This podcast is, hands-down, my favorite show created by a museum. In each monthly episode, the enigmatic hosts take a deep dive into a moment of science-related history in order to shed light on the present. They manage to tackle a huge variety of subjects, from laws around food in Butter vs. Margarine to Amish embracing technology to treat genetic disorders in High-Tech and Amish to a biographical episode on a female scientist that history has forgotten. 

Using an engaging combination of interviews with experts, historical audio, and narration from the hosts, Distillations uses history “both distant and recent“to help listeners understand the world we live in now. Currently, they are in the midst of an absolutely fascinating three-part series on the history of opioid addiction treatment. Personally, I find the American opioid epidemic to be confusing and frightening. This series dives into the history of how people became addicted in different eras and how society has dealt with people suffering from opioid addiction in different eras. 

If you like podcasts that tell one story over an entire season, you will love Texas Story Podcast. In the first season, this respected Texas institution tells the story of the famous Texan and blues guitarist Stephen Ray Vaughan. But there’s a twist. It’s not just a simple audiodoc. Instead of asking an musical expert to host the show, producer Evan Windham brings the audience along on her journey of discovery as she learned about Stevie Ray’s life through interviews, research, and“of course“listening to great music. Whether you are a blues fanatic or have never listened to a blues song in your life, you’ll be entertained, informed, and inspired.

Does some contemporary art confuse you? Do you wonder, “Why or how is this art?” This light-hearted podcast breaks down mediums like video art and installation art as well as the works of a few particularly hard-to-get artists. 

This is a star-studded podcast. The host, comedian Abbi Jacobson, explores these dense topics through conversations with art educators, stars of pop culture, and other comedians. The podcast is a limited series of ten episodes, each of which stands on their own. Whether you like art or not, this show will make you smile. 

As the creators of The Kitchen Stories put it, “When we talk about food, we often end up talking about so much more. Family traditions, patterns of migration, gender dynamics, our relationship to the land. More than just a source of nourishment, food is a means of communication.”

In this limited-run series, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia conduct oral histories and interviews to learn first-hand what it was like to be a Jewish family living in far-flung places including Eritrea, Chile, and India. The people interviewed talk about the pressures to fit in or stand out, and how food was often a means of doing both, as well as the difficulty of maintaining family culinary traditions after migrating to a new country.

This show is a poignant look into the lives of all kinds of Jewish individuals and communities…all through the lens of food.