The eighth season of Emmy Award-winning TrueSouth Presented by YellaWood hits the road to Charleston, S.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 16 at 8 p.m. ET. The series revolves around two food stories told from one place, which TrueSouth sets in conversation to make larger points about Southern beliefs and identities.

All episodes of TrueSouth are available on demand on SEC Network+ and ESPN+ immediately upon airing. Visit the TrueSouth website to follow the crew throughout the year.

Episode Summary
Charleston is a playground for the nation. Like any great city, Charleston is also a collection of neighborhoods, a constellation of voices, a parade of tastes. For episode thirty-six, TrueSouth walks old alleys and explores new strip malls, in search of stories that define this place and illustrate how the past informs the present.

The crew maps a perfect day in the city, inviting viewers to follow. Here are the highlights:

• Babas on Cannon, an informal all-day café owned by Edward Crouse and Marie Stitt, for a seat at the counter, great coffee, and “jammy eggs.”
• Kooben Café Mexicano, north of the peninsula, in Hanahan, for chilaquiles, pancakes drenched in dulce de leche, and an audience with proprietors Pamela Sierra and Jaime Tinoco.
• Reggie Gibson, a long-tenured architect, offers us a way to see this city by reading the built environment.
• The International African American Museum, where Malika Pryor helps the team understand how the appetite for rice drove the trade of enslaved African people through this port.
• Bertha’s, the Gullah-soul restaurant run by the children and grandchildren of the late Albertha Grant, a steam table café in North Charleston, famous for red rice, okra soup, lima beans, and collards
• Little Jack’s Tavern, for a second lunch of a shrimp cocktail, a burger, and a conversation with co-owner Brooks Reitz about what good bars deliver patrons.
• High Wire Distilling for an audience with partners Ann Marshall and Scott Blackwell, and a taste of the grain-to-glass whiskey that comes off their stills.
• Jenkins Orphanage (former site) where Charlton Singleton, a trumpet player and composer with a deep knowledge of music history, talks about the role Charleston played in the birth of what we now call jazz.
• Hanna Raskin, founder of the Food Section, a digital replacement for the lost newspaper food sections, talks about the role of critics and what good restaurants do.
• Vern’s, owned by Bethany and Dano Heinz, a corner restaurant that gets all the details right, including a welcoming room and a perfect roast chicken.

Spend a day with TrueSouth in Charleston and you’ll recognize how great cities in the modern South serve the region as everyday universities, where we come to explore and learn, indulging our hungers and curiosities.

Music (and musical inspiration) for this episode comes from Charlton Singleton of the Charleston-based band Ranky Tanky, winner of two Grammys, and, among others, the Stews, now traveling the nation on their “Who’s Hungry?” tour.

Advance press screeners of TrueSouth: Season Eight, Episode Two are available upon request: [email protected]. 

About TrueSouth
TrueSouth is an Emmy Award-winning limited series on Southern food and culture, airing on SEC Network. John T. Edge, author of House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home, writes and hosts the show, which is executive produced by four-time New York Times best-selling author, ESPN senior writer Wright Thompson, and produced by Bluefoot Entertainment.

The series, now in its eighth season, revolves around two food stories told from one place, which TrueSouth sets in conversation to tell bigger stories about Southern beliefs and identities. This season’s featured places are Clinton, Ga.; Charleston, SC.; Jacksonville, Fla; and Ocean Springs, Miss. A special behind-the-scenes episode finishes out season 8. Seasons 1-7 of TrueSouth are available in their entirety on ESPN+.

Music plays an integral role in TrueSouth’s storytelling via in-episode performances and on-screen credits. The TrueSouth playlist on Spotify shares the full soundtrack of every season. A TrueSouth hub on SECSports.com offers a roster of places the crew has visited, along with a road trip planning feature.

About SEC Network
The Southeastern Conference and ESPN launched SEC Network on August 14, 2014. The network televises hundreds of games across the SEC’s 22 sports annually. Programming includes in-depth analysis and storytelling in studio shows such as SEC Nation, Marty & McGee, Read & React and Rally Cap, daily news and information with The Paul Finebaum Show and SEC Now, original content such as the Emmy Award-winning TrueSouth, SEC Storied and SEC Inside, and more. Hundreds of additional live events are available for streaming exclusively on SEC Network’s digital companion, SEC Network+, via the ESPN App and SECNetwork.com. Follow SEC Network on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter/X.

All of ESPN. All in One Place.
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