Gravy Podcast

Series produced by Southern Foodways Alliance

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Gravy is the SFA’s collection of original stories—fresh, unexpected, and thought-provoking. Like all of the SFA’s work, 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. Gravy the print journal lands in the mailboxes of SFA members four times per year. Gravy the podcast releases a new episode every other week.


161 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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For Thanksgiving, a Native American story… but not the one you’re imagining. No Pilgrims here. For the Lumbee Indians in North Carolina, the holida...

Bought by KVSC, KZYX, WNCW, WFHB, KIDE Hoopa Tribal Radio 91.3fm and more


  • Added: Nov 21, 2014
  • Length: 24:21
  • Purchases: 18
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In cities and towns across the South, an increasing number of the folks offering up latte art and high-end pourover brewing are devout Christians. ...

Bought by KVLU, KVLU, WBHM, and WABE


  • Added: Dec 05, 2014
  • Length: 26:59
  • Purchases: 4
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Apalachicola Bay in Florida has been renowned for its oysters for generations. But, in the fall of 2012, the oyster population in the Bay collapsed...

Bought by KVLU and WBHM


  • Added: Dec 18, 2014
  • Length: 28:29
  • Purchases: 2
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Fred’s Lounge in Mamou, Louisiana, is a dancing and drinking destination… on Saturday mornings only. That’s the one time of the week it’s open. For...

Bought by KVLU and WBHM


  • Added: Jan 02, 2015
  • Length: 27:17
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Nikiko Masumoto, who shares the story of what her family ate while in internment camps during WWII.
Many of the stories we hear and tell about food are positive—food’s power to nourish, to comfort, to bring people together. But it also has the pot...

Bought by KVLU, WBHM, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 15, 2015
  • Length: 23:18
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Toni Tipton Martin making hot rolls.
There’s a whole lot more than recipes in Toni Tipton Martin’s cookbook collection… It contains a surprising culinary history of African Americans i...

Bought by KVLU, WBHM, WABE, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jan 29, 2015
  • Length: 22:28
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Farmer and Veteran Mike Lewis, Credit: Photo courtesy of FarmFlavors.com
There are more military veterans in the South than any other part of the United States. This region has also been losing farmers at an astonishing ...

Bought by WMMT, KVLU, WMMT, and WBHM


  • Added: Feb 12, 2015
  • Length: 23:33
  • Purchases: 4
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Derby Pie is a Kentucky staple. But the nut-and-chocolate-filled dessert has also been a source of controversy, one that has Kentuckians laying cla...

Bought by KVLU, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WBHM, and WABE


  • Added: Feb 27, 2015
  • Length: 20:48
  • Purchases: 4
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This is a story about one chef’s t-shirt collection. But it’s also a story about rock n’roll, Southern food, and the North Carolina bohemia that’s ...

Bought by WBHM


  • Added: Mar 12, 2015
  • Length: 24:06
  • Purchases: 1
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Bourbon Street is a place some people love to hate, dismissing it as pure hedonism of the sleaziest kind. But what if Bourbon Street tells us somet...

Bought by WABE and WBHM


  • Added: Mar 26, 2015
  • Length: 26:13
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Christiane at North China Eatery on Buford Highway.
Christiane Lauterbach is a woman full of contradictions. A loner who is unfailingly gregarious. A self-described hermit who loves to ramble around ...

Bought by KVLU, WBHM, and WABE


  • Added: Apr 09, 2015
  • Length: 29:37
  • Purchases: 3
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Most of us know the Kentucky Derby from the front side of the track: the fancy Derby hats, the mint juleps, the thrill of the race. But there’s a w...

Bought by KVLU, WXDU, WBHM, and WABE


  • Added: Apr 23, 2015
  • Length: 24:10
  • Purchases: 4
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Once you’ve left home in search of a better life, what might make you return? During the Great Migration, six million African Americans left the So...

Bought by KVLU, WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass., WBHM, and PRX Remix


  • Added: May 08, 2015
  • Length: 23:49
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: The reporter at age 12 with her mother, Mildred Amer, on the bimah of Temple B’Nai Israel. This photo was taken during the 1994 Natchez Jewish Homecoming, an event that celebrated the town’s Jewish history., Credit: Photo courtesy of Mildred Amer.
There has been a Jewish community in Natchez, Mississippi for 175 years—and Robin Amer’s family has been part of it for 160 of them. But now the nu...

Bought by WBHM


  • Added: May 21, 2015
  • Length: 35:01
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Hushpuppies, slaw and barbecue at Lexington Barbecue. , Credit: Sarah Delia
When officials in Lexington, North Carolina started to renovate a municipal building, they had no idea they’d tap into part of the city’s barbecue ...

Bought by KVLU and KALW


  • Added: Jun 04, 2015
  • Length: 26:21
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Waiter Carriers selling fried chicken. , Credit: Photo courtesy of the town of Gordonsville, VA.
Fried chicken has both been the vehicle for the economic empowerment of a whole group of people—and the accessory to an ugly racial stereotype. How...

Bought by KVLU, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WABE, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Jun 18, 2015
  • Length: 25:51
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Chef Kevin Mitchell at the Nat Fuller Feast of 2015, Credit: Photo by Jonathan Boncek
Charleston, South Carolina has become the center of discussions about race and violence in America these past few weeks. But a dinner party held in...

Bought by KVLU, WJCT, and WABE


  • Added: Jul 02, 2015
  • Length: 28:18
  • Purchases: 3
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What if the place you’d lived your whole life started to disappear? For fishermen in coastal Louisiana, that’s not just a nightmare scenario. Meet ...

Bought by KVLU, WABE, and WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass.


  • Added: Jul 16, 2015
  • Length: 32:44
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: New Orleans soul food restaurant Willie Mae's Scotch House in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, how does the city’s food reveal how the place has changed? The stories of a wine bar, and...

Bought by KUT, Northern Community Radio - KAXE & KBXE, Minnesota, WCAI / WNAN Cape & Islands, Mass., KMUN, KOSU and more


  • Added: Aug 05, 2015
  • Length: 53:59
  • Purchases: 18
Caption: Choya Webb and his father, Choya Webb Sr.
What does *not* eating meat say about you? In one young biracial man’s family, his dietary change was construed as white, elite, even feminine. In ...

Bought by KVLU, WABE, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Sep 10, 2015
  • Length: 24:40
  • Purchases: 3