The eighth season of Emmy Award-winning TrueSouth Presented by YellaWood hits the road to Ocean Springs, Miss. and the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Tuesday, Oct. 21 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
Walter Anderson (1903-1965), the famed naturalist and artist, serves as our guide. On a search for beauty and truth, Anderson made art. His work took many forms. He made sculptures and pottery, painted watercolors and oils, and wrote poetry and journals. In the years since his death, Anderson’s reputation and influence have grown, as his descendants, including a great grandson Matt Stebly, an Ocean Springs tattoo artist, make their own art.

Food tells a complementary story. Eagle Point Oyster raises their oysters in cages off Deer Island. Matt Mayfield and his colleagues sell them by the sack on Saturday mornings at the Fresh Market downtown. And at the dock on other days. Like Anderson, their work relies on a dance between the knowledge of man and the forces of nature.

East of Ocean Springs, near the town of Gautier, the people of Wat Buddhametta Mahabaramee, a Thai Buddhist temple, also search for beauty and truth. To fund their work and build a new temple, they stage Sunday lunch fundraisers beneath a shed that looks like a country food court, turning out dishes like papaya salad, pad Thai, and cashew chicken. Jume Bessier, a member of the temple, introduces us to their world.

Music for this episode comes from, among others, Luther Dickinson along with Marc Franklin, Callaghan Miles, Art Edmaiston, Jim Spake, Adam Abrashoff, Wesley Daniels, and Lawrence Leake. Inspired by the murals that Walter Anderson painted, they performed live for TrueSouth at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in downtown Ocean Springs.

Advance press screeners of TrueSouth: Season Eight, Episode Four are available upon request: katie.callahan@espn.com. 

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.

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