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You can take the Weasel out of the MoonPie, but…

The phrase “RC Cola and a MoonPie” came up two threads down and, because I totally have nothing else to do, I hit Google. Turns out, it’s another fine culinary innovation you can thank Tennessee for. You’re welcome.

The MoonPie was invented in Chattanooga in 1917. It’s two big round soft graham cracker cookie things with marshmallow filling, dipped in a sweet coating. I only remember chocolate and banana, but Wikipedia says there was also vanilla and strawberry. And, in modern times, lemon and orange. MoonPies are unspeakably vile.

Royal Crown Cola was invented in 1905 and is apparently also still around. The company renamed itself Nehi in 1925 — you may know them from the truly awful grape and orange drinks — and were later responsible for Diet Rite, the first diet soda. In the mid ’90s, RC came out with a “draft” cola — a 12-ounce premium cola made with cane sugar like the old days. Sales were disappointing due to distribution problems, and the line was dropped.

In the ’50s, an RC cola and a MoonPie became the standard workman’s lunch across in the South. You could get the combo special RC Cola and a MoonPie for a dime, which is one giant asswad of sugar and food coloring for a mere tenth of a dollar. Jesus. Wikipedia reminds me that some would buy a packet of peanuts, empty it into the cola, drink the cola then eat the peanuts. Damn you, Wikipedia! I had successfully papered over that memory!

This filthy combination was so wildly popular that it was set to music repeatedly, beginning with Bill Liston’s 1950s ballad “Gimm’e an RC Cola and a Moonpie” (which is where I’m guessing my mother picked up the phrase) and ending with the recent children’s record — I so totally and completely am not even a little bit shitting you — “Weezie and the Moon Pies.”

The little town of Bell Buckle, Tennessee has an RC and Moon Pie Festival every year that features deep fried MoonPies and crowns the Queen of…no, it’s no use. I can’t bear to paraphrase. I quote:

The 2008 Queen is Dr. Phyllis Qualls-Brook, Assistant Commissioner of Tennessee Community and Industry Relations and the King is actor/director Lane Davies who will be directing the 1st Annual Tennessee Shakespeare Festival to be held in Bell Buckle the two weekends following the RC-Moon Pie Festival.

Taking center stage as always is the wildly popular Synchronized Wading extravaganza, lovingly referred to as “dry humor on a wet stage”. This year’s performance will be “A Midsummer’s Nightmare” starring who else but the lovely little Moon Pie and the charming RC with unfortunate guest appearances by GooGoo Cluster, Coke, as well as a host of fairies and soldiers. Director and choreographer Carla Webb who is also known as the First Lady of Bell Buckle says that this year’s Synchronized Wading performance is one of the best since she began performing in a kiddy pool over 13 years ago.

Some things are unforgivable even in jest. There is also a more recent association of MoonPies and Mardi Gras, with some krewes throwing miniature pies into the crowd. You have to show your tits to make them throw beads, I don’t EVEN want to know what you have to show to make them throw MoonPies.

And people wonder why I’m changing my name and moving thousands of miles away to a country that makes puddings out of sheep guts.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: November 20, 2008, 7:19 am

I’m going to save this…. and the next time some minyun starts pulling funny faces at British food 😉


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 20, 2008, 8:32 am

clusters

On the other hand, Goo Goo Clusters really are delish.


Comment from Gibby Haynes
Time: November 20, 2008, 8:44 am

Moon Pies sound like Wagon Wheels (or Wagon Wheels sound like Moon Pies rather; Moon Pies came first). I don’t understand how they could be ‘unspeakably vile’. Hell, the only reason we used to sit and behave at the pantomime was the knowledge that they used to throw Wagon Wheels into the crowd near the end. And even though the odds were incredibly long (about 5 Wagon Wheels for several hundred people), it was enough. That’s how good they were.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 20, 2008, 8:55 am

It’s that marshmallow crap. It’s wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. If it were just the cookie and the coating, I’d be cool with it.

Goo Goos have marshmallow, but a very small amount and it’s leavened with caramel. So they’re like big, cheap turtles. If you know what turtles are.


Comment from iamfelix
Time: November 20, 2008, 10:11 am

There’s always Bessie Smith’s choice ….


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 20, 2008, 10:20 am

Oh, man, my grandmother was into pigs’ feet. To be honest, they smelled fabulous cooking. But I don’t eat anything with the hoof still on.


Comment from iamfelix
Time: November 20, 2008, 11:41 am

My dad was a big fan of pickled pig’s feet — they look like a jar full of gross.


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: November 20, 2008, 11:45 am

I loved Moonpies and RC cola as a kid. We would have that as a snack when we were out fishing. And it had to be an RC – coke or pepsi just didn’t go as well.


Comment from Farmer Joe
Time: November 20, 2008, 12:09 pm

I remember hearing about the Bell Buckle festival when I was in Georgia. You’d see people walking around wearing tshirts that said “Yankees drink Coke.” This, of course, did tend to ruffle feathers in Atlanta, where Coca Cola owns your ass.

FJ, yankee, Pepsi drinker.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 12:25 pm

Back when I worked in an electrical machine shop (roughly during the Pleistocene epoch) I regularly lunched on an orange Nehi and a six-pack of Oreos.

And UB: No nation that butters a fish and eats it for breakfast can claim the moral high ground on this one. We’re talking Abomination Before God level transgression here.


Comment from Nicole
Time: November 20, 2008, 12:35 pm

Can’t do RC but I do lumme a Moon Pie on occasion.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 12:36 pm

When an acquaintance of mine got out of the Navy, he dossed on my couch for a couple of months while he looked for a job. The second month he was still jobless. His money ran out, and I made him buy his own food, which consisted entirely of beans and pig’s feet. He’d make a pot every couple of days, and then consume the contents. My apartment smelled just fucking loverly, but what really got to me was the sound of him slurping up those glistening chunks of piggy feet and chewing them with his mouth open—all accompanied by frequent grunts of gustatory pleasure.

We did not part friends.


Comment from scubafreak
Time: November 20, 2008, 12:41 pm

Interestingly enough, Moonpie is my grand-nephew’s nickname. 🙂

U.B. – Be our guest, but remember that we can always come back and ask about the attraction of Bubble and Squeak and Welsh Rabbit, with a fine desert of Spotted Dick.

😉


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 1:07 pm

Well, scuba, the Brits give quaint names to stuff they eat, I’m guessing, so that one’s attention is diverted to wry amusement at the name of what one is chewing, and away from the execrable taste of same.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 1:15 pm

But then, we have frog-eye gravy.


Comment from Jill
Time: November 20, 2008, 1:32 pm

Sheesh…and I bitch when the GWC (Georgia born and raised) cooks himself a mess o’ collards and hamhocks.

Me: (walks in front door and sniffs) What is that atrocious smell?

GWC: Collards.

Me: Why can’t you just stink up the house with science experiments or thermonuclear waste like all the other kids?

GWC: (digging into a big bowl o’ collards) >burp< Cause this you can eat.

Me: Speak for yourself.


Comment from Dawn
Time: November 20, 2008, 1:41 pm

Finally you guys are talking about something I knew about before. WAY back when I had television I saw a special on the food network about southern food inventions.

OMGoodness!!!!My husband just sent me a message saying Governor Napolitano was tapped for Homeland Security. Ha! take that America! She is Janet Reno on male steroids!


Comment from Jill
Time: November 20, 2008, 1:43 pm

We had Scooter Pies up here; they were the Yankee version of Moonpies.


Comment from Allen
Time: November 20, 2008, 1:57 pm

Arrrghhh! I too had long forgot the peanuts in an RC thing. Damn, now it, haunts me. I also have another memory that floated up from my convenience store clerk days in Raleigh. Every morning this one woman would come in right at 6:30. Her purchases: an RC and Midol. Two of the tablets would go in the RC, and she would swig the whole thing down. Every damn day for 3 months I saw that.

RC, the cola used for strange combos.


Comment from steve
Time: November 20, 2008, 2:28 pm

RC, the cola used for strange combos.

Consider it a kind of “reactive diluent”….used to facilitate the crosslinking reaction between heretofore uncombinable foods and food groups….


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 2:41 pm

Dawn: I thought the position of Janet Reno on male steroids was already filled by Janet Reno.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 2:43 pm

Well, everybody knows that an aspirin in a Coke will get you high, kill you, or make your date unbelievably horny. I recommend trying it out on your date first.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 2:49 pm

postscript to my last: Because no matter what happens, you’re in!

/heh-heh-heh


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 20, 2008, 2:59 pm

I thought it was a contraceptive.

Or is that shaking a Coke real hard and giving yourself a power spritz?


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:05 pm

Guess that’s where the Stones got the name of their album Sticky Fingers.


Comment from Dawn
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:13 pm

I thought the position of Janet Reno on male steroids was already filled by Janet Reno.

Exactly. Janet Napalitano is that bad and worse. She refused to enforce our state’s border laws. What is she going to do for Homeland Security? But she endorsed Obama early and now he owes her a Monica.


Comment from Dawn
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:17 pm

Oh….and jw. Shame!


Comment from Allen
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:21 pm

I’m not touching that, JW. 🙂

See, and my wife thought I was half a bubble off level to name those two kittehs RC and Moonpie. I think they’re perfect names for those two guys. Yes, they are an unholy combination as a matter of fact.

There is a breeding pair of roadrunners on my property. Those two cats tried to get after one of them one day. The other roadrunner jumped right on Moonpie’s back and started pecking the crap out of his head. Funny ass sight watching a yowling cat running around wearing a pissed off roadrunner.


Comment from Dawn
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:25 pm

Shame on you jw!
My last shame was taken away by the spam cops.


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:28 pm

I got a quality.


Comment from Nicole
Time: November 20, 2008, 3:46 pm

Anyone else remember the Junk Food Junkie song?

“And I pull out some Fritos corn chips
Dr. Pepper and an Ole Moon Pie
Then I sit back in glorious expectation
Of a genuine junk food high”

http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=377

My little brother & I used to love that song. We had it on a 45. I can’t for the life of me remember what the flip side was, though.


Comment from Jill
Time: November 20, 2008, 4:01 pm

That was R. Crumb, Nicole. He of the Keep On Truckin’ and Mr. Natural comix fame.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: November 20, 2008, 4:09 pm

R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders. I don’t remember that song, though. I have all of his albums but the first one, which hasn’t been re-released on CD.

Twisted bastard, that.

This thread somehow got Stumbled-Upon. Sit up straight everybody and stop picking your noses. OR ANYBODY ELSE’S NOSES. ‘K?


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 4:16 pm

I thought Larry Groce did “Junk Food Junkie.” And, IIRC, the flip side was “We’ve Been Malled.”


Comment from Jill
Time: November 20, 2008, 5:17 pm

R. Crumb did the original version, ah dew b’leev.

Ah…shit no, I’m wrong. He did a song called TV Dinners.
Mea Farrow-Culpa.

“TV Dinner is the meal that I’m lovin…take it out the box thirty minutes in th’ oven…get a load-a RC Cola, plate o’ twinkies and a take out pink burrito…for to keep me cleeeeannn…”

JW, you sir, ARE correct!!


Comment from jwpaine
Time: November 20, 2008, 5:26 pm

Wow, I guess there’s a first time for everything.


Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: November 20, 2008, 5:31 pm

Here, I’m throwing this around: Magic Underwear for Liberals


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: November 20, 2008, 6:03 pm

Sure RC is still around, I love that stuff. Between the three – Coke, Pepsi, and RC, it has the best flavor. Hard to find sometimes, though. And of course, best out of the bottle.


Comment from armybrat
Time: November 20, 2008, 10:01 pm

We lived in SC for 18 mo when I was a kid. Once a month (usually the day after daddy got paid) we came home to after school snack of moonpies and RC cola, just in time to watch “Dark Shadows.” Now that was livin’!


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: November 20, 2008, 10:44 pm

Here, I’m throwing this around: Magic Underwear for Liberals

I think those have an extra small pouch in front to accommodate the emasculated state of such a buyer.


Comment from Jill
Time: November 20, 2008, 11:10 pm

Liberals go commando.

Or so they think.

🙂


Comment from Dawn
Time: November 21, 2008, 12:58 am

From the website, their underwear…
features their signature Show-It Technology™, which is a strap inside each pair of underwear that raises and accentuates a guy’s genitalia to give him a more impressive profile in his clothes.
Wow…all that lifting and accentuating right next to Obama’s face.


Comment from porknbean
Time: November 21, 2008, 3:41 am

Back in the day of paper pushing at Blue Cross, my senior year of high school, every afternoon break, had me some coke and two Hostess cupcakes. Yummmm..
Never cared for any snack cake with marshmallow. Blech.
And Uncle B, if given the choice between a moonpie and critter innards/waste filters….nasty as they are, I will have to go for the moonpie.

Washing down aspirin with Coke makes the aspirin work quicker. Great for migraines or cramps. Never heard of the combo getting one horney.


Comment from Sockless Joe
Time: November 21, 2008, 11:34 am

In Central Pennsylvania a moon pie (or more accurately an amish-style “half moon pie”)is a pastry type thing with a fruity filling, usually a dried apple concoction but sometimes not.


Comment from Andrea Harris
Time: November 22, 2008, 3:49 pm

My ex used to eat moonpies. It was something he did “ironically.” I don’t like them myself — I think they taste kind of stale. When it comes to preservative-stuffed treats, I’d rather have Hostess Twinkies. And I’m an original Coca-Cola person. No Pepsi, no RC, none of those imitations.

I’m getting hungry.

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