At annual Great N.H. Pie Festival, they were 'eating it up'

Pie eating aficionados stream into the New Hampshire Pie Festival tent to sample scores of different pies at the New Hampshire Farm Museum on Sunday. (Rochester Voice photos)

MILTON - The Ninth Annual Great New Hampshire Pie Festival didn't start till noon but a half hour earlier folks were already scoping out the offerings - some with forks at the ready - laid out on rows of picnic tables outside the New Hampshire Farm Museum.

Among them were Addy and Alice Anderson, 5½ and 2, respectively, who, themselves, had made a chocolate cream pie to enter in the children's category.

The pair, dressed festively in summery print dresses estimated it took about three hours to make the pie. The best part? "Mixing it up," they said together.

Addy Anderson, 5 1/2, and her sister, Alice, 2, of Rye, browse the competition with their grandparents from Acton, Maine, on Sunday at the Farm Museum.

For Farm Museum Director Mark Foynes, the Sunday festival was all about giving amateur bakers the chance for bragging rights for their baking as well as serving as the museum's major annual fund-raiser.

Thanks to generous donations from corporate sponsors, including dozens of local eateries who donated pies, the fund-raiser had earned about $6,000 before even selling a ticket on Sunday, he said.

"It's already a success thanks to our sponsors," Foynes said as crowds streamed toward the covered tent where the tables were stacked with pretty much every type of pie including apple, cream, cheesecake and even savory, or meat.

By the time noon rolled around a wave of pie eating revelers had filled the tent getting small tastes of scores of different pies from volunteer servers that lined the tables.

Susan and David Senecal of Wolfeboro enjoy a sampling of Italian cheesecake on Sunday at the Great New Hampshire Pie Festival at the Farm Museum in Milton.

Susan Senecal of Wolfeboro chose a sampling of an Italian cheesecake pie as her first tasting.

"It's delicious," she said.