Save the games! Preserve the bread! Guard your rabbits!

Save the games! Preserve the bread! Guard your rabbits!

Author: Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer August 14, 2025 Duration: 50:48

Welcome back! We’re easing back into the swing of things after our summer holidays with a bit of “cucumber season” fare. It’s our regularly scheduled programming, just a little bit…sillier. 

This week, we take a peek into the world’s first “sourdough library” with Karl De Smedt, head of the Puratos Sourdough Institute. Karl gives us a taste of his unconventional career preserving breadmaking biodiversity and explains why the starters in his library are a little like Europeans themselves. Plus: we learn why the Aalborg Zoo in Denmark is encouraging people to bring in unwanted pets and how Dominic “gave” Daniel Radcliffe his career(!).

You can take a virtual tour of the Puratos sourdough library here and check out Karl on Instagram here.

And if you want to find out more about the Stop Killing Games campaign, watch this video.

This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number.

This week's Inspiration Station recommendations are two books, Patrick Radden Keefe’s spellbinding history of the Troubles, “Say Nothing,” and the novel “Second Best” by French author David Foenkinos.

00:00:00 First things first: WTF is up with strawberry pasta in Poland?
00:04:25 Good Week: The Stop Killing Games movement
00:16:01 Bad Week: The pets of Aalborg, Denmark
00:25:47 Interview: Karl De Smedt gives us permission to eat more bread
00:41:50 The Inspiration Station: “Say Nothing” by Patrick Radden Keefe and “Second Best” by David Foenkinos
00:46:57 Happy Ending: Jellyfish believed extinct makes Scottish comeback

Producers: Morgan Childs and Wojciech Oleksiak
Mixing and mastering: Wojciech Oleksiak
Music: Jim Barne and Mariska Martina

YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | hello@europeanspodcast.com

 


Every week, Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer sit down to untangle the stories shaping the continent, moving beyond the headlines to find the human threads within European news, politics, and culture. Their conversations feel like joining two well-informed friends who are genuinely curious, offering clarity on complex political shifts in Brussels one moment and diving into a compelling film from Berlin or a novel from Lisbon the next. This isn't about dry analysis; it's about understanding the forces that define daily life from Dublin to Sofia. In this The Europeans podcast, you'll hear interviews with policymakers, artists, and everyday people, all contributing to a richer, more nuanced picture of a region in constant motion. The tone is engaging and accessible, designed for anyone who feels that Europe's narrative is too often reduced to stereotypes or institutional jargon. By weaving together current affairs with deeper cultural trends, each episode builds a more complete and surprisingly relatable portrait. If you've ever wanted to feel more connected to the ideas and debates circulating across the Channel and beyond, this is a consistent and thoughtful guide.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture
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