In “Father, Son, Fire: A Chat with Howard and Harrison Conyers,” the fourth episode in Gravy’s five-part series on barbecue, Howard Conyers—a barbecue expert and NASA rocket scientist—introduces listeners to a formative influence in his barbecue education and journey: his father, Harrison Conyers.  Some people find barbecue, but the Conyers family was born into a barbecue tradition that survived in the community. Growing up in the small town of Paxville, South Carolina, Howard didn’t go to restaurants to eat barbecue. Within a five-mile radius, there was no shortage of whole hog barbecue cooks (and the “whole hog” part was always implied).  Howard has spent years researching the Black origins of barbecue and traveled the world to gather stories of others who work the pits. His passion for barbecue comes from his own childhood, as he grew up in a family of skilled barbecue cooks. The contributions of cooks in Southern barbecue pits are widely overlooked, especially those that are not affiliated with restaurants covered widely in mainstream media, or those from rural, agrarian areas of the South.  Howard now lives in New Orleans, but he travels home often to barbecue with his family. In this special episode of Gravy, Howard interviews his father—whom he calls a hidden figure in his work and the world of barbecue—about some of his favorite projects that the two have worked on together over the years.  In this episode of Gravy, Howard and Harrison first discuss farming and its link to barbecue cultures across the South, as those who worked the fields during Harrison’s generation were the same people preserving the barbecue tradition we know. Next, they recall working together to barbecue a whole cow in the tradition of smoking steers and ox in the American South. Harrison used his skills as a master welder to bring Howard’s complex pit design to life for the Gumbo Jubilee in New Orleans. Finally, they talk about the barbecue pit that Harrison and countless other people of his era knew in the ground, which used metal pipes in place of tree limbs. Barbecue changes as the country progresses, Howard notes, but it’s important to remember the past. Stories of other teachers of this craft, and his experiences cooking with his father, inspire his research and work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Grandpa’s Barbecue Blooms Out West,” Gravy producer Monica Gokey takes listeners to Idaho Falls, Idaho, to explore what happens when a Southerner leaves the South and opens a barbecue joint in the West.  Grandpa’s Southern Bar-B-Q originally opened in the small town of Arco, Idaho, which is obscurely famous for being the first community in the U.S. powered by nuclear energy. At the time Grandpa’s opened, Arco’s population was about a thousand people. It was an unlikely location for any restaurant, much less a Southern food restaurant.  Menu items like smoked brisket, collard greens, gumbo, and buttermilk pie were new fare for many locals, and it wasn’t the locals who patronized Grandpa’s at first. It was tourists—either passing through Arco on their way to Yellowstone or the nearby Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.  Craters of the Moon is aptly named, and in 1969, Apollo 14 astronauts flew to Craters for a bootcamp on rocks. Their Apollo mission was focused on lunar exploration, and they spent time at Craters learning how to be field geologists. Thirty years later, park administrators got the idea to invite the surviving Apollo 14 astronauts back to Craters to commemorate the Monument’s 75th anniversary.  Grandpa’s had been open for four years at that point. A reporter who was in town to cover the Apollo 14 astronauts’ return to Idaho stopped in for barbecue, and ended up doing a short feature on Grandpa’s for the Idaho Statesman. That news story in Idaho’s largest daily was something of a lift-off moment for Grandpa’s. Spoiler alert: Grandpa’s flourished. It became a destination eatery—so much so that the owners, the Westbrook family, started keeping guest registries for visitors from around the world. Grandpa’s has since moved to the larger city of Idaho Falls, where you can sometimes find three generations of Westbrooks working the restaurant. The food has stayed true to its roots. At 79 years young, Lloyd is the pitmaster. His wife Loretta is the queen of desserts and sides. Kids and grandkids also help out. That familial atmosphere is something the Westbrooks extend to their customers, too. Everyone is treated like family when they step through the door.  When Grandpa’s first opened its doors, the Westbrooks were the only African American family living in Arco. They saw it as an opportunity to build bridges, and even taught a Black history curriculum at the local school.  For this episode, Monica Gokey talks to Lloyd and Loretta Westbrook, co-owners of Grandpa’s Southern Bar-B-Q, to learn how they built a thriving barbecue restaurant in the West. Listen to hear how the Westbrooks have learned to use food and friendliness as a vessel to build bridges in their community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Brisket Pho, a Viet Tex Story,” Gravy producer Jess Eng explores the emergence of Viet Tex, a cuisine created in recent years by contemporary Vietnamese-Texan chefs. These chefs grew up steeped in multicultural dining, eating Central Texas barbecue alongside family recipes. Now, in their own businesses, they marry smoked meats and barbecue spices with the flavorful broths and bright herbs that characterize Vietnamese dishes.  Houston is ground zero for Viet Tex, and with good reason. Houston is the most diverse city in America and, by extension, one of the country’s most vibrant food cities. 140,000 Vietnamese residents call Houston home, the largest community outside Vietnam and southern California. Vietnamese cajun crawfish restaurants, coffee roasters, and banh mi shops draw steady crowds. And just around the corner from the Vietnamese restaurants are Houston’s historic barbecue joints.  Many Vietnamese refugees sought homes in the United States after the Fall of Saigon in April 1975 and brought over their relatives. Gulf regions were particularly attractive because of their humid semi-tropical environment and thriving fishing, boating, and engineering industries, which felt like home to the Vietnamese. California, Louisiana, and Texas all fit the bill. Historically, Texas had welcomed more refugees than any other state. Many Vietnamese families took note of its growing Vietnamese diaspora, which saw another increase after Hurricane Katrina. This diaspora created dire circumstances within which Vietnamese Americans have created distinct regional cuisines. In 1981, Vietnamese shrimpers on the Texas Gulf Coast faced an angry mob of Klansmen who came at the invitation of jealous white fishermen. The Southern Poverty Law Center brought suit against the KKK, and seafood became a symbol of resilience for Vietnamese Americans. It's a pattern of adaptation and evolution that Vietnamese immigrants have long used to survive. For Gravy, Eng speaks to Don Nguyen, the Houston-based pitmaster and owner of Khoi Barbecue, whose brisket pho has made him a force in the barbecue world. Houston-born writer Dan Q. Dao explains why the term “fusion” undervalues the collision of organic cultures and cuisines, and how hybrid cuisines can keep ingredients alive. Andrew Ho, co-owner of San Antonio’s Curry Boys BBQ, tells of his journey to making brisket burnt ends submerged in flavorful white curry. Thanks to contemporary Vietnamese chefs, Eng argues, Viet Tex is shaping the growing canon of Southern and American food. Acknowledgments: The primary producer for this episode is Jess Eng, with co-production credits going to Courtney DeLong. Thanks goes to Don Nguyen, Andrew Ho, Sean Wen, Andrea Nguyen, Dan Q. Dao, Dennis Ngo, Johnny Huyhn, and Teresa Trinh of the Vietnamese Culture and Science Organization. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Henry Perry, Kansas City’s 'Barbecue King,'” Gravy producer Mackenzie Martin tells the story of Henry Perry, the first person to really make a living selling barbecue in Kansas City. He even coined the local style. But, until recently, most people in KC didn’t know his name.  Perry was born in Shelby County, Tennessee, and started learning how to barbecue when he was just seven. By fifteen, he was cooking professionally on a steamboat that traveled up and down the Mississippi River—taking him to Chicago, Minneapolis, and, finally, Kansas City. With a thriving meatpacking industry and abundance of hardwood trees, the city was a perfect destination for an aspiring barbecue entrepreneur.  Perry was just that. In the early twentieth century, he started out selling barbecue from a stand, and later moved his operation to Kansas City’s historic 18th & Vine neighborhood, where liquor was free-flowing and jazz was just emerging. Over his long career, Perry’s business savvy led him to own multiple restaurants, eventually giving himself the nickname, “Barbecue King.” By the 1930s, people started following his lead. There were close to 100 barbecue restaurants in the area. And when Perry died, in 1940, his three notable apprentices went on to cook for the two most historically famous barbecue restaurants in Kansas City: Arthur Pinkard at the first Gates BBQ, and Texas brothers Arthur and Charlie Bryant, who created Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque.  It all begs the question: Would Kansas City even be known for barbecue without Henry Perry? And why, until recent years, didn’t the average Kansas Citian know who he was—even one who was related to him?  In this episode, Martin talks to local Kansas City historians Erik Stafford and Sonny Gibson; James Watts, the Ombudsman at the Black Archives of Mid-America; and historian Andrea Broomfield, to learn about Perry’s influence and legacy in Kansas City. Finally, she speaks with Bernetta McKindra, Perry’s granddaughter, who only truly began to learn of her grandfather’s achievements in 2017, a few years after he was inducted into the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame. How might it have been different, Martin asks, if McKindra grew up in a Kansas City where she saw her grandfather’s name everywhere? Mackenzie Martin, a podcast producer and reporter at KCUR, created this episode of "Gravy." She helps make A People’s History of Kansas City and Hungry For MO.  An earlier version of this story aired on the KCUR Studios podcast, A People's History of Kansas City.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Bread and Friends,” the final episode in her five-part series for Gravy, producer Irina Zhorov meets Camille Cogswell and Drew DiTomo in the final stages of preparation to open their new bakery. They hope that Walnut Family Bakery will be a special space in its Marshall, North Carolina community, where people run into friends, meet new acquaintances, and generally feel good entering. But how does such a place get created?  Marshall was once a thriving town, where people went from the surrounding country for all their needs, but as new bypasses and highways were built, the area began withering. The population of Madison County, where Marshall is located, was at a high of around 22,500 in the 1940s. By the 1970s it had dropped by nearly 30 percent.  Starting in the 1990s, new people began showing up—for the natural beauty, including mountains and streams; because of the area’s reputation as a stronghold of Americana music; or for its population of incredible artists and craftspeople. One of the first businesses opened by such a newcomer, in 1997, was a bakery. Jennifer Lapidus produced European-style hearty loaves in a wood-fired oven. When she left, in 2008, she rented the space to other bakers, each of whom ran their own version of the place. Everyone who baked there came from outside Marshall…and yet they tried to build community with pizza nights and workshops. But the people who frequented the bakery over the years were almost exclusively the newcomers, while the locals preferred biscuits and cornbread to those heartier bakes. Plus, many locals didn’t have the time or budget to make a special trip for bread.  Lapidus sold the place in late 2020 and the new owners, Cogswell and DiTomo, plan to run a retail operation, so that anyone can come by on the weekends, order at a staffed counter, hang out with a coffee, and stock up on bread for the week. They want their neighbors to gather on the property. Their business model and very ethic is built around a sense of camaraderie and care.  In this final episode, Zhorov talks to Cogswell and DiTomo all about their visions for the bakery’s future, and how they plan to bring all of the people who make up Marshall’s community to their table. Additionally, she hears from Rob Amberg and Paul Gurewitz, two long-time Marshall residents and regulars at the bakery throughout its many iterations. As Zhorov tells us, “To turn flour into bread, good bread, requires skill, but to turn strangers into friends—into community—is the world’s greatest alchemy.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Making That Dough,” the fourth episode in her five-part series for Gravy, producer Irina Zhorov explores the business of cottage bakeries—and how small-scale bakers make amazing loaves out of home kitchens and converted garages. “Cottage” bakeries refer to those in which people sell baked goods out of their homes. For much of the twentieth century, selling food made at home was largely prohibited, but that changed in the 1990s and early 2000s, when a small number of states passed laws allowing such sales. In the wake of the 2008 recession, every state followed suit, allowing people to earn money during a financial crisis. Around 2020, during the Covid pandemic, some states further loosened their cottage food laws, lifting earning caps and restrictions on the products people could sell. The number of cottage bakeries again exploded.  Many bakers—like Camille Cosgwell and Drew DiTomo, the new owners of the rural North Carolina bakery that this Gravy series follows—are drawn to the cottage models during times of transition. It’s a chance to reshuffle priorities and create a sustainable work life without the long hours and unpredictable schedules the restaurant industry is known for. For others, a cottage bakery is a stepping stone to a brick-and-mortar shop.  For this episode, Zhorov talks to Cogswell about her dreams for the new property. She wants to work four or five days per week, grow some fruits and vegetables, and build something that feels sustainable and fun. Zhorov also interviews other cottage bakers in the South about their trajectories and hopes. Dalen Gray and Tatiana Magee operate Between the Trees Bread in Boone, North Carolina, out of a space that used to be Dalen’s mother’s garage. During the pandemic, sisters Reyna Soto and Adriana Ipiña opened El Pantastico, in Duncanville, Texas, making Mexican pan dulce, or sweet baked goods. Former preschool teacher Sierra Patterson of Auburn, Alabama, started Sour South from her home when her school closed and she didn’t have childcare for her son. In conversation with Zhorov, each baker explains how cottage production works for them and how they hope to evolve their businesses in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Fresh Flour to the People,” the third episode in her five-part series for Gravy, producer Irina Zhorov talks to bakers who have started demanding more from a key element in their craft—flour.  When we talk about ingredients, there’s a lot to consider: how fresh the fruit, how local the meat, how wild the fish. But for some reason, these are not questions most of us have been asking about flour—until more recently.  In the South, much of the work to bring local, quality flours started in an inconspicuous little house and bakery in Marshall, North Carolina. People who have lived and worked at this property had a tendency to become obsessed with flour to the point that two of them actually transitioned away from baking, to milling flour. They’ve driven a small but mighty revolution among bakers in the South and beyond to take flour seriously, creating new markets and new flavors.  A quick primer here. There are two basic kinds of wheat: hard wheat and soft wheat. Hard wheat has more protein, which gives the bread structure and allows it to rise and develop pretty air pockets. Hearty loaves require hard wheat, which did not grow in North Carolina. In fact, the whole South mostly grew soft wheats, which were better adapted to the local climate and land. Then local farmers and wheat breeders started experimenting with varieties of hard wheat, creating a local grain economy, a resurgence of small-scale mills, and breads packed with distinct and varied flavors.  In this episode, Zhorov interviews Jennifer Lapidus, the first baker on the Marshall property, who began seeking a local hard wheat for the European-style, naturally leavened loaves she loves. Today, she runs Carolina Ground, a small grain mill in western North Carolina that has fostered a community of farmers, bakers, and millers. After Lapidus left, she rented the property to David Bauer, who opened Farm and Sparrow bakery and similarly became interested in milling; today, Farm and Sparrow is exclusively a mill. Bauer tells Zhorov of his path to working with local grains, and of the tension between innovation and tradition. Zhorov also speaks with David Marshall, a former wheat breeder for the U.S. Department of Agriculture who began experimenting with local varieties of hard wheat in the region.  Finally, Camille Cogswell, who now owns the bakery with her partner, Drew DiTomo, shares how she is choosing the flour she will work with in the space, fostering connections to her new home, new foodways and purveyors, and new people along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Bread by Fire,” the second episode in her five-part season for Gravy, producer Irina Zhorov takes listeners to the little house in Marshall, North Carolina, whose residents have produced some of the most exciting baking in the South. The property is a hotbed for baking specifically because of the ovens. Two large, wood-fired ovens anchor the space and attract a very specific kind of baker to their side.  Here’s how the ovens work. You build a fire inside the oven’s chamber and let the heat soak into the masonry, a process that can take many hours of maintaining the fire. Eventually, you let the fire go out, sweep out the ashes, and you’re left with a hot box that functions as an oven. Unlike a gas or electric oven, you can’t just turn up the oven once it cools, or add a little fire if it doesn’t seem hot enough.  The current owners of the Marshall property, Camille Cogswell and Drew DiTomo, are seasoned bakers who have worked in high-end restaurants. But, despite their expertise, neither had used an oven like these to make bread or pastries before moving in. Learning how to manage the fire in the unforgiving ovens has been a rite of passage for everyone who’s lived and baked here, including the person who built them—Jennifer Lapidus. Lapidus bought the place in 1997 and ran her bakery, Natural Bridge Bakery, from there. She’d apprenticed with baker Alan Scott to learn to make Flemish style bread, which uses a centuries-old style of natural leavening. Scott, who also designed wood-fired ovens, came from California and helped Jennifer build her ovens. Jennifer procured all her own firewood, often from an hour away, and experimented until she learned how to harness her oven, burning a fire for twelve hours before baking in order to heat the masonry through.  After Lapidus, Tara Jensen tinkered until she mastered the fire for her bakery, Smoke Signals. She’d start the fire in the evening, feed her sourdough starters, and let the fire burn until the early morning, when she’d start mixing and baking dough. The multi-day process became a ritual.  In this episode, Zhorov talks to Cogswell, Lapidus, and Jensen all about how they learned to tend the fire and live by the rhythms of wood-fired sourdough baking. She also talks with Rob Segovia-Welsh, who runs Chicken Bridge Bakery with his wife, Monica, about what benefits he sees in working with fire. Throughout these conversations, she explores how baking this way offers potential for connection to a community—and makes the baker’s life a pretty good life.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Genealogy of a Bakery,” Gravy producer Irina Zhorov takes listeners up into the mountains of western North Carolina, to a town called Marshall and a property that’s been used as a bakery for more than two decades.  The little building with a metal roof and ovens with more than sixty square feet of stone hearth has been home to some of the most exciting baking in the country. It’s one of the places where naturally leavened, rustic breads gained a foothold in the South, where two artisanal flour mills got their start, and where multiple incredible bakers honed their craft.  It started with Jennifer Lapidus, who fell in love with naturally leavened, Flemish loaves and learned how to bake them in a wood-fired oven under California baker Alan Scott. She moved into the property in Marshall, and made one of the two buildings her home, and the other, Natural Bridge Bakery. Lighting the oven fire, shaping dough, baking, transporting firewood—she gained mastery as she evolved with the property.  After a decade of living and working in Marshall, Lapidus turned the bakery over to David Bauer, who opened his own business, Farm and Sparrow, before turning to milling. After David came Tara Jensen and her bakery, Smoke Signals, which she also operated as a classroom. At the end of 2018, Brennan Johnson moved in. Soon after, the pandemic hit. Johnson would be Lapidus’ last tenant.  The new owners, Cogswell and DiTomo, bought the place in 2020. Both come from the restaurant world—in 2018, Cogswell was named Rising Star Chef by the James Beard Foundation for her pastry work at Zahav in Philadelphia. The following year the owners of Zahav tapped her to open a new restaurant, but at the beginning of the pandemic, Cogswell was let go. She visited her family in Asheville and saw an Instagram post about the sale of the bakery. In the course of a day, she and DiTomo formulated a vision for their life there.  In some ways, they are following the same path as the bakers that came before them. They sought it out at a time of transition and moved in with their own dreams, ready to shape the place and let it shape them. In this episode, Zhorov talks to the new bakery owner Camille Cogswell about her vision for the future; the original owner, Jennifer Lapidus, who shares her own journey to the property and beyond; and the bakery tenants in between, including David Bauer, Tara Jensen, and Brennan Johnson. Each baker gives insight into the rhythms, challenges, and promises of living and working around a wood-fired oven. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lucien Darjeun Meadows is an English, German, and Cherokee writer born and raised in the Appalachian Mountains. His debut poetry collection, In the Hands of the River, is forthcoming from Hub City Press in September 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can Co-Ops Fix a Broken Food Delivery Model? Gravy producer Sarah Holtz introduces listeners to food industry veterans in Lexington, Kentucky, who launched a food delivery co-op during the COVID era as an alternative to Big Delivery (think DoorDash, GrubHub, Postmates, or UberEats). It aimed to put drivers, restaurants, and take-out customers all on the same team. Listen to learn more about the promise of a more equitable system during a time when takeout can make or break a restaurant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The Bare Minimum,” producer Sarah Holtz follows Florida’s Fight for 15, a labor campaign aimed at raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Though there are countless labor issues associated with restaurant work, from wage theft to sexual harassment, the minimum wage is a concrete area to affect change, because it improves material conditions for hourly workers in every industry. Historically, it’s also a difficult thing to change.  To understand why, Holtz interviews experts to explore the history of the minimum wage. She speaks with Alex Harris, a fast food worker and leader in Florida’s Fight for 15 campaign. He tells of the health risks he endured while working during the pandemic, participating in a walk-out, and what’s at stake in the Fight for 15. Holtz also interviews Matthew Simmons, a labor historian at Emmanuel College in Franklin Springs, Georgia, who has studied the unique challenges among low-wage workers in Florida. Finally, Samantha Padgett, general counsel for the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, provides a counter-argument, asserting that minimum wage hikes threaten businesses that bolster tourism in Florida. In her reporting, Holtz examines both the economic and moral factors that motivate the Fight for 15.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “The Bitter and the Sweet of Craft Chocolate in the Global South” episode of Gravy, producer Sarah Holtz engages important voices in the complex conversation about ethical chocolate, from central Ghana to southern Missouri.  In the chocolate world, terms like corporate sustainability and ethical sourcing are gradually entering the mainstream, but they remain a little vague. Holtz explores how direct trade and profit-sharing models offer alternatives to the practices of the largest chocolate companies in the world—Big Chocolate—which conceive of cocoa farmers not as partners, but as links in the supply chain. In her reporting on labor in the chocolate industry, Holtz asks: How do you define ethical consumption? Is there such a thing? And—when you’re standing in the grocery aisle, gazing at a wall of options—how do you know which chocolate bar to choose? To begin to address these questions and more, Holtz speaks with Kwabena Assan Mends, founder of Emfed Farms, a company that serves small cocoa farmers in central Ghana, especially those who are aging or have physical disabilities. She also talks to Shawn Askinosie and Lawren Askinosie of Askinosie Chocolate, and Scott Witherow of Olive & Sinclair, two vanguards of the craft chocolate movement. Finally, Megan Giller, food writer and author of Bean-To-Bar Chocolate: America’s Craft Chocolate Revolution, weighs in on the history of the chocolate supply chain and upending a pattern of colonization.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "Memphis Restaurant Workers Unite," Gravy follows a group of restaurant workers that’s slated to become the first formal union of food and beverage workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Led by Lily Nicholson, the group, Memphis Restaurant Workers United (MRWU), organized a petition that resulted in $2.5 million in pandemic support grants from the county government and has begun negotiating contracts with local restaurants so that workers can make a living wage with benefits. At the average restaurant in Memphis, the front of house staff will be majority white, while the back of the house will be predominantly made up of immigrant workers and workers of color. This unsettling trace of Memphis’s segregated past reflects a larger structural issue in the industry. Part of MRWU’s challenge is to make sure that the union is as diverse as the city.  In this episode, reporter Sarah Holtz talks to Lily Nicholson, Allan Creasy, and Zach Barnard, restaurant veterans and organizers of Memphis Restaurant Workers United, all about the working conditions that led them to form the union and the process entailed. She also speaks with Jeffrey Lichtenstein of the AFL-CIO, the country’s largest federation of unions, who helped get MRWU off the ground; and Victoria Terry, who works with the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based group of African American trade unionists. Holtz attends an MRWU meeting at RP Tracks, a Memphis bar and restaurant that supports the efforts of MRWU. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What’s in the fridge? In New Orleans, solidarity means a stocked fridge. In this episode of Gravy, producer Sarah Holtz takes listeners inside a mutual aid society called New Orleans Community Fridges, which formed during the pandemic to help feed people in need. Since its start, the group has been gifted around 20 fridges. They sit on neighborhood sidewalks, plugged into power strips, some powered by generators—filled with food that’s free for the taking.   In this episode, Holtz talks to New Orleans Community Fridges organizer Sarah Rubbins-Breen; Destany Gorham and Tenaj Jackson, two fridge hosts; and Tim Vogel, a fridge contributor, to understand how neighbors are feeding neighbors through the fridges. She also speaks with Devin De Wulf—an educator, artist, and co-founder of the mutual aid organization Feed The Second Line—whose solar panel-topped house became a neighborhood hub during Hurricane Ida power outages. (From there, he hatched an idea to create a network of solar-powered first responders, called Get Lit, Stay Lit.) Together, they demonstrate how mutual aid—by the people and for the people—can lead to greater self-determination within communities.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Married," by Jo McDougall. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marlanda Dekine is a poet and author obsessed with ancestry, memory, and the process of staying within one’s own body. This poem appears in their collection Thresh & Hold, forthcoming from Hub City Press on March 29, 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Carlo Flunk the Seventh Grade," by Greg Brownderville. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "New Orleans Street Vendors, Old and New," Gravy explores the history of street food vendors in New Orleans, from Mr. Okra to the pralinière, or praline vendor. A conversation with urbanist Amy Stelly, who grew up in Tremé and remembers when street vendors populated her neighborhood, reveals that there is a fraught line between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. What is the legacy of street vendors today? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "The Skinny on the South Beach Diet" producer Katie Jane Fernelius speaks with Adrienne Bitar, author of Diet and the Disease of Civilization, all about diet books and why they capture the American imagination. They discuss the South Beach Diet, in particular, and the ways it answered a specific moral panic over obesity in the early 2000s. But who and what are the inheritors of the diet book industry’s values today? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Gravy podcast, “Orange Juice and the Making of the Sunshine State,” producer Katie Jane Fernelius examines how, for decades, the Florida Citrus Commission not only peddled orange juice, but Florida’s popular image as the sunshine state. She talks to James Padgett, a scholar who has studied Florida oranges; Fred Fejes, professor emeritus in the school of communication and multimedia studies at the Florida Atlantic University; and Ronni Sanlo, an LGBT historian and native Floridian. And Katie learns that to look into a glass of Florida orange juice is to look into the thorny mythologies of the state—and those who challenged the values those mythologies represented.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Easy," by Ed Madden. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Take the Woods Ballistic! Black Belt Nightlife" disrupts the sleepy picture of rural life by taking you into its nightlife. In Alabama’s Black Belt, the night scene has a beat all its own, rooted in a sense of deep community. We dive into bootlegging, clubbing, and a legendary Black Belt festival: the Footwash in Uniontown. Catherine Shelton of the Coleman Center for the Arts in York and Bosephus Gary of Bo’s Fashions in Uniontown take us into the mix, revealing how Black Belt residents balance a hard work week and an ongoing fight for environmental justice with nights of leisure and release. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alabama’s Black Belt has always been a place of migration: the site of both forced and elective movement. Today, our reasons for leaving and coming home are still shaped by the desire for better lives and livelihoods. In "Migration: Making Meals and Homes in Alabama," we meet three women whose very different paths all led to a home in the Black Belt: Maria escaped violence in Mexico; Margaret fled religious persecution in Egypt; and Sarah came home to do some good, opening Abadir’s Light Fare and Pastry in Greensboro. Their stories remind us that the Alabama Black Belt is and always has been home to all kinds of people and all kinds of passage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For generations, rural families in the Alabama Black Belt grew and hunted what they needed to sustain themselves. Wild game was a major and critical part of the diet. Today, hunting is still a popular Black Belt pursuit, but it’s less about sustenance and more about camaraderie, challenge, and immersion in nature. We meet Jerry Dawson, a coon hunter in Sumter County, who illuminates the world of coon dogs, and Nikki Baker, a dove hunter in Marengo County, who loves to beat all the men on the field (and often does) to the 15 bird limit. This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, Alabama; Matt Whitson; an award-winning production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, Alabama; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association and author of The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods (UA Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As "Cooking Up a Living in Alabama" reveals, culinary entrepreneurship, whether running barbecue stands, holding neighborhood fish fries, or selling sweets around town, has long enabled African Americans to earn income, stick together as a family, and express creativity. Georgia Gilmore of Montgomery is the quintessential model in Alabama. In this episode of Gravy, we visit Thomas and Tommie Taylor of T-N-T BBQ in York and Martha Hawkins of Martha’s Place in Montgomery for a modern look at Black entrepreneurship in the Alabama Black Belt. We get a rural and an urban view of how Black entrepreneurs use innovation and hard work to generate real community impact.  This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, Alabama; Matt Whitson; an award-winning production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, Alabama; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association and author of The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods (UA Press). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alabama’s Black Belt stretches in a strip 25 miles wide across the center of the state. Named for the rich soil that enabled cotton to flourish, the Black Belt was once Alabama’s most prosperous and politically powerful region. It held most of the state's enslaved people, and African Americans still comprise the majority of the Black Belt population today. "New Stewards on Old Homesteads in Alabama" provides a contemporary look at Black Belt land and its stewards: the most recent chapter in a long history of transformation. Younger generations are now returning to family land in the Black Belt, often to find it reclaimed by wilderness. We learn how they strive to make a living from the land and the challenges faced in a rural food system. We consider opposing notions of agricultural life: one that inflicts trauma, and one that heals from it. Andrew Williams of the Deep South Food Alliance in Linden and Yawah Awolowo of Mahala Farms in Cuba are our guides.  This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, AL; Matt Whitson, production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, AL; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association. The Southern Foodways Alliance is the organization behind the podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Pesach in Blacksburg," by Erika Meitner. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Grace," by Jake Adam York. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’d be hard-pressed to find a major city in the United States that doesn’t have Indian food. Despite some of the nation’s limited ideas about what American food is, Indian favorites like chicken tikka masala, biryani, and samosas have become nationally recognized, and are often the dinner or lunch of choice for millions of Americans. But, what about the dessert? In this episode of Gravy, Kayla Stewart travels in search of the mithai—or sweet—life of North Carolina’s Indian American community, all through the lens of Indian desserts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Cuban sandwich. If it’s made with ingredients someone else doesn’t like, you might find yourself in an hours-long argument in the middle of Little Havana. In Miami and Tampa, Florida, restaurant owners, historians, and Cuban Americans recount their own memories of the Cuban sandwich, as well as the story of its origins. In this episode of Gravy, reporter Kayla Stewart explores the sandwich’s long-standing origin story, new research about the Cuban sandwich, and how the South influenced the sandwich’s popularity and the current identity of Floridian Cuban Americans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Arab American and Middle Eastern immigrants have had a unique experience in the U.S. With a history that dates back more than 100 years, Arab Americans of every generation have brought their food and history with them, and have often used restaurants as a center of culture and a way to create their own American and Arab story. In Arkansas, one popular restaurant owner has married his love of his hometown Damascus, Syria, and his love of his present home of Little Rock. The result is delicious in taste, rich in history, and demonstrative of Arab American ingenuity that’s existed for generations.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The home of Civil Rights leaders like John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr., Atlanta has a remarkably storied Black history. It’s birthed the musical careers of legends like Andre 3000, Usher, and Gladys Knight. And recently, it made political history when the state—largely due to Black voters—flipped blue for the first time in nearly 30 years, impacting one of the most consequential elections in modern history. The state’s role in Black culture and identity extends internationally, too. Atlanta has become a popular city of choice for immigrants who’ve arrived in the U.S. In 2018, 1.1 million immigrants made 10 percent of the state’s population. In 2000, nearly 5,500 Ethiopians called Atlanta home. Today, that number has more than doubled, making Atlanta home to one of the country’s largest Ethiopian communities. Immigrants brought their families, their traditions, and their food. The restaurant landscape is just one window into international Atlanta, but it is extremely important. It signals that new communities are working to carve out a space, create opportunity, and share the best parts of their homeplaces with fellow Atlantans. Reporter Kayla Stewart shares the story of Atlanta’s Ethiopian community with visits to three restaurants—Piassa Restaurant and Market, Ledet, and Desta Ethiopian Kitchen. All three places serve traditional Ethiopian food to their customers, and Desta Ethiopian Kitchen has modified their menu in a way that accommodates Ethiopian and American influences. In a classroom, the technique is called global assemblage. In restaurant speak, it’s called hospitality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The largest city in Texas doesn’t disappoint when it comes to food. Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. There is a bustling and ever-growing immigrant community that has brought food and culture to almost every corner of the city. Amid strip centers filled with pho shops, taco trucks, and Indian restaurants, however, Indonesian immigrants have struggled to make their food recognizable and understood in the city’s dining community. In central Houston, Gravy reporter Kayla Stewart speaks to a group of Indonesian women working to make sure that Indonesian food gets its overdue respect.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Drill," by Atsuro Riley. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Because Men Do What They Want To Do," by TJ Jarrett. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nearly every cuisine has its own flavor base. In Louisiana, this technique has become doctrine. The Holy Trinity, a base of finely chopped and sautéed onion, celery, and green bell pepper, is the starting point for jambalaya, gumbo, and étouffée. So iconic have these dishes become that the Trinity manifests whenever Louisianans have migrated. In this episode, we find the Holy Trinity in Oakland, California—an unexpected hub for chefs with Louisiana roots.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pasteles mean Christmas to many Puerto Ricans, both on and off the island. Why is this beloved, labor-intensive dish popping up at plate sales in suburban Orlando—and what does climate change have to do with this phenomenon? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Horchata, a refreshing drink originally made from tiger nuts, made its way to present-day Texas and Mexico via the Islamic conquest of Spain and the Spanish conquest of the Americas. How do indigenous populations reckon with colonialism in their diets? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The black-eyed pea is not your average bean. Like many staple foods of the African Diaspora, it’s become a powerful symbol of food sovereignty and survival. With the migration of the black-eyed pea from West Africa during the transatlantic slave trade came a superstition about good luck. This belief combines folklore from West Africa and Western Europe in the American South. Our episode follows the journey of the black-eyed pea, time-traveling through the folklore of the past and an Afrofuturist vision of what’s still to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Eating a Muffaletta in Des Moines," by Brian Spears. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"It is Simple," by Jon Pineda. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2018, Beverlee Sanders launched a novel pilot project in Charlotte, North Carolina: collecting food scraps from a small number of homes and sending them to a composting facility, rather than to the landfill. Food is the number one category of waste going to landfills. Once dumped, it produces methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. Beverlee, who works for the city’s solid waste services division, thought if she could show how much food she kept out of the landfill—seven tons after just 18 weeks—it would help Charlotte consider a citywide composting program. Research shows that a centralized composting system is the most effective method for diverting refuse from landfills and reducing greenhouse gases associated with waste. But since the pilot ended, she hasn’t been able to revive her composting efforts. Many cities that want to reduce organic waste struggle with this—composting is expensive and it can be hard to achieve buy-in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anna Shine is an Episcopal parish priest in Boone, North Carolina. Her focus, both during her education and now in her work, has been 'creation care,' which is theologically motivated environmentalism. She sees food security and climate change as intrinsically Christian issues, with representation and instruction present in scripture. And she's not alone. Other church leaders in the South—who continue to hold sway that clergy in less religious parts of the country may not—are also renewing their commitment to environmental issues. In Black churches, where the connections between ecology and religion have been severed by the history of slavery, those conversations are particularly important and, some leaders say, timely.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. is losing agricultural land to commercial, industrial, and residential development. Every state is converting ag acres to other uses, but the South is losing more farmland than any other region. Southern states' policy response has also lagged behind other parts of the country. Why does this matter? First, it matters because we need land to grow food. And second, agricultural land can sequester carbon and it emits less greenhouse gases than developed land.  Some municipalities, like Lexington, Kentucky, are stepping up farmland preservation efforts. Taking advantage of their local program, the James family, in Lexington, has placed conservation easements on their farm to guarantee it can never be developed. But not all landowners can rely on such programs to protect their land.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Restaurants—and not just those working with Zero Foodprint—are starting to wake up to the issues around climate change, food, and the role chefs can play in driving change. That can mean being purposeful about the kinds of farmers they work with, but also educating diners, who may ultimately bring more sustainable ingredients to their home kitchens, too.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lawton Pearson grows more than 30 peach varieties in his Georgia orchard. Among them is a special new cultivar, the Crimson Joy peach, designed to thrive in the warmer temperatures climate change brings. But that might be a hard sell for farmers like Pearson, for whom the peach is not only an important crop but also a cultural touchstone. Can scientists keep up with climate change?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Goat Light provides focused reflections by Tom Rankin and Jill McCorkle upon their home and farm northwest of Hillsborough in rural Orange County, North Carolina. In this episode of Gravy, Tom Rankin talks about how goat can figure into a Southern future. This episode is part of a 4-episode 2020 symposium series where Gravy interviews authors whose work shapes our ideas about the future of the South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices