Trips to Mount Airy, Part X: Mayberry Days, 2017

I have been gradually telling the story of how author Neal Brower came to be wearing one of our chapter t-shirts when I saw his presentation at the Mayberry Meet-Up in July. The next few posts will finally answer that question.

My buddy Rob and I left early on the Thursday before Mayberry Days 2017 as we planned a not-exactly-on-the-way route to Mount Airy. We decided to go via Morgantown, West Virginia, to see Don Knotts’ hometown.

Rob drove this time, and to save time stopping for breakfast, he stopped for doughnuts at the Holtman’s in West Chester. Hopped up on sugar, we headed to Morgantown. Just as Mount Airy is near the northern border of North Carolina, Morgantown is near the Pennsylvania border. In fact, our approach took us through the vertical panhandle of West Virginia, then through the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania.

I always like to plan ahead for trips like this, and I had read about a bakery in Pennsylvania not far from Morgantown that offered salt-rising bread. Mayberry fans will recall that one of the protests Barney made about one of his sandwiches being given to the dog Opie had found in “Dogs, Dogs, Dogs” was that it was made with salt-rising bread.  The tradition of making salt-rising bread is carried on at only a few bakeries. The bread is generally found in Kentucky, West Virginia, and the western areas of New York and Pennsylvania.

We got off the main road just before passing into West Virginia to visit the Rising Creek Bakery (what a great name!) in Mount Morris, Pennsylvania.

I had already scoped out a restaurant in Morgantown where we were going to have lunch, so we only were there for the legendary bread. I scored a loaf and we each tried a piece as we walked back to the car.

I am sure I had heard of salt-rising bread before I heard Barney mention it, and I may have even tasted it as a child. I know that when I was young it was available commercially in Kentucky at least. But if I had heard of it or tasted it previously, I had forgotten it.

Salt-rising bread was widely made by early settlers in the Appalachians. (By the way, if you want to pronounce the word properly and not like national newscasters who usually say “apple-ay-sha,” just remember to use a hard “CH” sound by recalling this mnemonic rhyme: “Adam,” said Eve, “If you try to deceive, I’ll throw this apple atcha’.”) Commercial yeast was impossible to come by for early mountaineers and was not available until the 1860s. Salt-rising bread does not use yeast. Instead, it uses microbial bacteria as the rising agent. The bread is made with a starter, just as is sourdough bread. I have read that the starter itself has a strong smell that some describe as not unlike a very ripe cheese. The same bacteria used to make salt-rising bread is also found in decaying vegetation. That might help explain the fact that, while it actually has a good flavor that I liked, it has a—shall we say, pungent smell. The same bacteria in the bread is a common cause of food poisoning but the heat of the baking process reduces the bacteria levels to one safe for human consumption.

The theory of the origin of the name comes from what makes the bread so distinctive. The bacteria-filled starter was kept warm by keeping it stored in a bed of heated salt. The taste of the dense, white bread is not salty at all.

We then crossed the border and were soon in Morgantown. Before we began our explorations, we had lunch at Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint. A friend of mine highly recommends the Martin’s location in Nolensville, Tennessee near Nashville. (Martin’s is based in Nashville and they have a location there downtown.) I will eventually get there but when I looked at their website I saw they had a location in Morgantown which led to our visit. Most importantly, the brisket was truly excellent. Unfortunately, the ambiance was far from a “barbecue joint.” It felt much more like a sports bar. Apparently, the excellence of the food was not enough to overcome the shortcomings of the location in a strip mall, as the Morgantown location has since closed.

After an excellent lunch there, we headed toward downtown.