Poppy Tooker is a New Orleans-based culinary historian and broadcaster who preserves Louisiana foodways through her NPR-syndicated radio show and podcast, Louisiana Eats!. She established her authority in the culinary space by winning a gumbo challenge against Bobby Flay on Food Network and founding the New Orleans chapter of Slow Food USA. Her work focuses on the intersection of community and cuisine, specifically through her successful Save the Calas campaign, which revived a historic fried rice cake recipe. In addition to her audio work, she documents the hospitality industry in series such as This Is What We Do, which highlights the resilience of New Orleans restaurant owners. Recently, she documented the local dining scene’s evolution through her This is What We Do: New Orleans Restaurants React series. Her expertise is further solidified by her role as a moderator for the Tales of the Cocktail festival and her authoring of historic culinary texts like the Pascal’s Manale Cookbook.