Gravy cover art

Gravy

Gravy

Written by: Southern Foodways Alliance
Listen for free

About this listen

 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. Art Cooking Food & Wine Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Fruitcake in Space

    Fruitcake in Space
    Jan 21 2026
    In “Fruitcake in Space,” Gravy producer Bronwen Wyatt explores a bizarre footnote in the annals of human space travel. In 1968, a scientist at a military research facility developed a very unusual recipe: a nutritionally-fortified fruitcake designed as an emergency ration for astronauts. It might be easy to dismiss this fruitcake, but we’re here to argue that it’s part of a larger story—one that takes us from the early days of NASA’s space program to our current quest for Mars. Wyatt investigates the importance of safe preservation techniques in space, how NASA determines what food astronauts will actually eat, and why fruitcake actually makes perfect sense as an emergency ration. In an archival interview from 1966, dietician Mary Klicka at the Natick Laboratory Army Research, Development, and Engineering Center points to the unique challenges of preparing acceptable menus for long-term space travel. Wyatt speaks to Vickie Kloeris, who managed NASA’s food systems for nearly thirty years from the laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Jennifer Levasseur, a curator specializing in food at the Air and Space Museum. Finally, retired astronaut Cady Coleman shares her perspective on dining in orbit. Coleman, who volunteered for the role of "food czar" on the International Space Station, tells how food becomes a form of currency and a tool for building camaraderie among astronauts. Kloeris, Levasseur, and Coleman emphasize that dining space is about more than the mechanical function of obtaining enough calories to survive. Even in the most barren environments, our cultural drive to bond over food is a connection to our lives on earth and part of what makes us human. The selection and preparation of food—work that is often dismissed as inconsequential domestic labor—is a crucial part of the success of any mission in space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    27 mins
  • How a Humble Crab Dish Became the Soul of Tampa

    How a Humble Crab Dish Became the Soul of Tampa
    Jan 7 2026
    In “How a Humble Crab Dish Became the Soul of Tampa,” Gravy producer Nicole Hutcheson travels across Tampa to trace the story of a lesser-known local dish—crab chilau. Every city has a dish that says something true about the people who built it. In Tampa, that dish is crab chilau. Made with blue crabs and simmered in tomatoes, garlic, spices, and served over pasta, crab chilau is shaped by Sicilians, Cuban and Afro-Cuban families, and Tampa’s Black community—each group adding a twist to make it their own. Hutcheson’s journey travels from historic Ybor City to rapidly gentrifying corridors of the city, and even knee-deep into the marshy waters of Tampa Bay. Along the way, she meets the people carrying crab chilau forward today: Enzo Pardo, a Sicilian chef reimagining the dish through his own heritage; Jesus Puerto, a Tampa native who returned home after decades away to stake his claim; and Reggie Nelson, an enterprising businessman and chef building a name for himself while preserving a culinary legacy rooted in community. Listeners hear first-hand how crab chilau isn’t a single recipe. Instead it’s what happens when different cultures, customs, and lived experiences come together in the same pot and city. No one version is the same—some are spicier, some brown the sauce until it resembles a stew. Others keep it closer to a sofrito. Add-ins like ground beef, smoked sausage, and snow crab aren’t deviations; they're evidence of a dish built to evolve and feed a crowd. Through personal encounters in kitchens, restaurants, and the outdoors, Hutcheson shares how crab chilau reflects the way Tampa’s food culture itself was built: informally, collaboratively, and without a singular owner. From cooks freestyling the pot to meals designed to nourish entire neighborhoods, the dish tells a larger story about gathering, creativity, and culture. Crab chilau is a living record of how cultures meet and adapt. Listeners will walk away from this episode with a deeper sense of Tampa’s identity and place in the American South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    22 mins
  • Southern caviar is wild, nutty, and...sustainable?

    Southern caviar is wild, nutty, and...sustainable?
    Dec 24 2025
    In “Southern caviar is wild, nutty, and...sustainable?” Gravy producer Irina Zhorov takes us to the Tombigbee River, where valuable paddlefish swim, and makes a case for caviar as an ingredient with a Southern pedigree. Every mature female fish makes roe—that’s the term for their clusters of unfertilized eggs. But caviar, for purists, comes from an ancient fish called sturgeon. There are more than two dozen species of sturgeon, but the best-known caviars come from a handful of species native to Russia and Central Asia: Beluga, Sevruga, Kaluga and Osetra. These fish are diadromous, which means they can live in both rivers and seas. And historically they were caught in the wild, their roe processed into caviar, and eventually sent around the world. Though fish roe started out as poor people’s food in Russia, it evolved to be synonymous with luxury, royalty. However, sturgeon were so overfished that it is now illegal in most places to import their wild-harvested caviar. In the U.S., too, several species of sturgeon were once dense along the eastern coast, in the Great Lakes, in California, and elsewhere. Indigenous tribes and white settlers alike consumed Atlantic sturgeon before a caviar rush in the 1800s diminished their numbers. It’s illegal to fish for most domestic sturgeon. Today, more than 99 percent of caviar globally comes from farms, mostly in China. There are a few exceptions to this rule in the U.S. Small shovelnose sturgeon can still be harvested in some areas for caviar. And paddlefish—which is not a sturgeon, but its close cousin—is fair game in some states, too. The fish live in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. While the U.S. has an available supply of wild-caught, high-quality caviar, it lacks a clear cultural context for how to enjoy this decadent treat. In this episode, Zhorov speaks to Mike Kelley of Kelley’s Katch, a Tennessee caviar producer, and biologist Steve Rider, who studies paddlefish populations in Alabama, to learn about a food that’s from the South but, paradoxically, not at all associated with Southern cuisine. Some people and companies are trying to educate American consumers about caviar and to modernize the way domestic consumers eat the food. That can include parties with caviar tutorials and introducing new, American ways to indulge, like with a dollop of caviar on Doritos. Christine Lemieux, one-half of the company Caviar Dream, explains how this delicacy can be for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
    Show More Show Less
    26 mins
No reviews yet