Taking Aim at the Whoopie
Maybe it’s because I was pre-occupied with uprisings in the Mideast or with Midwestern protesters in Wisconsin. Or Chicago’s mayoral election. Or Illinois’s looming budget crisis. Or the potential shut-down of the federal government. Whatever the reasons, I’ve somehow managed to miss one of Maine’s latest legislative wranglings – Whoopie Pies.
Yes, among the many pressing issues confronting the Pine State is its absence of an official State Dessert. Unemployment and foreclosures may be high and gas prices closing in on five bucks a gallon, but did Maine really think it could squeak by with an official state animal (moose), bird (black-capped chickadee), tree (Eastern white pine), insect (honey bee) –and no dessert? At least one state representative wants to correct such a glaring omission.
It’s time, apparently, that Maine join the ranks of Florida with its officially designated Key Lime pie, Massachusetts its Boston Cream Pie and, closer to home, Vermont and its apple pie. Clearly there is precedent. Except that those pies are, well, pies and it’s never been clear (at least to me) what makes a Whoopie Pie a pie. Shouldn’t two hockey-puck-sized slabs of chocolate cake sandwiching a thick layer of buttercream frosting be a cake? Or a double layer cookie?
Not that this has caused all the controversy.
Yes, my fellow islanders and I may well scratch our heads and wonder what it is about a white pine cone and its tassel that inspired its choice as Maine State Flower. Or ask what’s wrong with the notion that a state with 3,500 miles of coastline has designated as its official fish the landlocked salmon (being a subspecies of Atlantic salmon may be way too subtle a point.) It’s unlikely though that whatever hurdles those designations had to vault can rival the ones currently besieging the Whoopie Pie and what has gone from a half-baked idea to a food fight debate to what’s been declared in newspaper and radio features as an all-out – really? c’mon people – war.
Supporters, such as Amos Orcutt, the President of the Maine Whoopie Pies Association (and yes, there’s also a Maine Whoopie Pies Facebook page), claim official designation will boost local economies, “will draw more tourists to Maine.” Note: in my own unofficial polling of past and anticipated out-of-state houseguests, Whoopie Pies has not been mentioned. Nevertheless, a dessert baker – special interests, anyone? – has declared that Whoopie Pies are “part of why people come to Maine” while conceding, if a bit begrudgingly, “the ocean is a bigger draw.”
But not so fast says Maine representative Donald Pilon who’s declared Whoopie Pies “frosting delivery vehicles masquerading as food.” A batch of fourth graders has gotten in on it, too, writing legislators to object to the nomenclature. Whoopies, they say, are a snack not a dessert. Which, if true, could gum up the works further given that, to the best of my knowledge, no state has an official State Snack, although Illinois and its somewhat inexplicable designation of popcorn as its State Dessert comes close. Other critics have asked: when obesity rates are hovering around 30%, does anointing a 450-calorie Whoopie Pie with lard as a primary ingredient send the right message?
Numerous reasonably if not calorically motivated compromisers have suggested an alternative – wild blueberry pie – forgetting perhaps that the best pie crusts often use lard, too. Still here is a pie most of us can recognize as a pie. And wild blueberries are native to Maine while it’s doubtful any Pine State farmers, as creative as they may be, have yet to cultivate cacao plants within our borders. Wisely the Blueberry Growers Association has remained on the sidelines in this dispute, content it says, with wild blueberry’s 20- year-long designation as official State Berry. (For the record, wintergreen is Maine’s State Herb.)
More recently, the issue has crossed state lines. Pennsylvania claims it’s the home of Whoopie Pies which, they say, have long been a staple of Lancaster County’s Amish, as opposed to Maine’s claim that Whoopies originated in a Lewiston bakery in 1925. Supporters on both sides have declared this a “whoopie pie war,” although I’m a bit image-challenged when it comes to Amish and war in the same breath. In a recent salvo, a charge by the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau that Maine is committing “confectionary larceny” has been met with the claim that poor Pennsylvanians, deprived of native lobsters or wild blueberries, have to try to “cling onto the whoopie pie.”
Which makes things all the more urgent, says Association president Orcutt. He’s urging Maine legislators to vote on the Whoopie before Pennsylvania puts in its bid and “claims our heritage.” How this may escalate further or who else may be pulled into the fray I can’t say. Though I can predict that were we Mainers ever to find the need for a State Crustacean, the lobster is likely to have an easier path. And I do have to confess to hoping we never follow Utah, who, by statute, has already declared the seagull its official State Bird and elevated the Dutch Oven to its State Cooking Pot, but is now debating – and let’s hope not too heatedly – the Browning M1911 as its official State Gun.