Kelly Nusz and Darryl Goodner

Suffragettes in the early 19th century published cookbooks to advance their cause of equal voting rights. In 1969, Fannie Lou Hamer pioneered the Freedom Farm Cooperative to create a system of self-sufficiency to raise Black Southern farmers out of poverty, and, in the summer of 2020, we started a podcast.

This idea first developed when Darryl and I began working together in his ice cream shop. We had talked about podcasts, shared recommendations, and even discussed different ideas for podcasts that we would do. We also talked about food. Our go-to conversation topic is always, What are you making for dinner? We shared recipes, the process of making certain dishes, what went right, and what we did when things went horribly wrong. Working with and serving food always led to more conversations about the subject, but it wasn’t until these topics merged with the racial justice movement last summer that we came up with the idea for our podcast.

On June 1, 2020 Darryl woke up in the middle of the night, checked his phone, and saw the news that David McAtee was shot. It took him back to 2016 when Philando Castile was shot and killed. He felt broken by that shooting. Castile had worked with kids in nutrition services and in the lunchroom at schools. Darryl also worked in a school at the time and had a soft spot for those who fed others. It was a difficult time for him and his family to work through. It was the first time he had to tell his oldest son that people didn’t like him just because of the color of his skin.

After the shooting of David McAtee, we were both at work talking about everything that had happened, about what we were feeling. That talk evolved into an idea: a podcast about the history of race and food, alongside cooking segments that reimagined some of those foods. Creating new recipes while researching the past. Kelly would do the research while I did the cooking. 

 Once we had our framework for the show, everything moved quickly. We needed mics, a website, social media, and an email address. We needed to connect with local organizations and organizers for interviews on what they were doing as it related to food. We needed music, graphics, pictures, and we needed to start outlining and writing the shows. But above all, we needed to figure out where to start.

We, of course, needed to do an episode on ice cream, but it was difficult to find enough material to cobble into a premier show. We had jointly searched for why Butter Pecan ice cream was a “black thing” and mostly just came up with more questions. Then we jumped to watermelon. We had already discussed what we knew about its racist roots, but the topic proved to be long and complicated and demanding of more time. Then, after reading an article in
The Atlantic, we discovered something that we had known nothing about: Pepsi Cola directly advertised to black customers through the 1930s and ‘40s while Coca-Cola ignored this customer base completely, and did not hire a Black salesman until 1951.

Pepsi thrived during the Great Depression by selling twice the amount of soda in larger bottles, for the same price as Coca-Cola. Pepsi ran a “Leaders in Their Field” ad campaign that featured Black professionals and their achievements, and they had an entire Black sales team. At the same time, the president of Coca-Cola, Robert Woodruff, put his support behind Georgia State Governor Herman Talmadge, a segregationist who had KKK members on his staff, among other things. But, the story did
not start there. The man who invented the recipe
for Coca-Cola was a Confederate soldier, and Asa Candler, the owner who built the brand, was deeply tangled in the politics of Atlanta at the turn of
the century. 

We became obsessed with these stories and how they reflected current events. Like many other companies over the summer of 2020, we saw Coca-Cola come out with a response in support of Black Lives Matter while at the same time citing their own progressive stance on race relations throughout history. This statement was riddled with lies and half-truths: that the company was the first to advertise to the Black community when other sodas had actually been decades ahead; that it helped fight against apartheid in South Africa when, in fact, Coca-Cola simply moved its factory just across the border to Swaziland; and that the company touted its support of Martin Luther King Jr. but left out the company’s support of a segregationist governor of Georgia.

This statement from Coca-Cola seemed to encapsulate everything white culture continued to get wrong, that they could only look at the half that made them feel better about themselves, the half that put them on the right side of history. It was infuriating, and we knew we wanted to include it in the podcast. We believed that healing couldn’t happen, that we couldn’t be whole, without knowing the truth.

Once we had our topic, we went to work putting our first episodes together. Kelly dug into texts about the history of Coca-Cola and Atlanta, even employing a research assistant at Emory University to explore their archives collecting documents on Asa Candler. I worked on art concepts, music, and photos that could be used to promote our work, and got in touch with local food people to network and interview.

As our first series was coming together, we saw that certain media was beginning to change, and quickly. Other podcasts about Black stories were coming out, including one launched by the ice cream company, Ben and Jerry’s. Food historian Michael Twitty was featured on Padma Lakshmi’s show Taste the Nation. And even the ice cream truck song finally got a makeover from RZA because of its original racist roots. Everything seemed to be moving in our favor. There would be plenty of interest in what we would be doing, but that we needed to get it together, and fast.

Our first episodes came out near the end of October 2020. I texted Kelly: “We have a podcast!”; Kelly responded: “I can’t get the second episode to upload correctly.” Our sometimes polar opposite, cheerleader versus realist, attitudes have helped us build our relationship and put out more than ten episodes in four months. We learn something new with each recording, honing our message. We try to convey that the story of the food we love is complex and controversial, but worth knowing, and that we can find ways to learn about these foods that honor their roots while moving forward with new recipes, through the ritual of cooking, and by sharing meals and conversation.

We have big things planned for 2021. This year we will be doing a deep dive into subjects like School Lunch, and examining the lasting impact Fannie Lou Hamer has had on equality and food access. We’ll be doing a Juneteenth episode and looking at how strawberries play a role in the celebration. And in the coming month, we’ll be scrutinizing the racist past of our favorite regional spirit - Bourbon. We continue to reach out and work with local individuals and highlight their experience and expertise in these fields, as we educate ourselves and our listeners.

We urge our listeners to sit with these stories and explore the truth in them. And then, when they’re ready, maybe cook something that brings pleasure into their lives. For Black lives, seeking a life of pleasure can itself be an act of protest. For those apprehensive about what appears to be rapid change, that knowledge doesn’t hurt, and sometimes, it even tastes good.

Listen to Butter Pecan Podcast.

Kelly Nusz (Left): Co-host, producer, and writer for Butter Pecan Podcast. Her work has been published in Cavalcade, Underwired, and for Indiana University Southeast, and was winner of LEO's 2021 short story contest. She lives on a farm with her two daughters and husband.

Darryl Goodner (Right): Co-host, producer, and chef for Butter Pecan Podcast. He is the co-owner, operator, and creator of the ice cream shop, Louisville Cream. He lives in Louisville and is the proud father of his two sons and twin daughters.