The Bitter Southerner Podcast

In a special bonus episode of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, Bridget Lancaster of America's Test Kitchen introduces a story from her podcast called Proof. In it, reporter Maya Kroth looks at how a Spanish pig is changing Southern farmlands. She meets Georgia farmer Will Harris, who is upping the South’s pork game by introducing Iberian pigs to the United States. These pigs are the source of jamón ibérico, a precious cured ham produced in Spain.

For our grand finale this season, we’re going to attempt to answer a question that ... to every truehearted Southerner … is among the most difficult questions ever: Can the South be redeemed? Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin talk about their mission to tell the Civil Rights Movement through comics....we hear about a Freedom Rider’s lifelong fight against injustice....Pulitzer Prize winning columnist John Archibald on overcoming the “great silence” that exists in many of our lives....and Peggy Wallace Kennedy reflects on the legacy of her father, former Alabama Gov. George Wallace.

The Tennessee Valley Authority’s dams brought electricity to the rural South, and in our region’s lore, it looms huge: the classic story of people vs. progress. As these dams were completed, entire communities were washed away. In this episode of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, we explore the progress, heartbreak and art inspired by the TVA.

In his book “Hillbilly Elegy,” author J.D. Vance argues that the people of Appalachia cause the region’s problems — and not the industries that have spent centuries extracting its rich resources. On this episode, three mountain women help us set the record straight about Appalachia.

How could a 2,000-store restaurant chain become, to Southerners, something more than just another place to eat?

Being part of a Southern community means baking the exactly right cake when we gather. NYT bestselling cookbook author Anne Byrn joins us to talk about the history of famous Southern cakes, two sisters running a Georgia bakery share how they're cooking with a purpose, and we dig into the pages of the "White Trash Cooking" cookbook.

Host Chuck Reece welcomes NPR Music's Ann Powers to help us run down the 10 best Southern albums of 2019.

Okra is not native to North America. It arrived here at the same time enslaved Africans did. No one — no botanist, no historian — can confirm exactly how it got here. But it has connected Southerners across the lines of race, faith, and gender for centuries. In this episode of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, James Beard Award winning journalist Shane Mitchell travels to New Orleans to show how okra unites in the gumbo pot and in our lives.

The spirit of High John the Conqueror keeps the wellsprings of American music, Southern blues and gospel, alive. GUESTS: Musicians Jontavious Willis (Georgia), Bobby Rush (Louisiana), Jake Fussell (North Carolina), the Glorifying Vines Sisters (North Carolina), and the late singer Precious Bryant (Georgia)....and Tim and Denise Duffy of the Music Maker Relief Foundation.

Do you think a Southern accent means its speaker is dumb? In Episode 1 of our second season, we got news for you.
 
 GUESTS: Comedians Trae Crowder, Drew Morgan, and Corey Ryan Forrester...Bitter Southerner contributors Dartinia Hull and Lolis Eric Elie...Rapper Killer Mike...Bitter Southerner readers Kristy Wittman Howell and Jessica Whatley

In Season 2, The Bitter Southerner travels across the South to get at what’s underneath the culture of our region. Host Chuck Reece and various Bitter Southerner contributors bring together stories about why the blues will never die, how okra unites every Southerner, and how to come to terms with the South’s past. Season 2 starts November 15, with new episodes every two weeks until March.

Squidbillies is one of the longest running shows on Atlanta-based Adult Swim. The animated series follows a family of “anthropomorphic mud squids” in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia. Ahead of the season 12 premiere, Chuck Reece moderated a panel with Squidbillies’ co-creators and one of its stars.

The South lives and dies by its stories — and the writers who tell them. We end Season 1 with a festival of readings and observations on Southern writing.

In our final episode of Season 1, we hear North Carolina-based author Daniel Wallace reading a part of his essay, "Killings." It appears in The Bitter Southerner magazine and in The Bitter Southerner Reader Volume 2. Here is Daniel reading the entire essay in which he remembers the time he killed a chicken.

How Southerners come together to heal the deepest wounds — the physical and psychological injuries — suffered by American veterans and refugees.

"Southern culture" is impossible to define because it's always evolving, thanks to immigration. As new people arrive, new ideas go into the gumbo that is our culture. We take a trip to the "Ellis Island of the South," serve up some Brazilian barbecue, and jam out to a Southern mariachi band.

Booze matters in every culture, but in the culture of the South, it matters in some peculiar ways. We have a drink and dive into the twisted roots of the South’s liquor culture.

In this bonus episode of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, host Chuck Reece takes a tour of The Bitter Southerner magazine's annual list of the Best Southern Albums of the Year. NOTE: This episode contains explicit language

When we gather around the table and ask for blessings for the food and the hands that prepared it, we rarely think about how many hands — from how many cultures and races — labored to bring that food to our table. It's a provocative discussion we have with several chefs and food historians.

The North Carolina folklorist Bill Ferris has documented the sounds of the South over the last 50 years. He has said nothing crosses racial lines as easily as music, and that's what this episode is about. We begin with a story about Booker T. & the MG’s. Next, a conversation with The Bitter Southerner's hip-hop columnist, Joycelyn Wilson, about how trap music has become the “folk music” of young, African American Southerners. And finally, a long chat with the Bill Ferris himself. NOTE: This episode contains explicit language.