Short Stuff: Pies

We’ve done episodes on cake, cookies and, at long last, pie. Belly up to your pod player and prepare to crave some pie! See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:09Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. It's delicious short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, Jerry's not here, Dave's not here, but a bunch of pie talk is here, so strap in everybody. Actually, I should say unbuckle everybody.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  That's right. Unbuckle the top button or that belt loop because this made me want to eat pie. I love pie. I think we talked a little bit about pie in our cake episode.

• 1:32Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  About the merits of pie. And of course, there's also the great legendary, I dare say, Paul F. Tompkins bit on cake versus pie.

• 1:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, I'm not sure about that one.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's from way back in the day. It's a good bit, but pie has been around for way before Paul F. Tompkins, thousands of years, but it's only in the last like couple, few hundred years that it's like what we kind of know as pie. But they had it 8,000 years ago in Egypt, if you count kind of a messy semi-sweet, you know, rustic. Schmorgasbord of grains.

• 2:06Josh Clark?

  Sure. Called galets, right?

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:09Josh Clark?

  And you said 8,000 years ago, that's not that long after we started domesticating crops, which means that pies were one of the first things we started making when we created agriculture.

• 2:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. And of course, they used honey as the sweetener back then, and they'd bake it over some hot coals.

• 2:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 2:24Speaker 03

  And then the Greeks ganked that, didn't they?

• 2:27Josh Clark?

  They did. About 5,000 years later, they loved taking stuff from the Egyptians and they carried on with galets. They did something that I think is a historic crime. They replaced sweet stuff like honey with meats. I like a good meat pie, but I feel like we had not gotten into sweet pies enough to be deep learning from that yet.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  One of the other thing the Greeks did, though, was they created pastry dough like we would, we would think of pastry dough today, essentially.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. So big leap forward there dough wise. The Romans, of course, come along next and they didn't add a whole lot to the technique or tradition. What they did was they brought it to Europe and that's where it really flourished was when it was in the hands of the Europeans.

• 3:15Josh Clark?

  Yeah, not just Europe, but like if you look back at dishes from around the world, you're like, oh, that's pie. That's pie. That's pie. There's something called sambusa in Ethiopia, which is a ham pie.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:26Josh Clark?

  There's obviously empanadas from Spain and then in Latin America, spanakopita in Greece. I've not heard of the zwiebelkuchen, but I would love to try it. It's a savory and sweet pie from Germany.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Schreiberkuchen?

• 3:40Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:42Josh Clark?

  And then there's tortilla from Quebec, which also sounds pretty great. That's a savory meat pie. Like I say, I like meat pies. Got no problem with meat pies.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  I think that we just, I need, we need both, I guess.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, agreed. I mean, when I hear the word pie, I immediately think of like a sweet dessert pie. But I love a Jamaican hand pie. Or I say empanada, I guess it is empanada, isn't it?

• 4:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, empanada. I couldn't find the end with the tilde on the insert thing on word, so.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  I got you.

• 4:13Josh Clark?

  And one other thing, Chuck, do you remember when we were in the UK on tour and I got hooked on pork pies?

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 4:20Josh Clark?

  Oh, my God, those are so good.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  And I got hooked on pork pie hats.

• 4:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I know you did. It was great. I tried to eat that one.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  Right off my head. Uh, the English, speaking of the English, that's where things really got interesting because they were like, man, throw some fish in that thing, throw any kind of meat in you want. We'll spell it P Y E and we'll also bake those bones in there as little handles.

• 4:45Josh Clark?

  Not just the bones, the legs of like a game bird, like a pheasant would be sticking out and hanging over the side of the pie.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, just grab it by, grab it by the leg.

• 4:55Josh Clark?

  Grab that pheasant like a rabbit.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  I guess that's no different than just eating a chicken leg.

• 5:01Josh Clark?

  It's a little different. I'm talking about like the feet here is what I understand.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 5:05Josh Clark?

  Like the whole leg down to the toenails is what they left on.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Toenails. You ever seen a chicken toenail?

• 5:13Josh Clark?

  I haven't looked that closely. I've just always assumed they were there.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  They also called them coffins, two Fs and a Y. Again, they love those Ys instead of Is. And of course that means box.

• 5:25Josh Clark?

  Yeah, because that's what they were making. There was like sturdy walls, a sturdy bottom, a crust over the top. And these were actually what the Greeks were basically making pies for too. The point of the pie was to seal in the juices of like the savory mixture of meats and stuff, right?

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:41Josh Clark?

  It was a way to bake a bunch of stuff together and then serve it as one thing onto a table. That was the point of pies. They didn't care about pastries in medieval England, like the actual crust was considered inedible by the rich, but the lower classes would eat the pie crust when they had to.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  So they also made pies without tops whatsoever. Those are tarts. That's what they still call them today. Those I think were more pastry edible forward.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you're right. Um, if you're talking about recipes, uh, they started appearing in Europe in cookbooks, like way back in the 1300s. Uh, I think there was a German cookbook you dug up from 1553.

• 6:23Josh Clark?

  I didn't actually look in the cookbook itself. I just saw a reference to it.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  Oh, sure. Yeah.

• 6:28Josh Clark?

  Sorry.

• 6:29Speaker 03

  That's okay. Uh, but they were like, hey, you know what you do? You put a little hole in the middle of that pie and the lid and you blow in it and puff that thing up and then seal it. And that thing is, looks great on a table.

• 6:39Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but you will notice from that recipe, that means there's nothing inside. They were just baking the pie, an empty pie essentially is what they were making. And you would say, well, that's madness. What's the point of that? There's actually a trend in England, I think from the 15th to maybe the 18th centuries, where you would present, like at a royal dinner or something like that, an enormous pie that was filled with live things. So you would bake the pie pastry and then put the live things in it before you served it. And so that's where, you know, that rhyme, sing a song of sixpence, where they talk about four and 20 blackbirds baked into a pie? Isn't that a pretty dish to serve before the king or whatever?

• 7:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:23Josh Clark?

  That's what they're talking about is this trend in, in Europe, in, in royal courts of Europe, where you would serve like a pie to the king and they would cut it open and all these beautiful birds would fly out or a string ensemble would stand up and start playing.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, like if you think you gotta have a big pie to put a couple of dozen blackbirds in there, you weren't kidding about the string ensemble, like they would have a pie big enough. What, what I don't understand is how are they, are they not killing these people and birds?

• 7:51Josh Clark?

  No.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  By baking them?

• 7:52Josh Clark?

  They bake the pie pastry first and then put the people in before they served it. That's why you would-

• 7:58Speaker 03

  How does that work?

• 7:59Josh Clark?

  That's what you would, you would take the pie, put it together, put the top on, put a hole in it, blow in it, close it up.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, but how did the people get in there?

• 8:06Josh Clark?

  Oh, I'm, I'm sure there was like a little door cut into the side or something like that, but they were not anywhere near the pie while it was in the oven.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Oh, the pie hatch. I wasn't thinking.

• 8:16Josh Clark?

  Pie hatch, the pie hole.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, the pie hole.

• 8:19Josh Clark?

  Remember that show, what was it called? Better, no, Putsing Up Daisies? That, the guy, the main protagonist had a pie shop called The Pie Hole. Oh, that I've told you about before. It's such a charming show, Chuck. You gotta see it.

• 8:33Speaker 03

  All right. Yeah, you got a long list for me though, so.

• 8:35Josh Clark?

  That one, move that one toward the top. It's just a very sweet, neat, cute little show.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  All right. Well, speaking of cute, we'll take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about a few specific all time great pies right after this.

• 9:03Josh Clark?

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• 9:13Speaker 03

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• 9:26Josh Clark?

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• 9:41Speaker 03

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• 10:03Speaker 04

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• 11:11Speaker 03

  All right, we're back. We're gonna mention one, two, three, four, five all-time great pies. It is for us in real time, it's the week before Thanksgiving, couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.

• 11:23Josh Clark?

  Hubba hubba.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  So we gotta talk about pumpkin pie, which was brought to the new world by the colonists on the Mayflower. But it's interesting because when they got here, Native Americans were like, hey, look at these things we got. They're called pumpkins. And one day they will invent spices to put with these that taste nothing like pumpkins, but you will totally associate that with pumpkin.

• 11:48Josh Clark?

  Right. And so like the first pumpkin pies were actually not pies at all. They were, they used the pumpkin themselves as basically the pie crust put in honey and spices and stuff like that, and baked it over hot coals, then they ate that. But the thing is, you still think of like, okay, well, eventually like it got figured out in the United States or the English colonies, right? No, that's not the case. Pumpkin pie actually got exported with the pumpkins in a couple of decades over to France. The first recipe that even mentions a pumpkin pie called the pomegranate pie was published in a French cookbook by a French chef in 1651.

• 12:29Josh Clark?

  And it wouldn't be another few decades, actually another century or so, before it showed up in a recipe in an American cookbook.

• 12:38Speaker 03

  That's right. In 1796, it was in the very first American cookbook, in fact, from Amelia Simmons, called American Cookery by an American orphan. And yeah, that pumpkin pie was in there, the kind of like the one we know it. It was kind of a pumpkin pudding, but that's not super unlike pumpkin pie.

• 12:55Josh Clark?

  No, because you baked it in a pie shell. So if you ask me... That's pumpkin pie.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  Agreed.

• 13:01Josh Clark?

  So pumpkin pie seems pretty American. That's why the French thing was so puzzling. But apple pie, 100% American. Like, don't even come at me with anything else. Take it, Chuck.

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Well, buddy, apples don't come from America. They're native to Asia. So they were brought over to the New World by the colonists. And I think we all know that the perfect apple pie is that Dutch apple pie. And they're the ones, they were the OGs a couple of years, a couple, sorry, a couple 100 years prior to those apples coming over from Asia, the Dutch had sort of mastered that apple pie.

• 13:34Josh Clark?

  Man, I always assumed it was the 1970s when the Dutch finally made Dutch apple pie.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 13:40Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right. So the Dutch had figured out apple pie centuries before it came to America. So how does the apple pie get associated with America? There's a saying over here, everybody, if you're not familiar, as American as apple pie. Apparently, that was first used in print in 1928 to describe First Lady Lou Hoover, Herbert Hoover's, well, wife, this gal. They said that she's as American as apple pie. Okay, that's one, one way it got associated with it. Another one is that apple pie is as American as mom's and baseball. Where did that come from, Chuck? Where did that come from?

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Apparently, World War II, there was a catchphrase for the GIs there when they're like, why, why are you going off to pop this, fight this war? And they would say, well, sir, for mom and apple pie, of course.

• 14:28Josh Clark?

  And they'd say, good out there, boy.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 14:31Josh Clark?

  Win it for us.

• 14:32Speaker 03

  And if you think that helmet's gonna protect you, you got another thing coming.

• 14:36Josh Clark?

  What else?

• 14:37Speaker 03

  That was kind of dark.

• 14:38Josh Clark?

  It got dark, going from apple pie to that. But yeah, sure.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  Uh, we could talk cherry pie briefly. Cherry pie is not my favorite pie, but I'll opt for pumpkin or apple, or certainly key lime, which we'll get to before cherry pie. But I'll eat a piece of cherry pie with some ice cream if you got it for me.

• 14:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, as long as it's not sour. Like, a good cherry pie in the vein of a good apple pie, I think is excellent stuff.

• 15:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. And House of Pies in Los Feliz in Los Angeles, the neighborhood where I lived, had all kinds of great pies. But like, I want like a warm cherry pie. I don't want like the cold one that where that. Jelly has sort of, you know, I don't like it cold.

• 15:17Josh Clark?

  No, that's what I'm saying. If you, if you make it and serve it like you would a good piece of apple pie, it's good. I'm with you 100%.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Okay, but that one, apparently the first cherry pie was either created for Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century or by her.

• 15:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's one of the oldest pies that is still around today, apparently.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, what's next?

• 15:38Josh Clark?

  Boston cream pie is worth a mention. You might be like, this is not even a pie. That's basically a layer cake. You're right. But we wanted to explain where that came from.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  I don't think I've ever had Boston cream pie.

• 15:51Josh Clark?

  I hadn't either. I was like, okay, we got to do Boston cream pie. And then I was like, oh, this is a little more interesting than I thought. Cause it turns out Boston cream pie is a cake. It's not a pie in any sense whatsoever. The reason it's called Boston cream pie is because it's based on another recipe called Washington pie. And Washington pie was the same thing. It was a Boston cream pie cake baked in a pie crust. So a cake and a pie crust. And then eventually the Boston cream pie came along. They did away with the crust, but they kept the name pie, which is why Boston cream pie is called pie, even though it's a cake.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  That's right. And notably, it was invented for the opening, the grand opening of the Parker House Hotel in 1856, which has got to be where Parker House rolls come from, right?

• 16:35Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I've never heard of them before, but let's say, yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  You've never heard of Parker House rolls?

• 16:40Josh Clark?

  I've heard of Cider House rules.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Parker House rolls are one of the best things in the world. You know them if you've seen them.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  And then like a lot of, it's become trendy in recent years at like a, a nice restaurant will serve you Parker House rolls and like a little four, baked in a four pack for the table.

• 17:03Josh Clark?

  It sounds like King's Hawaiian, kinda.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Well, they kind of are. They kind of look like that. King's Hawaiian, I think is a, the Hawaiian sweet version of a Parker House roll.

• 17:11Josh Clark?

  I probably had those then, yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, big, beautiful, flaky, like buttery with a little sea salt on top. Man, it's the best thing ever.

• 17:19Josh Clark?

  Very nice.

• 17:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:21Josh Clark?

  I've actually stayed in the Parker House. It's now Omni Hotel.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  And they didn't throw a roll at your face when you walked in?

• 17:27Josh Clark?

  Not that I saw, no. Actually, one of the, the only times I was ever worried about getting Legionnaires disease was when I stayed there.

• 17:36Josh Clark?

  And then let's move on to key lime pie because this is the pride of Florida. If you've never had a slice of key lime pie, you're cheating yourself essentially. Just get your hands on one.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  It's one of my, it's top two pies for me.

• 17:51Josh Clark?

  Agreed.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Along with a crumbly apple, probably.

• 17:54Josh Clark?

  I like that too. The Dutch apple crumble style, that one?

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, pecan pie, yeah, those are my top three. Pecan pie, Dutch apple and key lime.

• 18:03Josh Clark?

  Okay, so key lime, one of the great things about it is, I mean, I don't want to say like if you walk into a 7-Eleven and buy a slice of key lime pie there, it's going to be as good as one that you get in the Florida Keys. But they're so similar to one another and there's a specific way to make it, then it's not that far off. You're still kind of treating yourself. So go out and get some key lime pie. You don't have to be a purist, but if you are a purist and you want to know where it comes from, supposedly the local lore is that a woman only known as Aunt Sally made them in the late 19th century down in Key West at the Curry House, which was the estate of Florida's first millionaire, William Curry. So you know, he was important and a really good guy.

• 18:46Josh Clark?

  But she came up with this as a recipe that she adapted from local Key West fishermen that they had come up with it themselves.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's one story. Another is that they came later than that. And I think they were supposedly adapted from a recipe from New York for magic lemon cream pies that the Borden Condensed Milk Company put out in the 1930s. But some people say, no, it's actually the opposite. They got that magic lemon cream pie from the key lime pie and kind of stole it, even though hats off to your Borden condensed milk because that stuff is the best.

• 19:23Josh Clark?

  Yeah, again, I want to shout out the Oube condensed milk. It's not Borden, I don't remember who makes it, but oh my God, it's seriously, you'll never taste anything that has a better taste than that.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  I'm going to move on to that for my. My, my family, my grandmother made it. She called it lemon icebox pie.

• 19:39Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, those are great.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's sort of the same thing as a key lime pie, but just with, with lemon in that it doesn't have meringue. Like, why would you want to ruin a lemon pie by putting meringue on it?

• 19:53Josh Clark?

  I don't know. I, I can go either way with that.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Nah, not my.

• 19:56Josh Clark?

  I'd rather replace it with ready whip, though.

• 19:59Speaker 03

  Oh, well, now you're talking.

• 20:00Josh Clark?

  Okay. Everybody, I think it's pretty obvious that we are going to immediately go start eating pie after recording this. We hope you go enjoy some pie, too. And short stuff is out.

• 20:14Speaker 05

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 20:30Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability. And it starts with a great deal on an off-road ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.