Just Ask Ida

Makin’ Whoopee!

I’ve been on a whoopie pie kick lately. I made some for the bake sale down to the Community Center last weekend. ‘Course I had to sample a couple, you know, for quality control. They were so good, I came home and made a batch for Charlie and me. God, there’s nothing like a fresh from the oven whoopie pie with a glass of cold milk!

In case you’ve never had one (and that is a sad state of affairs), our traditional whoopie pie is two cookie-sized rounds of chocolate cake with white frosting in between—kind of like a sandwich, only better! The frosting is usually made with vegetable shortening (that’s how I like them), though some folks I know mix a little Marshmallow Fluff into theirs. . 

They come in lots of fancy schmancy flavors, what you call your gourmet whoopie pies—you know, pumpkin with a cream cheese frosting, gingerbread filled with maple cream, lemon with raspberry butter cream, chocolate peppermint, chocolate peanut butter, you name it. I even saw one place that was offering a light whoopie pie. To which I say, Why bother? Oh, I’ve had some fancy whoopie pies and they were tasty, but I’m partial to the traditional chocolate one because it reminds me of being a kid, you know? When life was sweet, simple and easy.

Awhile back, some folks pushed for the whoopie pie to be the official Maine State dessert, but, alas, the blueberry pie won that battle. Fans didn’t give up, though, and in 2011, the whoopie pie was declared the official Maine State Treat. Of course, one fella made a big deal about this business of honoring the whoopie pie, you know, saying we were promoting obesity. I’m thinking, Come on! It’s called a treat for a reason. We’re not talking about lobbying to have whoopie pies be part of the food pyramid! For crying in your chowdah! I’m sorry, but broccoli as the official Maine State Treat doesn’t cut it in my book.

Actually, the whoopie pie is a source of even greater controversy than that. Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania all claim to be the birthplace of this delicacy. In fact, when Maine was pushing to make it our official treat, some folks in Pennsylvania raised a stink, calling it “confectionary larceny,” which I feel is a bit strong on their part. The controversy rages on, with no end in sight!

Now as to the name, there are a few different stories as to how it come to be called the whoopie pie. The Pennsylvania Amish say that whenever a farmer out in the field or some kid at school unwrapped his lunch and found one, they’d holler, “Whoopee!” 

Our version is a little different. Back in the depression, this Maine woman was baking a cake and had some batter left over. She didn’t want to waste it, so she put a couple of big spoonfuls onto cookie sheet and baked it. Later, she filled it with frosting, took a bite and exclaimed, “Whoopee, it worked!”

I like that story best because it rings true, doesn’t it? There’s a woman at the center, efficiently doing her job, facing down economic adversity, but improvising, being creative, trying something new, being happily surprised by the outcome and then unleashing it on the world to thunderous acclaim. It doesn’t get much sweeter than that. 

Besides, who else but a woman would invent portable cake?

That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side!

IDA's PODCAST: Makin' Whoopee! 

Upcoming Shows and Book Events: Spring

April 21  A Visit With Ida, Huntington Common, 2:00 p.m., Kennebunk, ME

April 26  A Visit With Ida, Maine Knights of Columbus, 11:00 a.m., Newry, ME

May 3  New Keynote Speech, Alpha Beta State Conference, 1:30 p.m., Bowie, Maryland

May 19  Book Club Visit, 10:00 a.m., Portsmouth, NH

For details, please check out the schedule page on my website: http://www.idaswebsite.com/schedule

Pork Pie Killed My Grandmother

Zip-a-dee-do-da! We made it through the holidays. Well, Christmas anyway. Just New Years to go, and that’s nothin’. All you got to do is show up at a party, eat, drink, and be merry. I can do that. Or watch the ball drop on TV, which is OK, too. 

 

We finally ate the last of the pork pie, so thankfully my heartburn has eased off a bit. I only order one, from Labrecque’s Bakery, and yes, I get the large one, not the small. It’s only once a year, right? Still, we’re careful not to overdo, ‘cause eatin’ too much pork pie over the holidays can be dangerous. After all, it killed my grandmother.  

See, it’s a tradition around the holidays (the pork pies, not the dying). In our family, as a rule, we try not to die around the holidays. It puts a damper on things. Pork pies, or tourtieres, are a French Canadian thing. It’s a pie filled with ground pork, potatoes, onions, and spices. You eat it during the holidays with homemade piccalilli (a relish). I like my pork pie with lots of catsup though Charlie likes his plain. To each his own.

We used to have pork pies at Réveillons, which is a big party held after midnight mass with tons of food and drinking. There would be baked beans made with salt pork and biscuits and roast pork with homemade apple sauce. See, you gotta understand, pork is the food of my people. For dessert, there’d be pies, bread pudding with heavy cream, and Christmas pudding made with suet served with hard sauce. Oh, the list goes on and on. I don’t know how my parents did it, staying up ‘til 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning partying and then us kids would wake them up at 5:00 a.m. to open presents. It probably helped that they still had a little buzz on. 

But that was in the good old, bad old days. Now, midnight mass is at 7:00 p.m., and afterwards, we have supper together (roast pork, of course). And we save the pork pie for breakfast on Christmas morning. Gotta pace your pork! 

For awhile there, my mother was making the pork pie with ground turkey. She said it was better for us, and besides, it was okay ‘cause the nuns were doing it, too. But ground turkey has a weird consistency, don’t you think? Have you ever made a meatloaf with it? It’s kind of rubbery. Needless to say, the ground turkey-pork pie never really caught on.

So anyway, one year when I was a kid, my grandmother ate so much pork pie over the holidays that shortly after New Years, she had a wicked gall bladder attack and had to be rushed over there to the ER in Bangor. They removed her gall bladder, no problem, but the next day she died of a massive coronary right there in the hospital. There was nothing they could do. Yup, it was the pork pie that did her in.

We still eat it though, despite the danger. It just wouldn’t seem like Christmas without pork pie, piccalilli, and heartburn!

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to 2014. May it be filled with good times and a lot of laughs!

That’s it for now. Catch you on the flip side! 

IDA's PODCAST: Pork Pie Killed My Grandmother

Coming up this month

January 12: Finding Your Inner Moose book group visit, 2:00 p.m., Kittery, ME

January 17: Dinner and A Visiting With Ida, Roost Café & Bistro, 7:00 p.m., Ogunqit, ME

January 26: Book Reading, Albert Brown Memorial Library, 2:00 p.m., China Village, ME

For details, please check out the schedule page on my website: http://www.idaswebsite.com/schedule