Culture & Flavor Heritage Radio Network

On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Dr. Howard Conyers about the legacy of whole hog barbecue and moonsine. Dr. Conyers serves as the A1 Mechanical Design Lead, and is responsible for facilitating design efforts for systems used in testing and supporting RS-25 testing. Dr. Conyers, a NASA Stennis Space Center engineer, most recently served as the Principal Investigator & Project Manager for the High Dynamic Range Stereo-X (HiDyRS-X) project. In 2009, at the age of 27, Dr. Conyers earned a Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University while being 1 of less than 20 African American in the country to earn this degree. He completed his undergraduate study in Bio-environmental Engineering in 2004 from North Carolina A&T State University.

Outside of work, Dr. Conyers has equally impressive attributes that makes him sought out nationally. Conyers is a noted traditional South Carolina whole hog barbecue pitmaster. Dr. Conyers hosted Nourish, a digital show for PBS, which discussed food, culture, and science across the American South. The impact for the first three episodes, includes approximately 1.2M views and nearly 15,000 combined followers, across two platforms. Howard has appeared on the Cooking Channel original show Man, Fire, Food. He has been featured in publications including Southern Living Daily South, the New Orleans Magazine, the Advocate, and the New Orleans Time Picayune, to name a few. He is the founder of the Black Barbecue Hall of Fame and the Co-Founder of Backyard Distillery.

On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Klancy Miller, author of For the Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food. She also wrote Cooking Solo: The Fun of Cooking For Yourself and is the founder of For the Culture: A Magazine Celebrating Black Women and Femmes in Food and Wine.

After graduating from Columbia University, and working in international development in French Polynesia, she earned a diplôme de pâtisserie from Le Cordon Bleu Paris and apprenticed in the pastry kitchen at the Michelin-starred restaurant Taillevent. She later joined Le Cordon Bleu’s recipe development team, during which time she was featured on the Food Network. Now based in New York, she continues to write about food and has contributed to The New York Times, Vogue, The Washington Post, Food and Wine, Cherry Bombe, Bon Appétit, and Food 52. She has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Cut, The New York Times Food section, and on the Today Show, Food Network’s Recipe for Success and the Cooking Channel’s Unique Sweets. She was honored as a 2022 IACP Trailblazer Awards Winner. For the Culture was named one of the best cookbooks of 2023 by The New York Times and the L.A. Times. Klancy lives in Brooklyn.

Photo courtesy of Davis Thompson Moss.

This week on Culture and Flavor we join our host Zella Palmer for a vibrational conversation with Chef Kudzai Bingepinge, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at African Flavor Labs, N'UM African Artisinal Salts, and Executive Director of Gastronomy at Kings Kraal in Johannesburg, South Africa. Kudzai is at the forefront of integrating indigenous ingredients with sustainable practices. His work is aimed at elevating African cuisine on the international stage while honoring the continent's diverse culinary traditions. Through his multifaceted career, Kudzai Bingepinge demonstrates an unwavering commitment to enriching the global dining and cultural scenes with Africa's vast culinary and storytelling traditions. Welcome to Season 2 of Culture & Flavor!

Megan Braden-Perry is a published author, award-winning freelance journalist, public speaker, photographer and multigenerational New Orleans native. Her books include Crescent City Snow: The Ultimate Guide to New Orleans Snowball Stands (UL Press, 2017) and Allen the Alligator Counts Through New Orleans: A New Orleans Kids’ Counting Book (2014). In 2019, she was awarded the Jack Jones Literary Arts retreat Roxane Gay fellowship in prose, for her upcoming novel Greener Grass, Different Drummer. She’s on the board of 826 New Orleans and is a very proud product of Orleans Parish Public Schools (McDonogh 39, Lusher, Ben Franklin and McDonogh 35) and of HBCUs (Dillard University and Southern University). She’s also a graduate of Urban League of Louisiana’s ULEAD, Urban Leaders for Equity and Diversity, and she’s taught elementary through high school at New Orleans charter schools. On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella and Megan talk about the lack of authenticity in Food Media and how the South is working towards equitable representation.

Angie and June Provost are farmer-activists residing in New Iberia, LA. They are the creators of the Provost Initiative, a venture that encompasses a for-profit farm named Provost Farm LLC and a non-nonprofit organization called the Provost Farm Heritage Center and Community Garden, Inc. Their mission is to educate and empower the next generation of farmers and farm workers, while promoting diversity and inclusion in agriculture. Zella talks with June & Angie Provost about their legacy as Louisiana Black sugarcane farmers and their fight to preserve their legacy and culture.

A serendipitous encounter with some New Orleanians brought Chef Serigne Mbaye to the Crescent City. Serigne was born in the United States, but raised and educated largely in Senegal. A love for cooking led him to New England Culinary Institute where he graduated at the top of his class in 2016. Though he started as a line cook, he rose to the level of sous chef at Commander's Palace and was the sous chef at Café Adelaide before its closing. He left New Orleans to hone his skills at Atelier Crenn, a 3-Michelin Star restaurant in San Francisco, and at L’Atelier Joel Robuchon, a 2-Michelin Star restaurant in New York. In 2018 he was awarded the Paul McIlhenny Culinary Scholarship at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, where he held regular pop-up dinners exploring the connections between the foods of Louisiana and Senegal. Serigne has evolved his pop up series into Dakar Nola, a modern Senegalese pop up restaurant. With a focus on highlighting the bounty of local ingredients Serigne has had the pleasure of collaborating with farmers and chefs throughout Southeast Louisiana. Serigne Mbaye is the co-owner and Chef of Dakar Nola in New Orleans, Louisiana. Chef Serigne Mbaye was voted 2021 Nola Eater Chef of the Year and was honored as a finalist in the 2022 & 2023 James Beard Foundation Award in the Emerging Chef category. This episode of Culture & Flavor Zella and Chef Serigne Mbaye talk about his journey to opening Dakar Nola and how he remains humble and focused in a chef celebrity culture.