Authentic South

Sean Kelley is a writer, and in this show, he begins telling us the sometimes comic/sometimes tragic story about raising a couple of pigs so that he could slaughter, butcher and eat them just learn about that entire process firsthand.

"We know everything about pork and beef and poultry. We know nothing about pigs and cows and chickens," he says. Originally aired May 21, 2014.

Chef Hugh Acheson is one of the most celebrated and influential chefs in the country. He has a restaurant in Athens, Georgia Five and Ten. His Empire State South in Atlanta is one of the most popular places to dine in the city, and he also has Spiller Coffee with a couple of locations. Hugh is a two-time James Beard Award winner, once as a chef and once for his cookbook, A New Turn in the South. You may have seen him on television competing on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters or as a judge on the show Top Chef. Originally aired May 2, 2014.

“Folks started talking about the New South after the Civil War," says Tom Hanchett, staff historian at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Where we are now is the newest of the New Souths, the Newcomer South.” Tom speaks about the ever-evolving South, especially as it relates to food, from a booth in El Pulgarcito, a Honduran-Salvadoran-Mexican restaurant in the eastern part of the city. Special music in this episode courtesy of Charlotte-based band UltimaNota. Originally aired March 7, 2014.

Cynthia Graubart attained culinary celebrity status when she won a James Beard Award for the cookbook she co-wrote with famed Southern author Nathalie Dupree. It’s called Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking, and it is amazing. It took four years to write, and it weighs six and a half pounds. It’s got 750 recipes and another 650 variations on the standards. It is becoming itself a standard--a bible--for any Southern cook. Originally aired January 31, 2014.

Hunter Lewis is currently the editor-in-chief of Food & Wine. When we interviewed him here, he was the executive editor at Southern Living magazine. Before that, he had stints at the publications Bon Appetit and Saveur. In this episode he discusses writing and cooking, Eastern North Carolina whole hog barbecue and the agricultural renaissance that is feeding the way people cook in the South. Special music by Joel Madison Blount. Originally aired June 17, 2014.