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 “Grandpa’s Barbecue Blooms Out West,” Gravy producer Monica Gokey takes listeners to Idaho Falls, Idaho, to explore what happens when a Southerner leaves the South and opens a barbecue joint in the West.
Grandpa’s Southern Bar-B-Q originally opened in the small town of Arco, Idaho, which is obscurely famous for being the first community in the U.S. powered by nuclear energy. At the time Grandpa’s opened, Arco’s population was about a thousand people. It was an unlikely location for any restaurant, much less a Southern food restaurant.
Menu items like smoked brisket, collard greens, gumbo, and buttermilk pie were new fare for many locals, and it wasn’t the locals who patronized Grandpa’s at first. It was tourists—either passing through Arco on their way to Yellowstone or the nearby Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve.
Craters of the Moon is aptly named, and in 1969, Apollo 14 astronauts flew to Craters for a bootcamp on rocks. Their Apollo mission was focused on lunar exploration, and they spent time at Craters learning how to be field geologists. Thirty years later, park administrators got the idea to invite the surviving Apollo 14 astronauts back to Craters to commemorate the Monument’s 75th anniversary.
Grandpa’s had been open for four years at that point. A reporter who was in town to cover the Apollo 14 astronauts’ return to Idaho stopped in for barbecue, and ended up doing a short feature on Grandpa’s for the Idaho Statesman. That news story in Idaho’s largest daily was something of a lift-off moment for Grandpa’s.
Spoiler alert: Grandpa’s flourished. It became a destination eatery—so much so that the owners, the Westbrook family, started keeping guest registries for visitors from around the world.
Grandpa’s has since moved to the larger city of Idaho Falls, where you can sometimes find three generations of Westbrooks working the restaurant. The food has stayed true to its roots. At 79 years young, Lloyd is the pitmaster. His wife Loretta is the queen of desserts and sides. Kids and grandkids also help out. That familial atmosphere is something the Westbrooks extend to their customers, too. Everyone is treated like family when they step through the door.
When Grandpa’s first opened its doors, the Westbrooks were the only African American family living in Arco. They saw it as an opportunity to build bridges, and even taught a Black history curriculum at the local school.
For this episode, Monica Gokey talks to Lloyd and Loretta Westbrook, co-owners of Grandpa’s Southern Bar-B-Q, to learn how they built a thriving barbecue restaurant in the West. Listen to hear how the Westbrooks have learned to use food and friendliness as a vessel to build bridges in their community.