This past Sunday I crossed something off my bucket list - The National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburg, TN. This is one of those, I've always wanted to go, but then I moved to South Carolina, things for me. So I got a few friends together, and we made it happen.
Of course, I did manage to leave my phone in the car, so instead of my blurry iphone pics, Chattanooga Blogger Tony Burgess has let me use his!The reason South Pittburg hosts a cornbread festival is because Lodge Manufacturing is based here. They are a very old cast iron company that specializes in the cookware that is a must have for making cornbread.
Mayfield milk is also more than kind-of-a-big deal, and Maggie the cow was present to great you when you walked in the gates.
This was the 16th year of the festival, and I was impressed with how large & well done it was. There was music on multiple stages, and craft vendors all down the main street. In the side streets vendors were selling homemade everything, from jams & candies, to jerky and full size pies. (little old church ladies were selling the pies...you know they had to be good). There were food vendors selling fried everything - think Twinkies, cheesecake, onion blossoms & fried green tomatoes. There was even an amusement park complete with a Ferris wheel.
The best part of the festival by far was Cornbread Alley. For $4, you got to sample 9 different types of cornbread dishes....and they were good. Make me want to bake good, and that is saying something! Here's a list of the different types of cornbread in Cornbread Alley this year. This year's recipes haven't been posted yet, but they will be soon. Here's a link to where they will be, along with previous year's recipes, and also the winning recipes from the cornbread cook-offs.
- Cornfetti Bread
- Deep Fried Sweet Potato Tots
- Butter Pecan Muffins
- Rodeo Pups
- Cornbread Pizza
- Razzle Dazzle
- Raymond's Pineapple Cream Cheese Cornbread Cake
- Sour Cream and Onion Cornbread
- Toasty Hushpuppies
Apparently my friend Karen was at the festival cooking cornbread...by the looks of the pictures, the pineapple cornbread cake. Hoping she'll hook me up with a recipe soon :) Glad to know it was good.
ReplyDeleteRaymond's Pinapple Cream Cheese Cornbread Cake was really good. I think you would like it a lot. Let me know if you get the recipe and are trying it out sometime :)
DeleteCornbread Festival! Now that I know about it, I will have to get up there - maybe next year.
ReplyDeleteHave a great week-end!
Lea
Lea's Menagerie
It's a beautiful drive Lea, and would make for a fun little road trip. Have a great weekend!
DeleteGreat blog Emily. It was a lot of fun but it was also very hot that day.
ReplyDeleteI'm still rocking a pretty awesome farmers tan from that trip.
DeleteMy wife has a pretty wicked farmers tan. When she was in teaching she would do playtime outdoors and would get more sun. Now she has a pretty much 100% inside job and hasn't built up a tan yet. My scalp felt red too.
ReplyDelete