Recently, a 7-year-old boy took home the blue ribbon at the State Fair of Texas for his delicious blueberry pie. Allen Gage of Mabank, Texas, beat out every other adult baker in the competition after submitting his pie to the judges. Reportedly, Gage’s winning pie qualified him as the youngest person ever to compete in the fair’s “Best of Show” scheduled in October.
“He had the biggest old grin on his face,” third-place winner Sara Smith of Arlington said. “When they called his name, we were all just looking around. We couldn’t see him at first because he was so short. Then everyone just started hooting and hollering and clapping, and he was just smiling. It was really nice and very special.”
Roseanne Parsons, Gage’s mother, recounted the moment they discovered he had won the competition. “When people realized it was him — not me — who won, they started clapping and cheering,” Parsons explained, noting the surprise of the attendees. “Everybody was high-fiving him and giving him fist bumps. It was super cool.” She added, “He likes doing the lattice work on the crust and then applying the egg wash. He calls it ‘painting the pie.'”
Smith further stated that she didn’t mind losing to the exceptionally young baker. “We have quite a group of women and men who compete,” she said. The third-place contestant, who offered a blackberry crumb top pie at the state fair competition, has been competing in baking competitions for roughly 12 years, longer than Gage has been alive.
Smith explained the mutual joy that is shared among contestants, especially when someone like Gage wins. “When we see a young child getting a ribbon, we love it because that means either mom or grandma or somebody is teaching the next generation to cook. And they’re getting excited about it to the point where they’re entering a competition. We love it. The crowd goes wild when a kid goes up there,” she said.
According to Smith, the participants found in baking competitions are usually friendly and welcoming. “You meet so many wonderful people that just love to cook,” Smith stated. “Almost everybody that I’ve become friends with over the years that have done this, they always have your back — and it’s not cutthroat.” She added, “A lot of our stories are the same,” she said. “Whether our mother or grandmother are the ones that started us off when we were really young, just like with Allen.”
Gage was introduced to baking through the generational interest in making deserts that were embraced by his mother and grandmother. “I started entering county competitions when I was in high school,” Parsons said. “My mom has gotten my kids involved, so it’s sort of a generational thing.”
The boy’s grandmother, Penny Newton is also an award-winning baker, showing that the skill runs in the family. “Most of them were older people, you know, 40s, 50s, 60s,” she said. “He competed against all the adults and everything.”
Parsons illustrated that outside of his passion for baking, Gage is “all boy”. “He’s rough and tough, fast-going and never slows down,” she said. “He plays football and soccer and loves our neighbor’s zipline. He also loves the water park and roller coasters, fishing, swimming and riding his bike.”
Featured image credit: Andrew Malone, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blueberry_Pie_-_1275745615.jpg
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