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Short Stuff: Pies · Stuff You Should Know

0:04
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. It's delicious short stuff.
0:07
Speaker 1: I'm josh, there's Chuck, Jerry's not here, Dave's not here,
0:10
Speaker 1: but a bunch of pie talk is here. So strap
0:13
Speaker 1: in everybody. Actually I should say, unbuckle everybody.
0:17
Speaker 2: That's right, unbuckle the top button or that belt loop.
0:21
Speaker 2: Because this made me want to eat pie. I love pie.
0:24
Speaker 2: I think we talked a little bit about pie in
0:26
Speaker 2: our Cake episode, sure about the merits of pie. And
0:28
Speaker 2: of course there's also the great legendary I dare say
0:32
Speaker 2: Paula Tompkins bit on cake versus Pie.
0:36
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm not sure about that one.
0:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's from way back in the day. It's a
0:40
Speaker 2: good bit. But pie has been around for way before
0:43
Speaker 2: Paula Tompkins, thousands of years. But it's only in the
0:47
Speaker 2: last couple of few hundred years that it's like what
0:50
Speaker 2: we kind of know is pie. But they had it
0:52
Speaker 2: eight thousand years ago in Egypt if you count kind
0:54
Speaker 2: of a messy semi sweet you know, rustic schmorgasbord of grains.
1:01
Speaker 1: Sure called gallets, right, Yeah, And you said eight thousand
1:05
Speaker 1: years ago, that's not that long after we started domesticating crops,
1:09
Speaker 1: which means that pies were one of the first things
1:11
Speaker 1: we started making when we created agriculture.
1:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course they used honey as the sweetener
1:17
Speaker 2: back then, and they'd make it over some hot coals. Yeah.
1:20
Speaker 2: And then the Greeks ganged that, didn't they.
1:22
Speaker 1: They did about five thousand years later. They loved taking
1:26
Speaker 1: stuff from the Egyptians and they carried on with golets.
1:30
Speaker 1: They did something that I think is a historic crime.
1:34
Speaker 1: They replaced sweet stuff like honey with meats. I like
1:38
Speaker 1: a good meat pie, but I feel like we had
1:41
Speaker 1: not gotten into sweet pies enough to being from that yet.
1:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:46
Speaker 1: One of the other things the Greeks did, though, was
1:48
Speaker 1: they created pastry dough like we would think of pastry
1:52
Speaker 1: do today essentially.
1:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, so big lea beforeward their dough. Wise. The Romans
1:57
Speaker 2: of course come along next, and they didn't add a
2:00
Speaker 2: whole lot to the technique or tradition. What they did
2:04
Speaker 2: was they brought it to Europe, and that's where it
2:07
Speaker 2: really flourished, was when it was in the hands of
2:09
Speaker 2: the Europeans.
2:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, not just Europe, but like if you look back
2:12
Speaker 1: at dishes from around the world, you're like, oh, that's
2:15
Speaker 1: pie that's pie. That's pie. There's something called Sambusa and Ethiopia,
2:19
Speaker 1: which is a hand pie. Is obviously impignadas from Spain,
2:22
Speaker 1: and then Latin America Hispanic copita in Greece. I've not
2:27
Speaker 1: heard of the Zwiebelkuchen, but I would love to try it.
2:32
Speaker 1: It's a savory sweet pie from Germany Schribu Cochin. Yes.
2:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:37
Speaker 1: And then there's tortier from Quebec, which also sounds pretty great.
2:40
Speaker 1: That's a savory meat pie. Like I say, I like
2:43
Speaker 1: meat pies. Got no problem with meat pies. Yeah, I
2:46
Speaker 1: think that we just we need both.
2:48
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, agreed. I mean when I hear the
2:51
Speaker 2: word pie, I immediately think of like a sweet dessert pie.
2:55
Speaker 2: But I love a Jamaican hand pie or a I say,
2:59
Speaker 2: And I guess it is impignata, isn't it?
3:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and pignata. I couldn't find the end with the
3:04
Speaker 1: till day on the insert thing on world, So I
3:07
Speaker 1: got you and one other thing, Chuck. Do you remember
3:10
Speaker 1: when we were in the UK on tour and I
3:11
Speaker 1: got hooked on pork pies?
3:14
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, Oh my god, those are so good
3:16
Speaker 2: and I got.
3:17
Speaker 1: So bad for you by hats. Yeah, I know you did.
3:20
Speaker 1: It was great. I tried to eat that one right
3:23
Speaker 1: off my head.
3:26
Speaker 2: The English, speaking of the English, that's where things really
3:28
Speaker 2: got interesting because they were like, man, throw some fish
3:30
Speaker 2: in that thing. Throw any kind of meat and you want,
3:33
Speaker 2: we'll spell it p ye, and we'll also bake those
3:37
Speaker 2: bones in there as little handles.
3:40
Speaker 1: Not just the bones, the legs of like a game bird,
3:43
Speaker 1: like a pheasant, would be sticking out and hanging over
3:45
Speaker 1: the side of the pie.
3:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, just grab it by grab it by the leg.
3:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, grab that pheasant like a rabbit.
3:52
Speaker 2: I guess that's no different than just eating a chicken leg.
3:56
Speaker 1: That's a little different. I'm talking about like the feet
3:58
Speaker 1: here is what I understand. Oh okay, like the whole
4:01
Speaker 1: leg down to the toenails is what they left on toenails.
4:06
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen a chicken toenail?
4:08
Speaker 1: I haven't looked that closely. I've just always assumed they
4:10
Speaker 1: were there.
4:12
Speaker 2: They also called them coffins, to f and a y again.
4:15
Speaker 2: They love those whys instead of eyes, and of course
4:18
Speaker 2: that means box.
4:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that's what they were making. There was like
4:22
Speaker 1: sturdy walls, a sturdy bottom, a crust over the top,
4:26
Speaker 1: and these were actually what the Greeks were basically making
4:29
Speaker 1: pies for too. The point of the pie was to
4:32
Speaker 1: seal in the juices of like the savory mixture of
4:35
Speaker 1: meats and stuff, right, Yeah. It was a way to
4:37
Speaker 1: bake a bunch of stuff together and then serve it
4:39
Speaker 1: as one thing onto a table. That was the point
4:43
Speaker 1: of pies. They didn't care about pastries in medieval England,
4:47
Speaker 1: like the actual crust was considered inedible by the rich,
4:51
Speaker 1: but the lower classes would eat the pie crust when
4:54
Speaker 1: they had to. So they also made pies without tops whatsoever.
5:00
Speaker 1: Those are tarts, that's really still call them the day.
5:02
Speaker 1: Those I think were more pastry edible forward.
5:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right if you're talking about recipes.
5:10
Speaker 2: They started appearing in Europe in cookbooks like way back
5:13
Speaker 2: in the thirteen hundreds. I think there was a German
5:16
Speaker 2: cookbook you dug up from fifteen fifty three.
5:18
Speaker 1: I didn't actually look in the cookbook itself. I just
5:21
Speaker 1: saw reference to it.
5:22
Speaker 2: Oh sure, yeah, sorry, that's okay. But they were like, hey,
5:25
Speaker 2: you know what you do. You put a little hole
5:27
Speaker 2: in the middle of that pie in the lid, and
5:28
Speaker 2: you blow in it and puff that thing up and
5:30
Speaker 2: then seal it, and that thing looks great on a table.
5:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you will notice from that recipe that means
5:38
Speaker 1: there's nothing inside. They were just baking the pie, an
5:41
Speaker 1: empty pie essentially what they were making. And you would say, well,
5:44
Speaker 1: that's madness. What's the point of that. There's actually a
5:47
Speaker 1: trend in England, I think from the fifteenth to maybe
5:50
Speaker 1: the eighteenth centuries where you would present, like at a
5:56
Speaker 1: royal dinner or something like that, an enormous pie that
6:00
Speaker 1: was filled with live things. So you would bake the
6:03
Speaker 1: pie pastry and then put the live things in it
6:05
Speaker 1: before you served it. And so that's where you know
6:08
Speaker 1: that rhyme sing a Song of Sixpence where they talk
6:11
Speaker 1: about four and twenty blackbirds baked into a pie. Isn't
6:14
Speaker 1: that a pretty dish to serve before the king or whatever? Yeah,
6:18
Speaker 1: that's what they're talking about, is this trend in Europe,
6:21
Speaker 1: in royal courts of Europe where you would serve like
6:24
Speaker 1: a pie to the king and cut it open and
6:26
Speaker 1: all these beautiful birds would fly out, or a string
6:29
Speaker 1: ensemble would stand up and start playing.
6:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, if you think you got to have a
6:34
Speaker 2: big pie to put a couple of dozen blackbirds in there.
6:37
Speaker 2: You weren't kidding about the string ensemble, like they would
6:40
Speaker 2: have a pie big enough. What I don't understand is
6:43
Speaker 2: how are they Are they not killing these people in birds?
6:46
Speaker 1: No, by baking the pie pastry first and then put
6:49
Speaker 1: the people in before they served it. That's why you
6:53
Speaker 1: would at work, you would. You would take the pie,
6:55
Speaker 1: put it together, put the top on, put a hole
6:57
Speaker 1: in it, blow in it, close it up.
6:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, but how did the people get in there?
7:01
Speaker 1: Oh? I'm sure there was like a little door cut
7:04
Speaker 1: into the side or something like that. But they anywhere
7:06
Speaker 1: near the pie while it was in the oven?
7:09
Speaker 2: The pie hatch.
7:10
Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking o pie hatch. The pie hole?
7:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, the pie hole.
7:14
Speaker 1: Remember that show? What was it called Better No Pushing
7:18
Speaker 1: Up Daisies? That guy, the main protagonist had a pie
7:22
Speaker 1: shop called the pie Hole. Oh, that I've told you
7:24
Speaker 1: about before. It's such a charming show, Chuck.
7:26
Speaker 2: You got to see it, all right, you can get
7:29
Speaker 2: along lest for me though, so.
7:30
Speaker 1: That one moved that one toward the top. It's just
7:32
Speaker 1: a very sweet, neat, cute little show.
7:35
Speaker 2: All right. Well, speaking of cute, we'll take a break
7:38
Speaker 2: and we'll come back and we'll talk about a few
7:40
Speaker 2: specific all time great pies right after this. All right,
8:11
Speaker 2: we're back. We're gonna mention one, two, three, four, five
8:16
Speaker 2: all time great pies. It is for us in real time.
8:19
Speaker 2: It's the week before Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.
8:22
Speaker 1: Hubba hubba.
8:23
Speaker 2: So we got to talk about pumpkin pie, which was
8:26
Speaker 2: brought to the New World by the colonists on the Mayflower.
8:31
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because when they got here Native Americans
8:35
Speaker 2: were like, hey, look at these things we got. They're
8:38
Speaker 2: called pumpkins. And one day they will invent spices to
8:42
Speaker 2: put with these that taste nothing like pumpkins, but you
8:45
Speaker 2: will totally associate that with pumpkin.
8:47
Speaker 1: Right, and so like the first pumpkin pies were actually
8:51
Speaker 1: not pies at all. They were they used the pumpkin
8:55
Speaker 1: themselves as basically the pie crust, put in honey and
8:58
Speaker 1: spices and stuff like that, and baked it over coles.
9:01
Speaker 1: Then they ate that. But the thing is you still
9:04
Speaker 1: think of like, Okay, well, eventually, like the it got
9:07
Speaker 1: figured out in the United States or the English colonies. Right, No,
9:12
Speaker 1: that's not the case. Pumpkin pie actually got exported with
9:15
Speaker 1: the pumpkins in a couple of decades over to France.
9:19
Speaker 1: The first recipe that even mentioned the pumpkin pie, called
9:22
Speaker 1: the Pumpy oom Pie, was published in a French cookbook
9:25
Speaker 1: by a French chef in sixteen fifty one. And it
9:28
Speaker 1: wouldn't be another few decades, actually another century or so
9:33
Speaker 1: before it showed up in a recipe in an American cookbook.
9:37
Speaker 2: That's right, in seventeen ninety six. It was in the
9:40
Speaker 2: very first American cookbook, in fact, from Amelia Simmons, called
9:43
Speaker 2: American Cookery by an American Orphan. And yeah, that pumpkin
9:47
Speaker 2: pie was in there, the kind of like the one
9:49
Speaker 2: we know it. It was kind of a pumpkin pudding.
9:52
Speaker 2: But that's not super unlike pumpkin pie, no.
9:55
Speaker 1: Because you baked it in the pie shell. So if
9:57
Speaker 1: you ask me, that's pumpkin pie.
10:00
Speaker 2: Agreed.
10:00
Speaker 1: So pumpkin pies seems pretty American. That's why the French
10:04
Speaker 1: thing was so puzzling. But apple pie one hundred percent American. Like,
10:09
Speaker 1: don't even come at me with anything else.
10:11
Speaker 2: Take it, chuck, Well, buddy, apples don't come from America.
10:14
Speaker 2: They're native to Asia. So they were brought over to
10:17
Speaker 2: the New World by the colonists. And I think we
10:20
Speaker 2: all know that the perfect apple pie is that Dutch
10:24
Speaker 2: apple pie, and they're the ones. They were the ogs
10:26
Speaker 2: a couple of years, a couple of sorry, a couple
10:28
Speaker 2: of hundred years prior to those apples coming over from Asia,
10:31
Speaker 2: the Dutch had sort of mastered that apple pie.
10:34
Speaker 1: Man. I always assumed it was the nineteen seventies when
10:36
Speaker 1: the Dutch finally made Dutch apple pie. No, no, okay,
10:40
Speaker 1: all right, So the Dutch had figured out apple pie
10:42
Speaker 1: centuries before came to America. So how does the apple
10:45
Speaker 1: pie get associated with America? There's a saying over here, everybody,
10:48
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar as American as apple pie. Apparently
10:52
Speaker 1: that was first used in print in nineteen twenty eight
10:56
Speaker 1: to describe first Lady lou Hoover. Herbert Hoover's wife is
11:01
Speaker 1: gal So they said that she's as American as apple pie. Okay,
11:05
Speaker 1: that's one one way a god associated with it. Another
11:08
Speaker 1: one is that apple pie is as American as Mom's
11:11
Speaker 1: and baseball. Where did that come from? Where did that
11:14
Speaker 1: come from?
11:15
Speaker 2: Apparently world War two there was a catchphrase for the
11:19
Speaker 2: GI's there when they're like, why why are you going
11:21
Speaker 2: off to pop this fight this wall? And they would say, well, sir,
11:25
Speaker 2: for mom and apple pie, of course, and.
11:27
Speaker 1: They say get out there, boy, that's right, yes for us.
11:31
Speaker 2: And if you think that helmet's going to protect you,
11:33
Speaker 2: you got another thing coming.
11:36
Speaker 1: What else? It was kind of dark, kind of dark
11:39
Speaker 1: going from apple pie to that.
11:40
Speaker 2: But yeah, sure we could tell cherry pie briefly, cherry
11:44
Speaker 2: pie is not my favorite pie, but all up for
11:48
Speaker 2: pumpkin or apple or certainly key lime, which we'll get
11:50
Speaker 2: to before cherry pie. But I'll lead a piece of
11:52
Speaker 2: cherry pie with some ice cream if you got it
11:54
Speaker 2: for me.
11:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as it's not sour like a good
11:57
Speaker 1: cherry pie in the vein of a good apple pie,
11:59
Speaker 1: I think is excellent stuff.
12:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. And House of Pies in Los Felis and Los Angeles,
12:05
Speaker 2: a neighborhood where I lived, had all kinds of great pies.
12:07
Speaker 2: But like, I want like a warm cherry pie. I
12:10
Speaker 2: don't want like the cold one that where that jelly
12:13
Speaker 2: has sort of you know, I don't like it cold.
12:16
Speaker 1: No, That's what I'm saying. If you, if you make
12:18
Speaker 1: it and serve it like you would a good piece
12:20
Speaker 1: of apple pie. It's okod Yeah, I'm with you one
12:22
Speaker 1: hundred percent.
12:23
Speaker 2: Okay, but that one, Apparently, the first cherry pie was
12:26
Speaker 2: either created for Queen Elizabeth First in the sixteenth century
12:29
Speaker 2: or buy her.
12:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of the oldest pies that is still
12:34
Speaker 1: around today. Apparently.
12:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's next.
12:37
Speaker 1: Boston cream Pie is worth a mention. You might be like,
12:40
Speaker 1: it's not even a pie, that's basically a layer cake.
12:42
Speaker 1: You're right, but we wanted to explain where that came from.
12:47
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever had Boston cream pie.
12:50
Speaker 1: I hadn't either. I was like, okay, we got to
12:52
Speaker 1: do Boston cream pie. And then I was like, oh,
12:54
Speaker 1: this is a little more interesting than I thought, because
12:56
Speaker 1: it turns out Boston cream Pie is a cake. It's
12:58
Speaker 1: not a pie in any sense soever. The reason it's
13:01
Speaker 1: called Boston cream Pie is because it's based on another
13:04
Speaker 1: recipe called Washington Pie. And Washington Pie was the same
13:08
Speaker 1: thing as a Boston cream pie cake baked in a
13:12
Speaker 1: pie crust, so a cake and a pie crust, and
13:14
Speaker 1: then eventually the Boston cream Pie came along. They did
13:17
Speaker 1: away with the crust, but they kept the name pie,
13:19
Speaker 1: which is why Boston cream Pie is called pie even
13:23
Speaker 1: though it's a cake.
13:24
Speaker 2: That's right. And notably, it was invented for the opening
13:27
Speaker 2: the grand opening of the Parker House Hotel in eighteen
13:29
Speaker 2: fifty six, which has got to be where Parker House
13:33
Speaker 2: rolls come from. Right.
13:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've never heard of them before.
13:36
Speaker 2: But let's say, yeah, you've never heard of Parker House rolls.
13:39
Speaker 1: I've heard of cider house rules, but.
13:47
Speaker 2: Parker House rolls are one of the best things in
13:49
Speaker 2: the world. You know them if you've seen them, Okay,
13:53
Speaker 2: and in like a lot of it's become trendy in
13:55
Speaker 2: recent years at like a nice restaurant will serve you
13:58
Speaker 2: Parker House rolls in like a little four baked in
14:00
Speaker 2: a four pack for the table.
14:02
Speaker 1: It sounds like King's Hawaiian kind of.
14:04
Speaker 2: Well, they kind of are. They kind of look like
14:06
Speaker 2: that Kings Hawaiian. I think is a the Hawaiian sweet
14:09
Speaker 2: version of Parker House role.
14:10
Speaker 1: They just probably had those then. Yeah.
14:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, big beautiful, flaky like buttery with a little sea
14:15
Speaker 2: salt on top. Man, it's the best thing ever.
14:18
Speaker 1: Very nice. Yeah. Uh, I've actually stayed in the Parker house.
14:22
Speaker 1: It's an omni hotel.
14:24
Speaker 2: And they didn't throw a roll at your face when
14:26
Speaker 2: you walked in.
14:26
Speaker 1: Not that I saw no. Actually, one of the only
14:30
Speaker 1: times I was ever worried about getting Legioneer's disease when
14:33
Speaker 1: I stayed there. And then let's move on to key
14:37
Speaker 1: Lime Pie, because this is the pride of Florida. If
14:40
Speaker 1: you never had a slice of key lime pie, you're
14:42
Speaker 1: you're you're cheating yourself essentially. Just get your hands on one.
14:46
Speaker 2: It's it's one of my top two pies for me.
14:51
Speaker 1: Agreed a lot like that.
14:52
Speaker 2: Crumbly Apple probably.
14:54
Speaker 1: I like that too, style that one.
14:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, Pecan pi, Yeah, those are my top three. Pecan pie,
15:00
Speaker 2: Dutch Apple, and key lime.
15:02
Speaker 1: Okay, so key Lime One of the great things about
15:05
Speaker 1: it is, I mean, I don't want to say, like,
15:07
Speaker 1: if you walk into a seven to eleven and by
15:09
Speaker 1: a slice of key lime pie there, it's going to
15:11
Speaker 1: be as good as one that you get in the
15:13
Speaker 1: Florida Keys. But they're so similar to one another, and
15:16
Speaker 1: there's a specific way to make it that it's not
15:19
Speaker 1: that far off. You're still kind of treating yourself. So
15:21
Speaker 1: go out and get some key lime pie. You don't
15:23
Speaker 1: have to be a purist, but if you are a
15:25
Speaker 1: purist and you want to know where it comes from. Supposedly,
15:28
Speaker 1: the local lore is that a woman only known as
15:31
Speaker 1: Aunt Sally made them in the late nineteenth century down
15:36
Speaker 1: in Key West at the Curry House, which was the
15:40
Speaker 1: estate of Florida's first millionaire, William Curry. So you know,
15:42
Speaker 1: he was important and really good guy. But she came
15:46
Speaker 1: up with this as a recipe that she adapted from
15:49
Speaker 1: local Key West fishermen, that they had come up with
15:52
Speaker 1: it themselves.
15:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one story. Another is that they came later
15:57
Speaker 2: than that, And I think they were supposedly adapted from
16:01
Speaker 2: a recipe from New York for magic lemon cream pies
16:05
Speaker 2: that the Condensed Milk Company put out in the nineteen thirties.
16:09
Speaker 2: But some people say no, it was actually the opposite.
16:12
Speaker 2: They got that magic lemon cream pie from the Key
16:14
Speaker 2: Lime Pie and kind of stole it. Even though hats
16:19
Speaker 2: off to your bord and condensed milk, that stuff is
16:21
Speaker 2: the best.
16:22
Speaker 1: Yeah again, I want to shout out the Ube condensed milk.
16:25
Speaker 1: It's not bored and I don't remember who makes it,
16:27
Speaker 1: but oh my god, it's seriously you'll never taste anything
16:31
Speaker 1: that has a better taste than that.
16:33
Speaker 2: I'm going to move on to that. For my family,
16:36
Speaker 2: my grandmother made it was called that lemon ice box pie.
16:39
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those are great.
16:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's sort of the same thing as a key
16:43
Speaker 2: lime pie, but just with lemon in that it doesn't
16:46
Speaker 2: have meringue, Like, why would you want to ruin a
16:50
Speaker 2: lemon pie by putting a meringue on it?
16:52
Speaker 1: Oh no, I can go either way with that.
16:55
Speaker 2: Not mine.
16:56
Speaker 1: I'd rather replace it with ready whip though.
16:58
Speaker 2: Oh well about you're talking?
17:00
Speaker 1: Okay, everybody. I think it's pretty obvious that we are
17:03
Speaker 1: going to immediately go start eating pie after recording this.
17:06
Speaker 1: We hope you go enjoy some pie too. And short
17:10
Speaker 1: Stuff is out.
17:14
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