Maine,
Massachusetts,
New Hampshire,
Pennsylvania, and
Virginia all claim to be the birthplace of the whoopie pie. The Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau notes that their whoopie pie recipe comes from the area's Amish and Pennsylvania German culture and has been handed down through generations. Additionally, the community is very insular and tends not to adopt external ideas. They therefore argue the whoopie pie is possibly an internal invention of the Amish community. However, the earliest written records of whoopie pies from Pennsylvania date from the 1960s, while Labadie's Bakery in
Lewiston, Maine has records of making the confection dating to 1925. The now-defunct Berwick Cake Company of
Roxbury, Massachusetts was selling "Whoopee Pies" as early as the 1920s, but officially branded the Whoopee Pie in 1928 to great success. Various claims suggest that the whoopie pie originated in Massachusetts and spread both north and south, or that German immigrants in Pennsylvania A clue into how the possibly Amish dessert got to be so popular in New England can be found in a 1930s cookbook called
Yummy Book by the Durkee Mower Company, the manufacturer of
Marshmallow Fluff. In this New England cookbook, a recipe for "Amish Whoopie Pie" was featured using Marshmallow Fluff in the filling. In 2011, the
Maine State Legislature considered naming the whoopie pie the official state pie. The proposal received bipartisan support. L.D. 71, officially known as "An Act to Designate the Whoopie Pie as the State Dessert", read "The whoopie pie, a baked good made of two chocolate cakes with a creamy frosting between them, is the official state dessert". The Maine Legislature eventually decided to declare the whoopie pie the official state treat, and chose blueberry pie (made with wild Maine blueberries) as the official state dessert. ==See also==