Like all good legends, the origin of the Moon Pie is shrouded in mystery.
The Moon Pie was born at the Chattanooga Bakery in southeastern Tennessee, that much is certain. But the details have been obscured by time-and because nobody thought to document the creation of what in those days was just another product.
Bakery president Sam Campbell IV says it’s “believed” the new snack debuted 75 years ago, although nobody’s really positive if the year was 1918 or 1919.
Campbell says it’s “believed” a man named Earl Mitchell-general manager of a flour mill that owned the bakery-went up into Appalachia to sell the bakery’s products.
“They don’t want anything we have,” Mitchell is supposed to have said when he returned. “They want something big as a moon and round and full of marshmallow and covered in chocolate.”
So that’s what the bakery created. And the Moon Pie soon was outselling the fig bars, gingersnaps and 140-odd other products the bakery made.
Is Campbell sure about all this? No. Did anyone record the names of the country folks who sat Earl Mitchell down and convinced him that what the world really needed was graham crackers and marshmallow filling covered in chocolate? No.
Like Stonehenge, Moon Pies carry an air of mystery and a cozy sense of permanence: Can any Southerner imagine not being able to walk into a country store or bait shop or gas station and walk out moments later with a lunch consisting of a Moon Pie and an RC Cola (or, depending on where you live, a Dr Pepper, a Nehi or a Coca-Cola)?
Impossible. Gooey, filling, round, welcoming and coming in three flavors (chocolate, vanilla and banana, plus-and this you maybe didn’t know-lemon in the summer and cherry in the winter) the Moon Pie has weathered time, the vagaries of commerce and the introduction of the Twinkie, the Little Debbie and plenty more to endure as a Southern staple.
Oh, there has been a change or two. The diameter was changed from 5 1/2 inches to 4 inches in the late ’60s to fit the rising number of vending machines. At the same time, though, a cookie and a layer of marshmallow were added, so though smaller in diameter, the “double decker” version was (and remains) the same weight as the original.
Through the years, the bakery also tried strawberry and peanut butter flavors, but discontinued them for lack of sales. And this year, Campbell says, the bakery is introducing a new double-chocolate spinoff (chocolate covering with a chocolate cookie inside) just “to stir things up a bit.”
But essentially the Moon Pie is the same as it ever was, and legendary from West Texas to South Florida.
“I love Moon Pies-I do!” gushes Susan Dosier, foods editor of the tony, Alabama-based Southern Living magazine. “They’re chocolate and stuff and marshmallow and stuff, but I love ’em. I associate them with being outdoors and doing fun stuff with my parents, fishing trips with my dad. They’re comfort food. They have a hometown aura about them.
“You can eat ’em with ice cream like a really quick brownie and the package has a little smiley face-they smile back at you-and you feel like you’re still doing a little bit of a splurge.”
Dosier’s enthusiasm is the norm, not the exception. Responsible journalists and academics laugh and squeal at the mere mention of Moon Pies and say “No kidding!” a lot when informed the snack is 75 years old.
Some say Moon Pies are as important a part of Southern history as barbecue or blues records.
This is not an exaggeration: The highly respected Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, put out by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, has a listing for Moon Pies, just after “Mint” and just before “Moonshine or Moonshining.”
“Moon Pies were essentially a poor man’s cake and usually part of the noon lunch for the working man with a can of sardines and crackers,” says Bill Ferris, the center’s director. “It gave, for a nickel, a lot of substance for not much money. It was always associated with the crossroads store where people would come in and eat lunch during the week.
“So it has become an icon of Southern cuisine in the agrarian tradition, not unlike grits or biscuits. It’s inexpensive, nourishing food that’s been on Southern tables for generations. It was often bought with a Coke for a treat but it was always associated with that noon meal-it was easy to carry, it was sealed so it was always fresh when opened and it would hold you over until the next meal.”
For his part, Ferris remembers his childhood Moon Pie experiences with love and clarity.
“I associate them with two little rural stores-one was run by a black lady, and one by a white lady-and in both stores there were potbellied stoves and you’d come in and get your Moon Pie and talk with people,” he says. “It was part of the ritual of being around people who cared about you and being sheltered from the elements, regardless of winter or summer, and being around people you cared about. And the Moon Pie was the bread you broke during the ritual.”
Another indication of the Moon Pie’s status: Down on Memphis’ famed Beale Street-home of the blues-the product is sold in the gift shop of the Center for Southern Folklore, right beside grits and hot sauce and sorghum.
Ask these friendly people about Moon Pies, and executive director Judy Peiser will get other employees, such as administrator Bess Eckstein, on a conference call and blab excitedly about their Moon Pie experiences.
“I just ate ’em for a snack-actually, if I told the truth, I ate ’em for breakfast,” Eckstein says, as Peiser laughs in the background. “RC Cola and a Moon Pie for breakfast. My mom didn’t like for people to know that. Everybody I knew ate ’em and they sold ’em in school, in the lunch room. I usually still eat ’em for breakfast. They’re just perfect with coffee. They’re not disgustingly sweet-they’re just good.”
The popularity of the Moon Pie continues, Peiser says, because traditions are passed from generation to generation. In the South, where families tend to stay in small communities decade after decade, the old ways stay the best ways.
“It’s important to Southern culture in that when you look at country life, everybody talks about Moon Pies,” she says. “It’s a country thing. `Gimme a RC Cola and a Moon Pie’-that’s how people lived in the South. I ain’t lyin’. And now you can microwave ’em.”
Well, yes, you can, but this new trend is frankly baffling to Ed Parker, who operates the Panola Grocery in tiny Panola, Ala., just a few miles from the Mississippi-Alabama border. Parker, who has eaten Moon Pies all his life, never heard of warming one up until 12 years ago, when his store got a microwave.
At 73, Parker doesn’t eat Moon Pies anymore (“I got too big a belly”) but he wouldn’t nuke them anyway.
“Ten or 20 percent of the people who come in here warm ’em up and say, `You’ve never eaten anything so good in your life,’ ” he says. “I just took them out of the package, and incidentally they’re one of the few things that haven’t gotten smaller since I was a boy. Five or six people from Mississippi come over to get ’em here-they’re not very available there.”
Of the 300,000 Moon Pies the Chattanooga Bakery makes every day, 96 (one case) get sold every week at the little crossroads store Parker’s grandfather opened in 1900. When you consider there are only 205 people in the whole town, plus or minus the five or six from Mississippi and the occasional person passing through, what that pie-to-person ratio means is that a Panola citizen gobbles a Moon Pie every other week, more or less, which doesn’t surprise Ed Parker a whit.
“A lot of people have tried to imitate ’em and nobody has ever done as well,” he says.
