When a friend and I went to the World’s Longest Yard Sale three years ago, we spent three nights in Chattanooga, TN. In browsing the “What To Do in Chattanooga” pamphlet, I saw that this was the town of the MoonPie.
MoonPies (apparently one word rather than two) are a Southern treat that brings back good memories for me: A round marshmallow patty smashed between two four-inch graham crackers, and the whole thing covered in chocolate. The memory of eating one with a Coke (you have to be careful not to drop any of the crumbly pieces as you bite) makes my mouth water.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to visit Chattanooga Bakery, which has been making MoonPies since 1917. On my recent trip to visit my family during the holidays, though, I did come across a box at a Cracker Barrel restaurant outside Atlanta.
I usually stop by the restaurant for lunch after flying into the city, picking up a rental car and before driving to Macon, GA, to see my family. Like most Cracker Barrels, the restaurant decorated its walls with old photos, tools, tins, calendar, signs and more. There was even an old gun and a sack of lead shots above the fireplace and an oak Gingerbread Clock on the mantle. The general store carried replicas of the past, including a large array of Coca-Cola memorabilia.
The wall over the restaurant’s fireplace held two photos of black men and women standing in front of what looked like a college building or chapel, and a photo of a black toddler sitting in a chair posing for the camera.
On another wall was an advertising poster for a guitar player named Gabriel Brown of Gennett Records (I had never heard of him before, but learned later that he was a country blues guitarist and singer in the 1940s. Isn’t discovery facinating?). In some places, you’re not likely to find old photos of black people on restaurant (or any other) walls. It’s as if we did not exist back then, so this was a pleasant surprise.
I was checking out the Christmas ornaments (the restaurant sometimes has some nice black-themed ones – made in China) when I spotted the yellow and blue box with the trademark moon on front. I snatched up a box of 12 MoonPies for the reasonable price of $4.99. When I occasionally find them in Philadelphia, they’re sold individually for almost a buck.
The bottom of the box gave the history of this delicacy: A traveling salesman for Chattanooga Bakery asked a group of coal miners what they would like for a snack. They wanted something good and tasty for their lunch pails, they said. Back at the bakery, the salesman saw workers dipping large graham crackers into marshmallow. So he added another cookie on top and covered it with chocolate. He took it back to the miners and the rest is history. Here are some old photos from the moonpie.com website (click on Historical Imagery).
Although a Southern treat, you can get MoonPies across the country these days. By the 1990s, the company was baking about 3,000 of them a day, according to the website Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Again this year, a huge fake yellow MoonPie will rise over the city of Mobile, AL, at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Last year, a real MoonPie (about 40 inches), baked by Chattanooga Bakery, was served to revelers.
On the box I purchased and on the company’s website are recipes, including Banana Split MoonPie, Hot Fudge Sundae, Strawberry MoonPie Shortcake and Homemade MoonPie Ice Cream. MoonPies also come in orange, strawberry, peanut butter, vanilla and banana, which my sister prefers.
Me, I’d rather have my MoonPie topless, plain and original. But these days, with a Diet Pepsi.
Read about my other Southern treat Nu-Way hotdogs and hot boiled peanuts. For ways to make Southern food a bit more healthier, check out blogger Fatimah Ali’s Healthy Southern Comforts.
