The podcast Gravy has a very specific focus: To explore the history and culture of the southern United States through its food. "Food can lead us in these places that are really offering us a window into history and into the dynamics of our culture that could be just beneath the surface," Tina Antolini, producer and host of Gravy, told Podcast Playlist co-host Matt Galloway.

Antolini, who actually grew up in Maine says, "The South is a place of many contrasts. It's got a really complicated history, some really dark history there, but also a real tradition of people keeping their foodways intact and passing them on from generation to generation...so food is a perfect vehicle to understanding the place."

The episode of Gravy that we like to think of as the "gateway" episode offers a good example of what Antolini is saying. It's all about fried chicken -- delicious, greasy, and totally contentious. "It tells a complicated story about racial history and empowerment and discrimination," she says. "Usually there's always a couple of sides to that coin, and in the south those contrasts are particularly stark."

Those stark contrasts often lead to tension and discomfort...which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"You can't have an honest conversation about racial history in the south without there being some discomfort, and I think that's good -- we have to move toward that discomfort instead of away from it sometimes," she says. "[Because] there's a lot of pleasure in food, it can be a good starting point to ease us into a conversation about some of these more uncomfortable aspects of history."