Coming soon from HRN, Culture & Flavor is a podcast about food and culture centered in Black & Indigenous foodways. Hosted by Zella Palmer, Director and Chair of the Dillard University Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture in New Orleans, Louisiana. Each episode features high vibrational conversations with cultural bearers, chefs, farmers, scholars, bbq pitmasters and more – where there is flavor, there is history – Join Zella Palmer and her guests as they share stories that will have you praise dancing, cooking, conjuring and inspiring your culinary journey.
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Kaitlin Guerin, a New Orleans-based Pastry Chef and Baker with an artistic dance background and an affinity for creativity and science. After attending the pastry program at The Culinary Institute of America and working in Michelin-star kitchens in Denmark and California, Guerin ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Givonna Joseph, Founder and Director of Opera Creole. Ms. Joseph is committed to the culture of New Orleans, the city of her birth. This is most evident in her research on 19th-century classical music of New Orleans's Free People of Color.
As Founder and Artistic Director of the ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with DJ Soul Sister @djsoulsister an internationally-known, veteran DJ artist, whose broadcast programs and live performances feature her personal collection of thousands of vinyl records, which earned her a spot in the book Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting.
A native ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Nando Chang, a Peruvian-born chef and restaurateur behind behind Michelin-starred Itamae AO in Miami. A 2025 James Beard Foundation Award winner for “Best Chef: South,” he has achieved national recognition for both introducing and redefining Nikkei (Peruvian-Japanese) cuisine in Miami. ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Retang Phaahla and her mother, Nondumiso, co-founders of Setšong Tea Crafters, an Award Winning Agri-business and vehicle for development of natural indigenous flora found in the natural landscapes of South Africa, more prominently within the rural areas of Limpopo. The enterprise ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Dr. Naa Oyo A. Kwate, a writer and interdisciplinary scholar with wide ranging interests in Black urban life. Raised in Chicago by Ghanaian immigrant parents. She is the author of the short work and edited volume Burgers in Blackface: Anti-Black Restaurants Then and Now (2019) and The ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Big Kitty Xue, a 27-year-old Chinese chef, born and raised in Shanghai and now based between New Orleans and Los Angeles. Known for curating intimate Chinese private dinner parties that spotlight delicate, seldom-seen regional dishes in mainstream America. After moving to the U.S. and ...
On this episode of Culture & Flavor, Zella talks with Gabrielle Deculus, a cultural strategist, marketing architect, and the visionary founder of Saint Josephine, a creative consultancy and production house rooted in community and committed to social good. She brings almost 20 years of experience blending cultural storytelling, event ...
