Moon Pie Mania Part of Gulf Coast Mardi Gras
How Southern Snack Became Mobile Ala.’s Favorite Carnival Throw
Feb 9, 2009
When the Gulf Coast city decided to do something unique and attention-getting to welcome the New Year of 2009, lifting a giant electronic moon pie into the night sky was a natural choice.
On December 31, 2008, the Chattanooga Bakery of Tennessee, the only bakery that makes moon pies, donated a 40-inch diameter, 55-pound, 45,000-calorie version to serve to the crowd of Mobilians that came downtown to watch the electronic version rise into the night sky. The bakery also gave away another 5,000 regular-sized moon pies. A moon pie is a round sandwich-like treat of marshmallow filling between graham cracker cookies, the whole then dipped in a flavored coating.
Moon Pies and Mardi Gras
Mobile’s Mardi Gras is the Chattanooga Bakery’s largest event, Tory Johnston, the bakery’s vice president of marketing, said in an interview. “It’s our biggest season.” The company sells many thousands of moon pies directly to Mobile’s parading organizations, or mystic societies, every year. They are also sold to grocery stores and to local merchants that also supply many other kinds of parade throws (trinkets that float riders toss to the crowd during parades), including beads, stuffed animals, giant plastic toothbrushes and pacifiers, ruffled panties and so on.
How did the moon pie-Mobile connection originate? Fifteen to twenty years ago, Johnston said, parading organizations used to throw boxes of Cracker Jacks off their floats. However, float riders do not, as a rule, toss their throws gently. Parade-goers were getting walloped. So, Johnston said, the question became, “what’s another iconic southern snack that people would want to catch and eat? But softer?” Moon pies, of course. Not only are they softer, they are discs: perfect for throwing. Chattanooga Bakery cut the mystic societies a good price, and the rest is history.
The Invention of the Moon Pie
The Chattanooga Bakery is an “anomaly of a company,” Johnston said, “fourth generation, family owned, with one brand.” And that one brand is the moon pie.
According to the Chattanooga Bakery website, moon pies were invented in the early 1900s by a company salesman named Mitchell. While visiting his territory, he ran into some coal miners at a company store in the Appalachian region and asked them what kind of snack they would like. The miners said they wanted something substantial for their lunch pails. Mitchell asked what size it should be. The moon was rising as they were talking, and one of the miners “held out his big hands, framing the moon and said, ‘About that big!’”
Mitchell, according to the website, had noticed a few bakery workers dipping graham cookies into marshmallow and letting this concoction harden to make a snack. He developed this idea, adding another graham cookie and coating the whole thing with chocolate. Thus was the moon pie created. By the 1950s, moon pies were so popular they were the only thing the bakery made. The company has added some new flavors, however. In addition to chocolate, modern moon pies come in vanilla, banana, lemon, orange and strawberry. Plus, Johnston said, they have introduced a new type that contains peanut butter filling rather than marshmallow and has a chocolate coating and a crunchier cookie.
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