67. Moon Pie
Mythic and ubiquitous
In 1917, the Moon Pie arrived in a Southern world centered around the country store: barrels of salt and beans, hanging meat. North Carolina chef Mildred “Mama Dip” Council remembered how people told time by the length of a shadow and everybody knew everybody. The food was loose and perishable; nothing sealed or standardized.1
The Moon Pie was none of those things, but it fit right in among the barrels. The snack became the basis of the 10-cent lunch—a nickel Moon Pie, a nickel RC Cola—for coal miners and field hands. As one of the first standardized, shelf-stable items in the country store, the Moon Pie marked the beginning of the end of that world.
Over a century later, the Moon Pie is everywhere. The formula—two graham crackers, marshmallow filling, chocolate coating—proved so exportable that the South Korean Choco Pie, a direct knockoff, now trades on the black market in North Korea. The Moon Pie is Mobile, Alabama’s signature Mardi Gras throw, with 500,000 pies tossed annually from floats, and the city drops a giant Moon Pie down a building every New Year’s Eve. The snack cuts across economic status, cuts across race. It’s “the only thing nobody has anything against,” as a Mobile city councilman put it.
Mythic and ubiquitous, this pillar of southern food culture is still made by the same family-owned bakery in Chattanooga that invented it in 1917. And unlike most things that old, the Moon Pie doesn’t feel like a throwback.
Special thanks to Dob David for suggesting the Moon Pie.
Links:
“Moon Pie, Staple of the South” - William E. Schmidt, The New York Times, April 30, 1986
“The Heavenly Appeal of Moon Pies” – NPR Morning Edition, September 25, 2003
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This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 words on 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary. Through December 31, 2026.
I’m looking for ideas for this series — have something you’d like me to consider for inclusion? Please feel free to leave a comment!
What a great article! I fancied myself a bit of a Moonpie aficionado but your article offers many facts and considerations which I didn't know and hadn't thought of. How enjoyable to garner new information about things we enjoy. Well done Ms Knudson!
😋👍🏾