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Host Marcus Samuelsson goes to the greater Boston area to learn more about Portuguese, Brazilian, and Cape Verdean food traditions. Marcus eats Portuguese chowder with halibut on a fishing boat, visits a Portuguese marketplace where he tries plenty of bacalhau, and later, in a home kitchen, he makes a bacalhau gratin with cheese and potatoes.

Host Marcus Samuelsson visits Las Vegas to learn more about the city’s long-standing Chinese community and their food traditions. He makes hand-pulled noodles and Peking duck, eats regional favorites from xiao long bar and beef noodle soup to cumin lamb and fish braised in clay pots.

Host Marcus Samuelsson heads to Philadelphia, where he meets new friends and old, and learns more about the city’s Italian food scene. Italian-Americans have been driving food culture in the U.S. for over a century, and Philadelphia is one of the original hubs for both classic and modern Italian cuisine.

Host Marcus Samuelsson visits Houston to learn more about food and community in the Nigerian and greater West African diaspora. Centered around the large Nigerian population but also focused on Senegalese, Ghanaian, and other West African cultures, the episode explores how West African immigrants preserve recipes and food traditions and re-contextualize them in the Houston dining scene.

After a generous helping of comfort food at Ludi's, we meet Dorothy Cordova, co-founder and executive
director of the Filipino-American National Historical Society, for a lesson on the history of Filipino
immigration to the U.S.

Playwright Sara Porkalob tells Marcus about her quirky grandmother, her upcoming theater series, and the
origins of coalition activism in Seattle, forged in the wake of racist miscegenation laws targeting African-
Americans and Filipino-Americans people in the 1930's.

"Tita" Leila, a leader in Seattle's Filipino food scene, shows Marcus the ropes at Oriental Mart, where she's
worked for 37 years. Marcus describes the unique notes of sourness present in many Filipino dishes.

Mestre Chuvisquinho, a master capoeirista from Sao Paulo, Brazil, teaches one of his capoeira classes. Capoeira is a combination of music, dance, and martial arts, originally used by African slaves for secret intercommunication. Later, Mestre and Marcus eat at Pastelaria, a cafe specializing mostly in Brazilian street food.

Father and son Fernando and Michael Benevides give Marcus a tour of their storeroom for bacalhau, an ageless Portuguese take on salt cod that involves air drying, freezing, and finally thawing, which can then be used in myriad Portuguese dishes, from broth stock to savory pastry filling.

Capoeira is a combination of music, dance, and martial arts, originally used by African slaves for secret intercommunication. Mestre Chuvisquinho, a master capoeirista, talks to Marcus about growing up practicing capoiera in his community in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and how it helped him focus his energies. Marcus touches on the inextricable influence of the slave trade on Brazilian culture.

On a cold day in New Bedford, Massachusetts, singer Candida Rosa talks with Marcus about her roots. She is from Cape Verde: a group of islands 400 miles off the western coast of Africa, a crossroads of early exploration of the Atlantic, and supposedly home to the first slave trading post.

Chef Yong Liu of Chengdu tastes remarks on the unique and comprehensive flavors of Sichuan cuisine: numbing, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy, and more. He discusses his desire to appeal to a wide audience, beyond just the Chinese community, while preparing kou shui ji (steamed chicken with chili oil and peanuts), as well as toothpick lamb.