Key Ingredients and Georgia, a Perfect Match!

When Georgians sing "Georgia on my Mind," they are more than likely thinking about the wonderful food the state has to offer. In one meal, Georgians can eat a Vidalia onion, an apple from the orchards of Ellijay, pecans from Tift County, barbeque from Butts County, catfish from Kingsland, a Chick-Fil-A sandwich from Hapeville (with the chicken coming from Dahlonega), or a bass caught in one of the lakes of Thomson. They can also attend a festival centered around food such as "The Big Pig Jig"  in Vienna, the Burke Farm Festival in Burke County, or they can ring in the new year in Haralson County's Possum Drop, with breakfast served immediately following. The foods mentioned can be cooked on one of the ranges manufactured by Roper Industries in LaFayette. Are you hungry yet? All of the places I just mentioned are sites in our tour of "Key Ingredients".

The exhibit will be in our state from June 2008 through February 2010. The upcoming tour is getting a lot of attention in Georgia. Not only do we have a very enthusiastic group of sites spreading the word; everyone from the Georgia Department of Economic Development (one of our partners), to visitors to the Georgia National Fair (we had a table there), on to people at the agri-tourism conference I attended recently have been very excited about the exhibit coming to Georgia. We hope to make this a very successful tour of "Key Ingredients". So, stay tuned . . . I will have more updates and news as we get closer to our kick-off. For now, I am going to sit down with a glass of sweet tea and decide whether to have the peach cobbler or pecan pie! Happy holidays to all!

-- Arden Williams, Georgia Humanities Council, Atlanta, GA