In “Apalachicola Oysters and the Battle for a Florida Bay,” Gravy producer Betsy Wallace takes listeners to Franklin County, Florida to find out if a new tourist development could be the biggest threat to a decades-long, $30 million investment in the Apalachicola Bay Oyster Fishery Restoration. Franklin County is tucked into Florida’s Forgotten Coast, a stretch of the panhandle known for white sand beaches, off-shore fishing, and the iconic Apalachicola Bay oyster. It is distinctly Old Florida; there are family-owned seafood restaurants next to mom-and-pop bait shops. You won’t see a high-rise hotel until the next county over. When the black bears get hot in the sticky heat of July, they lumber across Highway 98 to swim with the jellyfish in the salty Gulf Coast water. This area is home to one of the few remaining working shorelines in North Florida. For about a hundred years, up until a devastating fishery crash in 2013, the oyster industry powered Franklin County’s economy. At its peak in 2012, the industry brought in over $9 million and employed about 2,500 locals in the small Florida panhandle towns of Eastpoint, Apalachicola, Carrabelle, and Panacea. In 2013 the oyster industry crashed and took the local economy down with it. Now, more than a decade later, join Wallace as she digs into the restoration of the Apalachicola Bay oyster reefs and a newly proposed (and highly divisive) large-scale tourist resort. Will the Forgotten Coast stay forgotten long enough for the seafood industry to recover and provide stable, well-paying jobs for the next generation? Or will tourism and real estate development finally take over, as it has up and down the Florida coast? In this episode, Wallace talks to Josh Norman, who grew up in an oystering family and is a marine biologist turned VP of the locally owned Bayside Coffee; Charles Pennycutt, owner of Fisherman’s Choice Bait and Tackle; Paddy’s Raw Bar restaurateur Patrick Sparks; Florida State University scientist Dr. Sandra Brooke; and oyster farmer Xochitl Bevera. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we think of the industrialization of America and the rise of electricity, we’re printed to think about people in cities and factories, where machines and assembly lines abound. We think of Charlie Chaplin tangled up in conveyor belts and cogs in the movie Modern Times. We think of electric motors, coal mining, steam engines. But electricity transformed another area almost as much as it transformed the city or the factory… and that area is the house. And because of that there’s one really key demographic that’s impacted by electricity perhaps more than any other: women. Electrification prompted a redefinition of house work and those who did it, according to scholar Rachele Dini. She wrote a book called “All-Electric Narratives,” which focuses on how advertising and literature represent electricity and electric appliances in the home.  Rachele says that the change in expectations for women and housework can be charted through advertisements: for instance, General Electric sponsored “Gold Medallion” campaigns in women’s magazines that recognized homes with all-electric “automated” kitchens. These adverts always showed sparkling clean kitchens and promised less labor for the housewife… but, the truth is, in actuality, more women were doing more labor on average. This is because there were fewer adults in each household to share responsibilities as nuclear families became the norm: husbands were now generally expected to go to work to support the household through their wages and women were generally expected to shop, cook, clean, and manage the household. What had once been the work of multiple adults, perhaps including extended family members or hired cooks or maids, now, in most middle- and working-class nuclear families, became the job of one woman: the so-called housewife. In fact, a whole new discipline emerged during the period of industrialization: Home Economics. You’re probably most familiar with it as a middle school elective class where you learn how to care for an egg as a practice in parenting. But in the twentieth century, home economics was a serious science.  “No one really appreciates what a degree in home economics is, until you look at a college notebook,” says Hal Wallace. They did “laboratory experiments on how foods for example, caramelize, when they're heated, or how the proteins might rearrange in an egg as it's been heated…. There is a lot of science involved, real science involved with this.” At that time, home economists were concerned not just with how to teach others to cook, clean, and care for a household, but also with how to teach them to be smart consumers of new electric technologies, like electric stoves, toasters, and coffee-makers.  The U.S. government hired home economists to promote the formation of rural electrification when they kicked off the “Rural Electric Circus.” They toured shows in rural communities across the South and Midwest where they taught audiences how to skillfully place lightbulbs, or launder shirts in a new dryer, or cook scrambled eggs on an electric stove. The shows were both educational and promotional: teaching new technologies and encouraging these residents to form electrical cooperatives to access them.  Katie Jane Fernelius reported and produced this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Wherefore art thou, ROMEO? At Jack’s!" Gravy producer Irina Zhorov takes listeners to a busy fast food restaurant in Jasper, Alabama, to sit at a round table with a group of friends who meet there daily. The group, who call themselves ROMEO—Retired Old Men Eating Out—are a fixture at this restaurant. Over coffee and biscuits they share stories, reminisce, discuss the day's news and, when it's necessary, offer up prayers for each other. They gather to fellowship, to joke, to relieve loneliness. Other groups like them meet at similar locations around the county. Fast food restaurants have long been demonized for both the lack of nutrition in the food they tend to serve, as well as their potential to replace locally owned community spots. But at this Jack's, the ROMEOs have adapted the place to their needs, transforming a corporate space into a community one, where they are able to socialize on their own terms, bring in their own food, and build relationships with the staff. More than a third of older Americans are socially isolated, which leads to poor health outcomes, including increased risk of dementia, depression, and heart disease. In many places, particularly rural areas, so-called "third spaces," where people can meet outside of the home or work with friends and strangers alike, can be hard to find. Some researchers see fast food restaurants—with their affordable meals, accessible seating and restrooms, and ubiquity—as one potential outlet for older adults to meet their social needs.   In this episode, Zhorov talks to the ROMEOs, including John Miller, a retired health inspector, and Dorman Grace, a farmer. Jessica Finlay, assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, in the Department of Geography and the Institute of Behavioral Science, researches how older adults use fast food restaurants and talks about why they're appealing as meeting spaces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The SFA mourns the passing of Randall Kenan, a long-time member and frequent presenter at SFA events. This Gravy episode is a re-broadcast of Randall Kenan's presentation at the 2018 Southern Foodways Symposium, which studied food and literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are the legacies of our pasts? How does the past shape our today? How do the lives our parents and grandparents led affect the lives we lead today? Those are some of the questions writer Tommy Tomlinson of Charlotte has been asking himself. And he's asking them in a really interesting way. We are accustomed to hearing that question asked about something like education. If your parents went to college, you have a greater chance of going to college. But how does the life and work of your people affect your health? How does it affect what you eat? That's a newer and now urgent question for many Southerners. Tommy Tomlinson is the author of The Elephant in the Room, a memoir about his decision to swear off Krispy Kreme and chili dogs as he approached 50 years old at 460 pounds. His podcast SouthBound features interviews with Southerners–artists, athletes, preachers, and politicians–exploring how place shapes what they do. He worked 23 years as a reporter and columnist for the Charlotte Observer. This presentation was originally shared at the 2019 SFA fall symposium on food and labor. Matt Pearl produced the episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Gravy, Ashley M. Jones and Lee Bains III share verses about food labor. Jones is an award-winning poet from Birmingham, Alabama. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017),  dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and Reparations Now! (Hub City Press 2021). Her work has earned several awards, including the Silver Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards and the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. She is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival. She shared the poems in this episode at the 2019 Winter Symposium in Birmingham. Bains, also a native of Birmingham, is a singer/songwriter who founded the Glory Fires. His first interest in music came from the church he attended as a child. He went on to study literature at college in New York, but returned to Alabama and refocused his writing attention on music. Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires have released 4 albums, including 2019’s Live at the Nick.  The songs shared in this episode were performed at the 2019 Southern Foodways Symposium in Oxford, Mississippi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Punchin' the Dough to Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia, music has long included songs about labor. Scott Barretta, who once served as editor of Living Blues magazine, shares songs about food labor in folk, blues, and country music traditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Festivals are terrific ways to celebrate place and food, to showcase community and culture. At their best, festivals are gathering spots for people who see each other all too seldom. They're celebrations of what a community values. And food festivals can democratize access to artisan goods and artisan producers by offering a bite, a taste, a glimpse, and a sip of the rarefied world of white-tablecloth dining. But that access comes with costs. Most festival-goers likely think their ticket price covers the food and wine they've queued up to taste. Most festival-goers would be wrong. Hannah Raskin reported this story. Raskin explores food and culture for The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina. This presentation was originally commissioned for the 2019 Southern Foodways Fall Symposium on Food and Labor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Shucking" by Elton Glaser Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verses from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1983, a Lafayette housewife named Bootsie John Landry self-published a cookbook called The Best of South Louisiana Cooking. Sprinkled among the expected Cajun staples were less familiar recipes like fattoush and something called Sittee’s Lentil Salad. Bootsie was part of a large Lebanese family and a greater community that began emigrating from Lebanon to Louisiana as early as the 1880s. Her cousins are the Reggie family, who for the past century have been cooking up traditional Lebanese comfort food from their home in Lafayette. Fred Reggie and his daughter, Simone, share how they’ve peppered traditional Lebanese recipes with Cajun lagniappe to create “LebaCajun” food.   The episode was reported and produced by Sarah Holtz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a story about a briefcase and a cracker box. It’s a story about finding extraordinary things in ordinary places. In the South Louisiana town of Donaldsonville, two families—the Quezaires and the Savoia-Guillots—unearthed time capsules of local history within family keepsakes. These two archives tell the story of a town with a complicated past, unraveling a timeline of slavery, emancipation, immigration, and mutual aid. Roy Quezaire, Jr. shares his memories of the True Friends Benevolent Association, and Julie Guillot unveils a collection of World War II-era heirlooms at her family’s restaurant, the First & Last Chance Café. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Wanda Lugo opened her Venezuelan restaurant, Patacon Latin Cuisine, in 2015, she wasn’t sure how the city of Lafayette would react. Many Lafayette residents had never tasted Venezuelan food before. Wanda’s opening week was one of the busiest they’ve had in the restaurant’s five-year history. She runs Patacon with her daughter, Maria, her son, Daniel, and her niece, Elimar. It’s no accident that the Lugos ended up in Lafayette. Wanda’s husband, Jose, is an electrical engineer at Halliburton, and like Acadiana, Venezuela is an oil center. When the Venezuelan economy began to show signs of trouble, Jose requested a transfer and the Lugos ended up in Lafayette in 2006. Today, Patacon is a hub for the growing Latinx community in the region, and Lafayette wouldn’t be the same without Patacon’s arepas and empanadas.   The episode was reported and produced by Sarah Holtz. Sarah is an independent radio producer and documentary artist based in New Orleans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 during 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. This episode of Gravy is reported and produced by Sarah Holtz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “How Pineywoods Cattle Bucks Big Beef,” Gravy producer Stephanie Burt takes listeners out to the rolling pastures of the South to meet Pineywoods cattle, a breed that’s been grazing in the Southern region of the United States since the 1500s. The cow that some see as old fashioned is being considered in new ways when it comes to farming in the twenty-first century. Beef is big business in the U.S. In 2022, the country’s beef consumption was the highest it's been since 2010, and the industry prizes big cows for efficient processing and big bottom lines. And this is despite the rise in what overall is termed “plant-based meat alternatives,” a response to the argument that raising cattle the way most American ranchers do, with mass production methods that don’t take into account the health of the land, is a contributor to climate change. But not all cows are built the same, and one rare breed is gaining attention for its adaptability to the Southern environment. Pineywoods is well suited to the growing use of regenerative farming methods that are aiming to address beef-raising climate questions. It can positively impact a farm’s ecosystem instead of harming it. Plus, it has an ability to withstand hot summers. And it tastes delicious.  In this episode, Burt talks to D. Phillip Sponenberg, professor of Pathology and Genetics in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech, to find out what makes Pineywoods perfectly suited to the American South. She also introduces listeners to three cattle ranchers experienced with the breed: Cristiaan Steenkamp of BDA Farms in Uniontown, Alabama; Will Harris of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia; and Mike Hansen of Ozark Akerz, a small farm in Coleridge, North Carolina. Together, they explain how Pineywoods contributes to the larger ecosystem of the South and how industry norms present barriers to its growth. Finally, chef Scott Peacock of Marion, Alabama, describes the distinctive flavor of Pineywoods beef on the plate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Along the highways and rural byways of South Louisiana, there’s great boudin, cracklins, and plenty more to be found. Many of these food destinations have one thing in common -- they’re found within gas stations. Acadiana’s roadside stops attract thousands of customers each day, whether they’re travelers making a pilgrimage across the state to fill their ice boxes with boudin, or oil and gas workers stopping for a bag of cracklins before heading out to the refinery or offshore rig. Cajun gas station fare is not fast food, it’s not fine dining, and it’s not quite a plate lunch, either. It’s a category unto itself, and as it turns out, these gas stations speak volumes about the diverse communities of Acadiana.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Poisonous, spiky, bug-eyed and edible: Lionfish are a prolific invasive species off the coast of Florida. Their voracious appetites are destroying native reef fish populations, leaving decimated reefs in their wake. Chefs and concerned eaters are attempting to eat their way through this problem. You can find items like lionfish sushi, poached and broiled lionfish, and lionfish dumplings on menus throughout South Florida. Reporter Wilson Sayre takes us to the Florida Keys to catch a few lionfish and see how much of a bite diners are taking out of the problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Virginia is often heralded as the birthplace of American wine. But from colonial times through efforts made by Thomas Jefferson, those efforts were seen as a failure. The archetypical image of wine country—arid, rocky places—is not what one thinks of when conjuring images of wet, humid, Virginia summers.  But a few pioneering grape growers and winemakers have made huge strides over the past few decades, giving wine enthusiasts a taste for Virginia terroir.  Reporter Wilson Sayre explores this history and evolution of wine from the Old Dominion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many people in the American South, sorghum is a condiment to be spread, like maple syrup, on top of warm, pillowy biscuits, pancakes, and cornbread. But for most of the world, particularly in West Africa, sorghum is a grain used much like rice or quinoa. There is a growing group of chefs, millers, plant breeders, and farmers that is trying to reconnect with the West African roots of sorghum and create gastronomic and growing opportunities in this region. Reporter Wilson Sayre explains how sorghum might again become a grain of the American South.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ed Mitchell’s name has come to be synonymous with Eastern North Carolina wood-smoked whole-hog barbecue. From Wilson, North Carolina, he grew up smoking hogs and has tried to continue that tradition, using old techniques and traditionally farm-raised pigs. But almost since the start, Ed Mitchell’s barbeque journey has not been a straight line—business relationships, racism, and smoke have all shaped his rollercoaster ride. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How much is too much for bacon? $10 a pound? $20? What about $500 a pound? In New Martinsville, West Virginia someone actually paid $500 a pound at auction for bacon raised and butchered under pretty special circumstances. The bacon, along with ham and eggs, sold at this auction are raised and butchered by high schoolers as part of their school curriculum. Reporter Corey Knollinger tell us the story of what it takes to compete in the Wetzel County Ham, Bacon, and Egg show.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In restaurants, economics and sexual harassment are intimately entwined. Restaurants, along with hotels, have the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry. For a tipped worker, in particular, how and how much one gets paid can determine how empowered one feels to respond against harassment. We delve into why restaurants pay servers just $2.13 per hour and how that affects how they deal with bad clients. And we look at why money might not be the only culprit when it comes to harassment.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For much of the 19th Century, Carolina Gold rice was a favorite of American rice growers, before disappearing in the early 20th Century. Brought back to life in the 1980s, it again occupies a much beloved, if niche, place in the South's canon of heirloom ingredients. Now, Hagood Coxe, a daughter of a Carolina Gold farmer, wants to make sake, a Japanese rice wine, out of the grain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is prison food causing problems for public health? Gravy investigates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cooperative extension is a century-old government program that places agricultural agents in counties to educate and work with farmers. But for years, agents failed to show up for Native American communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Unshelled: George Washington Carver's Real Legacy," producers Ishan Thakore and Katie Jane Fernelius explore a lesser-known aspect of Dr. George Washington Carver’s legacy: his role as a conservationist and a practitioner of sustainable agriculture. Carver’s life defies easy explanation. He was born enslaved and rose to the heights of American academia. Long a painter before he became a botanist, Carver’s art was even accepted into the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. After his death, evangelicals, the LGBTQ community, and the NAACP all heralded him as a pioneer. The military even named a ship after him during World War II. But today, most listeners might only vaguely recall him as “the peanut guy,” who makes a recurring, albeit one-dimensional appearance during Black History Month. Mark Hersey, an environmental historian and author of My Work is that of Conservation: An Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver, argues that most people have considered Carver in the wrong light for years. Carver advocated for seeing connections between animals and the land, and articulated tenets of organic and sustainable agriculture well before they entered the mainstream. Carver’s deep Christian convictions informed his conservationist thinking. He saw the world as something to be revered, studied, and protected from degradation. And ultimately, he thought his life’s work was to uplift the lot of Black farmers in the South. But, it was his peanut work which ultimately catapulted him to fame. For years, Carver worked at Tuskegee Institute (now University), under the direction of Booker T. Washington. At Tuskegee, Carver headed up an experimental agriculture station, where he wrote research bulletins and brought demonstrations to the countryside to help impoverished Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers in Macon County, Alabama. In an effort to find a low-cost, high-calorie plant which could be grown for food by sharecroppers, Carver began to promote peanuts. He collated recipes and uses, and enthusiastically espoused the hardy legume. And in Carver, the peanut lobby found a perfect spokesperson to testify in front of the House Ways and Means Committee in 1921, to push for a protective tariff. Carver’s role as an expert witness brought fame and stardom, but distorted his impact for generations. Hersey argues that Carver’s other work, as a conservationist, should be at the forefront of his legacy. In examining Carver’s legacy today in practice, farmers like Nick Speed are reacquainting people with Carver’s relationship with the land. Speed runs the nonprofit Ujima and its related entity, the George Washington Carver Farms in St. Louis, Missouri. GWC Farms aims to honor Carver’s legacy as a farmer who thought holistically about the land he tended. In understanding Carver as a pioneering Black conservationist, listeners might finally be able to move beyond Carver and the peanut. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Community canneries–facilities, often subsidized by local government, where people can in bulk–are closing. With groceries easily available even in rural communities, there's less need. And with busy schedules, people have less time for the labor-intensive process of canning their own food. But people who continue to use the still-operational canneries, like Arnold and Donna Lafon, find community and pride in the practice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In addition to her work as an international recording artist and civil rights activist, the Queen of Gospel entered the restaurant business in the late 1960s with Mahalia Jackson’s Glori-fried Chicken. The fast food chain was more than a brand extension for the star; it was the first African American-owned franchise in the South. Producer Betsy Shepherd tells how Mahalia used the gospel bird to push for economic empowerment in the black community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Menudo, sopes, gorditas, tortas, gringas, huaraches, mangonadas, and alambres are just some of the specialty dishes of De Queen, Arkansas, population 6,600. A majority of the town's residents are Latino. Many of them migrated from Mexico to southwest Arkansas for jobs in poultry processing plants. Producer Betsy Shepherd attends Fiesta Fest, the town’s Cinco de Mayo celebration, to sample local food and music and to hear stories from the men and women who make it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s Appalachian-themed amusement park, draws millions of country fans and thrill seekers to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, every year. The tourist attraction features roller coasters, live music, folk art demonstrations, and a Dolly museum in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Recently, the park has started marketing itself as a culinary destination. Producer Betsy Shepherd goes on a Dollywood tasting tour to gain insight on her musical idol and experience Dolly’s vision of the mountain South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1970s, two hundred hippies from San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury neighborhood resettled in rural Tennessee. They founded a vegetarian commune and agricultural operation called The Farm. With help from their neighbors and a psychedelic soundtrack from their house band, the back-to-landers got their social experiment off the ground and produced some of the first vegan cookbooks and commercial soy products in the United States. The Farm outlived the Flower Power era to become a model of environmental sustainability and community farming that is still thriving nearly 50 years later. Producer Betsy Shepherd tells how tempeh, experimental rock, midwifery, and the antinuclear movement grew from a seed of West Coast counterculture planted in Southern soil.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Delta blues found its voice and audience on the airwaves of KFFA’s King Biscuit Time, a daily broadcast out of Helena, Arkansas. Bluesmen like Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Lockwood Jr., who would go on to become legends, interspersed their own songs with advertising jingles. King Biscuit Time, which launched in 1941, gave unprecedented exposure to African American musicians while selling everyday grocery staples like flour and cornmeal. And it's still on the air. Reporter-producer Betsy Shepherd travels to Helena to tell the story for Gravy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eugene Walter (1921–1998) of Mobile, Alabama was a novelist, a poet, a playwright, an actor, a costume designer, and a food writer, among myriad vocations and avocations. He had a deep love for the Mobile of his youth, which nurtured his creativity and informed much of his writing. He spent thirty years in Europe, acting in and translating films, hosting and carousing with artists, actors, and literati. Mobile called him home for the last chapter of his life. His surviving friends agree: Walter changed everyone he met. Twenty-one years after his death, producer Sara Brooke Curtis asks: Why don’t more people know about him?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do restaurant menus have to say about the identity of a restaurant or the point of view of the chef? It turns out, menus are more nuanced and revealing than we might suspect. They reveal narratives that extend far beyond the bill of fare. They are collectors' items and rich historical documents. They are highly curated and sometimes distinctly engineered texts. They may impact the dining experience more than you think. Reporter Sara Brooke Curtis explores menus as text and menus as literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can cookbooks be a vehicle for social change? What can or should cookbook writers offer readers beyond recipes? Writer and cookbook author Julia Turshen takes her roles very seriously. She crafts accessible, affordable recipes and coaches readers via social media. She uses her platform to build community, foster equity, honor identity, and pay homage to the cooks and writers who came before her.  Sara Brooke Curtis reported and produced this story.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever been to a wedding and wondered, how do hundreds of plates of food arrive at the right destinations at the right time—often without an on-site kitchen? This is high-concept cooking, done without a net. Cookbook authors Matt Lee and Ted Lee spent four years immersed in the catering industry and wrote a book about their experiences and revelations called Hotbox. In this episode, with the Lee Brothers as her guides, reporter-producer Sara Brooke Curtis steps behind the scenes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "Yock Is for Lovers: Chinese Soul Food in Tidewater Virginia," Gravy producer Nicole Hutcheson delves into the history of Yock-a-Mein, tracing its origins to the Tidewater region of Virginia and delving into its significant role in shaping the distinctive culinary tradition known as Chinese soul food. Originally created by a novice noodle maker and budding entrepreneur, Yock-a-Mein has evolved into an unofficial regional delicacy, gracing the tables of baby showers, rent parties, office potlucks, and funeral repasses. Rooted in humble ingredients born of necessity, it carries a legacy of resilience often overlooked in the world of gastronomy. Yock has not only sustained communities for generations, but also served as a unifying force among them. While the narrative of Southern cuisine commonly reflects on the nation’s colonial past and the fusion of enslaved Africans, Native Americans, and Europeans, there exists another narrative—the convergence of urban and immigrant communities in the early 20th century, forging new culinary traditions in the South.  Today, with many original establishments serving Yock and other Chinese soul food specialties now facing closure, the rich history of these dishes is in question.  In this episode of Gravy, Hutcheson speaks with Frank Duenas, owner of Mama Chan’s Chinese Takeout in Portsmouth, Virginia, now in its third decade of business. She meets Jenny Wong, whose father Park F. Wong once owned the Norfolk Noodle Factory in Norfolk and created Yock-a-Mein noodles, as well as Greg Shia, who purchased the factory in 2003 and operates it today. Finally, Andreka Gibson—known locally as the “Yock Queen”—describes her journey from Yock pop-up to flourishing, Instagram-worthy business, charting the future of this regional tradition. For Hutcheson and her audience, recognizing the history and origins of this dish stands as a testament to its enduring presence. By spotlighting those who continue the tradition, the hope is to preserve its legacy for generations to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

JoAnn Clevenger is a hospitality archetype. She lives to serve and breathes life into every service encounter. For the past thirty-six years, she’s nurtured a haven for guests and staff at Upperline, her New Orleans restaurant. In an era where chef-driven, trend-surfing restaurants are the norm, how does an old-school institution thrive? Clevenger’s empathy and attitude are the keys to her own success. Reporter-producer Sara Brooke Curtis has the story.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The spring season of Gravy, featuring 5 episodes reported and produced by Sara Brooke Curtis, begins on May 2.  With John T. Edge and Melissa Hall as your cohosts, you'll: Sneak behind the pipe-and-drape with the Lee Brothers for a look at the catering industry. Monkey around Mobile with the ghost of Eugene Walter. Behold the quiet power of cookbooks with Julia Turshen. And more. Available at southernfoodways.org and wherever you get your podcasts.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the FARM Café in Boone, North Carolina, diners can pay $10 for meal—or they can pay nothing. The restaurant, one of dozens of its kind, follows a pay-what-you-can model. Guests can dine regardless of their finances. It's an attempt to address food insecurity. While some have dismissed these restaurants as limited-scale, feel-good attempts to address serious hunger issues, the cafés do foster a sense of community.  Irina Zhorov reported and produced this episode.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chefs stage pop-up dinners to tell stories, many of them focused on identity. Whether's it's to highlight African American chefs, develop a platform for Indian American chefs in the South, or focus on Appalachia's food history, the dinners weave identity into the courses.  For chefs, pop-up dinners are opportunities to network and build camaraderie. For diners, they have the potential to educate. Ultimately, these events aim to shift identity narratives.  This episode was reported and produced by Irina Zhorov.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the United States, home cooked meals with the family are revered almost to the point of fetishization. Dinners are seen as moral imperatives for happy, healthy families. Women, in particular mothers, have been tasked with serving up meals rich with meaning. Yet, as authors Sarah Bowen, Joslyn Brenton, and Sinikka Elliott write in Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It, many American women are not happy with their cooking lives. Due to economics and schedules, many mothers are not able to feed their families in the way they've been told they should, which leaves them feeling anxious and inadequate.  Irina Zhorov reported and produced this episode.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Legal moonshine—funny as that sounds—has exploded in the South. Instead of on creek banks, it's now produced in gleaming distilleries. But it's the same old stuff: strong, unaged liquor. To sell it, the story is just as important as the hooch. Family-owned distilleries mine their histories to stand out in a market crowded by hillbilly nostalgia.  Irina Zhorov reported and produced this episode.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charlotte, North Carolina, has long been a banking town. These days, its dining scene is booming as well. As the city works to rebrand itself as a destination for food and drink, it has to choose which stories to tell in order to sell the place. In highlighting local, chef-driven restaurants, what is gained...and what's lost?  Irina Zhorov reported and produced this episode.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With its vibrant take on Mexican breakfast, Con Huevos restaurant is bringing Louisville, Kentucky, brand-new answers to the question of what to eat for breakfast. Answers like tortas, chilaquiles, huevos rancheros, and poached eggs with chipotle gravy. Con Huevos, which opened in 2015, has quickly become one of the most popular breakfast spots in Louisville. On this episode of Gravy, reporter-producer Parker Hobson bellies up to the counter to find out why, to meet the Mexican-Americans that make it go, and to think about what its popularity might mean for this historic river city.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barbecue purists from the Carolinas to Texas might balk at the notion that Chicago, Illinois, has a barbecue tradition all its own. But owing to the Great Migration, and to a special piece of equipment called the aquarium smoker, reporter-producer Ambriehl Crutchfield finds that Chicago barbecue has evolved into a style unto itself.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance, edited by poet Sandra Beasley, is SFA's latest book, available now from University of Georgia Press.  In this special episode, you'll hear half a dozen of the poems in the collection, read by their authors.  This is just a taste of the fifty-plus poems collected in the volume. Find the collection wherever you buy books.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever been to a wedding and wondered how hundreds of plates of food arrive at the right destinations at the right time? Often without an on-site kitchen. This is high-concept cooking, done without a net. Cookbook authors Matt Lee and Ted Lee spent four years immersed in the catering industry and wrote a book about their experiences and revelations called Hotbox. In this episode, we step behind the scenes with the Lee Brothers as our guides. Sara Brooke Curtis is an award-winning radio producer. Her work has aired on The Splendid Table, KCRW’s UnFictional, KCRW’s Good Food, CBC’s Love Me, and BBC’s Short Cuts, among others. She lives in western Massachusetts and loves recording sounds of everyday life and producing sonic worlds for listeners to surrender to and delight in. Special thanks to Steven Satterfield, Virginia Willis, Matt Bolus, Shuai and Corey Wang, Cheetie Kumar, Vishwesh Bhatt, and Eddie Hernandez for their delicious food and interviews. Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business, published by MacMillan, may be purchased from your favorite local bookstore. Gravy is proud to be a part of the APT Podcast Studios. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“For me, the hallmark of food in literature, raised to the level of art, is food interacting with character. Food as character. Food doing stuff. Food being stuff. Just as it happens with our flesh and blood, our mouths and our bellies and our memories. The best writers, the better writers, know that food is identity. Food is alive. Food is us.” Randall Kenan first delivered this talk at the 2018 Southern Foodways Symposium on food and literature in Oxford, Mississippi. A professor of creative writing at UNC Chapel Hill, he is the author or editor of half a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including A Visitation of Spirits and Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Swamp Witches, as this group of friends call themselves, have been duck hunting together for nearly 20 years. Men are often surprised to stumble upon a half-dozen women—not in the company of fathers or husbands or brothers—out hunting. In this episode of Gravy, reporter-producer Dana Bialek goes hunting with the Swamp Witches and explores the rise in women hunters, how hunter recruitment is connected to the conservation of waterfowl habitat, and what it means to celebrate hunted game around the table. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we bring you Gravy's first foray into fiction. It's a story of macaroni and cheese and maternal love, set in the fictional Canard County, Kentucky.  Robert Gipe is the author of the novels Trampoline and Weedeater. He teaches and coordinates the Appalachian Program at Southeast Kentucky Community College.  This is the last episode of our summer season. After a short hiatus, Gravy will return with new episodes in the fall.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices