only game in town.
And like going to France.
How are you thinking about that history and the newer perspectives about French food?
Well, there is a lot of – it's interesting when you talk about Escoffier –
I was in Bordeaux with this kind of rebel chef at the Prince Noir.
He has a restaurant called the Prince Noir.
And he's kind of known as the rule breaker.
And so he turns all those sauces on its head and he does all these different things.
But he goes, you cannot break the rules if you don't know the rules.
So he knows the mother sauces, but now he changed the mother sauces.
So he feels like there's still this great respect.
There's a lot of chefs in the South and Marseille.
There's this great young chef who does not have a brigade system.
He has everybody does a little bit of everything in his kitchen and he has resident chefs come in and out and they do the menu for a week.
But he too said, but I did come up in the system of French culinary excellence.
And now he's allowed to break those rules.
So even the rule breakers were rule followers at one time.
And now and most of them are young.
They're the young chefs that that really still admire Alain Ducasse.
And there's a great chef, Maury, Chef Maury in France.
Right.
Maury Sacco.
Right.
And he's doing like West African, Japanese, French sort of taking all these different influences.
And that's an example.
So the series.
So you do go to an Abbey and talk to the monks who invented wine and cheese, basically.
But then you also are talking with this young chef who's doing very new and different things.
And the other thing I learned about France was everybody thinks it's like butter butter butter, butter.
Only the north is butter.
The south is olive oil.
That's why a lot of great olive oil comes from France is because the south of France, specifically Marseille and Provence, was settled by the Greeks.
And so it's very Greek.
The olives, the capers, fresh fish, the open-faced grilled fish that you would find in Greece.
The grilled octopus, you know, all of that is still strong in Provence.
But I remember I was in Provence and I said, oh, let me guess, we're going to put butter.
And he looked at me, he went, we do not use butter here.
Here in the South, we use olive oil.
And I was like, oh, okay, they don't cook with butter.
Or very, very rarely cooked with butter.
I think we think of these borders because it's similar in Italy.
Northern Italy is more like German and Swiss.
It's more like meat and potatoes.
So, I mean, I know you were married to a Frenchman.
Yeah.
I'm curious to know you had spent time in France before this series, but like, how was it different?
You know, you don't have as much of a sort of family connection as you did in Mexico and Spain.
Well, I have such a connection in France.
I don't know why.
I think I won it in the divorce.
Yeah.
Because I love France and it really has loved me back.
Every time I'm in France, like I feel at home and I work a lot in France.
I don't know what it is.
I think my 10 past lives must have been in France.
You know, when I was married...
Tony was played, he's a basketball player, and he played for the French national team.
And when you play for the French, you have to go to all these tiny towns.
I mean, we went to, you know Fécond, where he did a camp, and then we went to Limoges, which I fell in love.
Limoges is the porcelain capital of the world.
It's beautiful porcelain, but tiny town.
I remember in one place it was in the north the guy we stayed at like a bed and breakfast and he made me a lunch of a Dover sole, you know, with butter sauce.
It wasn't a sole mounier, but it was, it was some similar.
And I was like, can you show me how you make this?
And he took me into his kitchen and he said, you got to put cold water, has to be cold butter.
You got to do it in this order.
And so that my first cookbook was a lot of those experiences of like a guy in a kitchen who just taught me the sauce.
So Eva, you're here in New York.
Yes.
You're doing the press thing.
Yeah.
What's the first thing you're going to cook when you get home?
Definitely Mexican, probably tacos.
What I do.
I do my food prep every Sunday, which is like a pot of charro beans, charro beans, and then those end up being free fried beans.
I make, you know, flour tortillas every morning.
So that's on rotation.
And the tomatillo salsa, that's what I make every Sunday.
My husband drinks that like ketchup.
We go through jars and jars of that.
Yeah, so usually it's Mexican food is like my go-to comfort food.
I learned so much in this conversation, Eva.
Good.
I'm a nerd.
Yeah, fellow food nerd.
I'm a nerd.
I'm so happy to be on.
I'm such a fan of your show.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for being here.
That's Eva Longoria.
Her show Eva Longoria Searching for France airs Sundays at 9 pm on CNN and streams the next day on the CNN app.
Next week on the show.
I'm solving your food disputes when I take calls with cookbook authors Ham El-Weili and Pai Changchana.
Things get pretty heated on the topic of double dipping.
You don't want to miss this one.
That's next week.
While you wait for that one, check out last week's show where I get to go behind the scenes at Disney World.
I hit up the Star Wars Cantina, the Toy Story barbecue joint and I hear about the real gumbo that inspired the ride.
Tiana's Bayou Adventure.
That one's up now.
Check it out.
And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
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Then there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXMcom slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by me, along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara.
It was edited by Camille Stanley.
Our engineers are Jared O'Connell and Casey Holford.
And our intern is India Rice.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcast.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Nora from Taylor, Texas, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
Thank you to Bonnie Plants for sponsoring this segment.
Amy Enfield was always into plants.
As a kid, she helped her parents work in their vegetable garden.
And in grade school she remembers doing the bean experiment where you get the little paper cup and a little bit of soil and a little bit of water and you plant your own bean.
When she grew up, Amy was still so into plants that she got a master's degree in horticulture and a PhD in plant and environmental science.
So as we head into spring, I thought I'd chat with Dr. Amy.
I've had the opportunity to work with young four five, six year olds and seeing that same amazement with them again.
Like we're going to start this seed and you're going to come back in a week and there's going to be little seedlings there and you're going to come back in a month from now and it's going to be in flower.
Right.
It is kind of amazing.
At what point did you decide that this would be your career?
I had the opportunity at the end of my junior year to go work with a horticulture professor at Michigan State and I just kind of really fell in love with it.
Just like the hands in the dirt, planting, growing things, being in the greenhouse, out in the gardens.
It was kind of like, yeah, I could make a living out of this.
And I did.
Yeah.
As we get into April and May, you're past the last frost.
What's this time of year like?
Mid-late spring is my favorite time of year.
Just spending time outside.
Stuff is growing.
Things are blooming.
Almost like that rebirth coming out of winter after that long nap.
Everything smells fresh.
Everything feels new.
These days, Dr. Amy is a senior content editor at Scott's Miracle-Gro.
So she's the perfect person to help answer gardening questions that you sent in.
All right, Dr. Amy, let's begin with a question from a beginner.
Megan asks, where's the best place to start with the least chance of messing up?
To me, herbs tend to be foolproof.
They don't need a ton of care.
You do need to water them.
I'm like, nothing's going to be completely foolproof because if you forget to water it.
Yeah, we can't help you then.
But herbs are a really good starting point.
They make a great garnish just to have outside your door to go add to any kind of meal you're cooking.
It is a great feeling to be in the kitchen.
You know what would make this better?
A little basil.
You know what would make this look prettier?
A little parsley.
You just go out to your garden and cut it off and you feel like, oh, look at me living off the land.
Jeff writes, when is the best time of day to water?
The best time of day to water is morning between nine and before 11, ideally.
So you want to water before the sun hits peak.
And if you can't do it then?
That late afternoon after kind of three o'clock but before six is also a good time to water as well, because then there's enough time for your leaves to dry before you go into nightfall, so you don't get the risk of disease.
Wet leaves at night create risk of disease.
Yes.
Interesting.
All right, next topic, gardening with limited space.
So we heard from a lot of listeners who live in apartments.
What are your tips on this one, Dr. Amy?
When it comes to balcony growing in small spaces or just small outside patios, think vertical stuff that can grow up.
Hanging baskets, find tumbling varieties.
Cucamelons can grow in a pot and they trail down.
Look for the really small varieties.
There are tomato varieties on the market, if you can find them, that will grow in a six-inch pot.
Bonnie Plants actually has a whole guide to vertical gardening on their website.
So whether you're in an apartment or just want to make the most of your outdoor space, check it out.
There are tons of tips and ideas.
It even explains how to grow tomatoes upside down.
I did not know you could do that.
Anyway, final section, Dr. Amy.
Pam writes, how much water is too much for herbs like basil?
They only need about an inch of water a week.
If you water them too much, one, they can rot out.
But it also dilutes the flavor.
A little bit of drought stress on herbs is actually a good thing, because it intensifies the flavors.
That's a good tip.
Full sun for most herbs?
Full sun for most herbs.
Basil definitely needs the full sun.
Thank you again to the sponsor of today's segment, Bonnie Plants.
You know, if you're a first timer, I get it.
Gardening is intimidating.
My wife, Janie, and I have been doing it for a couple of years and we're still finding our way.
Even if you're an experienced gardener, you're always going to have questions, right?
With factors like weather, climate, expense, and time, gardening can feel daunting.
Bonnie Plants believes that growing your own garden should be simple, accessible, and attainable.
And it's so rewarding when you plant the plants and you get to watch them grow and then you get to harvest them.
You get to snip those herbs.
You get to eat those tomatoes.
And the Bonnie Plants website is a great resource.
Like I said, they have their vertical gardening guide.
They have a tomato picker, so you can put in tomatoes.
How much space do you have?
How much sun do you get?
Even if you don't really know what kind of tomato you need, check the right boxes.
The Body Plants website will tell you what kind of tomatoes you need.
Then a couple of clicks and the seeds show up at your door.
With over a century of experience growing fresh quality plants, Body Plants can be your partner in successfully growing delicious fresh food and finding your moment.
Head to bonnieplants.com for more.
