When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Marshmallow Pie

Chattanooga Bakery, Inc.

P.O. Box 111

Chattanooga, Tenn. 37401

(800) 251-3404

MasterCard, Visa

“We are like mother and prison and the pickup and trains.”

--Sam Campbell IV, president of Chattanooga Bakery Co.

It comes in chocolate, vanilla, even banana. It tastes kind of sugary. It’s texture is on the dry side. And it’s a Southern institution. It’s a Moon Pie--three big soft layers of graham cracker cookie, filled with marshmallow and dipped in frosting.

“Down here we heat them and then they taste like those s’mores we made in Girl Scouts,” says Beverly Sanders, an employee of the Chattanooga Bakery, makers of Moon Pies. “Some people heat them and then put ice cream on top, but most of the time they are eaten straight out of the package.”

And eaten they are: The bakery turns out 300,000 Moon Pies every day. Chocolate, says Sanders, is the best-selling flavor. Which flavor does Sanders favor? “I don’t eat them,” she says. “I don’t like the marshmallow too much.”

The minimum mail order is a case of 72 Moon Pies. Price is $28.20, which includes shipping.