Dolly Parton Swears By Eating Fried Apples With Her Mac And Cheese

From chocolate-covered pickles to tuna fish and fruit punch, there is no limit to the whacky pair-ups that might not make a lot of sense to some but really mean a lot to others.

Now let's be clear, just because I support them does not mean I want to try them, lol.

She's out there insisting we should all try apples with our macaroni and cheese.

Look, if that's the secret to her rockin' bod and ageless face, sign me right up!

Could this combo come from the generation she grew up in?

Dolly was born in 1946, making her 76 at the time of this writing. We can only hope to look so good when we reach that age.

This makes her an original Baby Boomer. Props to her for breaking all the negative stereotypes of that generation. There isn't anything specific to that generation about enjoying apple mac and cheese.

Dolly has always been proud of her humble beginnings. She was born in Pittman Center, Tennessee, in a single-room cabin nestled beside the Little Pigeon River.

She's always made a point of using her success to help those in her home state, opening Dollywood in 1986, followed with the launching of the Dollywood Foundation in 1988.

However, there's not a lot of evidence that southern states enjoy pairing apples and cheese.

Not with mac and cheese, though. They're all about cheddar cheese and apple pie.

Usually, the slice of cheese is served atop the pie in a practice that goes back to at least the 1850s, but I'm partial to baking it right into the crust. That savory cheese pairs wonderfully with the crisp sweetness of the apple filling.

The pairing is just flipped. Instead of a bit of savory cheese in addition to sweet apples, it's a bit of sweet apples to complement savory cheese. Both even have a delicious, carb-filled element. Though flakey crust trumps macaroni noodles.

"One time I didn't have a whole lot of stuff in my refrigerator and I was hungry," Dolly recalled in the interview. "I don't even know if it was some macaroni I'd made before or store-bought, but I just remember having some fried apples that had come out of another order of food from somewhere."

"I thought, this is an absolutely great combination! And ever since then, that was years ago now, when I'm going to do mac and cheese, I always do fried apples."

When you think about it, apples and cheese are a great combo. Plus, adding pasta to anything makes it better so maybe this isn't as weird as we might think!

h/t: Insider