A Seventh Serving of the National Cornbread Festival

2018 Cornbread Alley delights

Interstate 24 closed. This was my nightmare scenario by not staying atop Monteagle on the Friday before the National Cornbread Festival. But there it was "Highway Closed Ahead - Use Caution." After cruising out of Nashville at dawn, the nightmare came true at Manchester, where someone drunk or asleep smeared themselves across the eastbound lanes, forcing a mandatory exit.

Fortunately, it only cost me 15 minutes and as usual, I enter South Pittsburg with 30 minutes to spare before the starting gun of the Cornbread Festival 5K. I had seventh race number, a nice running shirt and seventh race still to run.

Eight years ago I ran my last Music City half-marathon, a cramp-filled 13.1 miles spent crushed among other runners while trying to outrace inclement weather that shut down the full marathon. In 2011, I landed in Vermont to run the Middlebury Maple Run with an old friend. A year later, the hunt for an alternate to the race that envelopes Nashville led to South Pittsburg, a small Tennessee River city on the Alabama border. It’s been cornbread ever since, a tradition I could not abandon in 2018, not with the festival so close to Nashville.

Going solo at the festival was a stretch, but I always ran the 5K alone, so that helped. All I had to do was run, eat a plate of the best cornbread anywhere and head out. With the starting gun, I tied my record for the most consecutive times running an annual race (my streak of seven Richland Creek Runs ended after 2014).

The course changed, new organizers pulled the race together and the water stations disappeared from the course, but I was committed. By now, I should know the course. Yet the organizers change little pieces each year to maximize mileage on the handful of blocks comprising South Pittsburg. With Main Street and adjacent blocks out of commission, they must acquire what space they can. The course winds up from the Lodge store into the steep streets above the six blocks of downtown.

No matter how many twists and turns change every year, the 5K organizers never strip away the most challenging part, the final mile’s climb past the deceiving Loyd Park. As it seems the park levels out, it rises again, this time reaching a steep high point. As much as I try to remember this race could be a lot steeper with the low mountains rising around South Pittsburg, it’s not comforting as I slog through the festival 5K’s last mile. Then the whole race complexion changes. A long descent comes as a relief. Twists and turns remains but the hills fade away.

Thoughts of cornbread might enter the runner’s head. But not mine. I had side stitches and a sore diaphragm for the first time in years, and I huffed up to the finish line. I spotted my time, and realized I would break 40 minutes on my Cornbread 5K time for the first time in years (that I broke the 40-minute mark by seconds is irrelevant – I still broke it, even if my time was laughable to actual runners).

Cornbread Alley before Saturday gets rolling

A few locals congregated along the course. No animals visited the course this year. No cats, no dogs, just cars looking for ways around the race roadblocks.

I concentrated on the birds singing from the trees and the woodpeckers digging toward grubs hidden under bark. While the race lacked a water station I quickly forgot on this cool morning. Ten minutes after the race, I stopped sweating, an unexpected record.

Cornbread Alley was ready for runners. I stepped off the course and into the festival. Replenished from a few bottles of water, it was time for my post-race meal. For any other race a runner would load up on carbohydrates the night before. Not after this race- Cornbread Alley called.

For the first time, I sat alone with a plate of cornbread. No one noticed, and I had notes to take on this year’s entries. Precedent determined how I worked through the pieces – increase spiciness as I progressed, save dessert-style cornbread for last. In line, a man in front of me wearing an old cornbread festival T-shirt complained that he didn’t much care of zucchini. “Give me his piece then,” I exclaimed. I only got one piece but enjoyed every bite.

2018 lineup

Sloppy Joe cornbread served by the local Boy Scouts was not at all sloppy, but tastefully presented the ingredients from the perennial school lunch. Even a simple hushpuppy with jalapeno, green onion and cheddar cheese hit all the marks. I was skeptical of black olive cornbread but the flavor was not intense, balanced by heat from red pepper flakes.

This year’s cornbread crop seemed spicier than normal. If I am biased because it was the only piece I tasted twice, cheesy chicken Sriracha was still a winner. Other cornbread samples leaned on red pepper flakes and chopped jalapenos, but the Sriracha heat balanced with the meat and cheese.

This year’s dessert course paired a tropical cornbread with pineapple and a bar with dried cranberries and white chocolate chips. The latter might have been my favorite of the bunch.

The rest of the festival I knew too well, ever artisan, every food vendor. Past festivals on Saturdays this beautiful brought people in droves. This year’s weather would lure them.

Cars queued at the crossroads of South Pittsburg, the line of people growing thick at the Martha White booth next to the main entrance. I could only hope they all made their way to Cornbread Alley. In South Pittsburg, it's the one place of guaranteed change every year on the last weekend in April, when the mixers and ovens come to life again.

As I began the annual departure from South Pittsburg, I had no words, just a belly satisfied by cornbread.

Till next year