They are piled high at gas station checkouts, available at both humble markets and boutiques, and often found at family gatherings. They’re whoopie pies, of course, and with their potential Lewiston origins, Dover-Foxcroft festival and special blessing from the governor, they are about as Maine as you can get.

“I grew up in Maine and whoopie pies have always been one of those sweet treats that you just love,” says Patrick Myers, executive director of the Center Theater in Dover-Foxcroft and organizer of the state’s own Whoopie Pie Festival. “You’d go into a convenient store with your folks to pick up a gallon of milk or something you need and there’d be whoopie pies sitting on the counter. You’d bug your parents for it and on a lucky day you might actually get one. It’s just one of those childhood memories that evoke a lot of nostalgia.”

While not exactly a pie, per se, they aren’t really a cake either … or a cookie for that matter. They are an entity all their own. Two mounded, cake-like sides (about the size of the palm of your hand) sandwich a rich, creamy filling. Traditionally, whoopie pies are chocolate with a white frosting center made with either vegetable shortening or Marshmallow Fluff. However, there’s been an explosion of variants in flavor over the past decade, such as red velvet, pumpkin, vanilla, banana, maple and chocolate chip cakes with expanded fillings like cream cheese frosting, French vanilla, peppermint, chocolate, peanut butter and more.

A whoopie pie perfect storm has been brewing ever since a 2009 New York Times article named whoopie pies as the next big dessert item, and Oprah Winfrey featured Wicked Whoopies made by Gardiner, Maine-based Isamax Snacks. Swanky bakeries in big cities across the nation started carrying them in their display cases, and the craze even jumped across “the big pond” with the London Evening Standard newspaper raving about the dessert in February.

But this is one trend that Mainers were surely ahead of the game on.

“I grew up eating whoopie pies. My mother made them, my grandmother made them, my neighbor’s mother and grandmother made them — I have a lot of fond memories of them,” says Amos Orcutt, president/CEO of the University of Maine Foundation, who also honeymoons as the president of the Maine Whoopie Pie Association.

Made up of whoopie pie lovers near and far, the association has members numbering in the hundreds and its membership is increasing every day. But they aren’t the only group of banded-together whoopie pie devotees. Numerous Facebook pages dedicated to the oh-so-delicious confection has fans reaching into the tens of thousands.

Many of those fans are Mainers. Ask anyone in the state and they’ll tell you that the hand-held dessert has been a longtime favorite here, but its origin remains a disputed topic among connoisseurs.

Pennsylvania claims Amish settlers invented the dessert as a treat to slip into the lunch pails of children and working husbands who would exclaim “whoopee!” upon discovery of the treat. There and in other places, the treat is also known as a gob, a black-and-white and a bob.

Bostonians say that the Berwick Cake Company was the first to create the pies in the 1920s, but it went out of business in 1977, according to Nancy Griffin, Maine author of “Making Whoopies! The Official Whoopie Pie Book,” so it can’t be validated. Some people even give credit to the makers of Marshmallow Fluff (an ingredient sometimes used in the filling), but the company, Durkee-Mower Inc., denies any ownership of the treat.

Maine appears to be the only state with a true date stamp on the creation of whoopie pies — 1925 — and it’s credited to Labadie’s Bakery right here in Lewiston, although, again, there’s no tangible proof of its origins here, only word of mouth through the generations.

“The business started as a small retail shop with whoopie pies, donuts and pastries,” says current owner Fabien Labadie. He’s the third generation of Labadies to run the family business that his grandfather, Odylon, began. Whoopie pies, says Labadie, have always been an integral part of the operation.

“It’s something that, if you go out of Maine, people don’t know what you’re talking about unless they’re from Maine originally,” says Orcutt, in defense the state’s whoopie pie legacy. “A lot of the folks that return to Maine that have been away, one of the first things they ask for besides the red hot dogs are whoopie pies. To me, it’s very Maine.”

So Maine, in fact, that there have been efforts to get it named as the state’s official dessert. Students in the Youth in Government program up north at Ashland High School spearheaded the campaign and Orcutt jumped on board to help. The two saw whoopies as a great way to promote some of Maine’s other food stuffs besides lobsters and blueberries. They hope to introduce legislation in the coming year.

In the meantime, Gov. John Baldacci has proclaimed the fourth Saturday in June as Maine Whoopie Pie Day. The proclamation coincides with the second annual Maine Whoopie Pie Festival on June 26th in Dover-Foxcroft, where thousands of whoopie pie lovers are expected to attend.

“It truly is a uniquely Maine dessert,” says Myers. “I thought we should celebrate them here in Maine and let the rest of the world know that it is truly a Maine delicacy.”

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