Green Bay family continues Belgian pie-making tradition

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Generations of the same family and descendants of Belgium continued annual pie-making to celebrate the fall harvest.

The fillings can range from prune to applesauce to rice and poppyseed. But those are just some of the many ingredients that can be used.

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It’s a way to make the most of the harvest and share recipes from the motherland.

“I’m glad my nieces want to learn how to do this,” Eileen Mach told Local 5 News. “And my kids too! Then pass it on to their children. Because if we don’t do that, it’s a lost art. And this is part of our heritage.”

The bakers made 38 pies and 22 mini-pies from leftover dough called kolache.

And they did it all in one day!

This particular story of American pie begins with a small group of Belgians who migrated from their motherland to Door County, Wisconsin.

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These pies celebrate a successful Kermiss, the yearly harvest whose failure all those years ago in Belgium caused their ancestors to make a long Atlantic crossing in search of a better future.

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