Eating on air

In an era dominated by cooking channels and food blogs, it’s an audacious move to launch a radio show about eating, where listeners must rely on their host’s descriptive powers for the full sensory experience. But that’s exactly what food personality Poppy Tooker did a year ago with Louisiana Eats!, a radio program centered on the state’s culinary heritage, produced by WWNO in New Orleans. The show debuted on WRKF in Baton Rouge in May.

Tooker, a native New Orleanian, has long promoted the state’s indigenous foods and cooking techniques. She is a classically trained culinary instructor, author of the Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook and founder of the New Orleans Chapter of Slow Foods USA. She has been a dogged preservationist of endangered regional foods like callas and Creole cream cheese, and she caught national attention for her winning seafood gumbo recipe on Throwdown! with Bobby Flay.

The radio show, Tooker says, is an extension of these passions. It’s a chance to explore Louisiana’s foodways through chefs, producers, farmers, home cooks and regular people.

“What people need to know about the show is that it isn’t a cooking show; it’s a food show, and sometimes the food thread is pretty tenuous. You have to look for it in the interviews,” Tooker says. “Food is the thing that makes us all human. We are telling the stories of people through food.”

For example, Tooker has examined the contents of traditional brown-bag lunches carried on streetcars. She’s asked why rice and eggs has been a firmly fixed African-American tradition. She’s brought in New Orleans restaurateur Leah Chase to discuss how diners crossed racial lines for the sake of food in the Sixties. And she’s asked Tennessee Williams scholar Kenneth Holditch to discuss the author’s love for the Brandy Alexander, a drink Tooker believes is now woefully underappreciated.

The show also explores Louisiana’s farmers, especially those growing for local farmers’ markets, shrimpers and fishers and producers of beloved regional products.

“I create the Louisiana Eats! format in the same way a chef would create a seasonal menu,” Tooker says.

June’s show was shrimp-focused. August will likely feature a mention of this month’s ubiquitous crop, okra, she says.

Past guests include Anthony Bourdain of Travel Channel’s No Reservations, Wendell Pierce and Lolis Eric Elie of HBO’s Treme, Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters, and several Top Chef Masters contestants.

There’s usually a recipe segment that discusses techniques and where to find quality ingredients. Time is also devoted to distillers, winemakers and how to concoct great cocktails.

What’s most important, says Tooker, is to produce a tangible record of the state’s expansive food culture. “It’s permanent oral history that we will always have,” Tooker says. “This is radio that isn’t going away.”