The Farmer's Daughter

Two thumbs up for The Farmer's Daughter just outside of Erwin, Tennessee.  If you are within 50 miles of this place I strongly encourage you to check it out on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Imagine, if you will, any summer midday, Friday, in a lush valley in Eastern Tennessee.  Rolling hills and a few blind curves from Erwin, there is a pasture that once probably grew tobacco or soybeans that has turned into a major local attraction for church groups and tourists alike.

This is The Farmer's Daughter.  It's only open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and it is almost uncomfortably out of the way as a lunch destination.  This is why when I drove into the parking lot and saw a line of folks on the front porch waiting for the doors to open for lunch, I was a bit surprised.  And you could tell they were hungry because the rumor is that no one eats breakfast when they know they're going to The Farmers Daughter for lunch.

Now that's not to say that they don't have a great breakfast.  They offer bacon, sausage, country ham and pork tenderloin (choice of three).  You get your eggs to order, hash brown potatoes, baked apples, stone ground grits, biscuits, sausage gravy, strawferry jam, apple butter, maple syrup, honey, coffee and tea, sodas, mild and orange juice with free refills.  They also will make pancakes by request.

Ages 5 & under eat breakfast for free.  Ages 6 - 11 eat for $4.95 plus tax.  And 12 and over $8.95 plus tax.

I can't attest to the breakfast because I went solely for lunch.  The lunch menu changes so it's hard to know precisely what you're going to get when you go-- which kind of makes it like eating Sunday dinner at your Mamaw's house.

The food is served "family style" which means the dishes all come out onto the table and you pass the food around.  You get free refills of food, so it is truly an "all you can eat" experience.  This Friday they offered fried chicken, country ham, steak n gravy, bbq pulled pork, chicken livers, alaskan whitefish, pacific codfish, and/or catfish/cajun.   I should say that EVERYTHING cooked at the farmers daughter is locally bought (where possible) and prepared in the homestyle way by country cooks.  There are no shortcuts with these meals.  I'll tell you what I put on my plate.

In order to accommodate all of the tastes of my family members, we selected country ham and fried chicken as our meats.  I didn't try the country ham, but it was naturally too salty for my taste.  The fried chicken was amazing.  The best fried chicken I ever ate.

Some sides I would like to point out include the overall winner for taste and "crossover" eating for my kids-- the fried green tomatoes.  They also had yellow and heirloom local tomatoes, sliced and juicy.  One of the most interesting dishes was the cornbread salad-- cornbread and fresh diced veggies mixed together into a delicious cold paste.  Really outstanding.  The also served carrot souffle.  I was so glad when I noted that it wasn't too "yammy" tasting and actually retained the carrot taste with only a modicum of sweetness.  The green beans were yet another local variety-- we got biscuits and cornbread both served in unlimited quantity.  Everything was so good that even the REAL mashed potatoes seems a bit lackluster in light of the midday fireworks going on inside my mouth.

For dessert I had apple cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Everyone else at my table had the chocolate cream pie.  The Cobbler was not overly sweet, the local apples used to make the cobbler were diced, so one could enjoy eating the cobbler in very small bites.  The crust for the chocolate cream pie was other-worldly.  I have no idea how it was made, but it was a perfect crust.

There were a few negatives about the restaurant, although there are few and none of them with much merit.  1) styrofoam is not my favorite choice of dinnerware.  It would have greatly improved my dining experience to have better ware from which to dump my delicious food, and 2) they're only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday!  I would eat here eight days a week!

Across the parking lot was a wonderful dry goods store that you would certainly not want to miss after driving out there.   We purchased some fudge, candies, pure peanut butter, and dehydrated soups.