When it comes to podcasts, it is by now established that talking about food is more than the sum of its portions. Food is personal, evocative and illuminating — it intersects with class, gender, and more besides.

People have opinions about food that are about more than about taste — they are tribal, and emotional. Plenty of podcasters draw out this distinction well — Table Manners with Jessie Ware, for example — by turning the humble meal into a form of pop philosophy.

Not that that means the whole thing can’t be funny, too — like Off Menu, with comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster, a new offering that shot to the top of the iTunes podcast chart this week.

Every week the riotous pair invite a different special guest aboard. So far these have included charismatic fellow comedian Aisling Bea (who shows off a extraordinary talent for accents), whip-smart actress Lolly Adefope and chef Tom Kerridge.

Each guest orders their dream meal — starter, main course, and dessert — and each course is interrogated by the acerbic main duo, who also offer prompts such as “tap, still or sparkling water?” then do with the response what they will. Namely, suggest anyone who orders sparkling is a posho.

Conversation runs from these gags to the curiously profound. “Does the meal have to make sense as a whole?” asks Bea, off-hand. A penny drops; neither Gamble nor Acaster has considered it, but it makes for five minutes of earnest fun.

Tuck in.

Download Off Menu on Acast and iTunes