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Gravy

Southern Foodways Alliance

Gravy shares stories of the changing American South through the foods we eat. Gravy showcases a South that is constantly evolving, accommodating new immigrants, adopting new traditions, and lovingly maintaining old ones. It uses food as a means to explore all of that, to dig into lesser-known corners of the region, complicate stereotypes, document new dynamics, and give voice to the unsung folk who grow, cook, and serve our daily meals.

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Wednesday · 21 min
Brisket, Kugel, and Community in Birmingham
In “Brisket, Kugel, and Community in Birmingham,” Gravy reporter Olivia Ware Terenzio visits Birmingham, Alabama’s Levite Jewish Community Center (“The J”) for the Jewish Food and Culture Fest, a celebration of kugel and cabbage rolls for Jews and non-Jews alike. This episode explores what role the festival plays in a state where less than half of one percent of the population is Jewish—and what we really mean when we talk about Jewish Food. The festival started more than two decades ago, which is impressive, considering that there are only about 6,300 Jews in the Birmingham metro area of 1.1 million. It’s been sustained by a loyal group of Jewish volunteers and widely supported by the non-Jewish population. A closer look at the kitchen, where volunteer cooks prepare hamantashen ahead of the festival, proves that this is all more complicated than a typical food festival. Desserts are made with oil, not butter, to avoid dairy. The counters where the volunteers are working are marked with red duct tape, and one half of the kitchen is blocked off with a plastic sheet. The tape and plastic are part of an effort to keep the festival entirely kosher, as is the oversight of a kosher supervisor: Rabbi Yossi Friedman. He reviews all the food bought for the festival to ensure that even people who are very careful about keeping kosher can participate. In Alabama, where options for kosher dining are next to zero, this is especially important. At the same time, many of the festival’s attendees—and most of the J’s dues-paying members—aren’t Jewish. For many of them, the festival offers a rare opportunity to experience Jewish food that can’t be found in restaurants here. As Margaret Norman, a scholar of American Jewish history and Southern Jewish foodways, explains, many people don’t come into regular contact with Jewish culture or Jewish people in Alabama. In this episode, Rabbi Friedman explains how kosher certification works and why it matters in an increasingly complicated food system. Isa Dorsky, one of the festival’s lead cooks and a former Board President at The J, leads volunteer cooks as they prepare 400 hamantashen. Finally, Norman tells of Birmingham’s evolving Jewish population and explores a food festival’s potential to bridge differences between neighbors. Reporter Olivia Ware Terenzio is a writer, editor, and arts and culture administrator working in the American South. She is the Director of Programs for Project Threadways and the Podcast Editor here at the Southern Foodways Alliance. She holds an M.A. in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 2 · 29 min
Stone-Milled Flour: Separating the Wheat from the Chaff
In Texas and Louisiana, chefs, millers, and home bakers are increasingly turning to using whole-grain, stone-milled flour in their breads, cakes, and pastries. These flours are milled with the ancient process of stone milling: flour is produced by crushing the whole kernel of the wheat grain between enormous stones, versus the more modern process of roller milling, which produces the finely grained, snow-white flour most of us are accustomed to. Stone-ground flour is coarser and more nutrient dense, and can also be more difficult to source, use, and store thanconventional flour. Despite that, these flours are no longer the sole purview of professional pastry chefs and artisan bread bakers. A new group of consumers are turning to organic, stone ground, and so-called heritage or ancient strains of wheat: followers of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. These home bakers are increasingly convinced that modern, roller-milled wheat is making them sick, resulting in diagnoses as broad as chronic inflammation, IBS, and non-Celiac gluten intolerance. As a baker and recipe developer, Bronwen Wyatt wanted to get to the bottom of the flour debate, which reflects a growing anxiety around the safety of American food. She speaks to bakers Pamela Thibodeaux of Barton Springs Mill in Dripping Springs, Texas and Keira Watt of Bellegarde Bakery in New Orleans to learn why they choose to use stone milled flour, and what their customers are communicating to them about their flour choices. She also turns to scientistsDr. Jessica Biesiekierski, an expert in non-celiac gluten intolerance, and Dr. Aaron Fox, who specializes in organic and sustainable agriculture, to learn more about whether our fears aroundwheat mean we need to change our shopping and baking behaviors. Do we need to have an all-or-nothing approach to conventional flour, or can all the South’s many diverse, long-standing baking traditions continue to co-exist? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 19 · 22 min
There’s No Business Like Hansen’s Sno Bliz-ness
In “There’s No Business Like Hansen’s Sno Bliz-ness,” Gravy reporter Eve Troeh takes us to New Orleans, home of the sno-ball. In the South you need strategies to beat the summer heat, and ice plays a big role. Street vendors used to shave big blocks of ice by hand and add flavored syrup—a treat that became known as a sno-ball in the Big Easy. In the late 1930s, a local man, Ernest Hansen, invented a machine that changed the tradition. Sharp blades, encased in metal, turned chunks of ice into the most fluffy, fine “snow,” and he eventually patented this creation. While he kept his day job in New Orleans’ manufacturing industry, Ernest’s wife Mary ran with her husband’s invention. She set up shop at home and eventually moved to a brick-and-mortar, dishing up fresh “snow” and dousing them with signature flavored syrups that she made by hand. They called their place Hansen’s Sno-Bliz. Remarkably, Ernest’s hand-built machines are still in use today, as are many of Mary’s syrup recipes, and the business continues to cool off customers with some “air-conditioning for your tummy.” Hansen’s Sno-Bliz is now in its 86th year, with Ernest and Mary’s granddaughter, Ashley Hansen, at the helm. Ashley’s was a long and loving journey to take on the business. She learned alongside her grandparents day by day. In a city that practically worships tradition, she honors her family and her customers by maintaining not just the original 1930s ice-shaving mechanics and syrup recipes, but also by cultivating the warm hospitality her grandparents always extended to anyone who entered. The cinder block corner shop on New Orleans’ Tchoupitoulas Street looks humble, but you’ll always find a line of customers stretching outside around the corner. The James Beard Foundation even bestowed Hansen’s with its prestigious title of American Classic. New Orleanians from every corner of the city—and visitors from all around the world—eagerly line up to experience Hansen’s, and form an of-the-moment community with each other as they choose their flavors and chat. In this cool edition of Gravy, Ashley Hansen shares the history, innovation, and spirit of her family’s institution, always with Hansen’s Sno-Bliz motto in mind: “There are no shortcuts to quality.” Eve Troeh is a seasoned podcast producer and award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles. She's also a proud former New Orleanian, and a veteran of the line at Hansen's. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 5 · 25 min
The Piggly Wiggly Way: A Memphis Story
In "The Piggly Wiggly Way: A Memphis Story, "Gravy reporter Mackenzie Martin visits the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis to understand how Piggly Wiggly changed grocery shopping forever. Meal kits. Instacart. Door Dash. At the turn of the 20th century, we didn’t have all of these options. You mostly showed up at a counter and told a clerk what you wanted, and they’d gather all the necessary items and package them up for you. And there wasn’t much in the way of competing brands, either. Then everything started to change in a big way 110 years ago this year, when the most influential self-service grocery store opened in Memphis, Tennessee. Founder Clarence Saunders called it “The Piggly Wiggly Self-Serving System,” and he had several patents for everything: the layout, the price tag system, and even the way he incorporated refrigeration. “You could go in and do your own shopping, and all you needed was one stocker and one clerk,” says Steve Masler, the former curator of exhibits at the Pink Palace Museum. It’s unknown why Saunders named the chain what he did, but the mystery intrigued people. In September 1916, he ran one of the first of many bizarre newspaper ads to announce its opening: “The Piggly Wiggly will establish a new fashion,” it read. “Don’t come, though, unless you mean business and want to buy something.” The idea of choosing your own items at a grocery store seems commonplace now, but it was revolutionary at the time. Suddenly, after years of going to a general store and handing a list to a friendly clerk, customers were expected to wander the aisles on their own and carry items in a wooden shopping basket. Historian Lisa C. Tolbert, author of Beyond Piggly Wiggly: Inventing the American Self-Service Store, says one of the most radical things about the design of Piggly Wiggly is that the traffic only went one direction. That forced customers to walk by and inspect every product in the store, which increased spontaneous purchases and overall sales. “It’s like a vending machine you’re walking through,” she says. In 1922, less than a decade after the opening of the first store, there were 1,200 Piggly Wiggly stores in the United States. Then more grocery store chains followed Piggly Wiggly’s lead and adopted self service models of their own, and Piggly Wiggly transitioned to the more traditional supermarket model we’re all familiar with. Today, there are just under 500 Piggly Wigglys in the U.S. They are in 17 states, partially in the Midwest, but overwhelmingly in the South. It’s an outlier in the grocery store industry in the sense that it’s managed by individual franchisees across the country and perceived as more local than other nationally known grocery store chains. It’s the kind of place where baggers often carry groceries to customers’ cars, and you can get a soda for 50 cents. “It’s the Piggly Wiggly Way,” said one employee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 22 · 26 min
Making Groceries in Louisiana
In “Making Groceries,” New Orleans-based Gravy journalist Katie Jane Fernelius travels to the frontlines of food insecurity in Louisiana—from the bustling warehouse floor of Second Harvest Food Bank in south Louisiana to a grocery aisle in rural Evangeline Parish—to examine the place of food stamps in fighting hunger. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a federal food-assistance program that helps low-income households buy groceries. It has consistently been shown to reduce food insecurity and poverty, especially among children. But SNAP has also been at the center of policy fights for decades, as legislators at both the state and federal level debate not only who should be eligible to receive benefits, but what they can spend those benefits on. While some legislators may emphasize the impact of SNAP on state and federal budgets, moms like Dafnee Chatman experience the importance of SNAP in their personal budgets, knowing the crucial role that food stamps can play in feeding her family of five. In this episode of Gravy, Fernelius follows Chatman through a grocery store as she does the math of a weekly shop on SNAP benefits. She also speaks with John Sillers and Lindsay Hendrix of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana about how families struggling with food insecurity fill their pantries. Fernelius looks at hunger in Louisiana from a wider angle: not as a single crisis, but as a system of support, strain, and political choices that shapes how everyday families eat. *** Acknowledgements: Thank you to scholars Tracy Roof and Laurie Green for their illuminating conversations about the history of food stamps. Thank you to Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans and Dafnee Chatman, for their helpful, impassioned participation in this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
July 8 · 23 min
Spilling the Tea in the Mississippi Pine Belt
In “Spilling the Tea in the Mississippi Pine Belt” Gravy reporter Georgia Sparling explores the tea farms popping up in Mississippi’s Pine Belt, where the tannic soil is perfect for growing tea. While many think of strong, syrupy sweet, ice-cold tea as quintessentially Southern, the only thing truly Southern about this ubiquitous beverage is how we drink it. Almost every tea leaf we consume in the United States comes from somewhere else. Tea has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years, first in China and now in India, Nepal, Kenya, and even Argentina. Mississippi, though, seemed unlikely. The tea plant, Chinese camellia, tends to thrive in inhospitable places, such as mountains and hillsides. While the Pine Belt can certainly be inhospitable with its three-digit-degree summers, tornadoes, and dry spells, it’s a wildly different climate than where most tea is grown. The soil, however, was just right for the acid-loving plants, which are known to adapt to their circumstances. Still, much was unknown when The Great Mississippi Tea Company in Brookhaven and the Longleaf Tea Company in Laurel planted their first crops in 2011 and 2018, respectively. Tea is a long-term investment. It takes three to five years for the plants to become established and ready for harvest. After that, they can live for a century or more—that is, if they survive. Both farms experienced heavy losses during their first seasons of planting. Great Mississippi lost all four acres of their initial crop, while Longleaf lost 300 of their first 1,000 saplings. But they replanted, and today these small but mighty farms have not only taken root but they are thriving. Great Mississippi and Longleaf are finding that not only do tea plants have a taste for Mississippi soil, but Mississippians (and beyond) have a taste for the delicate and complex flavors of Southern grown tea. Georgia Sparling visits these farms and learns what it takes to grow a perfect cup of tea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 24 · 24 min
Tasting Haiti in New Orleans
In “Tasting Haiti in New Orleans,” Gravy reporter Eva Tesfaye gives listeners a taste of Haitian cuisine—and history—in New Orleans. For Haitians living in the Big Easy, many things remind them of home, from Second Line parades to the architecture to the food. Red beans and rice, boudin, jambalaya… all these iconic Louisiana dishes have connections to Haiti. That’s because Haitian migrants profoundly shaped New Orleans culture. At the turn of the nineteenth century, enslaved people on the island of St. Domingue broke free from their chains. Led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, they snatched their freedom from the French. They renamed the country Ayiti, the Indigenous Taino name for the land. This not only sparked the fire of freedom and Black liberation movements around the world, but also had huge consequences for other French territories. White people fleeing Haiti found familiarity in Louisiana’s French culture and the plantation economy. Large groups of Black people, enslaved and free, also arrived with them, boosting Louisiana’s sugarcane economy. New Orleans became one of the Blackest cities in the country. “63% of Crescent City inhabitants were now Black. Among the nation's major cities, only Charleston, with the 53% majority, was comparable,” said Zella Palmer, a food historian at Dillard University. The influx dramatically transformed New Orleans’ culture and especially its food, giving it a Haitian twist that you can still taste today. “Haitian cuisine is the most underrated and unappreciated cuisine in the Western Hemisphere,” said Palmer. In this episode, Tesfaye gives Haitian cuisine its flowers. She takes us through the history of how Haiti helped shaped New Orleans’ iconic cuisine and introduces us to the modern chefs in the city who are bringing Haitian food back to the forefront. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
June 10 · 18 min
Object Permanence: An Essay
Martin Padgett wrote the feature essay “Object Permanence” for the fall 2025 issue of Gravy Quarterly, our sister publication. In the piece, he catalogs the objects we live with actively, those we tolerate like inanimate roommates, and those we give away, sometimes to make room for the new. We liked it so much that we asked them to read it for Gravy podcast listeners. To read other engaging essays in Gravy, have it shipped to your mailbox by becoming an SFA member at southernfoodways.org, or sign up for a subscription at Hub City Book Shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 27 · 24 min
American Barbecue’s European Adventure
In “American Barbecue’s European Adventure,” Gravy reporter Eve Troeh takes us to meet restaurateurs in Prague, Czech Republic (Big Smokers) and Berlin, Germany (Big Stuff Smoked BBQ) who have gone to great lengths to import the techniques and equipment needed to bring American barbecue to their communities. Along with developing their own recipes, working closely with suppliers to select the right breeds and cuts of meat, and perfecting their overnight smoking process, they have also had to cultivate an understanding of and appreciation for BBQ among their customers. While “low and slow” smoked barbecue may seem ubiquitous in the United States, it takes some translating when it crosses the pond into an entirely different culinary context. Adrian Miller, author of the book Black Smoke, which chronicles Black contributions to American barbecue, helps explain what makes American barbecue unique—and even unexpected—in other parts of the world. And while Czech and German immigrants contributed to the early formation of barbecue in central Texas and other Southern enclaves, the reception of American barbecue abroad today shows that its history is not a straight line from the 1800s to now. Instead, it’s a conversation that has crossed oceans and generations in a longstanding back-and-forth that can be seen and tasted on modern-day trays of brisket, pulled pork, sausage, and more. At Big Smokers in Prague, chefs Sylvie Jackson and Tomas Oujezdsky show guests that burnt ends—though they may sound suspect—are actually delicious. And at Berlin’s Big Stuff Smoked BBQ, Tobias Bürger introduces customers to a hot sandwich. The popularity of Southern-style “low and slow” barbecue seems to know no bounds, and in this episode, Troeh follows the journey of that smoking tradition across the Atlantic Ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 13 · 20 min
Sap's Rising in Highland County, Virginia
In Highland County, Virginia, there are more trees than people. Specifically, the County is rich in sugar maples, the trees whose sap produces maple syrup. Better known as a “northern” sweetener, maple syrup is something that Highland County residents have been producing for decades—likely as early as the County was first settled in the mid-1700s. They learned the practice from local Indigenous tribes, who took part in tapping trees themselves. In “Sap's Rising in Highland County, Virginia,” Gravy reporter Sarah Jessee explores Highland County maple syrup production in the past and present, and discusses how the County’s syrup-making might change in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 15 · 27 min
Sniffing Out American Truffles
In “Sniffing Out American Truffles,” Gravy reporter Irina Zhorov explores truffle production in the U.S.—and how the South is emerging as a hub. Truffle production in the U.S. is a young industry. Commercial cultivation started in the 1980s. Truffles are a complicated business. When you’re farming truffles, what you’re really growing is trees. The truffles are fungi that grow on tree roots. The tree and the fungi work synergistically, the tree providing sugars to the fungi for nourishment and the fungi helping the roots reach further into the soil to absorb more nutrients. For this relationship to work well, and for truffles to flourish, the type of tree and fungi must be a good match, the soil ought to be of sufficiently high pH, and weather and moisture need to be suitable. Europeans, particularly in Italy and France, figured out the formula to make this complex system function. Truffle orchards once abounded on the continent. World Wars I and II, as well as changing land use, destroyed many of those operations, but the industry there is still established. When American farmers began to seed their truffle orchards, most of them imported European truffle varieties on European trees. European truffles are big and delicious, and want-to be growers knew that system worked. But European trees have struggled in North America; they lack defenses for local pests, and many of the early orchards have died out. An operation in North Carolina, Burwell Farms, tried something different. They inoculated native loblolly pines with the European bianchetto truffle variety. They're now the most productive truffle orchard in the United States, but they still can't keep up with growing demand. As the industry matures, there are also attempts to cultivate native truffle varieties, like the Appalachian truffle, the Blue Ridge truffle, and other newly discovered species. And there's growing interest in foraging for native truffles, too. The industry is becoming increasingly attuned to local varieties and possibilities to make this luxurious product our own. In this episode of Gravy, Zhorov visits Burwell Farms and follows their dogs at work harvesting truffles. We hear from Burwell Farms' Jeffrey Coker; Margaret Townsend, president of the North American Truffle Growers Association and owner of NewTown Truffiere; chef Joe Kindred on what excites him about local truffles; and North Carolina extension agents Katie Learn and Jeanine Davis on local varieties. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
April 1 · 27 min
Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues
In “Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues,”Gravy reporter Anya Groner takes listeners to the Chesapeake Bay, where, over the past decade, invasive blue catfish have derailed the ecosystem in the East Coast’s largest fish nursery. Native to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River basins, blue catfish were first stocked in the bay’s tributary rivers in the 1970s to provide a new trophy fish for recreational anglers. At the time, no one predicted that a freshwater catfish could make its way into the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay, much less outcompete native crabs, oysters, and fish. The impact has been devastating for the environment and for the seafood industry. Generational watermen are going out of business, and most of the fishmongers who buy and process their catch have shut their doors. Yet, Dr. Michael Schwarz, associate director of Virginia Tech's Seafood and Agricultural Research & Extension Center, says there’s a lucrative way to manage the population of this expanding apex predator and reinvigorate the seafood industry. Blue catfish happen to be delicious. Studies show that managed correctly, a blue catfish fishery could have an economic impact of $1.1 billion and create 7,000 new jobs. “ The easiest solution for anything is to eat it,” says Kyle Rowley, the chief operating officer of Skrimp Shack, a fourteen-restaurant franchise in Virginia and North Carolina. As a topwater predator, blue catfish don’t have the muddy flavor sometimes associated with farmed catfish. And Rowley says, they fry beautifully. Three years ago, he added blue catfish to Skrimp Shack’s menu. “We're doing something right that is actually helping our fellow Virginians, and we enjoy that.” But building a market for an invasive species is an inherent conflict of interest, says Dr. Mary Fabrizio, a biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “Basically you're starting the fishery to put itself out of business,” she says. If the fishery is as lucrative as some predict it can be, the goal could switch from shrinking the population to maintaining it. Fabrizio’s computer models show that unless a very high number of catfish are pulled from the bay, culling catfish won’t rejuvenate native fish. Join Groner as she travels from the docks of the Chesapeake Bay to marine labs and restaurants, asking watermen, fishmongers, scientists, and restaurateurs to ask what it will take to build a blue catfish market and whether it’s possible to balance the needs of the seafood industry and the ecosystem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
March 18 · 22 min
A Taste of the Other Georgia in Pensacola
In “A Taste of the Other Georgia in Pensacola,” Gravy reporter Martin Padgett ventures to Pensacola to sample a bit of Georgia—a Georgia much further away than the five-hour car ride to Atlanta. Florida’s Gulf Coast brings to mind pictures of crystal-sand beaches and the Navy’s Blue Angels, but until recently, it hasn’t been known as a haven for global food. That’s begun to change, and as Pensacola has begun to grow out of its small-town roots, Chef George Lazi has brought a new cuisine to the table, along with a symbol of hospitality. Lazi grew up in Soviet Georgia, but when the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Georgia declared independence, the childhood he knew disappeared. When Georgia’s economy imploded, families would go without work, without power, without currency—but would still gather to share what food and drink they had, and to drink Georgian wine from the ceremonial ram’s horn present in nearly every home, a horn called the khantsi. Lazi left Georgia when he was nineteen to come to America, where he learned from some of the best chefs in the hallowed halls of food. But after he married, he and his wife, Luba, looked south to find a place they could build their own restaurant, and a place they could call home. While he drinks very strong espresso with Lazi at the chef’s Pearl & Horn restaurant in Pensacola, Padgett learns how the chef’s family has brought its story to an unclaimed corner of the South. The traditional southern foodstuffs like red snapper are the stars on the menu—only here they’re paired with khmeli suneli, a Georgian spice that blends fenugreek, coriander, and marigold. And if you look around Pearl & Horn’s dining room, you might catch a glimpse of one of Lazi’s khantsi, standing proudly on the bar. In this episode, Gravy asks about the items we keep and those we leave behind, while exploring how we meld one culture into another through immigration—and what that means to the ever-changing South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
March 4 · 28 min
Apalachicola Bay Reopens
Atlanta can seem like it’s a very long way from the oystering communities in Florida’s Panhandle. There are, in fact, hundreds of miles between them. But there are ways even distant places are intimately connected, perhaps more intimately than you’d guess. And when one of those places is in trouble, those connections get revealed. This is the story of what’s happening to the oysters in Apalachicola Bay, and why that has inspired interstate legal battles—even a Supreme Court lawsuit. It’s also the story of what a place whose whole identity revolves around seafood does, when that seafood is threatened. The audio from oysterman A.L. Quick was gathered in 2006 as part of the Southern Foodways Alliance oral history project on Florida's Forgotten Coast. You can listen to that oral history and more than a dozen others with oystermen and other residents of Franklin County at southernfoodways.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
February 18 · 18 min
The Miracle of Slaw and Fishes: Louisiana’s Lenten Fish Fries
Order a catfish po-boy or a few pounds of crawfish in Acadiana any Friday between Mardi Gras and Easter, and you may be surprised to learn that your delight is another person’s sacrifice. The Catholic tradition of abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent is alive and well in Southwest Louisiana, a region where more than a third identify as Catholic. Thanks to the long list of Catholic churches and restaurants that roll out an array of delectable seafood options on Lenten Fridays, it’s not much of a burden. St. Francis of Assisi in Breaux Bridge and the Knights of Columbus Council at St. Pius X in Lafayette both have long-standing Lenten fish fry traditions that bring together their communities and welcome anyone hungry for fried catfish, regardless of religion. Olde Tyme Grocery in Lafayette sells close to 2,300 seafood po-boys during the 40-day period. Religious abstinence never tasted so good. The episode was reported and produced by Sarah Holtz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
February 4 · 26 min
Trade, Taste, and the Evolving Tale of Texas Whiskey
In “Trade, Taste, and the Evolving Tale of Texas Whiskey,” Gravy reporter Evan Stern visits the Lone Star State to get a taste of a growing movement: Texas whiskey. Given the importance of saloons in cowboy culture and western mythology, one might think Texas whiskey has a long and storied history. But though Texans have always had a fondness for the demon drink, as a legal industry, Texas whiskey is barely even twenty years old. Despite this youth, however, its growth has been explosive. While as recently as 2010, the state claimed a mere two whiskey distilleries, that number now hovers around sixty and is growing. Yet as makers like Still Austin, Balcones, and Garrison Brothers have garnered awards and drawn national attention, its identity is still being discovered and remains challenging to define. In an increasingly saturated market, one also can’t help but wonder: Is Texas whiskey on the cusp of something big, or will it bust? Through visits to two “grain to glass” distilleries, Stern learns of the industry’s origins from Dan Garrison. The first licensed whiskey maker in modern Texas, Garrison tells of the challenges he faced aging bourbon in the torrid Hill Country and how his process has matured since his days as an early pioneer. Gravy also hears about the challenges regional distillers have faced in distinguishing their brands in a saturated market from sommelier Daniel Whittington, while Kentucky-based spirits author Fred Minnick argues that Texans’ openness to experimentation has helped shift the flavor narrative of American whiskey. Illustrating this is John Evans who, in a move that could be considered unorthodox, has chosen to use oats in a mash bill he developed himself. A fifth-generation farmer, he opened Wilson Valley Mercantile on his family’s historic property after thinking: “Why not make corn worth more by selling it as whiskey?” Featuring spirits distilled from grains raised entirely onsite, he shares his journey as an independent upstart. In these conversations, Gravy asks questions about process and flavor, while exploring how Texas’s emergence reflects the American craft movement and pondering what its future could mean for the drinking world as a whole. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
January 21 · 27 min
Fruitcake in Space
In “Fruitcake in Space,” Gravy reporter Bronwen Wyatt explores a bizarre footnote in the annals of human space travel. In 1968, a scientist at a military research facility developed a very unusual recipe: a nutritionally-fortified fruitcake designed as an emergency ration for astronauts. It might be easy to dismiss this fruitcake, but we’re here to argue that it’s part of a larger story—one that takes us from the early days of NASA’s space program to our current quest for Mars. Wyatt investigates the importance of safe preservation techniques in space, how NASA determines what food astronauts will actually eat, and why fruitcake actually makes perfect sense as an emergency ration. In an archival interview from 1966, dietician Mary Klicka at the Natick Laboratory Army Research, Development, and Engineering Center points to the unique challenges of preparing acceptable menus for long-term space travel. Wyatt speaks to Vickie Kloeris, who managed NASA’s food systems for nearly thirty years from the laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Jennifer Levasseur, a curator specializing in food at the Air and Space Museum. Finally, retired astronaut Cady Coleman shares her perspective on dining in orbit. Coleman, who volunteered for the role of "food czar" on the International Space Station, tells how food becomes a form of currency and a tool for building camaraderie among astronauts. Kloeris, Levasseur, and Coleman emphasize that dining space is about more than the mechanical function of obtaining enough calories to survive. Even in the most barren environments, our cultural drive to bond over food is a connection to our lives on earth and part of what makes us human. The selection and preparation of food—work that is often dismissed as inconsequential domestic labor—is a crucial part of the success of any mission in space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
January 7 · 22 min
How a Humble Crab Dish Became the Soul of Tampa
In “How a Humble Crab Dish Became the Soul of Tampa,” Gravy reporter Nicole Hutcheson travels across Tampa to trace the story of a lesser-known local dish—crab chilau. Every city has a dish that says something true about the people who built it. In Tampa, that dish is crab chilau. Made with blue crabs and simmered in tomatoes, garlic, spices, and served over pasta, crab chilau is shaped by Sicilians, Cuban and Afro-Cuban families, and Tampa’s Black community—each group adding a twist to make it their own. Hutcheson’s journey travels from historic Ybor City to rapidly gentrifying corridors of the city, and even knee-deep into the marshy waters of Tampa Bay. Along the way, she meets the people carrying crab chilau forward today: Enzo Pardo, a Sicilian chef reimagining the dish through his own heritage; Jesus Puerto, a Tampa native who returned home after decades away to stake his claim; and Reggie Nelson, an enterprising businessman and chef building a name for himself while preserving a culinary legacy rooted in community. Listeners hear first-hand how crab chilau isn’t a single recipe. Instead it’s what happens when different cultures, customs, and lived experiences come together in the same pot and city. No one version is the same—some are spicier, some brown the sauce until it resembles a stew. Others keep it closer to a sofrito. Add-ins like ground beef, smoked sausage, and snow crab aren’t deviations; they're evidence of a dish built to evolve and feed a crowd. Through personal encounters in kitchens, restaurants, and the outdoors, Hutcheson shares how crab chilau reflects the way Tampa’s food culture itself was built: informally, collaboratively, and without a singular owner. From cooks freestyling the pot to meals designed to nourish entire neighborhoods, the dish tells a larger story about gathering, creativity, and culture. Crab chilau is a living record of how cultures meet and adapt. Listeners will walk away from this episode with a deeper sense of Tampa’s identity and place in the American South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 24, 2025 · 25 min
Southern caviar is wild, nutty, and...sustainable?
In “Southern caviar is wild, nutty, and...sustainable?” Gravy reporter Irina Zhorov takes us to the Tombigbee River, where valuable paddlefish swim, and makes a case for caviar as an ingredient with a Southern pedigree. Every mature female fish makes roe—that’s the term for their clusters of unfertilized eggs. But caviar, for purists, comes from an ancient fish called sturgeon. There are more than two dozen species of sturgeon, but the best-known caviars come from a handful of species native to Russia and Central Asia: Beluga, Sevruga, Kaluga and Osetra. These fish are diadromous, which means they can live in both rivers and seas. And historically they were caught in the wild, their roe processed into caviar, and eventually sent around the world. Though fish roe started out as poor people’s food in Russia, it evolved to be synonymous with luxury, royalty. However, sturgeon were so overfished that it is now illegal in most places to import their wild-harvested caviar. In the U.S., too, several species of sturgeon were once dense along the eastern coast, in the Great Lakes, in California, and elsewhere. Indigenous tribes and white settlers alike consumed Atlantic sturgeon before a caviar rush in the 1800s diminished their numbers. It’s illegal to fish for most domestic sturgeon. Today, more than 99 percent of caviar globally comes from farms, mostly in China. There are a few exceptions to this rule in the U.S. Small shovelnose sturgeon can still be harvested in some areas for caviar. And paddlefish—which is not a sturgeon, but its close cousin—is fair game in some states, too. The fish live in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. While the U.S. has an available supply of wild-caught, high-quality caviar, it lacks a clear cultural context for how to enjoy this decadent treat. In this episode, Zhorov speaks to Mike Kelley of Kelley’s Katch, a Tennessee caviar producer, and biologist Steve Rider, who studies paddlefish populations in Alabama, to learn about a food that’s from the South but, paradoxically, not at all associated with Southern cuisine. Some people and companies are trying to educate American consumers about caviar and to modernize the way domestic consumers eat the food. That can include parties with caviar tutorials and introducing new, American ways to indulge, like with a dollop of caviar on Doritos. Christine Lemieux, one-half of the company Caviar Dream, explains how this delicacy can be for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 10, 2025 · 25 min
Boars Gone Wild: Texans Hunt, Trap, and Cook a Piggy Pest
In “Boars Gone Wild: Texans Hunt, Trap, and Cook a Piggy Pest,” Gravy reporter Georgia Sparling takes a deep dive into the conundrum around Texas’ pig problem. They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and that is certainly true of the wild hog population. Millions of feral pigs roam the rural (and not so rural) areas of the Lone Star State — destroying farmland, pushing out native animals, obstructing roadways, and leaving behind billions of dollars in damage each year. And their numbers are growing at an astounding rate. Hunters and landowners in Texas have a green light to kill any and all wild pigs, be it on foot, from a helicopter, or even from a hot air balloon. But then these intelligent yet invasive animals are often left to rot in the fields because everyone knows they’re tough and gamey, right? Well, not according to chef, butcher, hunter, and “hog apologist” Jesse Griffiths. The author of the James Beard Award-winning The Hog Book and co-owner of Austin’s Dai Due restaurant, Griffiths is on a mission to revamp the reputation of feral pigs. In this episode of Gravy, Sparling explores the wild hog origin story and how the population has grown, not only in Texas but across more than thirty states. Armed with a mic, she travels from field to table. She joins Griffiths on a hunt for hogs, and then takes listeners into the kitchen to understand just how varied, versatile, and sustainable their meat is. She will also explore their slowly growing popularity as wild boar meat becomes more available. Along the way, she speaks with Mitch Hagney of the San Antonio Food Bank. As federal funding cuts erode SNAP benefits and food pantry budgets, Hagney and his colleagues are devising creative solutions to address the hunger problem. They’re hoping that by teaming up with hunters and trappers, wild pigs can be a creative solution to feeding thousands of low-income families in Texas and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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