MoonPies

While surfing the web, I came across a site about MoonPies.  Wow, did it bring back memories!  When I was a kid MoonPies were considered a treat.  Whether eaten whole, or taking the top off and eating the marshmallow center first, it was always delicious!

There’s just something about a MoonPie. It’s hard to find a Southern country store that doesn’t have them on their shelves. There are contests to see how many of the treats people can eat. On October 16, 2010, Sonya Thomas, a competitive eater known as the “Black Widow,” ate 38 MoonPies in eight minutes in Caruthersville, Missouri. Newport, Tennessee held its first annual Moon Pie Festival in May, 2012.  An annual RC & Moon Pie Festival is celebrated in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and a Moon Pie Eating Contest is held in Bessemer, Alabama.  The Moon Pie became a traditional thrown item from a parade float into the crowd of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama during 1956, followed by other communities along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  And, since New Year’s Eve 2008, the city of Mobile, Alabama raises a 12-foot-tall  lighted mechanical moon pie to celebrate the coming of the new year. The giant banana colored MoonPie is raised by a crane to a height of 200 feet as the clock strikes midnight.

MoonPies have been made at a Chattanooga Bakery since 1917.  It is said that the founder came up with the idea for MoonPies when he asked a Kentucky coal miner what kind of snack he’d like to eat. He answerd something with graham cracker and marshmallow and dipped in chocolate. When asked how big it should be, the miner looked up in the night sky and framed the full moon with his hands.

There was also a traditional relationship between Moon Pies and RC (Royal Crown) Cola.  R.C. Cola arrived in 1934, and combined forces, in the 1950’s, becoming an instant success.  You could buy a RC  Cola and MoonPie special for 10 cents, back then. Probably, their larger serving sizes and inexpensive prices, contributed to being called, the “working man’s lunch”. The combo was labeled as the instant fast food lunch of the fifties.

It’s hard to find someone in the South who doesn’t remember MoonPies.  Both, MoonPies and R.C. Cola hold a special place in the hearts of southerners everywhere, and has for decades. We have fond memories of a walk to the local store to retrieve a MoonPie and an R.C.Cola, or stopping for gas and  getting a R.C. Cola and MoonPie for a treat. Oh, the “good old days” before we started watching calories!