Video: Apple Fritters Bring People to Railroad Festival

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By Alyssa Martin

AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) — The annual Amory Railroad Festival is known for its music, games, shopping and unique food.

For 35 years, one local church has played a major role in this event by selling a crowd-favorite food, while also raising money for a good cause.  

Bethal Apostolic Church hosts its community wide church service, as this year’s Amory Railroad Festival wraps up.

During the festival’s second year, Margie Hill got an idea to sell apple fritters. Now, Hill and her daughters prepare more than 40 five gallon buckets of the homemade apple fritter batter.

“The church was set up in the park with a booth and my mom ate apple fritters here and she went and developed a recipe and that was about 33 years ago and we’ve been selling apple fritters before his time. So we’ve been selling apple fritters ever since then,” Andrea Blaylock said.

The fritters are made with all fresh ingredients and delicious red apples. church members volunteer their time every year to prepare and cook the fitters in a organized manner.

“We usually start mixing about 7:30 in the morning and we start making the apple fritters, we start frying them about 8 o’clock in the morning and we don’t quit until about 10 o’clock at night when the crowd leaves,” Blaylock said.

Since the fritters are only sold once a year, it keeps them in high demand.

So much so, The estimated number sold throughout the years is in the millions.

Railroad fest attendees say you can’t visit without trying one.

“From my understanding it’s in the top 20 festivals from the southeast, so I think it’s just the variety of the entertainment and the wonderful food, you can’t miss the apple fritters,” said Randi Kathryn Harmon, Miss Historic South.

Now, more than 30 years later, Hill says she never imagined the fritters to be such a big hit.

“When we started I never dreamed even that we would still be doing it today, this long you know but people have seemed to enjoy it and that’s what satisfies our heart,” Hill said.

This year part of the fundraising proceeds goes to support missions, as Bethel is building a church in Ivory Coast, Africa.

For more information on Bethel Apostolic Church and their missions work, go to www.bethelloves.com