Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie (Tennessee, 1976?)

[Natalie Maynor]

> THE NASHVILLE COOKBOOK:
> SPECIALTIES OF THE CUMBERLAND REGION
> By Nashville Area Home Economics Association
...
>    So, based on my investigation, the Mississippi Mud Cake/Pie possibly comes from Tennessee, possibly from a secret recipe of Bethany Dumas.

I don't think the Cumberland region is a likely source for it.  The
Mississippi Delta strikes me as more likely. (The Delta, btw, doesn't
mean the river's actual delta.  Mississippi children introduced to the
term "delta" in geography/geology books learn that our delta is in
fact an "alluvial plain."  Whatever *a* delta is, *The* Delta is the
flat land along the Mississippi River, stretching from the lobby of
the Peabody Hotel in Memphis to Catfish Row in Vicksburg.)

I carried a whole backback stuffed with Mississippi Mud Puppies to
Japan last May as gifts to friends there -- thirty or forty mud
puppies.  My shoulders ache in memory of that every time I pass the
mud-puppy shelf in our campus bookstore.
   --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)