Maine's Whoopie Pie Festival
Whoopie Pie Festival, Dover-Foxcroft
This post was originally published July 6, 2017.
It’s mind-boggling to me that someone can go their whole life having never seen the ocean or the stars or tasting the sweet, deliciousness that is a whoopie pie. Whoopie Pies are a New England phenomenon that is slowly beginning to sweep the rest of the United States. And why shouldn’t it? It’s a creamy frosting sandwiched between two circular cakes. It’s so good, in fact, that the state of Maine made it the official state treat, and ever since 2009, the town of Dover-Foxcroft hosts the Maine Whoopie Pie Festival.
Literally thousands of people attend the festival, which lasts only a day and includes a whole street of booths that feature the state’s best whoopie pie bakers and samples of their best pies. While those bakers are competing for the best pie, I’m tasting every whoopie pie flavor imaginable.
I tried chocolate, coconut, strawberry shortcake, and even orange creamsicle, which tasted just as you might imagine it. I heard rumors of a lobster whoopie pie being present last year and was slightly disappointed to find out it was absent this year. Though I do not like lobster, nor crustaceans in my cookies, few things would be as representative of Maine’s edible culture, unless one were to add blueberries to the mix.
I arrived just after the whoopie pie eating contest but still in time to hear the live music and explore some of the vendors, who were selling everything from whoopie pie t-shirts to whoopie pie Christmas ornaments. I didn’t buy anything, but I did snap a picture with a man so dedicated to the theme that he stood in the heat in a full whoopie pie costume.
After leaving the festival with a full belly and full bag of treats, I swung over to the nearby town of Guilford to appreciate one of Maine’s few remaining covered bridges. Low’s Bridge was originally built in 1830 and was washed away three times before the fourth and final rebuilding of the bridge in 1990. Though the current bridge has been modernized for the state’s standards, it still rests on the original stone-masonry abutments and, after nearly 200 years, is still considered a National Landmark, spanning 120 feet over the Piscataquis River.
It was a beautiful day to catch the sunlight hitting the wooden boards over the river. While ducks fished upstream, I stood and listened to the water flow around the rocks below and relished my experienced tranquility in scenic and historic Maine.