IRWINTON, Ga. — Georgia is known as the peach state, but another southern culinary staple is putting a name on the map for the folks in Irwinton.
Jennifer Morris now has a big trophy.
“I went with my little wagon of ingredients and thought well I'll just give it a shot and when they announced my name I about fell off the stage,” she recalled.
Morris is humble but, in reality, the national banana pudding contest in Tennessee was a bit intimidating.
“There were professional chefs there in their chef coats and people that came from South Africa,” she explained.
But in reality, those professionals should have worried about the Gordon native.
Morris won the state title in Irwinton, a mecca of banana royalty.
“If you live here, you might be set to take on the world,” Morris exclaimed.
Donna Asbell started this thing in 2015.
They've had it for eight years. They had to take a year off for the pandemic, eight years, four national winners.
“Even when they announce Georgia is bringing it yet again so it's very nice," Asbell said with a grin.
Before Irwinton went bananas over pudding, Asbell says Georgia didn't have a presence at the national level because nobody had a state contest, which is the portal to get into nationals.
“It wasn't in the mix,” she said.
But now it's "pudding" Wilkinson County on the map.
Asbell figures almost a fourth of the 37,000 people that showed up last year were tourists.
“You flew in from Canada what brings you to Georgia and they say the state banana pudding festival,” Asbell said.
It's a sweet situation bringing a bunch of people to town and giving locals some well-deserved bragging rights.
The state banana-pudding festival happens all day Saturday.
There is a pudding walk where for $5 you can get a pound of pudding and after the individual judging, you can get a sample from those bowl.
Once again, it happens on East Main Street in Irwinton Georgia.