(CNN) — Traveling and eating: Traditionally, these are the two key ingredients of a successful holiday season.
This year, of course, we're doing things differently, and ideally a lot more safely, which makes it the perfect time to indulge in podcasts that combine our two greatest seasonal loves -- or else speak to our current cooking-in-place predicament.
Here are six pods about food adventuring, guaranteed to transport you to a time when the world was our oyster. Mmmm, oysters.
Point of Origin
Where do the things we eat really come from? The story of a culture is inextricably linked to its cuisine, as host Stephen Satterfield -- co-founder of Whetstone Magazine -- explores in this wide-ranging podcast from iHeartRadio and Whetstone Media. Satterfield focuses particularly on the contributions of women and people of color, oft-overlooked heroes of culinary innovation.
Dan Pashman hosts The Sporkful podcast and "You're Eating it Wrong" on the Cooking Channel.
Scott Gordon Bleicher
The Sporkful
Being an eater doesn't have to mean being a "foodie" -- not the way host Dan Pashman (of Cooking Channel's "You're Eating It Wrong") views it, anyway. His podcast aims to pull the experience of consuming great cuisine off its pedestal and onto the plates of his straight-shooting guests, who include essayist Samantha Irby, food writer Osayi Endolyn, and now-household names David Chang and Guy Fieri -- and even the two hosts of "Home Cooking," noted below. We love a crossover episode!
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Home Cooking
Samin Nosrat's "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" cookbook and Netflix show gave us the perfect comfort-eating content for our era. Now she joins forces with Hrishikesh Hirway of the "Song Exploder" podcast to help us navigate that never-ending quarantine question: What to cook for dinner? And, more importantly, how to make it truly delicious? The pod, which debuted in March, enlists a weekly guest -- they've included Yo-Yo Ma, Antoni Porowski of "Queer Eye," and "Great British Bakeoff" winner Nadiya Hussain -- to address listeners' culinary queries, and they welcome yours for future shows.
The S.A.L.T. Lab Radio podcast transports listeners to places like the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school in Sicily.
ANNA TASCA LANZA
S.A.L.T. Lab Radio
Hosted by award-winning food journalist Adam Sachs, this podcast from Silversea Cruises debuted this summer and takes you around the globe to meet some of the outstanding chefs preserving, and expanding on, the cultural traditions of their locales. S.A.L.T. stands for Sea and Land Taste, Silversea's program dedicated to worldwide culinary exploration. Episodes thus far have traveled to Albania, Slovenia, Lisbon and Sicily, the latter as a two-part episode culminating in a visit with Fabrizia Lanza, of the legendary Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school.
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The Dish
Tommo and Megsy are food-obsessed travelers and writers, eating their way around the globe and bringing some of their best finds to you, from what to eat in Goa, India, and Mongolia and Lithuania (including "a very spiky national cake") to delving into the histories of various countries' dishes like fajitas, naan bread, and one of America's guiltiest and tastiest pleasures: Buffalo wings.
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Travel with Rick Steves
Rick Steves, one of the biggest names in travel guides, brings his unfussy style and decades of firsthand experience to this weekly series of hourlong conversations about cultural, and often culinary, gems in Europe -- Steves' traditional stomping ground -- and elsewhere. A recent episode dips into Italian olive oil -- what separates the good from the great? -- and why Bulgaria is one of the most compelling eating venues in Europe.
All podcasts available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Top photo by Gaizka Iroz/AFP/Getty Images.