{"podcast":{"title":"Slow Burn","slug":"slow-burn-474574","podcast_index_feed_id":474574,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/6965759d79fe7d554545528a","website_url":"https://slate.com/slowburn","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/6965759d79fe7d554545528a/1778157374914-ae3ee4b6-49a1-4ca8-b5ab-9ddd01fce140.jpeg","author":"Slate Audio","episode_count":226,"summary":"Slow Burn illuminates America’s most consequential moments, making sense of the past to better understand the present. Through archival tape and first-person interviews, the series uncovers the surprising events and little-known characters lurking within the biggest stories of our time. Join Slate Plus to unlock full, ad-free access to Slow Burn and your other favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe from the Slow Burn show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Season 11: Becoming Justice Gorsuch How Neil Gorsuch laid the foundation for a SCOTUS supermajority and then became its most unexpected wild card. Season 10: The Rise of Fox News How a cable news channel became a cultural and political force—and how a whole bunch of people rose up to try and stop it. Season 9: Gays Against Briggs A nationwide moral panic, a California legislator who rode the anti-gay wave, and the LGBTQ+ people who stepped up and came out to try and stop him. Season 8: Becoming Justice Thomas Where Clarence Thomas came from, how he rose to power, and how he’s brought the rest of us along with him, whether we like it or not. Winner of the Pod…","last_synced_at":"2026-07-01T18:18:26.361960+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574"},"episode":{"title":"Decoder Ring | A Prune by Any Other Name","slug":"decoder-ring-a-prune-by-any-other-name","published_at":"2026-02-25T08:50:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574/decoder-ring-a-prune-by-any-other-name","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574","url":"https://shows.acast.com/slow-burn/episodes/decoder-ring-a-prune-by-any-other-name","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6965759d79fe7d554545528a/e/699e395943ceb0105d92d56b/media.mp3","summary":"The delicious, healthful prune has long had a cross to bear: It’s best known for making people poop. In the late 1990s, the California Prune Board set out on a quixotic mission to amend this sales-flattening reputation. It would attempt to rechristen this ancient fruit in the hopes the prune could one day be as unencumbered as an apricot, a raisin, or a fig.  In a world where every product and person increasingly believes it’s one good rebrand away from changing how they are seen, the story of the prune’s attempt to become the “dried plum” is a telling tale about the impossibility of escaping who you really are—and the freedom that comes with self-acceptance.  You’ll hear from Richard Peterson, retired Executive Director of the California Prune Board; food writer and chef David Liebovitz ; lawyer and lobbyist Dan Haley; and Kiaran Locy, Director of Brand and Industry Communications at the California Prune Board . This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was edited by Evan Chung, our supervising producer. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. Decoder Ring is also produced by Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Barry, Dave. Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway , Ballantine Books, 2002.  Brasher, Philip. “ FDA Approves Prune Name Change ,” ABC News, Feb. 1, 2001.  Brasher, Philip. “ Where's the beef? Kids give prune burgers the taste test ,” Associated Press, Jan 29, 2002.  Cimons, Marlene. “ A New Wrinkle for the Prune Industry ,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 21, 1999. Crespi, John M., Harry M. Kaiser, Julian M. Alston, and  Richard J. Sexton. “ The Evaluation…","meta_description":"The delicious, healthful prune has long had a cross to bear: It’s best known for making people poop. In the late 1990s, the California Prune Board set out…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2675,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/slow-burn-474574/episodes/decoder-ring-a-prune-by-any-other-name/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/slow-burn-474574/decoder-ring-a-prune-by-any-other-name.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}