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Gravy: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Southern Foodways Alliance
Gravy shares stories of the changing American South through the foods we eat. Gravy showcases a South that is constantly evolving, accommodating new immigrants, adopting new traditions, and lovingly maintaining old ones. It uses food as a means to explore all of that, to dig into lesser-known corners of the region, complicate stereotypes, document new dynamics, and give voice to the unsung folk who grow, cook, and serve our daily meals.
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- 6 days ago18 min
Object Permanence: An Essay
Martin Padgett wrote the feature essay “Object Permanence” for the fall 2025 issue of Gravy Quarterly, our sister publication. In the piece, he catalogs the objects we live with actively, those we tolerate like inanimate roommates, and those we give away, sometimes to make room for the new. We liked it so much that we asked them to read it for Gravy podcast listeners. To read other engaging essays in Gravy, have it shipped to your mailbox by becoming an SFA member at southernfoodways.org, or sign up for a subscription at Hub City Book Shop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago24 min
American Barbecue’s European Adventure
In “American Barbecue’s European Adventure,” Gravy reporter Eve Troeh takes us to meet restaurateurs in Prague, Czech Republic (Big Smokers) and Berlin, Germany (Big Stuff Smoked BBQ) who have gone to great lengths to import the techniques and equipment needed to bring American barbecue to their communities. Along with developing their own recipes, working closely with suppliers to select the right breeds and cuts of meat, and perfecting their overnight smoking process, they have also had to cultivate an understanding of and appreciation for BBQ among their customers. While “low and slow” smoked barbecue may seem ubiquitous in the United States, it takes some translating when it crosses the pond into an entirely different culinary context. Adrian Miller, author of the book Black Smoke, which chronicles Black contributions to American barbecue, helps explain what makes American barbecue unique—and even unexpected—in other parts of the world. And while Czech and German immigrants contributed to the early formation of barbecue in central Texas and other Southern enclaves, the reception of American barbecue abroad today shows that its history is not a straight line from the 1800s to now. Instead, it’s a conversation that has crossed oceans and generations in a longstanding back-and-forth that can be seen and tasted on modern-day trays of brisket, pulled pork, sausage, and more. At Big Smokers in Prague, chefs Sylvie Jackson and Tomas Oujezdsky show guests that burnt ends—though they may sound suspect—are actually delicious. And at Berlin’s Big Stuff Smoked BBQ, Tobias Bürger introduces customers to a hot sandwich. The popularity of Southern-style “low and slow” barbecue seems to know no bounds, and in this episode, Troeh follows the journey of that smoking tradition across the Atlantic Ocean. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- May 13, 202620 min
Sap's Rising in Highland County, Virginia
In Highland County, Virginia, there are more trees than people. Specifically, the County is rich in sugar maples, the trees whose sap produces maple syrup. Better known as a “northern” sweetener, maple syrup is something that Highland County residents have been producing for decades—likely as early as the County was first settled in the mid-1700s. They learned the practice from local Indigenous tribes, who took part in tapping trees themselves. In “Sap's Rising in Highland County, Virginia,” Gravy reporter Sarah Jessee explores Highland County maple syrup production in the past and present, and discusses how the County’s syrup-making might change in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 29, 202657 min
Real Organic Podcast
Today, Gravy shares with you the Real Organic Podcast, the award-winning “Best Sustainability, Environment & Climate Podcast” produced by the Real Organic Project. Recently named one of the "best climate podcasts" by Earth.org, the Real Organic Podcast uncovers the forces reshaping organic food–like how corporate lobbying is redefining what “organic” means and how industry use of new terms like “regenerative” and “hydroponics” are not really organic. Hosted by Linley Dixon and Dave Chapman, each episode features deep conversations with farmers, scientists, chefs, and journalists fighting to keep organic food honest. Like today’s episode with Barbara Kingsolver, where she reflects on her lifelong connection to food, her friendship with Joan Gussow, and the spiritual, cultural, and political meaning of how we eat. Fun fact—Joan was the mother of Adam Gussow, a scholar and professor in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi! If you enjoy today’s episode, be sure to check out the Real Organic Podcast, available on your favorite podcast app. And tell them, Gravy sent you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 15, 202627 min
Sniffing Out American Truffles
In “Sniffing Out American Truffles,” Gravy reporter Irina Zhorov explores truffle production in the U.S.—and how the South is emerging as a hub. Truffle production in the U.S. is a young industry. Commercial cultivation started in the 1980s. Truffles are a complicated business. When you’re farming truffles, what you’re really growing is trees. The truffles are fungi that grow on tree roots. The tree and the fungi work synergistically, the tree providing sugars to the fungi for nourishment and the fungi helping the roots reach further into the soil to absorb more nutrients. For this relationship to work well, and for truffles to flourish, the type of tree and fungi must be a good match, the soil ought to be of sufficiently high pH, and weather and moisture need to be suitable. Europeans, particularly in Italy and France, figured out the formula to make this complex system function. Truffle orchards once abounded on the continent. World Wars I and II, as well as changing land use, destroyed many of those operations, but the industry there is still established. When American farmers began to seed their truffle orchards, most of them imported European truffle varieties on European trees. European truffles are big and delicious, and want-to be growers knew that system worked. But European trees have struggled in North America; they lack defenses for local pests, and many of the early orchards have died out. An operation in North Carolina, Burwell Farms, tried something different. They inoculated native loblolly pines with the European bianchetto truffle variety. They're now the most productive truffle orchard in the United States, but they still can't keep up with growing demand. As the industry matures, there are also attempts to cultivate native truffle varieties, like the Appalachian truffle, the Blue Ridge truffle, and other newly discovered species. And there's growing interest in foraging for native truffles, too. The industry is becoming increasingly attuned to local varieties and possibilities to make this luxurious product our own. In this episode of Gravy, Zhorov visits Burwell Farms and follows their dogs at work harvesting truffles. We hear from Burwell Farms' Jeffrey Coker; Margaret Townsend, president of the North American Truffle Growers Association and owner of NewTown Truffiere; chef Joe Kindred on what excites him about local truffles; and North Carolina extension agents Katie Learn and Jeanine Davis on local varieties. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 1, 202627 min
Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues
In “Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues,”Gravy reporter Anya Groner takes listeners to the Chesapeake Bay, where, over the past decade, invasive blue catfish have derailed the ecosystem in the East Coast’s largest fish nursery. Native to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River basins, blue catfish were first stocked in the bay’s tributary rivers in the 1970s to provide a new trophy fish for recreational anglers. At the time, no one predicted that a freshwater catfish could make its way into the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay, much less outcompete native crabs, oysters, and fish. The impact has been devastating for the environment and for the seafood industry. Generational watermen are going out of business, and most of the fishmongers who buy and process their catch have shut their doors. Yet, Dr. Michael Schwarz, associate director of Virginia Tech's Seafood and Agricultural Research & Extension Center, says there’s a lucrative way to manage the population of this expanding apex predator and reinvigorate the seafood industry. Blue catfish happen to be delicious. Studies show that managed correctly, a blue catfish fishery could have an economic impact of $1.1 billion and create 7,000 new jobs. “ The easiest solution for anything is to eat it,” says Kyle Rowley, the chief operating officer of Skrimp Shack, a fourteen-restaurant franchise in Virginia and North Carolina. As a topwater predator, blue catfish don’t have the muddy flavor sometimes associated with farmed catfish. And Rowley says, they fry beautifully. Three years ago, he added blue catfish to Skrimp Shack’s menu. “We're doing something right that is actually helping our fellow Virginians, and we enjoy that.” But building a market for an invasive species is an inherent conflict of interest, says Dr. Mary Fabrizio, a biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “Basically you're starting the fishery to put itself out of business,” she says. If the fishery is as lucrative as some predict it can be, the goal could switch from shrinking the population to maintaining it. Fabrizio’s computer models show that unless a very high number of catfish are pulled from the bay, culling catfish won’t rejuvenate native fish. Join Groner as she travels from the docks of the Chesapeake Bay to marine labs and restaurants, asking watermen, fishmongers, scientists, and restaurateurs to ask what it will take to build a blue catfish market and whether it’s possible to balance the needs of the seafood industry and the ecosystem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Mar 18, 202622 min
A Taste of the Other Georgia in Pensacola
In “A Taste of the Other Georgia in Pensacola,” Gravy reporter Martin Padgett ventures to Pensacola to sample a bit of Georgia—a Georgia much further away than the five-hour car ride to Atlanta. Florida’s Gulf Coast brings to mind pictures of crystal-sand beaches and the Navy’s Blue Angels, but until recently, it hasn’t been known as a haven for global food. That’s begun to change, and as Pensacola has begun to grow out of its small-town roots, Chef George Lazi has brought a new cuisine to the table, along with a symbol of hospitality. Lazi grew up in Soviet Georgia, but when the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Georgia declared independence, the childhood he knew disappeared. When Georgia’s economy imploded, families would go without work, without power, without currency—but would still gather to share what food and drink they had, and to drink Georgian wine from the ceremonial ram’s horn present in nearly every home, a horn called the khantsi. Lazi left Georgia when he was nineteen to come to America, where he learned from some of the best chefs in the hallowed halls of food. But after he married, he and his wife, Luba, looked south to find a place they could build their own restaurant, and a place they could call home. While he drinks very strong espresso with Lazi at the chef’s Pearl & Horn restaurant in Pensacola, Padgett learns how the chef’s family has brought its story to an unclaimed corner of the South. The traditional southern foodstuffs like red snapper are the stars on the menu—only here they’re paired with khmeli suneli, a Georgian spice that blends fenugreek, coriander, and marigold. And if you look around Pearl & Horn’s dining room, you might catch a glimpse of one of Lazi’s khantsi, standing proudly on the bar. In this episode, Gravy asks about the items we keep and those we leave behind, while exploring how we meld one culture into another through immigration—and what that means to the ever-changing South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Mar 4, 202628 min
Apalachicola Bay Reopens
Atlanta can seem like it’s a very long way from the oystering communities in Florida’s Panhandle. There are, in fact, hundreds of miles between them. But there are ways even distant places are intimately connected, perhaps more intimately than you’d guess. And when one of those places is in trouble, those connections get revealed. This is the story of what’s happening to the oysters in Apalachicola Bay, and why that has inspired interstate legal battles—even a Supreme Court lawsuit. It’s also the story of what a place whose whole identity revolves around seafood does, when that seafood is threatened. The audio from oysterman A.L. Quick was gathered in 2006 as part of the Southern Foodways Alliance oral history project on Florida's Forgotten Coast. You can listen to that oral history and more than a dozen others with oystermen and other residents of Franklin County at southernfoodways.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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About Gravy
Gravy shares stories of the changing American South through the foods we eat. Gravy showcases a South that is constantly evolving, accommodating new immigrants, adopting new traditions, and lovingly maintaining old ones. It uses food as a means to explore all of that, to dig into lesser-known corners of the region, complicate stereotypes, document new dynamics, and give voice to the unsung folk who grow, cook, and serve our daily meals.
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