THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, March 19, 1995                 TAG: 9503160075
SECTION: FLAVOR                   PAGE: F2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY DAVE FERMAN, FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM 
                                             LENGTH: Short :   49 lines

MOON PIE'S HISTORY IS MYSTERY, BUT IT'S STILL OUT OF THIS WORLD

LIKE ALL GOOD legends, the origin of the Moon Pie is shrouded in mystery.

The Moon Pie was born at the Chattanooga Bakery in southeastern Tennessee; that much is certain. But the details have been obscured by time - and because nobody thought to document the creation of what in those days was just another product.

Bakery president Sam Campbell IV says it's ``believed'' the new snack debuted 75 years ago. Campbell says it's ``believed'' a man named Earl Mitchell, general manager of a flour mill that owned the bakery, went up into Appalachia to sell the bakery's products.

``They don't want anything we have,'' Mitchell is supposed to have said when he returned. ``They want something big as a moon and round and full of marshmallow and covered in chocolate.''

So that's what the bakery created. And the Moon Pie soon was outselling the fig bars, gingersnaps and 140-odd other products the bakery made.

No picture of Mitchell with the first Moon Pie exists. No marker in homage to Moon Pies has been erected.

At the time, the creation of the Moon Pie (or, more properly, the ``Moon Pie brand marshmallow sandwich'') was not an earth-shaking event, Campbell says. And when people ask for vintage Moon Pie memorabilia, the bakery can't oblige, he says. There isn't any.

Like Stonehenge, Moon Pies carry an air of mystery and a cozy sense of permanence.

Gooey, filling, round, welcoming and coming in three flavors (chocolate, vanilla and banana, plus - and this you maybe didn't know - lemon in the summer and cherry in the winter) the Moon Pie has weathered time, the vagaries of commerce and the introduction of the Twinkie, the Little Debbie and plenty more to endure as a Southern staple.

Over the years, the bakery also tried strawberry and peanut butter flavors but discontinued them for lack of sales.

And this year, Campbell says, the bakery is introducing a new double-chocolate spinoff (chocolate covering with a chocolate cookie inside) just ``to stir things up a bit.''

But essentially the Moon Pie is the same as it ever was, and legendary from West Texas to South Florida. by CNB