For six years, The Bitter Southerner has covered the culture of the South — outside the lines of Southern stereotypes. Now, in Season 2 of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, we travel across the South to get at what’s underneath the culture of our region.

The Bitter Southerner Podcast is a co-production of The Bitter Southerner and Georgia Public Broadcasting. Each episode, hosted by our editor-in-chief, Chuck Reece, explores Southern culture and the South’s contributions to American life, painting a very different — and truer — picture of our region.

Bonus Episode: Jamón, Y’all

In Partnership with America’s Test Kitchen

In a special bonus episode of The Bitter Southerner Podcast, editor-in-chief Chuck Reece talks to native Southerner Bridget Lancaster of public television’s “America's Test Kitchen” and shares 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. More Here

Episode 8: Can the South Be Redeemed?

As Season 2 concludes, we try to answer the hardest Southern question of all: Can the South ever be redeemed from its history of slavery, white supremacy, and racial oppression? Our guests include Congressman John Lewis, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, author and daughter of the late Alabama Gov. George Wallace, Freedom Rider Sala Udin, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Alabama journalist John Archibald. More Here

Episode 7: Progress, Heartbreak & Art: the TVA

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. We explore the progress, heartbreak and art of the TVA with guests Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, historian Lisa Russell, and author Caleb Johnson. More Here

Episode 6. Hillbillies Need No Elegy

A fierce defense of Appalachia and its people, with North Carolina’s Meredith McCarroll, co-editor of Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, Georgia’s Marie Cochran, director of the Affrilachian Artists Project, and Kentucky’s Ivy Brashear, Appalachian transition director for the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development. More Here

Episode 5. The Ways of Waffle House

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

Episode 4. The Exactly Right Cake

Being part of a Southern community means baking the Exactly Right Cake when we gather. Here's why. More Here

BONUS: Best Southern Albums of 2019

BS editor Chuck Reece welcomes NPR's Ann Powers to help us run down the 10 best Southern albums of 2019. More Here

Episode 3: “An Undeserved Gift: Okra”

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. More Here

Episode 2: The Blues is Dead?

The spirit of High John the Conqueror keeps the wellsprings of American music, Southern blues and gospel, alive. More Here

Episode 1: What We Talk About When We Talk About How We Talk

Do you think a Southern accent means its speaker is dumb? In Episode 1 of our second season, we got news for you. More Here

Season Two: Trailer

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.