Gravy

Order a catfish po-boy or a few pounds of crawfish in Acadiana any Friday between Mardi Gras and Easter, and you may be surprised to learn that your delight is another person’s sacrifice. The Catholic tradition of abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent is alive and well in Southwest Louisiana, a region where more than a third identify as Catholic. Thanks to the long list of Catholic churches and restaurants that roll out an array of delectable seafood options on Lenten Fridays, it’s not much of a burden. St. Francis of Assisi in Breaux Bridge and the Knights of Columbus Council at St. Pius X in Lafayette both have long-standing Lenten fish fry traditions that bring together their communities and welcome anyone hungry for fried catfish, regardless of religion. Olde Tyme Grocery in Lafayette sells close to 2,300 seafood po-boys during the 40-day period. Religious abstinence never tasted so good. 

The episode was reported and produced by Sarah Holtz.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Trade, Taste, and the Evolving Tale of Texas Whiskey,” Gravy reporter Evan Stern visits the Lone Star State to get a taste of a growing movement: Texas whiskey.

Given the importance of saloons in cowboy culture and western mythology, one might think Texas whiskey has a long and storied history. But though Texans have always had a fondness for the demon drink, as a legal industry, Texas whiskey is barely even twenty years old. Despite this youth, however, its growth has been explosive. While as recently as 2010, the state claimed a mere two whiskey distilleries, that number now hovers around sixty and is growing. Yet as makers like Still Austin, Balcones, and Garrison Brothers have garnered awards and drawn national attention, its identity is still being discovered and remains challenging to define. In an increasingly saturated market, one also can’t help but wonder: Is Texas whiskey on the cusp of something big, or will it bust?

Through visits to two “grain to glass” distilleries, Stern learns of the industry’s origins from Dan Garrison. The first licensed whiskey maker in modern Texas, Garrison tells of the challenges he faced aging bourbon in the torrid Hill Country and how his process has matured since his days as an early pioneer. Gravy also hears about the challenges regional distillers have faced in distinguishing their brands in a saturated market from sommelier Daniel Whittington, while Kentucky-based spirits author Fred Minnick argues that Texans’ openness to experimentation has helped shift the flavor narrative of American whiskey. Illustrating this is John Evans who, in a move that could be considered unorthodox, has chosen to use oats in a mash bill he developed himself. A fifth-generation farmer, he opened Wilson Valley Mercantile on his family’s historic property after thinking: “Why not make corn worth more by selling it as whiskey?” Featuring spirits distilled from grains raised entirely onsite, he shares his journey as an independent upstart. 

In these conversations, Gravy asks questions about process and flavor, while exploring how Texas’s emergence reflects the American craft movement and pondering what its future could mean for the drinking world as a whole.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Fruitcake in Space,” Gravy reporter 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

In “How a Humble Crab Dish Became the Soul of Tampa,” Gravy reporter 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

In “Southern caviar is wild, nutty, and...sustainable?” Gravy reporter 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