SEC Network’s TrueSouth is venturing to Fort Benning and Bowman, SC to conclude the third season of the limited series on Southern food and culture, airing monthly on SEC Network.
What’s Happening:
- TrueSouth Presented by YellaWood closes its third season on SEC Network with episodes focused on Fort Benning and Bowman, SC, set for 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, Jan. 31 and Monday, Feb. 22, respectively. 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.
- TrueSouth’s next episode on Jan. 31 focuses on Fort Benning, home of the U.S. Army’s elite Ranger and Airborne units. They explore Columbus, Ga., and Phenix City, Ala., backyards for the base, on opposite sides of the Chattahoochee River. At the 14th Street Grill, on the Alabama side, they join owner Martha Gothard to eat half weenies, cut longways, smothered with chili and slaw, the diet of cotton mill workers past. Over in Columbus, at the back gate of the base, they gather with Rose Collins, owner of Rose’s Caribbean, for jerk pork, jerk chicken and coconut peas. She talks to TrueSouth about Saint Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, where she grew up, and what drives her to feed hungry American troops today.
- The season three trek across the South will end on Feb. 22, when TrueSouth showcases Bowman, SC, birthplace and burial place of Mary Beverly Evans Edge, mother of host John T. Edge. On the Edisto River, at a fish camp like the one her father built, beneath the boughs of moss-draped oaks, Edge will reconnect with his family’s roots and face down his mother’s complicated legacy over liver pudding with grits and catfish stew with rice.
- In addition to Fort Benning and Bowman, the third season of TrueSouth highlighted Oxford, Miss., the home of Ole Miss, as well as TrueSouth writer/host John T. Edge and executive producer Wright Thompson. From perches at two favorite Oxford bars, Edge and Thompson took stock of their local favorites amidst the pandemic in the season premiere, checking in on Joe Stinchcomb at St. Leo and John “Coonie” Spreafico at City Grocery. In the second episode this season, the series explored small town faith in Brownsville, Tenn., home to two visionary restaurants, Helen’s Bar-B-Que and City Fish Market, and two visionary art projects, The Mindfield and Master Barber Shop Menagerie Museum. What happens when an old vision for a town fades? What new visions take hold and how do they serve a town?