"Easy," by Ed Madden. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Gravy

"Easy," by Ed Madden

"Take the Woods Ballistic! Black Belt Nightlife" disrupts the sleepy picture of rural life by taking you into its nightlife. In Alabama’s Black Belt, the night scene has a beat all its own, rooted in a sense of deep community. We dive into bootlegging, clubbing, and a legendary Black Belt festival: the Footwash in Uniontown. Catherine Shelton of the Coleman Center for the Arts in York and Bosephus Gary of Bo’s Fashions in Uniontown take us into the mix, revealing how Black Belt residents balance a hard work week and an ongoing fight for environmental justice with nights of leisure and release.

Take the Woods Ballistic! Black Belt Nightlife

Alabama’s Black Belt has always been a place of migration: the site of both forced and elective movement. Today, our reasons for leaving and coming home are still shaped by the desire for better lives and livelihoods. In "Migration: Making Meals and Homes in Alabama," we meet three women whose very different paths all led to a home in the Black Belt: Maria escaped violence in Mexico; Margaret fled religious persecution in Egypt; and Sarah came home to do some good, opening Abadir’s Light Fare and Pastry in Greensboro. Their stories remind us that the Alabama Black Belt is and always has been home to all kinds of people and all kinds of passage.

Migration: Making Meals and Homes in Alabama

For generations, rural families in the Alabama Black Belt grew and hunted what they needed to sustain themselves. Wild game was a major and critical part of the diet. Today, hunting is still a popular Black Belt pursuit, but it’s less about sustenance and more about camaraderie, challenge, and immersion in nature. We meet Jerry Dawson, a coon hunter in Sumter County, who illuminates the world of coon dogs, and Nikki Baker, a dove hunter in Marengo County, who loves to beat all the men on the field (and often does) to the 15 bird limit. This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, Alabama; Matt Whitson; an award-winning production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, Alabama; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association and author of The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods (UA Press).

Alabama Hunters: Pretty Don't Tree No Coon

As "Cooking Up a Living in Alabama" reveals, culinary entrepreneurship, whether running barbecue stands, holding neighborhood fish fries, or selling sweets around town, has long enabled African Americans to earn income, stick together as a family, and express creativity. Georgia Gilmore of Montgomery is the quintessential model in Alabama. In this episode of Gravy, we visit Thomas and Tommie Taylor of T-N-T BBQ in York and Martha Hawkins of Martha’s Place in Montgomery for a modern look at Black entrepreneurship in the Alabama Black Belt. We get a rural and an urban view of how Black entrepreneurs use innovation and hard work to generate real community impact.  This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, Alabama; Matt Whitson; an award-winning production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, Alabama; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association and author of The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods (UA Press).

Cooking Up a Living in Alabama

Alabama’s Black Belt stretches in a strip 25 miles wide across the center of the state. Named for the rich soil that enabled cotton to flourish, the Black Belt was once Alabama’s most prosperous and politically powerful region. It held most of the state's enslaved people, and African Americans still comprise the majority of the Black Belt population today. "New Stewards on Old Homesteads in Alabama" provides a contemporary look at Black Belt land and its stewards: the most recent chapter in a long history of transformation. Younger generations are now returning to family land in the Black Belt, often to find it reclaimed by wilderness. We learn how they strive to make a living from the land and the challenges faced in a rural food system. We consider opposing notions of agricultural life: one that inflicts trauma, and one that heals from it. Andrew Williams of the Deep South Food Alliance in Linden and Yawah Awolowo of Mahala Farms in Cuba are our guides.  This batch of Gravy is reported and produced by Jackie Clay, Executive Director at the Coleman Center for the Arts in rural Sumter County, AL; Matt Whitson, production audio mixer and video editor at Alabama Public Television in Birmingham, AL; and Emily Blejwas, Executive Director of the Alabama Folklife Association. The Southern Foodways Alliance is the organization behind the podcast.

New Stewards on Old Homesteads in Alabama

"Pesach in Blacksburg," by Erika Meitner. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018.

"Pesach in Blacksburg," by Erika Meitner

"Grace," by Jake Adam York. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018.

"Grace," by Jake Adam York

You’d be hard-pressed to find a major city in the United States that doesn’t have Indian food. Despite some of the nation’s limited ideas about what American food is, Indian favorites like chicken tikka masala, biryani, and samosas have become nationally recognized, and are often the dinner or lunch of choice for millions of Americans. But, what about the dessert? In this episode of Gravy, Kayla Stewart travels around the Research Triangle in search of the mithai—or sweet—life of Raleigh’s Indian American community, all through the lens of Indian desserts. 

The Mithai Life of North Carolina

The Cuban sandwich. If it’s made with ingredients someone else doesn’t like, you might find yourself in an hours-long argument in the middle of Little Havana. In Miami and Tampa, Florida, restaurant owners, historians, and Cuban Americans recount their own memories of the Cuban sandwich, as well as the story of its origins. In this episode of Gravy, reporter Kayla Stewart explores the sandwich’s long-standing origin story, new research about the Cuban sandwich, and how the South influenced the sandwich’s popularity and the current identity of Floridian Cuban Americans.

The Southern Genius of the Cuban Sandwich

Arab American and Middle Eastern immigrants have had a unique experience in the U.S. With a history that dates back more than 100 years, Arab Americans of every generation have brought their food and history with them, and have often used restaurants as a center of culture and a way to create their own American and Arab story. In Arkansas, one popular restaurant owner has married his love of his hometown Damascus, Syria, and his love of his present home of Little Rock. The result is delicious in taste, rich in history, and demonstrative of Arab American ingenuity that’s existed for generations.  

Syrian-ish: Damascus Meets Little Rock at Layla's Restaurant

The home of Civil Rights leaders like John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr., Atlanta has a remarkably storied Black history. It’s birthed the musical careers of legends like Andre 3000, Usher, and Gladys Knight. And recently, it made political history when the state—largely due to Black voters—flipped blue for the first time in nearly 30 years, impacting one of the most consequential elections in modern history. The state’s role in Black culture and identity extends internationally, too. Atlanta has become a popular city of choice for immigrants who’ve arrived in the U.S. In 2018, 1.1 million immigrants made 10 percent of the state’s population. In 2000, nearly 5,500 Ethiopians called Atlanta home. Today, that number has more than doubled, making Atlanta home to one of the country’s largest Ethiopian communities. Immigrants brought their families, their traditions, and their food. The restaurant landscape is just one window into international Atlanta, but it is extremely important. It signals that new communities are working to carve out a space, create opportunity, and share the best parts of their homeplaces with fellow Atlantans. Reporter Kayla Stewart shares the story of Atlanta’s Ethiopian community with visits to three restaurants—Piassa Restaurant and Market, Ledet, and Desta Ethiopian Kitchen. All three places serve traditional Ethiopian food to their customers, and Desta Ethiopian Kitchen has modified their menu in a way that accommodates Ethiopian and American influences. In a classroom, the technique is called global assemblage. In restaurant speak, it’s called hospitality.

Ethiopian Atlanta: A Tale of Three Restaurants

The largest city in Texas doesn’t disappoint when it comes to food. Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. There is a bustling and ever-growing immigrant community that has brought food and culture to almost every corner of the city. Amid strip centers filled with pho shops, taco trucks, and Indian restaurants, however, Indonesian immigrants have struggled to make their food recognizable and understood in the city’s dining community. In central Houston, Gravy reporter Kayla Stewart speaks to a group of Indonesian women working to make sure that Indonesian food gets its overdue respect. 

Tempeh Brings Indonesia to Houston

"Drill," by Atsuro Riley. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018.

"Drill," by Atsuro Riley

"Because Men Do What They Want To Do," by TJ Jarrett. Featured in Vinegar & Char: Verse from the Southern Foodways Alliance. University of Georgia Press, 2018.

"Because Men Do What They Want to Do," by TJ Jarrett

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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Gravy

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