Appears in
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets

By Darra Goldstein

Published 2015

  • About

MoonPies were first baked by the Chattanooga Baking Company in 1917. Originally designed for coal miners who could not take a work break for a meal, the MoonPie was solid, filling, and circular, fitting snugly inside a worker’s clothes or carried easily in the hand. Earl Mitchell Sr., a bakery salesman, came up with the idea of layering graham crackers with marshmallow; he later added more graham crackers and coated the entire pie in chocolate. The four main flavors of MoonPies produced today are chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and banana.