Gravy

In “A Taste of Mexico City In Memphis,” Gravy reporter Mackenzie Martin visits Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana, a Memphis restaurant run by a father and son duo: Jonathan and José “Pepe”Magallanes.



Every day at Las Tortugas starts the same way: at the markets. According to Pepe, he and Jonathan go daily to source the produce and proteins they need for the two locations. The idea is to replicate the kind of hyper-fresh cuisine that Pepe grew up eating in Mexico City taquerias and torterias as a kid in the 1940s and ‘50s.



Another nod to Mexico City is the turtle-themed artwork on the walls. In Pepe’s neighborhood, El Pedregal, the bread was hollowed out more than usual for its torta sandwiches, so that it resembled the shell of a turtle. Pepe grew up calling sandwiches in Pedregal “tortugas,” which translates to turtle in Spanish.



Today, you can taste the attention to flavor in the salsa, agua frescas, and delicious tacos and torta sandwiches chock-full of ripe avocado, fresh jalapeños, beans, queso fresco, al pastor, jumbo sea scallops, Gulf shrimp, filet mignon, and more.



Because of the premium ingredients, it’s hard to get out of Las Tortugas without spending at least $25, which is pricier than other Mexican restaurants in the area. But chef Pati Jinich says there’s a movement to redefine casual Mexican cuisine, which is often expected to be cheaper than casual Italian food, even if the dishes are made with similar high-quality ingredients.



Be warned, though, alongside every sandwich come strong opinions.



“Attention to our guests that come from California, Texas, and border states with Mexico. Please spare us where you are coming from, indicating that you know about Mexican food,” reads a sternly worded sign near the cash register. “Our restaurant is a special place that is setting the record straight about what is truly upscale, fresh, classic Mexican cuisine with absolutely no influence of the American way of cooking. So do not try and teach us any lessons, but rather sit down and enjoy.”



What this means in practice is that Las Tortugas doesn’t sell heavy enchiladas, burritos, fajitas, nachos, flour tortillas, sour cream, taco salads, cheese dip, or other dishes associated with “Tex-Mex” or “Cal Mex”.



“It's tongue-in-cheek,” admits Jonathan. “It just sort of, I think, speaks to the passion that we have for doing something different.”



Jinich, who also grew up in Mexico City, says it’s hard to pinpoint what “authentic” Mexico City cuisine is because it’s a melting point of all different styles of regional Mexican cuisine. (Her new cookbook, “Foods of La Frontera: Recipes and New Taste Frontiers from Both Sides of the Border,” digs into the nuance of these.) But Jinich appreciates what the family is trying to do.



“There’s this tug and pull between traditional and modern. And I think it's all a win-win because then that means that there's all different kinds of regional variations,” she says. “There's something really beautiful in passing on something that has that taste that you recognize.”
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Cultivating Korean Greens in North Texas,” Gravy reporter Elizabeth Myong explores how Korean American communities are gardening in North Texas. She reflects on her upbringing in the Richardson suburbs, where she grew up eating Korean herbs and plants from her family’s backyard.



Those fresh greens were made into dishes with “son-mat,” which directly translates to “hand taste.” It’s the flavor of seasoned hands, usually of a mother or grandmother, making something especially for you. It’s the flavor of love and care mixed with earthen, locally-grown staples like kkaenip (sesame leaves), buchu (Korean garlic chives), and gochu (chili peppers).



In recent years, this intimate taste has been overshadowed by flashier, bolder flavors that have become popular with the commercialization of Korean food. But across North Texas, Myong shares the homemade food being made from backyard gardens and kitchens.



Heangjin Park is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison who studies Korean diasporic communities and food. He explains that Korean gardening creates a sense of belonging.



“You are being transplanted and rooted in [this] new place. I think that there's a symbolic or metaphorical dimension of Korean gardening.”



In the summer’s sweltering Texas heat, Myong’s mother Jan annually makes kkaenip-jangajji, pickled sesame leaves, with fresh leaves plucked from her garden. In the suburb of Carrollton, couple Sofia Kwak and Kenneth Jung grow their own bountiful garden filled with Korean lettuce, eggplant, bitter melon, zucchini, minari, jeok gat (Korean red mustard greens) and ah oh (cluster mallow.) In Irving, Duke Dukbong Yoon uses a homi, a traditional Korean hand plow, to harvest jujubes, mugwort, Korean peppers, corn and pumpkins.



Each month, Kwak and Jung join a Korean gardening club Dal-Nongbu, Dallas City Farmers, to talk about their gardens and trade tips, produce, and seeds. It’s been a way for members to build community and bond over their shared love of gardening Korean herbs and veggies.



North Texas boasts the largest Korean population in Texas and the ninth largest in the country. The region’s Korean dining scene has exploded over the decades along with a hunger for Korean home cooking. North Texas’ Korean food scene may not be as commercially visible as New York, L.A. or even Atlanta, but its rich history and quality food make it an important landmark of Korean diasporic communities in the South.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “Brisket, Kugel, and Community in Birmingham,” Gravy reporter Olivia Ware Terenzio visits Birmingham, Alabama’s Levite Jewish Community Center (“The J”) for the Jewish Food and Culture Fest, a celebration of kugel and cabbage rolls for Jews and non-Jews alike. This episode explores what role the festival plays in a state where less than half of one percent of the population is Jewish—and what we really mean when we talk about Jewish Food.

The festival started more than two decades ago, which is impressive, considering that there are only about 6,300 Jews in the Birmingham metro area of 1.1 million. It’s been sustained by a loyal group of Jewish volunteers and widely supported by the non-Jewish population.

A closer look at the kitchen, where volunteer cooks prepare hamantashen ahead of the festival, proves that this is all more complicated than a typical food festival. Desserts are made with oil, not butter, to avoid dairy. The counters where the volunteers are working are marked with red duct tape, and one half of the kitchen is blocked off with a plastic sheet. The tape and plastic are part of an effort to keep the festival entirely kosher, as is the oversight of a kosher supervisor: Rabbi Yossi Friedman. He reviews all the food bought for the festival to ensure that even people who are very careful about keeping kosher can participate. In Alabama, where options for kosher dining are next to zero, this is especially important.

At the same time, many of the festival’s attendees—and most of the J’s dues-paying members—aren’t Jewish. For many of them, the festival offers a rare opportunity to experience Jewish food that can’t be found in restaurants here. As Margaret Norman, a scholar of American Jewish history and Southern Jewish foodways, explains, many people don’t come into regular contact with Jewish culture or Jewish people in Alabama.

In this episode, Rabbi Friedman explains how kosher certification works and why it matters in an increasingly complicated food system. Isa Dorsky, one of the festival’s lead cooks and a former Board President at The J, leads volunteer cooks as they prepare 400 hamantashen. Finally, Norman tells of Birmingham’s evolving Jewish population and explores a food festival’s potential to bridge differences between neighbors.

Reporter Olivia Ware Terenzio is a writer, editor, and arts and culture administrator working in the American South. She is the Director of Programs for Project Threadways and the Podcast Editor here at the Southern Foodways Alliance. She holds an M.A. in Southern Studies from the University of Mississippi.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Texas and Louisiana, chefs, millers, and home bakers are increasingly turning to using whole-grain, stone-milled flour in their breads, cakes, and pastries. These flours are milled with the ancient process of stone milling: flour is produced by crushing the whole kernel of the wheat grain between enormous stones, versus the more modern process of roller milling, which produces the finely grained, snow-white flour most of us are accustomed to. Stone-ground flour is coarser and more nutrient dense, and can also be more difficult to source, use, and store thanconventional flour. Despite that, these flours are no longer the sole purview of professional pastry chefs and artisan bread bakers. A new group of consumers are turning to organic, stone ground, and so-called heritage or ancient strains of wheat: followers of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. These home bakers are increasingly convinced that modern, roller-milled wheat is making them sick, resulting in diagnoses as broad as chronic inflammation, IBS, and non-Celiac gluten intolerance.

As a baker and recipe developer, Bronwen Wyatt wanted to get to the bottom of the flour debate, which reflects a growing anxiety around the safety of American food. She speaks to bakers Pamela Thibodeaux of Barton Springs Mill in Dripping Springs, Texas and Keira Watt of Bellegarde Bakery in New Orleans to learn why they choose to use stone milled flour, and what their customers are communicating to them about their flour choices. She also turns to scientistsDr. Jessica Biesiekierski, an expert in non-celiac gluten intolerance, and Dr. Aaron Fox, who specializes in organic and sustainable agriculture, to learn more about whether our fears aroundwheat mean we need to change our shopping and baking behaviors. Do we need to have an all-or-nothing approach to conventional flour, or can all the South’s many diverse, long-standing baking traditions continue to co-exist?
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In “There’s No Business Like Hansen’s Sno Bliz-ness,” Gravy reporter Eve Troeh takes us to New Orleans, home of the sno-ball. In the South you need strategies to beat the summer heat, and ice plays a big role. Street vendors used to shave big blocks of ice by hand and add flavored syrup—a treat that became known as a sno-ball in the Big Easy.

In the late 1930s, a local man, Ernest Hansen, invented a machine that changed the tradition. Sharp blades, encased in metal, turned chunks of ice into the most fluffy, fine “snow,” and he eventually patented this creation. While he kept his day job in New Orleans’ manufacturing industry, Ernest’s wife Mary ran with her husband’s invention. She set up shop at home and eventually moved to a brick-and-mortar, dishing up fresh “snow” and dousing them with signature flavored syrups that she made by hand. They called their place Hansen’s Sno-Bliz.

Remarkably, Ernest’s hand-built machines are still in use today, as are many of Mary’s syrup recipes, and the business continues to cool off customers with some “air-conditioning for your tummy.” Hansen’s Sno-Bliz is now in its 86th year, with Ernest and Mary’s granddaughter, Ashley Hansen, at the helm. Ashley’s was a long and loving journey to take on the business. She learned alongside her grandparents day by day. In a city that practically worships tradition, she honors her family and her customers by maintaining not just the original 1930s ice-shaving mechanics and syrup recipes, but also by cultivating the warm hospitality her grandparents always extended to anyone who entered.

The cinder block corner shop on New Orleans’ Tchoupitoulas Street looks humble, but you’ll always find a line of customers stretching outside around the corner. The James Beard Foundation even bestowed Hansen’s with its prestigious title of American Classic. New Orleanians from every corner of the city—and visitors from all around the world—eagerly line up to experience Hansen’s, and form an of-the-moment community with each other as they choose their flavors and chat.

In this cool edition of Gravy, Ashley Hansen shares the history, innovation, and spirit of her family’s institution, always with Hansen’s Sno-Bliz motto in mind: “There are no shortcuts to quality.”

Eve Troeh is a seasoned podcast producer and award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles. She's also a proud former New Orleanian, and a veteran of the line at Hansen's.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices