Feb 22, 2023
In “A Taste of Sicily on Galveston Bay,” Gravy producer Evan Stern takes listeners to Galveston, Texas. Once perhaps the greatest town of significance between New Orleans and San Francisco, today its population doesn’t even crack the top fifty of Texas cities. But while Austin is often referred to as a small town with growing pains, some say Galveston is really a big city disguised as a small town. Much of this is owed to its immigrant history, as its port provided a point of entry for over 750,000 newcomers from its opening in the 1830s, until the early 1920s.
Settled by a French pirate and officially incorporated in 1839, Galveston essentially sits on a sandbar that straddles its namesake bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The cotton trade gave rise to a prosperous, cosmopolitan center that enjoyed a trade monopoly as a gateway to Texas before the dredging of Houston’s safer, more accessible inland channel. Galveston briefly rivaled San Francisco as a destination for Gilded Age tycoons. And as a growing city in need of masons, maids, and tradesmen, it proved a desirable terminus for immigrants: Germans, Russian Jews, Poles, Czechs, Italians and Sicilians.
While thousands of these new arrivals continued to destinations further inland, many chose to plant roots in Galveston. Among the numerous groups who established new homes here was a sizable population of Italians and Sicilians, who eventually established a foothold on the island working as small grocers.
In this episode of Gravy, Stern searches for evidence of this history through visits with the owners of such island institutions as Sonny’s Place and Maceo Spice, whose connections to the old country remain evidenced through their menus. He also chats with Al Tropea, who grew up helping his parents make sausage at Tropea’s Grocery, and author Ellen Beasley, who documented stores like theirs in the 1970s. The result is a rich tapestry of stories and voices, representative of a flavorful side of this most unique city on the Gulf Coast.