'Taste of America' showcases Cheerwine
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 2, 2009
By Paris Goodnight
Salisbury Post
Call this another coup for Cheerwine and Salisbury.
The Travel Channel’s “Taste of America” will feature Salisbury’s finest libation — Cheerwine — in a premiere for the cable channel at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
It’s the third season of the show with actor and comedian Mark DeCarlo as the host traveling across America in search of destinations famous for their unique cuisines. The show also explores the underlying story of the people and cultures that created and love the food.
DeCarlo spoke by phone from California on Friday, detailing his time over the summer in Salisbury, where he enjoyed sampling some of the finest Southern charm folks around here have to offer.
It didn’t start out too smoothly when the airline lost his luggage, leaving him with only the clothes he was wearing. But DeCarlo said things picked right up when company officials presented him a Cheerwine T-shirt and watch.
“We went to this hamburger joint downtown …” he remembered.
Hap’s?
“Yeah, Hap’s — it was great.”
Then he said they stopped in a pharmacy with a soda fountain, which sounds like it must have been Innes Street Drug on Main Street. “We ate floats and ice cream treats made with Cheerwine,” DeCarlo said.
He said all of it was great, with the Cheerwine itself being sort of like Cherry Coke, but not too sweet.
He said in the 200 cities he’s been to so far, “About 50 percent of the stuff I try is OK.”
That includes a lot of items that may have complicated sounding names, but are really similar to more common foods. Other parts of Tuesday night’s show include trips to Brussels, Wisc., for a taste of booyah, which he said is much like a hearty soup, and to Kathryn, N.D., for lefse, which is like a potato pancake.
Another upcoming episode includes another North Carolina favorite: livermush, which DeCarlo tried during a visit to Shelby.
Other cities featured in the premiere episodes include Caldwell, Texas, for kolashe and Washington Island, Wisc., for fish boil.
DeCarlo, perhaps best known as the voice of the dad on the Jimmy Neutron children’s show, summed up his Salisbury stop like this: “It was beautiful green country and everyone was sweet to us.”
And he said treats like livermush and Cheerwine are all fine, “in responsible doses.”
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Contact Paris Goodnight at 704-797-4255 or pgoodnight@ salisburypost.com.
