Two years ago, Gina Hyams was helping organize the pie contest for Hancock Shaker Village's annual Country Fair, and she was knocked out by the passion of the participants. "People were so excited to be judges," she recalls, noting that the panel included The New Yorker's Susan Orlean and RI's Marilyn Bethany. "And, of course, the bakers were very excited about being contestants, too." She did not think this enthusiasm was particular to the Berkshires and Hudson Valley, which led to an epiphany: One night, she woke up at 4 a.m. and told her groggy husband that her next book project would be Pie Contest In A Box. "It came to me all at once," says Hyams, who was proud to be ahead of the curve. "It was a year and a half before The New York Times suggested that pies are the new cupcakes."
Now, bookstores, gourmet shops and housewares emporiums across the United States are selling her Pie Contest in A Box ($14.99), which includes a history of pie (she interviewed 24 passionate bakers), recipes (she used Facebook to recruit testers), scorecards, flags to identify the pies, and ribbons for the winners. Having written several books and one similar kit—Day of the Dead Box—Hyams knew she would have to produce a book proposal that would make her concept seem not only irresistibly clever but also lucrative. "Pie Contest in a Box appeals to people who are looking for fun, inexpensive ways to build community," she wrote. "The notion of pie contests has the retro appeal of vintage cocktals, but is just emerging as a trend, with pie contests popping up at farmers markets and at hipster events like the Fall Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island." To celebrate the publication of Pie Contest in a Box, Hyams is hosting a public pie contest at Route 7 Grill in Great Barrington on Sunday, July 10, at 4 pm. (Contestants should bring their pies by 3 p.m., if possible, though there may be a traffic snarl because of the 250th birthday parade in Great Barrington earlier in the day.) The contest will be a benefit for the community radio station WBCR-LP (where both her daughter, Annalena, and her husband, Dave Barrett, have programs) with a sliding scale admission of $5 - 10. "In the spirit of community radio, everyone gets to sample pies and everyone gets to vote," she says. "The point is how pie contests bring people together."
Pie contests, she notes, can be held for wedding showers, family reunions or fire-department fundraisers, and she suggests themes for the contests such as "Hard-Core Locavore," "Single Ingredient," or "Totally-Not-Made-From-Scratch Speed-Baking." Hyams, who moved to the Berkshires after living in Mexico and California, has done public relations for organizations such as Berkshire Theatre Festival, the Mahaiwe and Hancock Shaker Village. Now she's a player in the pie world. "There really is a pie world," she says, noting that she was a judge herself at the American Pie Council Crisco National Pie Championship. "I judged the Sweet Potato pies." Her publisher, Andrews McMeel, is so impressed with the response to the project that they have commissioned Hyams to create Chili Cookoff in a Box and Christmas Cookie Contest in a Box, too. "Competetive cooking can be a tool for community building," she says.
