A Cracker Barrel feast
Sorry for disappearing for the past couple of days. Somewhere between a torrential downpour, a trip to the zoo and a batch of awesome zucchini muffins — recipe to come later this week! — I got a little sidetracked. 
Where was I? Oh yes, Southern eating. When you’re talking Southern food and you’re talking gluttony, there’s really one place to go:
nationalspatula.com
‘Oh no, you didn’t!’
Oh yes, we did.
Driving down to Williamsburg, Simone mentioned she’d never been to Cracker Barrel before. I guess it’s an East Coast/Midwest thing…?
It was always an essential road trip stopping point for my family. Massive amounts of Southern-style food. Just walking in is a feast for the senses… and not always in a good way! I do love any place where the first thing you see upon walking in is a table full of candles, Halloween costumes for dogs and this:
Candy, candy, everywhere!
There’s really nothing healthy on the Cracker Barrel menu. They do advertise some ‘lighter’dishes but really, it’s just a list of everything not deep-fried. If you’re going to CB, you need to be prepared for a little gluttony.
After completely annoying our poor waitress with urban confusion — What are fried apples? What is a hash brown casserole? — our food came. I opted for an egg sandwich, which came on white (!) bread and slathered with mayo, which I tried to scrape off. The aforementioned fried apples looked just like stewed cinnamon apples to me…
I can’t lie — it was pretty delicious, white bread and all. They even offered Egg Beaters at no extra charge!
Simone was a bit more adventurous and went for some sort of ham and biscuits dish.
Oh yes, I stole a biscuit. Oh yes, it was delicious.
Looking around the room, we were shocked by some of the entrees being served: chicken-fried steak slathered with gravy, pancakes stacked eye-high, buckets of Coke the size of my head. I debated ordering a side of green beans before seeing that even the vegetables came with a meat mix-in.
Cracker Barrel. It’s an experience. We waddled out of there with our pants, er, dresses a little tighter, minds a little hazier and stomachs a little happier. 
Have you been to Cracker Barrel?
I’ve heard of Cracker Barrel but I’ve never been. I don’t think I can be trusted in a store with candy like that!!!
And it’s so cheap!
Ha ha! Sounds like the right description to me! I went there ONCE and had such a hard time finding anything vegetarian. Won’t be back soon
You mean, having the option of a garden salad (minus bacon bits) wasn’t enough choice?!
hahaha
I used to LOVE CB!! Ever since I was diagnosed with Celiacs though, it has lost its appeal
I also went there recently and was super disappointed! Glad it was good for you!!!
I miss those dumplings and warm biscuits!
~Alyssa
Yes, those biscuits are pretty key.
I’ve never been to Cracker Barrel either!! We’ll have to stop on one of our road trips some day…I have friends who are obsessed with it!
Yes, it’s definitely a must-stop at least once on a road trip.
I love Cracker Barrel, but only every once in awhile!
Yes, it’s definitely not an every day thing!
Sometimes I think I’m the only person who isn’t a CB fan! Granted, it was a northern one I went to (and I hear the southern ones are better), but the pancakes tasted more like salted crackers than anything else. Loved the store, though!
I’ve only had about two things and it was decent but WAY too salty. It’s more of a fun road trip stop.
Haha, Erin, I considered Cracker Barrel such an important American phenonmenon that I insisted that a visiting Scottish friend AND my English ex-boyfriend accompany me to the place on the separate Midwest road trips I took with them. The Scottish friend, who had been to the US before but never the middle, had a lovely interaction with the waitress. Something along the lines of:
Waitress: Are you ready to order?
N (in a mild Scottish accent): No, I haven’t finished translating the menu. Why do you eat buiscuits with gravy? What is a grit?
W: Grits? Uhh… uhh… Hmm… Give me a second.
(W returns with a small bowl of grits)
W: Yeah, it’s sort of hard to describe, so I thought it would be easier.
She was sweet on the the Scottish accented visitor.
The very Americanised ex had a less exciting visit, though we were there with my brother, and our opening conversation went something like this:
T (while looking at the menu of steaks and other full meals, cue nice Southern English accent): So, what’s good here?
Me (glances over with my brother): So, how do you feel about breakfast for dinner? Pretty much breakfast is the only thing I would eat.
Bro: Yeah… Definitely need to stick to breakfast.
Anyway, I consider a trip to CB an essential of any road trip, mostly because my family pretty much always stopped there on the way to or from Detroit to visit my grandparents, which we did many three day weekends growing up.
Yes, it was an essential stop for a West Coast transplant. I definitely went for the breakfast option!
You would probably roll over and die if you saw what kind of food I tend to order at Cracker Barrel. Let’s just say I’m all about soaking up the experience.
I’d love to see your post about it, or just eat with you. You’d know all the true, GOOD Southern things to order, whereas our poor waitress was overwhelmed by northerners who didn’t know grits from biscuits with gravy.
growing up, we used to always stop there on family road trips!
Yes! Plus a stop at the candy counter, natch.
I was just talking about Cracker Barrell with my friend. She said it was nostalgic.
I’ve never been before but it sounds kinda cool.
It’s definitely somewhere you have to visit at least once on a road trip, preferably while wearing stretchy pants.
Erin, my first visit to a Cracker Barrel was also en route to Williamsburg! It was somewhere in West Virginia. I had never been in any category of restaurant that had collard greens on the menu, so I was very excited. Several years later I had occasion to eat at a CB somewhere in Arizona. It didn’t seem as good as the one in West Virginia. I had the chicken and dumplings and found that they do the flat kind of dumplings that are really more like noodles. In my family we always had the fluffy round kind of dumplings, which explains why I was disappointed in CB’s. I love to do Southern cooking–reminds me of my paternal grandmother. If you like Southern, you should definitely try my (I should say, my grandmother’s) Cream Gravy.