Apples, pecans, Vidalia onions. Catfish, fried chicken, barbecue. Are you licking your lips yet?

That's the aim of "Key Ingredients: America by Food," part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Federation of State Humanities Councils.

Jack Delano/Courtesy of the Library of Congress (ENLARGE)

The 'children's table' at the Crouch family Thanksgiving Day dinner, Ledyard, Connecticut, November 1940.

Photos IF YOU GO Getting there Vienna is about 137 miles south of Atlanta; plan 2 1/2 hours to drive. About "Key Ingredients" An interactive Web site, www.keyingredients.org, has been developed in conjunction with this traveling exhibit. Click in to share your family recipes and food stories and learn about other food traditions. Where to stay Lake Blackshear Resort & Golf Club, nine miles and 15 minutes from Vienna. Serene lake views and all the amenities you'd expect from a first-class resort, with the nature of a state park. It's located within Georgia Veterans State Park, which has a museum with aircraft, armored vehicles, uniforms, weapons and other items from the Revolutionary through Gulf Wars, as well as the 8,600-acre Lake Blackshear, fishing, hiking and golfing plus the Shortline Excursion Train that runs through the park on its way from Cordele to Plains. Check website for specials. 1-800-459-1230, 229-276-1004 www.lakeblackshearresort.com. Information City of Vienna, 229-268-4920 www.cityofvienna.org. Historic Vienna Preservation Society, 229-268-3663 www.historicvienna.org. Georgia travel stories Westville: Pre-Civil War town is living museum  Allman Bros Band's 'Big House' to open as museum  Town is artisan-friendly  Five romantic spots for the newly wed  Art, music and scenery  Photos: Travel / Southeast Galleries Latest deals! Back to: Travel | Southeast destinations Travel Guide Powered by

The exhibit opens in Vienna on June 28 at the Southwest Georgia Business Development Center. Over the next 18 months, "Key Ingredients" will visit 11 other Peach State towns.

It examines the historical, regional, social and cultural traditions that merge in American dining habits and taste preferences, everyday meals and celebrations. Sponsored by the Vienna Historic Preservation Society in cooperation with the Georgia Humanities Council, the exhibit will continue in Vienna through Aug. 10. Then it will close its pantry doors and head to another rural town.

Curated by pioneering folklorist Charles Camp, author of "American Foodways: What, When, Why and How We Eat in America" (August House, 1989), the exhibit is composed of five sections: Land of Plenty, Local Flavors, Dynamic Delivery, Festival of Feasts and Home Cooking. Each gives a taste of American foodways through interactive collections of artifacts, photographs and illustrations.

Locally, community-specific programs and displays from area food-related businesses, organizations and food festivals will accompany the exhibition. Adding local flavor in Vienna: Tyson Foods, Ellis Brothers Pecans, local produce stands and barbecue pits; a student production about Georgia products; and an exhibit of local artist Jim Burton's painting, "Revival," whose title, the artist says, "refers to that social interaction that brings together the simple faith, food and family triumvirate of the southern life."

Five foodways facts

Five things visitors to the exhibit will discover:

1. Georgia's association with the peach is related to baseball.

The peach is given its due in the Local Flavors section of the exhibit, which looks at local connections associated with food: community markets, regional favorites, food monuments.

Although the peach became Georgia's official state fruit in 1995, Georgia was associated with the peach long before that and can thank baseball player and Georgian Ty Cobb for the affiliation. "Around 1900, Cobb was known as 'the Georgia Peach,'" says Museum on Main Street project director Robbie Davis. "Later, Cobb was shown in a picture attesting to the energizing power of peaches, and the peach's connection to Georgia was cemented."

2. The first restaurant chain was the result of a business traveler's disgust with substandard, overpriced food served to railroad passengers.

If you've seen the 1945 musical, "The Harvey Girls," starring Judy Garland, you know a little bit about Fred Harvey, the English immigrant who, in 1876, began opening a chain of Harvey House restaurants at stations along the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad lines.

Harvey's intent was to serve a fine meal in clean and fashionable surroundings; gentleman diners were required to wear a jacket. "Harvey House Meals" were served with a smile by crisply uniformed Harvey Girl waitresses, young ladies of good morals and manners recruited from back East.

This is just one of the stories narrated in the exhibit's Festival of Feasts' section, on the ways and places people gather to enjoy food, from festivals to restaurants.

3. Thank Eskimo fishermen for frozen fish.

We all learn in school how the rise of industries in the United States radically changed food production, distribution and preparation and that, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, people moved off farms and went to work in factories. But what does this have to do with your frozen fish sticks?

In the exhibit's Dynamic Delivery section, all kinds of foodways firsts are noted, including frozen fish: In 1914, naturalist, businessman and inventor Clarence Birdseye traveled to Labrador in northeastern Canada and observed Eskimo fishermen burying fish in ice to retrieve later. Birdseye would revolutionize the frozen food industry when in 1925 his work to freeze fish commercially was achieved with his "Quick Freeze Machine."

4. Moving up to the "adult table" from the "children's table" is as American as Thanksgiving.

The Home Cooking section reminds many adults of that rite of passage at holiday meals: Getting to sit at the "big table."

5. Agribusiness, as we think of it today, isn't really that new a concept.

Within years of their arrival, European settlers in the U.S. had made big business of farming with large-scale farms and plantations focusing on just a few crops: rice, sugar and later, cotton, with an eye toward exporting. Still, as illustrated in the Land of Plenty section, we closely identify with and revere the family farm.

"Historically, the small farmer was always looked upon as a stabilizing force in society, being self-sufficient, helping to settle land and make it productive," says Davis. "We hold tight to it because it was such a significant part of the lives of many of our ancestors and because it seems to be under such threat from the massive business of farming today."

Vienna foodways

To showcase the traditions specific to Vienna, Ann McCleary, a history professor at West Georgia College, and two of her students recently interviewed local cooks who are known throughout the community for their Southern recipes or their affiliation with the food industry or local food festivals.

These included restaurateur Marise Lundy, noted for her down home Southern-style country cooking, including fried chicken, cornbread dressing and collard greens, and Stan Gambrell, the "Father of the Big Pig Jig," a barbecue throw-down that attracts more than 130 cook teams and 10,000-plus visitors each year. Based on information from these interviews and others, McCleary has prepared a catalog for visitors featuring cooks from all 12 Georgia sites hosting "Key Ingredients."

• June 28-Aug. 10: Vienna Historical Preservation Society, Vienna
• Aug. 16-Sep. 28: Cherokee Regional Library, LaFayette
• Oct. 4-Nov. 16: Gilmer County Library, Ellijay
• Nov. 22-Jan. 4, 2009: Hapeville Historical Society, Futon County
• 2009
• Jan. 10-Feb. 22: McDuffie County Museum, Thomson
• Feb. 28-April 11: Appalachian Studies Center, North Georgia
• College, Dahlonega
• May 2-June 14: Kingsland Downtown Development Authority, Camden County
• June 20-Aug. 2: Agrirama, Tifton
• Aug. 8-Sept. 20: Ohoopee Regional Library, Vidalia
• Sept. 26-Nov. 8: Burke County Library, Waynesboro
• Nov. 14-Dec. 27: Butts County Historical Society, Indiana Springs/Flovilla
• Jan. 2-Feb. 14, 2010: Haralson County Historical Society, Buchanan