Gravy Podcast

Series produced by Southern Foodways Alliance

Series image

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
Preserving Community Canneries
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Community canneries–facilities, often subsidized by local government, where people can in bulk–are closing. With groceries easily available even in...

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


  • Added: Feb 17, 2020
  • Length: 19:43
  • Purchases: 4
Electric Tofu
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
In the early 1970s, two hundred hippies from San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury neighborhood resettled in rural Tennessee.

Bought by WMMT, KVLU, and WFHB


  • Added: Sep 09, 2019
  • Length: 26:33
  • Purchases: 3
Where Mexico Meets Arkansas
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Visit Fiesta Fest in De Queen, Arkansas, for sopes, mangonadas, and norteño tunes.

Bought by WMMT, KVLU, and WFHB


  • Added: Sep 09, 2019
  • Length: 23:05
  • Purchases: 3
Biscuit Blues
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Delta blues found its voice and audience on KFFA’s King Biscuit Time, a daily broadcast out of Helena, Arkansas.

Bought by WMMT, KVLU, and WFHB


  • Added: Sep 09, 2019
  • Length: 24:30
  • Purchases: 3
Mahalia Jackson's Glori-Fried Chicken
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Gospel star Mahalia Jackson used fried chicken to push for economic empowerment in the black community.

Bought by WMMT, KVLU, and WFHB


  • Added: Sep 09, 2019
  • Length: 24:56
  • Purchases: 3
Bottled Myth: Two Parts Nostalgia, One Part Moonshine
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Legal moonshine production—funny as that sounds—has exploded in the South.

Bought by KVLU and WMMT


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 21:10
  • Purchases: 2
A Table for All? The Pay-What-You-Can Phenomenon
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
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 ...

Bought by WMMT and KVLU


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 19:21
  • Purchases: 2
Home-Cooked Expectations: Dinner Under Pressure
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
In the United States, home-cooked meals with family are revered almost to the point of fetishization. Dinners are seen as moral imperatives for hap...

Bought by WMMT and KVLU


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 24:02
  • Purchases: 2
Joann Clevenger: New Orleans' Uptown Girl Scout
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
In an era where chef-driven, trend-surfing restaurants are the norm, how does an old-school institution like Upperline thrive? Owner JoAnn Clevenge...

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 25:05
  • Purchases: 1
Catering: Behind the Pipe and Drape
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
With the Lee Brothers as our guides, we step behind the scenes of the catering world.

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 23:26
  • Purchases: 1
Cooking Up Social Change with Julia Turshen
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Can cookbooks be a vehicle for social change? For Julia Turshen, the answer is yes.

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 18:36
  • Purchases: 1
When Menus Talk
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
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 ...

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 20:44
  • Purchases: 1
A Taste of Dollywood
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Head to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for a taste of Dollywood.

Bought by KVLU, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, and WMMT


  • Added: Sep 09, 2019
  • Length: 24:51
  • Purchases: 3
The Magical, Meandering Life of Eugene Walter
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Twenty-one years after Eugene Walter's death, why don’t more people know about Mobile's consummate character?

Bought by KVLU and WDBM


  • Added: Aug 15, 2019
  • Length: 25:37
  • Purchases: 2
Stories from the Hem of My Mother’s Apron
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Caption: Hannah Drake (r) with her daughter, Brianna Wright, in their neighborhood garden.
Hannah Drake is creator of a dinner project is called Stories From The Hem Of My Mother’s Apron. She’s afraid there’s a generation of African Ameri...

Bought by WMMT, KVLU, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Nov 30, 2017
  • Length: 26:01
  • Purchases: 3
The Mala Project: Chinese Flavors, Tennessee Family
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Caption: Taylor Holliday and Fong Chong
What happens when a white family in the American South adopts an 11-year-old Chinese girl who’s never eaten a meal other than Chinese in her entire...

Bought by WMMT, KVSC, KVLU, and PRX Remix


  • Added: Nov 16, 2017
  • Length: 27:30
  • Purchases: 4
Pie by Another Name: The Burekas of Or Ve Shalom
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Every Tuesday a group of women gets together at Or Ve Shalom Synagogue in Atlanta to bake hundreds of savory hand-held pies. They are called bureka...

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Aug 24, 2017
  • Length: 26:05
  • Purchases: 1
Bluegrass Tacos
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
At the crux of any diaspora is food – the familiar flavor of the old home mixing with a new one. In the case of Lexington, Kentucky, tacos express ...

Bought by WMMT and KVLU


  • Added: Jul 14, 2017
  • Length: 27:22
  • Purchases: 2
Separation of Church and Coffee
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
Writer T Cooper heads to Knoxville, Tennessee, to learn about a new trend making its way across the South: devout Christians are opening coffeeshop...

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Jun 29, 2017
  • Length: 27:50
  • Purchases: 1
Going Whole Hog in Israel
From: Southern Foodways Alliance
Series: Gravy Podcast
Piece image
On this episode of Gravy, we go global to explore the spread of a prolific Southern food to an unlikely place: pork barbecue in the Israeli city of...

Bought by KVLU


  • Added: Jun 15, 2017
  • Length: 28:06
  • Purchases: 1

Playlists That Feature This Series: