In her podcast, Deb Freeman dives into everything from the origins of barbecue to Black women in activism and food.
Most people don’t know that the birthplace of barbecue is right here in Virginia, or that a runaway enslaved Black woman named Patsy Young was one of the best brewers of her time, that yellow cake has origins in Black celebrations, or that Aylene Quin helped feed and support the civil rights movement in Mississippi.
Deb Freeman hopes to change that.
A natural-born storyteller and raconteur, she hosts a podcast, “Setting the Table,” that topped the Apple charts after its premiere in February. The series started with a tweet. When Stephen Satterfield, food writer, producer and host of Netflix's hit docu-series “High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America,” announced he would be forming Whetstone Radio Collective, Freeman shot her shot.
“I said, ‘I’m not sure what you’re looking for, but I have this idea to talk about African American foodways,’ ” says Freeman, an Abingdon native who moved to Richmond from Norfolk last last year.
That idea flourished, and today, her dynamic podcast, a blend of anthropology, history and personal narratives, aims to unearth how African American food is the true foundation of American cuisine. The podcast has just been renewed for a second season.
“My thinking was, how to introduce people who had never necessarily thought of African American food and how it relates to American food overall, and trying to do that all in 10 episodes,” Freeman says.
After studying journalism and political science at Old Dominion University, Freeman landed at the Hampton Department of Tourism after college. Aware of Freeman's passion for food, one day her boss nonchalantly dropped a copy of Southern Grit magazine onto Freeman’s desk. She read it cover to cover, inspired to pitch a story about a group of Black women who were able to send their children to Hampton University from the income they made picking crabs.
“That was my first food story,” recalls Freeman, who eventually landed the role of managing editor at Southern Grit. “I instantaneously wanted to write more and more.”
Creatively empowered and inherently inspired, she attended a Southern Foodways writing workshop a few years ago and began to pitch her ideas to publications across the country, penning articles for Epicurious, Food 52, Eater, Garden & Gun and more.
"Setting the Table" can be heard on all streaming platforms.
What is important … is these stories of these incredible people, past and present, who are moving African American food forward, and that culture forward.
—Deb Freeman, creator of “Setting the Table”
Episodes of “Setting the Table” range from “Yellow Cake, Biscuits and the Legacy of Black Baking” to “The Complicated Stories of Soul Food.” Now, tales of Black women distillers, the resurgence of Black farming and Virginia's role as the birthplace of barbecue are being broadcast and heard from Canada — where the podcast also topped the charts — to Italy, New Zealand, Russia, England, Barbados and beyond. Once silenced or forgotten, these truths are not only being shared, they’re shining.
Freeman mentions Patsy Young, a runaway enslaved woman who supported herself and her daughter by making beer. She was such an expert in the craft that her enslaver published a full-page ad in the newspaper looking for her, but after she was captured, she ran away again.
“What kind of story is that?” Freeman asks. “It speaks to her skill level, her determination, her courage and all these things I think people are interested in, but these aren’t the stories you’re hearing every day. There’s no shade to great culinary figures, obviously, but if you think about Julia Child, who I absolutely adore, her story is a bit different.”
In her first 10 episodes, Freeman has hosted guests ranging from chef and TV personality Carla Hall to food historian Adrian Miller and Richmond baker Arley Bell of Arley Cakes. After her episode on the roots of yellow cake was released, Freeman says 3,000 people sent her messages sharing similar experiences and cultural memories.
Freeman records each podcast from her Richmond apartment, though she has plans to settle into a retreat outside the city in the coming months. And while the written word is powerful, Freeman believes that speaking these tales of triumph and tribulation is what has allowed these stories to flourish. Her podcasts paint a fuller picture of the culinary landscape of the country.
“The human voice with nuanced inflections and pauses adds a different layer to it,” she says. “You’re a little bit closer to the listener in some way, your voice is in their ears — it’s very intimate.”
While race can be a polarizing topic, it is the centerpiece of this endeavor, and Freeman approaches each 30-minute episode with a deep reverence and respect for the people behind the stories. And she says that it’s never just about the food.
“I’m not really talking about the food, I’m talking about the people who created it,” she says. “What is important, and what I do think shines through, is these stories of these incredible people, past and present, who are moving African American food forward, and that culture forward.”
