When a star strays too close to a supermassive black hole, it is torn apart in a brief, brilliant flare, and astronomers long assumed that was the end of the story. It isn't. Using the Very Large Array to follow dozens of these stellar killings, a team has discovered that many black holes "burp" months or even years later, belching out streams of radio light as they fling part of their meal back into space. These delayed flares let astronomers watch a black hole's appetite change in real time, and reveal that even our Galaxy's quietest looking giants are messier, and far more active, than anyone realised.