Fried Apples with French Toast at Cracker Barrel in Augusta, Georgia by Ruth Paget
The fried apples with French toast at Cracker Barrel in Augusta (Grovetown), Georgia tie together foods from both ends of Tennessee, where the company’s headquarters are located outside Nashville.
Apples come from eastern Tennessee in abundance thanks to Johnny Appleseed (1774 – 1845) and his associates, who had apples planted from Massachusetts to Indiana. Apples keep well over winter after a fall harvest and offer a fiber boost and a good amount of Vitamin C. For these reasons, apples are a great partner for French toast.
French toast comes from western Tennessee, which lies on the Mississippi River upstream from New Orleans. In New Orleans, French toast is called “pain perdu” or “lost bread.” The French say the bread is ‘’lost,” because it is dunked till soaking in a mixture of egg, milk, and vanilla before frying it.
At Cracker Barrel, they fry apple wedges in butter, sugar, and cinnamon. For the final presentation of the French toast, Cracker Barrel cuts the French toast into fourths and stands them in a pyramid surrounded by standing apple wedges for a real diner 3-D effect with a cup of warm syrup on the side for dipping or pouring.
The fried apples and French toast were all good and eggy sweet. I loved it and had a side of salty bacon to go with it.
I was full and happy as I wandered through the store and really loved seeing Johnny Cash and Prince records for sale. I could not help but thinking of an Alan Jackson lyric “Well, they’re not as backward as they used to be.”
That lyric is true of the customers and staff, too. Cracker Barrel in Augusta, Georgia serves people, who like American food and the restaurant has a store with products that reflect the United States.
For a no-surprises, delicious breakfast, I like Cracker Barrel when I am visiting the southern United States.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
