A Tale of Two Laredos
Gravy
In “A Tale of Two Laredos,” Gravy producer Evan Stern visits Laredo, Texas, which shares history, culture, and memory with its sister city across the border, Nuevo Laredo. For decades, Mexican border towns were renowned for refined, white tablecloth restaurants where jacketed waiters served a café society that transcended international boundaries. Among the most celebrated was Nuevo Laredo’s Cadillac Bar, which opened in 1926 and grew famous for delicacies such as frog legs and Ramos Gin Fizzes until it was forced to close in 2010. Chosen for its location on the river we now call...
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A Texas Cabrito Communion
Gravy
In “A Texas Cabrito Communion,” Gravy producer Evan Stern invites us to ride along as he joins the Avila and Aguirre families for a celebratory reunion and cabrito cookout at their YY Ranch, which sits below the Nueces River in Texas. The river once served as the boundary between Texas and the Mexican states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas, and some advocate for viewing this region and Northern Mexico as a singular landscape, united by shared terroir and culture. As a beloved delicacy enjoyed on both sides of the Rio Grande, cabrito—a roasted baby goat nourished strictly on a diet of...
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Blessed Egg Rolls and the Evolution of Rockport, Texas
Gravy
In “Blessed Egg Rolls and the Evolution of Rockport, Texas,” Gravy producer Evan Stern takes listeners to the small town of Rockport, Texas, which hugs the shores of Aransas Bay on the state’s Gulf Coast, about 35 miles northeast of Corpus Christi. There, he visits Saint Peter’s Catholic Church, founded by Vietnamese arrivals in the early 1980s, and whose congregants host a monthly fundraiser selling such dishes as bun, egg rolls, and shrimp. Following the collapse of Saigon, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians fled...
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A Taste of Sicily on Galveston Bay
Gravy
In “A Taste of Sicily on Galveston Bay,” Gravy producer Evan Stern takes listeners to Galveston, Texas. Once perhaps the greatest town of significance between New Orleans and San Francisco, today its population doesn’t even crack the top fifty of Texas cities. But while Austin is often referred to as a small town with growing pains, some say Galveston is really a big city disguised as a small town. Much of this is owed to its immigrant history, as its port provided a point of entry for over 750,000 newcomers from its opening in the 1830s, until the early 1920s. Settled by a French...
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Noodling with the Texas Wends
Gravy
In “Noodling with the Texas Wends,” Gravy producer Evan Stern takes us to the small, Central Texas town of Serbin, which was last included in the Census more than 20 years ago, when the population was only 37. But its sign still proudly announces itself as the “Home of the Texas Wends”—and the locals take their noodles seriously. An ethnic minority, primarily concentrated in the region of Lusatia—which sits just between Germany and Poland—for generations the Wends wrestled with wars, poverty, and discrimination. Those troubles only escalated after they embraced confessional...
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The Gulf’s Last Generation of Black Oystermen?
Gravy
In “The Gulf’s Last Generation of Black Oystermen?” Gravy producer Kayla Stewart takes listeners to south Louisiana, where Black men have played a key role in the region’s oyster industry—and where today, they are few and far between. Stewart speaks to one of the area’s last Black oystermen about how we got here, and what this means for the future of south Louisiana’s oystering culture. Black men have played a key role in Louisiana's oyster industry since the 18th century. During enslavement, they would oyster for their slave owners, and those white slave owners kept the...
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Buying and Selling Food in the Black South
Gravy
“Buying and Selling Food in the Black South” is the fourth installment in reporter Kayla Stewart’s 2022 Gravy podcast season, where she explores Black foodways in the South and beyond. For this episode, she speaks to Black business owners who are trying to improve food access in Black communities. Stewart explores the history of Black-owned grocery stores and shops, and why these institutions matter in Black communities. For centuries, Black Americans have been finding their own ways to feed themselves and their communities. From farms, to grocery stores, to corner store...
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In Houston, Three Tastes of West Africa
Gravy
In the episode “In Houston, Three Tastes of West Africa,” Gravy producer Kayla Stewart takes listeners to her hometown of Houston, Texas, which boasts one of the most vibrant international food scenes in the country. It’s a city where Black Americans have built their own communities and pathways to success, and where diversity is prized. It’s also where West African immigrants—from Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, and beyond—have created their own stories, including through food. To find out why Houston is the center of this West African renaissance, Stewart starts at Safari...
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The Joyful Black History of the Sweet Potato
Gravy
In “The Joyful Black History of the Sweet Potato,” Kayla Stewart reports for Gravy on sweet potatoes, which Southern-born Black Americans have baked, roasted, fried, distilled—and long revered. Stewart takes listeners across the United States to learn how African Americans are finding new, interesting ways to enjoy sweet potatoes. Harvey and Donna Williams own and operate Delta Dirt Distillery in Helena, Arkansas. Both grew up in Arkansas, and Harvey was raised on a farm that has been in his family for generations. His father began growing sweet potatoes to make efficient use of...
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Annie Laura Squalls and Her Mile High Pie
Gravy
In “Annie Laura Squalls and Her Mile High Pie,” Gravy producer Kayla Stewart tells the story of Annie Laura Squalls, who, in 1960, became head baker at the Caribbean Room, the popular in-house restaurant at New Orleans’ renowned Pontchartrain Hotel. It was there where Squalls created her “Seven Mile High Pie,” known colloquially as the “Mile High Pie.” But while many people know the legendary pie, most don’t know the baker behind it. Squalls was no ordinary baker. Though she never attended culinary school, she could make sweet magic happen, often thinking on her feet to...
info_outlineIn “Fresh Flour to the People,” the third episode in her five-part series for Gravy, producer Irina Zhorov talks to bakers who have started demanding more from a key element in their craft—flour. When we talk about ingredients, there’s a lot to consider: how fresh the fruit, how local the meat, how wild the fish. But for some reason, these are not questions most of us have been asking about flour—until more recently.
In the South, much of the work to bring local, quality flours started in an inconspicuous little house and bakery in Marshall, North Carolina. People who have lived and worked at this property had a tendency to become obsessed with flour to the point that two of them actually transitioned away from baking, to milling flour. They’ve driven a small but mighty revolution among bakers in the South and beyond to take flour seriously, creating new markets and new flavors.
A quick primer here. There are two basic kinds of wheat: hard wheat and soft wheat. Hard wheat has more protein, which gives the bread structure and allows it to rise and develop pretty air pockets. Hearty loaves require hard wheat, which did not grow in North Carolina. In fact, the whole South mostly grew soft wheats, which were better adapted to the local climate and land. Then local farmers and wheat breeders started experimenting with varieties of hard wheat, creating a local grain economy, a resurgence of small-scale mills, and breads packed with distinct and varied flavors.
In this episode, Zhorov interviews Jennifer Lapidus, the first baker on the Marshall property, who began seeking a local hard wheat for the European-style, naturally leavened loaves she loves. Today, she runs Carolina Ground, a small grain mill in western North Carolina that has fostered a community of farmers, bakers, and millers. After Lapidus left, she rented the property to David Bauer, who opened Farm and Sparrow bakery and similarly became interested in milling; today, Farm and Sparrow is exclusively a mill. Bauer tells Zhorov of his path to working with local grains, and of the tension between innovation and tradition. Zhorov also speaks with David Marshall, a former wheat breeder for the U.S. Department of Agriculture who began experimenting with local varieties of hard wheat in the region.
Finally, Camille Cogswell, who now owns the bakery with her partner, Drew DiTomo, shares how she is choosing the flour she will work with in the space, fostering connections to her new home, new foodways and purveyors, and new people along the way.