(gentle upbeat music) - [Interviewer] Maryann, what is your favorite type of cornbread?

- See, I like the southern cornbread, even though I'm a northerner.

I don't do northern cornbread.

You don't put sugar in it.

- [Interviewer] Okay, what is your favorite type of cornbread?

- Jalapeno cheddar with like extra cheddar, for sure.

- Ooh, sounds yummy.

(laughs) - You are Jane's kinda girl.

- Mexican cornbread.

- That's probably one of my top, like, three favorites when it comes to cornbread.

- I'm Virgil Holder.

I am the mayor of City of South Pittsburgh in Tennessee, number one cornbread festival in the nation.

And so our town is alive and perky right now, but normally we're a small sleepy village that kindly enjoy ourselves.

- Yeah.

- Oh, I know, it, it's - Yeah.

- It's loaded, settin' up.

- Yeah?

- Gonna be a pretty weekend.

I never have run across where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was, was associated with us other than the spelling.

And, of course, we, we've dropped the H. (laughs) Or the founding fathers dropped the H, not us.

(drill squeals) (gentle music) - [Carolyn] My name is Carolyn Kellermann Millhiser.

I was born in South Pittsburg, grew up here, moved away for 40 years, and moved back.

South Pittsburg's a small southern town where everybody knows everybody else.

And if you get in trouble, your mother knows about it before you get home.

After the Civil War, a group of British investors decided they wanted to develop an iron ore in the South, so they sent a man over to explore, and he came into the Sequatchie Valley and discovered there was iron ore here and coal and so he decided this would be a place to build a company town.

So they bought 3,000 acres and developed South Pittsburg, hoping it would be the Pittsburgh of the South.

In the north end of town, they built blast furnaces, and it went along fine till about 1896, when the iron ore petered out, and they discovered there was a better grade of iron ore down in Birmingham and Sheffield, Alabama.

So they closed the blast furnaces and moved out.

At that time, there were people that were living here that had been here for 20 years, and they didn't wanna move away, one of whom was Joseph Lodge, and started what is today Lodge Manufacturing, which is still in business 120 years later, the biggest employer in the city.

My great grandfather was Joseph Lodge.

What has Lodge meant?

Well it's been a steady employer.

We've gone through hard times together.

There was a time during the '30s when they couldn't sell skillets that, but they could make and sell doorstops and garden ornaments, but we've all stuck together and we have third and fourth generation employees working in the plant.

We're proud of South Pittsburg, Tennessee.

(music increases tempo) (spoon scrapes bowl) (whirring) (batter plops onto pan) - What this cornbread is for is for the festival, obviously, hm.

(batter sloshes) - This is my, my helper, and I'm her helper.

We're all helping.

You wanna help?

- The Parmesan chive is wonderful.

(laughs) - Only been here an hour and a half, just even gettin' started, and there are crews that come until four in the afternoon and we do it all again tomorrow.

- You laughin' at me, mama?

- We're from South Pittsburg.

We wanted to be like you guys.

Didn't quite work out, because the railroad didn't turn out here.

That was the key.

(cheerful upbeat music) (music slows tempo) - [Woman Yellow Apron] It is a sweet Georgia peach cornbread.

It has cornbread, peaches, all the good yummy stuff, and then we sprinkle it with a little cinnamon sugar on top.

No secrets but our love (laughs) just, just our love.

- Just workin' away in the kitchen.

- [Woman Black Apron] Everybody knows the hens do all the work all the time.

(laughs) - And they do all the nit-pickin', too.

(imitates chicken pecking) (laughs) - Good mornin', good mornin'.

- Thank you very much.

- Maple bacon.

Breakfast inside of cornbread.

- When I say I'm from South Pittsburg, they think I'm talkin' about Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

But we're the South.

You can tell that, can't you?

- Oh, you got that right.

- That's good.

- Very good.

- And we would not mind bein' listed as a sister small city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but we are proud to be our small little town.

♪ Come to cornbread alley ♪ (clapping) ♪ And get yore bread ♪ - Yee-haw ♪ We got maple bacon cornbread ♪ ♪ That's for shore ♪ ♪ And move on down and get you some hushpuppies (laughs) ♪ (crowd laughs) - Good stuff.

Thank you.

(music fades)