Hillbilly Holiday, 2005: Stuff You Absolutely Must Eat When Visiting East Tennessee

May 22nd, 2005 at 12:24 am (Humor, East Tennessee and The South, Travel)

And now for Stuff You Absolutely Must Eat When Visiting East Tennessee, a continuation of Hillbilly Holiday, 2005.

First things first. Before you even get in the car, grab a Mountain Dew. According to the Mountain Dew history page, moonshine was, back in the days, sometimes euphemistically referred to as “mountain dew.” In Knoxville, Tennessee, sometime during the 1940’s, a lemon-lime whiskey mixer was invented and sold as “Mountain Dew.” The flavor as we now know it was only perfected several years later, after a franchise was granted to Tri-Cities Beverage in Johnson City, Tennessee. Tri-Cities Beverage packaged the soft drink in green bottles with red and white labels depicting cartoon character Willy the Hillbilly “shooting at a revenuer fleeing an outhouse with a pig sitting in the corner.” Hooo-weeee! Mountain Dew went national in 1964 when Pepsi bought the franchise. I believe the revenuers are getting their cut nowadays.

Tri-Cities Beverage is still alive and well in Johnson City. Today, they’re hockin’ a concoction called Dr. Enuf, a “[r]efreshing soft drink enriched with vitamins and minerals.” The folklore is that the stuff has an uncanny ability to “relieve untold misery” from aches and pains, stomach disturbances (I hate those), and that tired run-down feeling. May be because it’s packed with pure cane sugar (as opposed to that high fructose corn syrup stuff), huge amounts of caffeine, and B vitamins. Their cherry-flavored herbal sodas add ginseng and guarana and utilize sucralose instead of aspartame.

Now you cain’t just depend on caffeine the whole trip. What goes up must come down, know whattuh mean, Vern? But don’t stop at McDonald’s or Burger King or any other national fast food chain. Nope. On a trip to East Tennessee there’s only one place to stop for vittles along the interstate and that’s Crackerbarrel. You’ll know you’re getting close when you start seeing ‘em every other exit.

Crackerbarrel’s cradle is located in Lebanon, Tennessee, just east of Nashville. To Crackerbarrel’s founder, Dan Evins, “mealtime [is] a special time to catch up with your family, your friends, or your thoughts. Meals [aren’t] meant to be swallowed down in three bites with a squirt of ketchup.” Each establishment is modeled after that little country store that every small community has. There are rocking chairs on the porch. There are cozy fireplaces inside. And the food, well, it doesn’t get much better. I reckon fatback is involved. More on that later.

Now I know that northerners might find it a bit hard to slow down all at once. No problem. As you get closer to the Smokies, you’ll have some fast food choices that are also distinctly southern. Petros is a chain specializing in, well, Petros, but that doesn’t tell you much, does it? So here’s the background: In 1982, Knoxville hosted the World’s Fair. The theme for the fair that year was energy, and the “Petroleum Belly” was created to fit the theme. It was originally served in a Fritos bag with chili and other toppings, but now it’s served in a “barrel” with this configuration. It comes in three sizes: Regular, Premium, and Super Premium. There are also Unleadeds, and the sides are referred to as Additives.

So there you have it. The world’s first restaurateur unabashedly marketing his ability to give you super premo gas.

Up in the Tri-Cities, you can also get a quick lunch at Pal’s. Pronounced “Powell’s” by the locals, Pal’s originated in Kingsport, Tennessee. They serve something called a Sauceburger, “Frenchie Fries,” awesome milk shakes, and other typical fast food. They use a “Sudden Service” concept, which is actually quite efficient. The facade of the buildings is a sight to behold.

Other Stuff You Must Eat Before You Leave

RC Cola and a MoonPie

The MoonPie — a graham cookie sandwich with marshmallow filling dipped in chocolate — was created in Chattanooga, Tennessee. RC Cola originated as “Chero-Cola” in 1905 in Columbus, Georgia. Over the years, “Royal Crown Cola” has been quite the innovator. It was the first cola company to distribute soft drinks in cans. It was first with the 16-ounce bottle. And it was first with a low-calorie diet cola, the first caffeine-free diet cola, and the first diet cherry cola.

If you’ve done your homework and listened closely to the songs suggested in the Required Listening post, you will have noticed that Tracy Byrd’s Lifestyles of the Not So Rich and Famous jokes that “Our champagne and caviar is an RC Cola and a MoonPie.” I thought the writer of that song was simply saying that he preferred a certain southern cola over fancy pants bubbly and a certain southern confection over fish eggs. But no, an RC Cola and a MoonPie was apparently the favorite package deal of multitudes of southerners in the 1950’s. According to Nashvillian Jan Duke’s About.com page,

Every southerner has fond memories of the MoonPie and RC Cola. The occasional afternoon walk to the local store to retrieve a MoonPie and an R.C.Cola with a parent was commonplace. Some of the most important parental conversations took place during the enjoyment of this delightful combination. The hurried traveler while stopping for a gas fill up, would regularly purchase a R.C. Cola and MoonPie to tie him or her over, might I add that a hurried stop in Tennessee is equivalent to about 20 minutes or so.

GooGoo Cluster

You cain’t discuss southern confections without mentioning the Goo-Goo Cluster, the world’s first combination candy bar. Concocted in 1912 by the Standard Candy Company in Nashville, it is a round mound of caramel, marshmallow, fresh roasted peanuts, and pure milk chocolate. There’s some dispute over the derivation of the name. Is it named after the first thing a baby learns to say? Is it due to its affiliation with the Grand Ole Opry?

Who cares? Just eat the durn things.

Anything Cooked in Fatback

You’ve heard of lard, right? Well, fatback is the stuff lard’s made of. Salty, greasy flavoring for almost anything, especially green beans.

Grits

Grits are about as southern as food gets. Here’s everything you never wanted to know about this corn product. Notice that fatback can be added to grits to improve the flavor. If you watched My Cousin Vinny, as suggested in the Required Viewing, Part III post, you’ll know that the cooking of grits plays an important role in breaking open the case.

Possum

Redneck Recipes has several possum recipes, including Possum and Taters, Possum Pot Pie, and Possum Creole. I’m fairly (not entirely) certain that the whole site is just a joke, but don’t miss the preparation portion of the Wild Possum Kabob recipe. The whole thing is hilarious, but here’s a taste:

The possum must be alive so that you can scare it, giving you the “wild” taste from all the adrenaline it produces. It is best to hit it over the head with a large object in a humane manner.

Read the whole page. Like I said, I think it’s a joke, but this site is no joke. The page used to have a picture of the critter the author cooked up, but it’s gone now. Too bad. It looked delicious.

Not.

Roadkill

It’s true. Tennessee is home to the [in?]famous Roadkill Bill. Tennessee Code Annotated 70-4-115 specifically permits residents to eat varmints split open on the open road. You absolutely must read this exaggerated (but only slightly) treatment of the issue. It’s chock-full of helpful information, including a suggestion that “[i]f you have anti-violent tendencies, you can just scan the highway shoulders for fresh sanitary corpses.”

As I said, the bill is real, and you can read it here.

Barbeque

John Shelton Reed has observed that “Southern barbeque is the closest thing we have in the U.S. to Europe’s wines and cheeses; drive a hundred miles and the barbeque changes.” Dixie (Swine will NOT be served before its time!) Barbeque in Johnson City emphasizes this point by offering several different barbeque sauces from different geographical locations: East Tennessee Red, Carolina, Alabama White (uh, I’ll pass, both because its ‘Bama and because the “white” is mayonnaise), Dixie Dry Rib Rub (a la Memphis), South Carolina Gold, and Texas/Oklahoma. Dixie’s got sauce from everywhere. There’s even a Sauce from Hell, which is described as a

Medium to thin, bright red, Louisiana hot sauce base. Cayenne pepper, white and black pepper WHEW! This is REALLY REALLY Hot. No children under 45 inches tall, no pregnant women or people with heart conditions, Please!

Bon Appetit!

1 Comment

  1. Carolyn Smith said,

    April 7, 2007 at 9:01 pm

    I grew up in and around Cumberland Gap and Harrogate, Tennessee, but for the last 27 years have lived in Boise, Idaho and Seattle, Washington. I have been back home quite a few times since then.

    I am currently writing a “book” for my family (just for fun) about growing up southern and just came across your site while doing some research. I look forward to getting some inspiration and possibly giving some to other transplants or southern wannabes.