"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...
Sep 22, 2021•21 min
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 an...
Sep 15, 2021•24 min
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 fie...
Sep 08, 2021•22 min
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...
Sep 01, 2021•23 min
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 lo...
Aug 25, 2021•24 min
"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
Aug 04, 2021•7 min
"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
Jul 14, 2021•7 min
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, ...
Jun 23, 2021•28 min
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 s...
Jun 16, 2021•27 min
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...
Jun 09, 2021•25 min
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. Atlant...
Jun 02, 2021•26 min
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 Ka...
May 26, 2021•28 min
"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
May 05, 2021•6 min
"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
Apr 14, 2021•7 min
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 ...
Mar 24, 2021•28 min
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
Mar 17, 2021•27 min
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
Mar 10, 2021•27 min
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...
Mar 03, 2021•26 min
Order a hot pastrami on rye at any delicatessen and you’ll taste the briny terroir of the Jewish Diaspora. Pastrami is an iconic cured meat that migrated with Eastern European Jews to America and became synonymous with the deli, a beloved third place for Jewish communities across the country. In Jackson, Mississippi, that place was the Olde Tyme Deli, which Judy and Irv Feldman owned and operated from 1961 until 2000. In this episode, we’ll trace the migration of pastrami to the Deep South, wher...
Feb 24, 2021•27 min
"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
Feb 10, 2021•8 min
"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
Jan 20, 2021•6 min
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 week...
Dec 30, 2020•26 min
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...
Dec 23, 2020•27 min
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 Lexi...
Dec 16, 2020•26 min
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
Dec 09, 2020•25 min
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
Dec 02, 2020•24 min
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
Oct 29, 2020•36 min
Gravy host John T Edge talks with poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil about her book, World of Wonders. The poetry collection integrates everyday life, family history, and natural history, and offers a path, to see and think anew. 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
Oct 22, 2020•34 min
In her book The Fate Of Food: What We'll Eat In A Bigger, Hotter, Smarter World, Amanda Little considers the sustainable food revolution in light of growing global populations and climate change. Gravy interviews Amanda Little in this special episode that considers the future of food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 15, 2020•30 min
Author, photographer, and cultural documentarian Candacy Taylor's most recent project is Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America (Abrams Books). In this interview with Melissa Hall, Taylor talks about the process of researching the Green Book, visiting the sites, and taking photographs. She also speaks to the way the work connected her with her stepfather, who had personal stories that enriched her study. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a...
Oct 08, 2020•31 min
