Blue Ridge Country March/April 2021 - 29

LARRY SMITH

CLOCKWISE: Helms Candy has been in the candy-making
business since 1909.
In 2020, Mark and Sherry Guenther grew 62 acres of
sorghum cane to make their revered product, Muddy Pond
Sorghum.
PHOTO COURTESY TOMARO'S BAKERY

The pepperoni roll is often called West Virginia's " state food. "
Italian immigrant Anthony " Tony " Tomaro opened Tomaro's Bakery in Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1914.
Fred and Jill Sauceman's favorite way to eat a MoonPie is to microwave it.

general manager of the Mountain City
Flour Mill in Chattanooga, was working
a sales route in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields and asked miners at a little country
store what they would like in their lunch
pails. According to legend, a miner said
he'd like something with those three
flavors and told Mitchell to make it big,
as he framed the moon with his fingers.
Mitchell took the idea back to the Chattanooga Bakery, which created one of the
South's most recognizable brands. The
best way to eat a MoonPie? Microwaved!
Pepperoni Rolls. Symbols of adaptation and ingenuity, West Virginia's pepperoni rolls reflect the immigrant history
of the state. Created by Italian bakers in
the early 20th century as nourishment for
coal miners, pepperoni rolls are now sold
all over the Mountain State. Of the bakeries we visited, Tomaro's in downtown

Clarksburg stands out. It has operated on
the same spot since 1914.
Pure Sugar Stick Candy. At one time,
the two Bristols-Tennessee and Virginia-were home to some 10 candy companies, all making a version of pure sugar
stick candy. Today, only one of those
companies survives. Helms Candy Company, on the Virginia side, dates to 1909
and has been owned by the same family
all that time. George F. " Buzz " Helms IV,
whose great-grandfather started the business, says cooking the candy is an old but
simple craft and that a strong labor force,
access to railroads and just the right level
of humidity came together to make Bristol the epicenter of pure sugar stick candy
making in America.
Sorghum syrup. Kentucky and Tennessee lead the country in the production
of sorghum syrup. We use it as an ingre-

PHOTO COURTESY JOHN BRUNETT

dient in dried apple stack cakes and as a
topping for ice cream. And it's best right
out of the jar. In the fall, juice is extracted from sorghum cane and boiled down
until it is thick and amber-colored. In Jeffersonville, Kentucky, Danny Townsend
is a fifth-generation sorghum maker.
On the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, the Guenther family has been making sorghum since the early 1960s. Mark
Guenther still cultivates his cane fields
with mules. He says they do a better job
than tractors. Both the Guenther and
Townsend families are members of the
National Sweet Sorghum Producers and
Processors Association, an organization
that makes us optimistic about the future
of this sweet product.

MARCH/APRIL 2021

Blue Ridge Country March/April 2021

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