Gravy

In “A Taste of the Other Georgia in Pensacola,” Gravy reporter Martin Padgett ventures to Pensacola to sample a bit of Georgia—a Georgia much further away than the five-hour car ride to Atlanta.

Florida’s Gulf Coast brings to mind pictures of crystal-sand beaches and the Navy’s Blue Angels, but until recently, it hasn’t been known as a haven for global food. That’s begun to change, and as Pensacola has begun to grow out of its small-town roots, Chef George Lazi has brought a new cuisine to the table, along with a symbol of hospitality.

Lazi grew up in Soviet Georgia, but when the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Georgia declared independence, the childhood he knew disappeared. When Georgia’s economy imploded, families would
go without work, without power, without currency—but would still gather to share what food and drink they had, and to drink Georgian wine from the ceremonial ram’s horn present in nearly every home, a horn called the khantsi. Lazi left Georgia when he was nineteen to come to America, where he learned from some of the best chefs in the hallowed halls of food. But after he married, he and his wife, Luba, looked south to find a place they could build their own restaurant, and a place they could call home.

While he drinks very strong espresso with Lazi at the chef’s Pearl & Horn restaurant in Pensacola, Padgett learns how the chef’s family has brought its story to an unclaimed corner of the South. The traditional southern foodstuffs like red snapper are the stars on the menu—only here they’re paired with khmeli suneli, a Georgian spice that blends fenugreek, coriander, and marigold. And if you look around Pearl &
Horn’s dining room, you might catch a glimpse of one of Lazi’s khantsi, standing proudly on the bar.

In this episode, Gravy asks about the items we keep and those we leave behind, while exploring how we meld one culture into another through immigration—and what that means to the ever-changing South.

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Atlanta can seem like it’s a very long way from the oystering communities in Florida’s Panhandle. There are, in fact, hundreds of miles between them. But there are ways even distant places are intimately connected, perhaps more intimately than you’d guess. And when one of those places is in trouble, those connections get revealed.

This is the story of what’s happening to the oysters in Apalachicola Bay, and why that has inspired interstate legal battles—even a Supreme Court lawsuit. It’s also the story of what a place whose whole identity revolves around seafood does, when that seafood is threatened.

The audio from oysterman A.L. Quick was gathered in 2006 as part of the Southern Foodways Alliance oral history project on Florida's Forgotten Coast. You can listen to that oral history and more than a dozen others with oystermen and other residents of Franklin County at southernfoodways.org.
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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.
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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.

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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.
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