In this special interview episode, I talk with Jimmy Proffitt from the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We discuss how the Old Mill grinds their flours, grits, and cornmeal the old fashion way with stones. We also talk about the importance of properly storing these stone ground products so that they don't go rancid on you. Jimmy shares his recipe for cornbread that is simple and tasty!
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Here is the transcript from our interview with Jimmy Proffitt from the Old Mill.
Eric: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Eat Shop Waste Not podcast. I'm here today with a special interview. I got my friend Jimmy from The Old Mill in Pigeon Forge, TN. Today we're gonna talk about stone ground corn meal and grits and flours and all that fun stuff. I just got to actually visit the shop in person and met Jimmy at the, at the Old MIll. So, uh, Jimmy, welcome to the podcast today.
Jimmy: Well, thank you very much. Eric, it's a, it's a pleasure to be here.
❓ What is the Old Mill?
Eric: Definitely a pleasure to have you. We're just getting to try out some of their amazing products here. Um, but um, Jimmy, I want you to start by just, uh, telling us what is The Old Mill?
Jimmy: Sure. Well, The Old Mill is, uh, it's a historic, um, site that is a fully functional operating mill. And as you said, we're in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, so we're right in the middle of a tourist, uh, destination as well. But the old mill was built in 1830 and it's been in continuous operation ever since. We grind primarily corn and we do grind wheat and we do lots of mixes and flours and um, breadings and things.
We have two restaurants that, uh, we supply with all of those products, a distillery that we supply with all those products as well, cuz they do use our, our grains and then we um, we bag it up and we sell it. Uh, and a couple of our shops cuz we have several shops and online.
And we still use the power of the Little Pigeon River to grind all of our corn, to the tune of up to 400,000 pounds a year!
So we say we're a small operation, but 400,000 pounds of corn is a lot to process in one year. And, uh, you know, we just have, we have three Millers that work in there. Um, the head Miller and he's got two associates working with him. And, um, Chuck's been with us now for, I think about 14 years. And he studied under our previous Miller before that, and he's studied under previous Miller before that.
So he's really one of just a handful of people that have done. What he does. And, uh, so, um, you know, it, it doesn't take a lot of people to do what they do, um, but they stay busy all day long.
Eric: Yeah, so it's k, it's kinda like an art, would you call it? It's kinda like a form of art, isn't it?
Jimmy: It is, uh, a form of art because, you know, there are lots of modern mills, much larger big brands that people have probably heard of and use every day, even store brands that they use, uh, from their local grocery store or something. But what we do is, um, is more artisan and, like I say, you know, it's funny to call it small batch when we do that much, but, um, it's, uh, it's almost a lost art really because there are lots of mills still around the country.
Uh, there are a couple in in the national park that still grind, but they don't sell what they grind. Um, we actually are the ones that provide the ground, uh, corn meal and, and uh, things that they sell through, uh, one of the fundraiser, um, organizations that help out the national park, but so they can only show what they do.
Um, and so we're happy to support that so that they're able to still offer something to people that are visiting the mountains. Um, which is one of the reasons why people come here. Obviously, they want to go into the great Smokey Mountains National Park. It's the most visited national park in the country.
I think there were 14 million visitors last year. So just because that's right here, you know, in our backyard we literally can see, um, Mount Laconte every day from our location here. And, uh, and so, uh, that just brings a lot of people here and, and we have a lot of customers that have been buying from us over the years, but still a small kind of lost art.
⚙️ What is Stone Ground?
Eric: Yeah, it is amazing. Uh, um, my son was really fascinated by the whole process. He was excited when he saw it. Um, they were demonstrating it at Cade's Cove, which is one of the, um, areas in the Smokey Mountains at the visitor center they have there. And they were, and they were doing, uh, uh, a demo of it.
So he, he was really fascinated by the, but the whole process that we took him to a different mill that had a kind of a different way of doing it. Um, So it's really neat to, you know, kind of see that here and see someone that's actually still doing it the old fashioned way.
Jimmy: Right. Yeah. And the setup is pretty similar to, um, to what we have here. And our equipment has been in use for many years.
The stones that we use are only the second set of stones to be used in the mill, since 1830. So they last a very, very long time. The stones that are in there now are a little over 40 years old.
So I, I always kind of joke and say they're younger than most of us and we'll probably outlive all of us, uh, in their use. And, um, We just have to have 'em cleaned up about every year. So we have a stone dresser, who is the, the person that would come in and clean those up. So we separate the stones and, uh, they come in with their, with their tools. You know, back in 1830, that would've been a chisel and a hammer. Uh, today they have a few more modern tools that they use that are electrical that will speed that process up a little bit. But, um, it's, uh, it's still, um, pretty similar to what you would've seen, uh, there as well.
Eric: What, what are the stones made of?
Jimmy: They are, uh, French bur flint, granite, so they're granite stones and there's two.
You've got your bed stone and your top stone. The bed is stationary. Uh, the top is called the runner stone. It's the one that turns, and, uh, each one weighs a little over 2000 pounds.
Eric: Very hefty.
Jimmy: Yes, very hefty. And they're about, um, I guess about four feet in diameter. And, uh, and there's the original set when you were here. I don't know if you noticed, were leaned up against the porch of the general store. So the set that lasted, 140 years is out in front of the, uh, general store still on display.
Where just, um, you could see what the weather has done over the last, uh, 40 years, has, has done a little work on those in addition to them being worn down. But, um, but yeah, those are still out there, so it's kind of neat to have those around too.
Eric: Right. Yeah. You don't see much tools that last that long. You know,
Jimmy: Uh, no.
Eric: you know, you spend all this money for like, you know, expensive like, um, refrigerators and then, and they don't last, or, you know, you know, you spend so much money on now don't last, but a stone that's still doing a job is 40 years and it's still probably got another a hundred years possibly left.
Jimmy: Yeah, in the mill too, we have some what's called roller mills that were installed back in the, um, late 18 hundreds to around 19 hundreds, somewhere in there. And they've not been in use in about 50 or 60 years. We've never used them. There's no belts hooked up to them anymore, but those were to grind some other grains that we just don't grind in the mill anymore.
Um, and a lot of it was really originally, uh, there to grind grains that were grown by farmers here in the area, just for them to be able to process their own grains. So it wasn't the, uh, tourist destination that is today. It wasn't supplying restaurant, uh, you know, like two restaurants, like we have that kind of thing.
Um, but those roller mills are no longer in use for us, but they're still there. And the company that made those back in the late 18 hundreds. They went out of business in about 30 years because they made a product, a machine that was so good, it never broke down, and they saturated the market and nobody else needed one.
And then technology started changing. So, um, there a lot of modern mills are roller mills. They're very large rolls that they, that the grains will pass through to, to, uh, you know, crack those and crush those and grind them. Um, the actual stone grounding process like we use is very, very rare. Uh, so it's, it's kind of, um, something that you just won't see.
🙋 How is Stone Ground Different?
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, so, so besides the nostalgia and kind of fun aspect of it all, um, so what, what are the differences like with stone gown, you know, grits, flowers, corn meal? Like, like, why does it even matter?
Jimmy: Well, for us it matters because it's, it's very minimal processing to it. So, um, when it passes to the stones and it, and it grinds, it, it's ground in a matter of, of seconds really from the time it hits the stones until it's passed through.
So that means very little has touched the grain. Pp to that point, the, the process is not hot, so it's not going to heat up the grains, it's not gonna cook them. Whereas roller mills and large mills, it gets very hot in those places. So, and that's not to say there's anything bad with those products. I don't want it to sound like that at all. But for us, that's what we like.
And every day the Miller is adjusting that grind. It changes with the weather, changes with the time of year. Um, when it's cold, it's a little harder to grind. When it's warm, it's a little softer to grind. Um, and for them, for their fingers and, and everything, it's a little easier to, to tie the millers not in the summer than it is in the winter, cuz their hands are cold in the wintertime because in the mill we have no heat, we have no air.
Um, so they're just, they're really subjected to whatever the temperature of the day is. And the fact that we're, um, the building is, is built on stilts. So it's a good, you know, 12 to 20 feet off the ground in places, uh, there's air circulated around the building all the time, so it can be even colder and it's sitting, you know, next to water.
So in the wintertime it's easily 20 degrees colder inside the mill, and in the summertime it can easily be 20 degrees hotter, uh, depending on which floor they're working on that day and what they're doing. Um, so as far as it being, what makes it better? Um, they really get to choose the coarseness of the grind, and it's very minimally processed.
We don't add any, um, pesticides or preservatives to, uh, the products as we process them. And, uh, so what you're getting is as, just as, um, I don't wanna say organic, just as original as it would've, as it would've been, uh, in 1830. Um, and all of our corn is grown here in Tennessee, so it's all locally grown and it's all non gmo, and that's something that's important to us.
We want to keep it as close as possible as regional as possible. Because again, that's what it would've been in 1830. And, um, we think it provides a better product for us. And, and, uh, I may be a bit of a snob, uh, when it comes to this because I've been here, uh, almost 25 years now, so I, I kinda like our products, but I really do enjoy using, um, our grits and our corn meal and our flowers that we have, because I think they, they work very, very well.
Eric: Yeah, and if you've ever had, you know, the, you've had instant grits and then you have a real good stone ground grit, you, the, the taste is just off the, off the charts.
Jimmy: It is different because with, uh, with an instant grid, it means it's already been cooked, it's already been hydrated, um, and then they dehydrate it. Uh, so you start to lose a little bit of that flavor, um, a little bit there. With ours, they are stone ground and they're long cooking, so it takes 20. You know, or so minutes depending, you wanna start cooking 'em out low and slow.
You don't wanna start it out fast. You don't wanna necessarily, you know, bring it up to a high temperature because you could evaporate the, the liquid through the boiling process, through the cooking process too quickly and not give it time for the corn to absorb the, the liquid. And so you just have to be careful with that.
But otherwise, um, it's very, very easy to cook, so it's a three to one ratio. So for every one cup of grits you're gonna use three cups of water and give it that slow, uh, process.
You are gonna bring it up to a temperature that it's gonna cook and, um, and then just keep an eye on it, keep stirring it and, uh, you're gonna get lots and lots of flavor in that.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is definitely more flavor. What about nutritionally?
Jimmy: Well, nutritionally, and like I said, we don't add anything to it. We don't take anything away. Um, when it comes to our grits, those are sifted, uh, because we need to eliminate part of that corn from it. So we, those are sifted. So the hull is shifted off one place through the grits machine. The dust that falls off of that we call corn flour, it drops to the bottom of the machine.
And then what comes out are the grits. So you're getting the, the germ of the corn, the, the heart of the corn. Um, and so nothing else is added or taken away from that. When it comes to the corn meal, it is every bit of the corn, so we don't sift anything out. And uh, if you buy a bag of our corn meal, you'll notice like the, the plane is called unbolted, and unbolted simply means un sifted.
So even our self rising, the ones that we've added the leavening agents to, so the baking powder and, and kind of thing, uh, those are still unbolted. We just don't have room on the label to say. Unbolted self-rising cuz it's all unbolted and it just means un sifted,
Eric: Yeah, I mean, you look the texture, you see the colors in there. You see the, the variations and stuff. You know, it's like, I mean, it just looks good.
Jimmy: And we grind white and yellow corn, so we do bag 'em separately. And there are folks that prefer yellow corn. Whether it's cornmeal or grits, there are folks that prefer white. Typically, those kind of run regionally. So more folks to the north tend to like the yellow, more folks to the white tend to, or to the south, like the white.
Um, but it's not a steadfast rule. And also when it comes to, uh, baking cornbread, more people in the north like it a little bit sweet, and people in the south will probably, um, maybe likely hurt you if you add any sugar to the cornbread. So some are very, very passionate about it and, uh, you know, as long as you're making cornbread for me, I'm gonna eat it.
Uh, so I'm not as picky as some.
Eric: Yeah, I was thinking you too, that you know the south, you know, it's the, the sweet tea's important. You know the big thing here, so you know you can't have too much sugar, right? You got to have your cornbread and sweet tea.
Jimmy: Well, and, and some of 'em say they want to know the difference in their cornbread and their cake. So they want to have cornbread to start in cake to finish with. So I, I kinda get, they want to have, they wanna know which one's sweet.
🥶 How to Store Stone Ground Products
Eric: Which ones it? Yeah, so there is some differences in terms of storing your products as opposed to when you're just buying the typical, um, standard grocery store flour or other corns here. So what can you say about, like, what advice can the people about when they buy their buy a storm ground product or something, you know, anything that's pretty from you or pretty similar to you, um, what, what they need to do for those
Jimmy: What we recommend is to keep it cold. So if you can keep it in the refrigerator, that's good. If you can keep it in the freezer, that's great. And you wanna keep it airtight because it is a natural grain. It's gonna absorb whatever's around it. So, um, if you put it in the cabinet next to the stove, you've got all that steam from cooking, it's gonna absorb, things from that, even if it's just the moisture.
And again, it's a product and corn, you know, has oils in it and that oil can go rancid. Keeping it in the refrigerator, freezer is gonna. Prevent that, and I store 'em out in the freezer and it keeps, they tell me it keeps indefinitely. I've never had it long enough to know
Eric: Yeah.
Jimmy: if there's a period to indefinite.
So, um, and I use it straight from the freezer. So I have a, an airtight, um, container that's made to hold, uh, flour and corn meal and grits and that kind of thing, and I just scoop it straight from that and measure it out and use it. I don't, you don't need to thaw it. You don't need to wait any period of time.
It, uh, works straight from there. And that, that applies to the grits, to the corn meal and even to the flowers because again, grains all have oils in them and you don't want that to turn rancid. Um, but also it's gonna help prevent any infestation of any little critters that would want to get in there. Um, and if you keep it where it's gonna get moisture and, and the smell is gonna get out there, it's gonna draw.
I mean, it's gonna get their attention. So that alone is, is, uh, the main reason that you wanna keep it airtight and somewhere cold.
Eric: Yeah, that was really good advice. Yeah. You know, give yourself a nice, you know, a nice airtight container that'll fit in yourfreezer. You know, if you can. Try to find something that'll reasonably fit. You know, everyone has different freezers. You know, we have the drawer freezers and we have the not freezer side by side.
You gotta try to look for some type of container that'll fit well.
Jimmy: yeah, even if you put it in, uh, Ziploc bags, I would get the freezer type bags and I would probably double bag it just to give it that extra little layer of protection because again, you don't want it to absorb any flavors. Um, and most everything in the freezer is not gonna really transfer flavors other than maybe if you put something with a strong odor in there, um, just in that little bit of time that it's together, it could absorb something.
Eric: Frozen garlic or something.
Jimmy: right, right. So I just tried to keep that a little bit separate.
Eric: Yeah. You have the natural product like that, you know, it's not like processed like the other stuff is where you don't have to worry about that. I mean, sure. Obviously you, I have still, you know, forgotten about some kind of flour thing that was just, you know, typical store brand type thing, and you still find bugs in it occasionally, but not, not having it go, you know, go rancid on you is not as common.
Jimmy: Right. And that's not, yeah, the rancid part is not something that a lot of people think of. But if you, if you're somebody that likes grits or you like to make cornbread, but you don't make it all the time, it's gonna sit a while, you know? And because we don't add any preservatives to it. So even something as simple as salt is a preservative.
Um, so it's not like, oh, it's bad chemicals necessarily going onto these products, um, that you might get at the grocery store. It's just that they have been processed in a way that helps preserve them longer, um, to give you a little more time where ours don't have that. So, you know, you do have to consider that.
Which is also why we sell a lot of stuff in, uh, two pound bags as well as five pound bags on things because not everybody needs a full five pounds of, of corn meal if they're making cornbread, you know, once a month or a couple of times a year, uh, as opposed to somebody that's gonna make it every week or every weekend, um, for Sunday dinner or something.
And they're gonna go through it pretty quickly, so it won't even, won't even have time to get old.
🌾 More Old Mill Products
Eric: Yeah. We talked about corn, you know, the corn meal grits. What are some other products that you guys sell?
Jimmy: Well we grind a whole wheat, so we have a really good whole wheat flour and we have a great whole wheat bread flour. Makes an incredible loaf of bread. So we have two restaurants. The Pottery House Cafe is the smaller restaurant across the street from the restaurant that most people are familiar with, which is the Old Mill restaurant.
Uh, it's much larger and serves three meals a day. The cafe is open for lunch and dinner, except on the weekends. They'll add some time in there, but they, um, they make a honey wheat out of the holy wheat flour and it's an incredible bread. So breads are of course, uh, something that people do a lot and we take those products and turn 'em into breaders.
So we have a lot of mixes that, um, people will use to bread . We have a fried chicken breader. We've got, um, a, uh, fried green tomato breading, an okra breading. So it can be meats, it can be vegetables. Um, we have a popcorn meal that is, uh, something that you don't find in most places and it's a great breader for meats.
And so, um, that's another way that people will use our products and. Not necessarily as just straight cornbread or, or bowl of grits.
Eric: Yeah, and I can vouch that popcorn meal. I picked it up. Um, We were in town and, and theres a recipe right in the back. I'm like, I'm just gonna use that. So just a matter of just taking some pork chops, you give 'em a soak and buttermilk. I mean, you can't get more southern than that. Soaking something in buttermilk.
Jimmy: Yes, right.
Eric: and, and then, you know, then putting the breading on there and all the, yeah, they, they're really good.
Really, really love that.
Jimmy: Well, and, you know, to what's important about that buttermilk, the, the lactic acid in that buttermilk is gonna help tenderize those pork chops. So, you know, it's, it's something that it, yes, it does add flavor. Uh, it's gonna make the, the popcorn meal stick to it as well. Um, but it's, it's gonna help tenderize that pork chop and make it really juicy and tender for you.
So, yeah, it's an important step. And then we have a lot of pancake mixes too. So, um, we have a great, great buttermilk pancake mix. That's our best seller of all of those. But we've got some that are seasonal, some that are flavors. We do, uh, an apple cinnamon and a, a blueberry. Um, so we have some of those and then some seasonal ones.
There might be a sweet potato, uh, pancake you can pick up part of the year or, uh, praline, um, mix that you can pick up part of the year. And, uh, those are are all really great and easy to use.
🍞 Recipe Suggestions
Eric: Yeah. They all sound delicious for sure. Um, so as we wrap up the interview, what are some other, um, what are some recipes maybe that you do yourself from some of your products that are kind of cool or some other ones you've heard about? They're like, oh man, this is so great.
You know, some comes back to you, Hey, I bought this here and I made this with it.
Jimmy: I. Yeah, for me, I cook a lot, um, and so I make cornbread or biscuits probably at least once a week.
I just love a straight cornbread. I don't put any flour in mine. It's just corn meal and an egg, salt and pepper, and so a little bit of baking powder. And buttermilk, and that's all I put in it. I don't even put butter or oil in it. I put that in the pan. I usually use butter and let the butter melt as the pan gets hot. Pour that batter in there and the butter just kind of comes up and, and just glides over the top of the batter. And then when it bakes up, it's all golden on the outside and it's buttery.
And, um, it's just, I think it makes, honestly, the best cornbread. And I make biscuits a lot, so, um, I love our plain flour. You can use the self-rising flour. I just like to add my own baking powder to it. And, uh, and then we also have a biscuit mix. So if you just want something really quick and you wanna be able to make biscuits, it's really, really simple to make biscuits with that one.
And we actually use our biscuit mix in the ultimate restaurant every day, and we make hundreds of biscuits every morning. So, um, it's a very good, uh, very good mix. Uh, one of the folks that I work with, she uses our jalapeno corn meal to bread okra. So we have an okra breading. She likes it and her husband likes it with a little bit extra kick so that that jalapeno, uh, that's in there, it flavors it really, really well.
And so she likes, uh, to use it for that. And that mix or that corn meal also has corn flour in it. So you get that little bit of, uh, flour dusting to it, which works really well with something like that. So if you want to, uh, even to do like fried pickles and have a little extra kick to 'em or something like that, that's a great product to use to, um, bread, those types of things.
🛒 Where to Find Old Mill Products
Eric: You guys who are listening this here, are you not hungry right now. I don't know what's wrong with you. Yeah, this is really some awesome recipes. Um, and thanks here. Uh, so thanks Jimmy. I appreciate you coming on today here. So, um, if people are looking for your products, um, where might they go?
Jimmy: Well, they can go to our website. It's old-mill.com. And there they can find all the products. They can also find all the recipes. So if there's something they wanna learn to make, Even the back of the bag recipes are, are up there. So if they've bought a bag and maybe they put it in that airtight container and then threw the bag away and didn't have the recipe, we make sure we've got it online for you too.
So it's, it's always there so you can get back to it. Um, and then they can also, uh, find us on social. So we're on Instagram. On Instagram, Facebook, um, we're on YouTube, we're working on that channel. We're gonna be adding some more videos to that. But if you wanna learn how to tie what's called a Miller's Knot, which is what our Millers use, um, you know, again, it's a very simple process in there.
So they fill all the bags by hand, weigh them out, and then use what's called a Miller's not to tie each bag closed. And, uh, so if you wanna learn how to make that knot and be able to tie your bags back up the way that they were originally, Go on and watch that, and he can teach you how to, how to tie that.
So that's kind of fun for kids too, uh, to learn how to tie Miller's Knot.
Eric: Yeah, it's very useful. Doing things like that too just brings the whole kinda like, feel together, like whole, this is, you know, you see the, see the product like this looks like someone like put love into it. You know, when, when you're hand tying it and you're putting a stamp on it, you know, it's as opposed to, you know, our world where most of the time it's just, you know, everything is so huge factory process.
Jimmy: Yeah, I think, uh, I think I counted it up and there's a minimum of six times that they handle the bag. So they've gotta stamp the front, they've gotta turn it over and put the label on the back. So whichever recipe is going with that product. Um, and every one of 'em are, the bags are stamped by hand and then they've gotta barcode.
Of course they've gotta put it on there, they've gotta fill it up, they've gotta tie it and then they're gonna stock it. So, um, and. From the time they grind, say just the corn meal to the time it goes on the shelf is a matter of days to a week at the most. Depends on how much it's selling, how quickly. Um, but we're grinding pretty much every day.
Uh, we're definitely bagging and mixing every day. And, uh, so if you come during the week in the afternoons, you can get a, a tour of the mill. So we do guided a tour. So, uh, love for everybody to come out and. And really, uh, see what our old mill's about. We're not grinding at that point because again, we are a food facility.
Um, and so we can't really, you know, show you the process as it's being done because, you know, health inspector wants to make sure that it's safe for everybody and nobody's hands get into it. They aren't supposed to be in there. But, um, but you can come see the whole process and see the old mill and, and, uh, and then pick up a couple of bags of, uh, whatever you like.
Eric: Well, thanks Jimmy. It was a pleasure speaking with you today.
Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. You too. Thank you.
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