Braham, MN

Evie Walberg brushes a pie crust top with beaten egg white and pops the fruit-filled pastry into a preheated oven in the kitchen at Park Cafe in Braham, Minn. (pop. 1,380). For more than 24 years, Walberg has been up before dawn hand-mixing dough for the crust, which, depending on the season, she fills with strawberries, rhubarb, cherries, blueberries, and apples.

Walberg, along with other cafe bakers, carries on a tradition that has been luring pie lovers to Braham for 70 years. Still, she never gets tired of hearing words of praise—“Oh, you make the best pies”—from appreciative customers.

During the 1930s and 1940s, vacationers driving on Highway 65 stopped at the cafe in east-central Minnesota to enjoy a slice of pie with a cup of coffee or to top off a meal. Word spread and the cafe became a popular spot for people hungry for a luscious slice of coconut cream or a wedge of pumpkin topped with whipped cream.

Although traffic patterns changed with the completion of Interstate 35 in the 1960s, the cafe kept right on baking great pies. And those flaky creations lured then-Gov. Rudy Perpich to Braham one day in 1990.

Retired schoolteacher and community enthusiast Phyllis Londgren saw Perpich eating pie at the cafe and suggested he name the town the state’s pie capital, since even the governor comes to Braham for pie.

“Two weeks later, we got our designation,” recalls Londgren, with a chuckle.

When Minnesota launched a statewide campaign to celebrate its towns the same year, Londgren thought of celebrating pie and she launched its first Pie Day. Now, 3,500 pie lovers devour 750 pies made by volunteers and the Park Cafe staff at the annual event, held the first Friday in August—Aug. 3 this year.

The pie theme has fostered a sense of pride in Braham, a community surrounded by farmland and sustained by light industry. Even businesses that don’t directly benefit from the event see Braham’s pie identity as a good thing, says Mayor Terry Turnquist. In 1999, the town commissioned a pie mural and this year plans to paint a pie on the water tower.

Visitors from across the country come to Braham, a community of well-tended homes and ample shade trees, to try 30 pie varieties at the Park Cafe. Owner Ellie Grell reports that banana cream is the most popular.

On Pie Day, the cafe nearly bursts its seams, serving and selling 250 pies to hordes of people. In a park across the street, folks buy fruit pie by the slice or whole—to eat á la mode or plain at tables under the trees. The Pie-Alleluia Chorus sings praises of pie from apple to walnut, and pie-eating contestants plunge face first into blueberry pie with whipped cream.

After a morning of tasting, judges proclaim the mouth-watering merits of winners in the pie-baking contest. American Pie Council representatives are on hand to congratulate them and promote pie making in general.

Community members pull together on Pie Day, driving shuttle buses, pouring coffee, serving pie, bidding on pies, eating pies, and hosting pie art shows. Some townspeople even get a little silly about pies, dressing up like pies with fluted frills and fruit-hued skirts, and teams feverishly race in a crust-making contest.

However, there is a more serious side to Braham’s pie revelry. Pie Day Director Andrea Downing observes that, in a fast- and frozen-food world, “pie making is becoming a lost art form.”

Fortunately, that’s not the case in Braham, where veteran bakers like Evie Walberg keep the tradition alive, rising before dawn to make flaky, golden-crusted creations for the rest of us to enjoy.

Alice M. Vollmar is a freelance writer in Minneapolis.

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