Celebrate Sweet Spuds at Maine Needham Festival

By Brian Kevin
From our September 2024 issue

Got any big plans for Maine Needham Day? Wait, didn’t you know that the last Saturday in September is officially Maine Needham Day? Oh, you’re saying you’re a little confused about what exactly those little, square Maine treats known as needhams are?

It all started in Auburn in the late 1800s. Maybe not. Some sources say Portland. And it’s hard to verify the date. But a candy shop called Seavey’s Sweets, which at last he had a presence in Auburn, he was Maybe first to combine a morsel of shredded coconut and sugar with a little Maine-grown potato, then shape the delicious concoction into squares and cover them in chocolate. Or maybe the potato came later? Unclear. We do know that someone at some point decided to christen the candy after a New England celebrity preacher named George C. Needham. For some reason.

“So the Needham story is really a lot of unsubstantiated legend,” says Malaika Picard, who co-owns Maine Needham Company in Saco with her husband, Gerard, and was a key instigator of Needham Day in Maine. In 2022, to mark what may or may not have been Needham’s 150th anniversary, Malaika pressed her state representative, Maggie O’Neil, to send a request for a proclamation to Gov. Janet Mills. The governor declined, but O’Neil introduced a bill in the legislature last year that got the job done. Now, the September festivities don’t have to end with the equinox. “It was kind of a nod to the Aroostook potato harvest,” Malaika says. “And of course, if you have a special day, you have to have a festival to celebrate it.”

So on Sept. 28, the Maine Tasting Center in Wiscasset is hosting its second annual Maine Needham Festival, where bakers from around the state will be offering demonstrations and serving up all sorts of decadent little tuber treats. Maine Needham Company itself makes varieties in the form of blueberry, maple, espresso, and apple pie, among other varieties. Blaze Brewing is pouring a Needham-inspired milk stout brewed with coconut and dark chocolate. There will be a tasting of homemade Needham, potato sack races for kids, craft vendors, food trucks, a few singer-songwriters, and other potato-related events. Admission is free, and when you leave, you’ll be able to tell all your friends from far and wide about Needhams—because, while delicious, they never really caught on outside the state.

Malaika was a relative Maine newcomer when she first heard about needhams: After dinner with Gerard’s family, her now-sister-in-law mentioned that she was going to save the leftover potatoes to make dessert. “I thought it was interesting,” Malaika recalls, but needhams turned out to be a favorite. She and Gerard were pie makers before they bought the Maine Needham Company five years ago. These days, they explain the treat to the uninitiated by comparing it to a commercial candy: like a Mounds bar, but richer. “If the potato is jarring at first, that description usually piques their curiosity,” she says. “And I just feel like everyone in the United States needs to know what a needham is.”