Overview: Chef Vivian Howard explores cross-cultural dishes through the professional and personal relationships she has with southerners of many backgrounds.

Each episode of Somewhere South explores the connectivity of a single dish, and the ways people of different backgrounds interpret that dish while expressing the complex values, identities, and histories that make up the American South.

DVD Verdict: In six one-hour episodes, chef and author Vivian Howard digs deeper into the lesser known roots of Southern food, Southern cooking, and Southern living.

Her curiosity has made her beloved by the millions of people who watched her grow into an award-winning television host, bestselling author, and celebrated chef over five seasons of A Chef's Life.

With 'Somewhere South', Howard serves as both student and guide, exploring cross-cultural dishes through the professional and personal relationships she has with southerners of many backgrounds.

Each episode of Somewhere South explores the connectivity of a single dish, and the ways people of different backgrounds interpret that dish while expressing the complex values, identities, and histories that make up the American South.

'Somewhere South' lets viewers meet their neighbors while exploring the foods that bind and define the American South - one dish at a time.

In the first episode, American as Hand Pie, Howard's first stop is to the North Carolina company whose version of the sweet treat fed thousands of mill workers and now lines the shelves of convenience stores and gas stations across the Southeast.

That hand pie lesson prompts a trip to West Virginia’s coal mining country, which offers a taste of their signature pepperoni rolls made by Italian immigrants who used what they had to create what became an ubiquitous treat inside coal miners’ lunch pails.

In another episode, Dumpling Dilemma, while cooking a charity dinner with Southern-Korean chefs, Howard spins out her version of French gnocchi to be served alongside Asian dumplings descended from the Chinese royal court tradition.

During their discussion, the chefs realize that while they all understand what a dumpling is, they can’t actually define it. On her quest to figure out that conundrum, Vivian quickly learns that no one culture can define a dumpling.

So she heads to Mississippi to visit with longtime Chinese communities in the Delta for a complicated history lesson over dim sum.

In another great episode, How Do You ‘Cue?, Southerners are particular about the way they cook and eat barbecue. No dish says eastern North Carolina more than the region’s signature whole hog barbecue; however, the art of cooking meat over fire and smoke is one shared by all cultures.

On a tour of eastern North Carolina barbecue joints, Vivian is reminded of traditions that define the area’s version of pork barbecue while being introduced to new techniques.

Flipping what she already knows about ‘cue, Howard sets out to uncover buried barbecue histories and to learn about the unexpected ways that different types of meat are smoked, pit-cooked, wood-fired and eaten.

Learn much more about this delightful Chef and her tasty trips (with the other episodes being: Porridge For The Soul, What A Pickle and It's A Greens Thing) in the just-released 'Somewhere South, Season 1' out now on DVD from PBS. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.