June 16, 2021 • 42 mins
This cheese spread/dip is so popular in the American South that its recipe – and Northern origins – garner controversy. Anney and Lauren explore the history and culture of pimento cheese.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protiction of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb, and today we've
got an episode for you about pimento cheese. Such an episode.
You know, this is a shockingly long outline for something
that I thought a few weeks ago, like, could we
(00:28):
make a whole episode out of this? The answer is yes, absolutely, yes.
It turns out people have a lot to say about
pimento cheese. Gosh, they do. Yes, yes, And we are
following up on the listener request that we read I
believe in our listening realm a couple of episodes back
UM for pimento cheese. And as I said in response
(00:50):
to that, my family loves pimento cheese. It was sort
of a rare, special occasion food in our house. Yeah.
We usually got it homemade from like local markets, especially
if we'd stop at a farmer's market or something while traveling. Um,
and that's in my experience, is usually chunkier and brighter
than the stuff that you would get at the store. Um.
(01:11):
And I actually do like pimento cheese and small amounts
um despite the mayo. Sure, okay, yeah, it's a mayo
flavor strong. I do not like it. Also, I feel
like it's just a very rich food, so I have
a hard time consuming large amounts of it. Yeah yes, yes,
uh yeah, It's a food that I cannot really eat
(01:33):
because one of the ingredients is sweet peppers, which give
me all kinds of problems. Uh so, so I do
not consume it. The day that I realized what pimentos
are our day that I had pimento cheese in a
food and I was like, wait, hold up, no, what
(01:54):
are what are pimentos? That was It was a bad day.
Only we had done this episode before that. This was
a long heck and time ago. This was This was
very long ago. But wait, way before even food stuff,
even even before we were calling it eat stuff, so
(02:18):
which all of our folders are still called stuff, which
is very funny to me. It was never officially called that. No, no,
um and yet and yet uh yeah. This is also
a food that I did not grow up with. I
don't believe that I was aware of its existence until
I moved to Atlanta. Yeah so, like like many Southern foods. Uh,
(02:46):
the part of Florida that I'm from is not the
south and right, but April nine is apparently National Pimento
Cheese Day, so it has a national day that we
whisked right by. We did as for usual, Sometimes we
get it, but usually we don't. Um and see our
(03:10):
cream cheese episode because that one actually is pretty informative
to this one. UM and other cheese episodes and our
Mayo episode. If you want to hear a lot of
vitriol from me about how I despise, Oh wow, yeah,
after our after our Dr Pepper sponsorship, I wonder if
(03:30):
we could get a Mayo brand to sponsor us and
to torture ourselves with trying to please another sponsor that
that you objectively disliked the product of. I have a
some Dr Pepper in my fridge and it's the source
of great anger that was sent to me. I did
(03:53):
not buy it. No, no, as a thank you, I
think for doing for doing that ad read they want
to do well, you know what, any companies out there,
Mayo companies, don't you want to advertise with us? Come on?
I would give a glowing review to Duke's any day.
Any day I would sit silently in the background. Okay, okay,
(04:17):
But I suppose this brings us to our question. Yes,
pimento cheese. What is it? Well, pimento cheese is a
type of sandwich spread that can include It can include
many things, but but at its base, it's a shredded
cheese and chopped pimento peppers and some kind of creamy
(04:41):
binder to to create a thick and slightly chunky but yeah,
like just spread herble consistency, So let's let's break that down. Um.
The cheese is often a shredded, short, aged, semihard tangy
cheese like cheddar um, often a blend of white and
orange cheddars and or similar cheeses like Colby or Jack,
(05:04):
or even processed cheeses like Velveta. The pimentos. These are
usually jarred or canned sweet peppers which will have been
up peeled and cooked. No seeds. Yeah, Pimentos are a
type of sweet pepper that turn just bright orange e
red when they're ripe, whereupon they are sweet and just
(05:25):
a tiny bit tangy like, like little to no bitterness
or vegetal flavors in there. You can also use pickled
peppers or roast your own sweet peppers of whatever variety
you choose. The binder is yes, often mayo often Duke's
brand towards the East Coast and Blue Plate brand more
(05:45):
towards like Louisiana. Sometimes cream cheese may be involved as well,
and right, you generally want to use just enough to
stick everything together, but not enough to make a sandwich
kind of soggy or drippy. Right. Also, people will say
that you don't want to overmix the ingredients or it'll
get kind of mushy, which isn't the idea. Sometimes, trying
(06:09):
to go through my rolodex of pimento cheese experiences, it
can it can vary pretty widely. And speaking of to
this base, any number of seasonings may be added. Salt
and pepper, onion powder or freshly grated onion or green onions,
or garlic, worcester shear sauce, hot sauce, apple cider, vinegar,
(06:31):
lemon juice, paprika, cayenne, pepper, chili powder, chili sauce like
a saracia horserdish mustard. It can also feature kind of
like guest star mix ins um like colapenos or fresh
sweet pepper, dill, pickles, bacon, smoked gooda blue cheese, parmesan,
toasted pecans, chopped pimento stuffed olives. I've seen one recipe
(06:55):
call for persciuto. WHOA right, that's that's like a star cameo.
Second fancy pimento cheese. I love it, um and it
does pop visually, um with with the with the red
pimentos contrasted against the pale orange cheese and stuff. Yeah,
(07:16):
it does. But I did see this video right before
I was when I was looking at how to pronounce
something and they did a slow zoom in on pimento
cheese and the lighting just wasn't great and there's no music,
and I was like, oh, this is a very awkward.
I feel strange watching this. It um like like many foods,
(07:38):
you do have to have decent lighting to make it
look not like slimy food can have that like sheen
to it that can be very unappetizing depending on the
photographic quality. Um. Anyway, in real life it usually looks nice.
(07:59):
You usually yes, but but yeah so so the result
can vary sort of impressively in flavor. And everyone has
a version that they say is the best, and furthermore,
a ratio of cheese to binder that they say is
correct m hm. And if they sell it, no, you
(08:22):
cannot have their recipe, don't you know. It's a family secret. Um.
But what you've basically got here is a is a creamy,
tangy comfort food that that pairs well with other savory
foods UM, but could also stand on its own alone.
It's usually served chilled on white bread to form a
simple sandwich, or as a dip for vegetables or crackers
(08:43):
rits preferably, but it can also be served as a
grilled sandwich or a warm dip, and on warm dishes
like burgers or other hot sandwiches, on fried green tomatoes,
on baked potatoes or other potato dishes, UM, in egg
dishes like omelets, in grits, in mac and cheese, in
savory bay goods, in cast roles. You can make balls
(09:03):
of it and then bread them and then deep fry
them and then just eat them. Bless your heart. Of
course you can, of course you can. I'm pretty sure
I would just get like a spoonful and I'd have
one spoonful and I was dead and that was it. Yeah, okay,
pretty nice. Yeah. Uh. These days it is very much
(09:25):
a Southern thing. Um. It's sometimes called the Carolina caviare
and or the patte of the South. Um. It's a
popular topic at some iconic Atlanta restaurants like The Varsity, Homegrown,
and the Vortex. According to the country's being producer of
canned Pimento's Moody Dunbar, most of their sales do take
(09:46):
place in the South, with the Carolina as being their
top consumers. So eating all this pimento cheese, what about
the nutrition? Uh? Well, you know, che ease and mayonnaise
and or other binders are you know, calorically dense foods
um And you're not really getting enough pimento in there
(10:08):
to like really see a nutrient boost. Also, vegetables that
have been canned tend to lose a bunch of their
original nutrients. Always choose fresh or frozen vegetables when you can. Uh,
but fimento cheese does have a good punch of protein
and fat, so it'll fill you up and help keep
you going. You know, eat a eat a vegetable, a
real vegetable. I know you're talking about the pimentoes, But
(10:33):
cheese doesn't count as a vegetable. Cheese, No, neither does
cream cheese, neither does mayonnaise. Well, I also love that,
like I think at the places I mentioned the restaurants
that put it on as a topping. It's always really
Southern dish that you can. Yeah, and so it often
has like a fried green tomatoes, probably some bacon bacon,
(10:56):
and then like the burger patty or whatever. It's a lot.
It is often a lot. It is it is. It
is a celebratory food. Yeah, I would, I would agree
with that. UM, we do have some numbers for you. Yeah.
Pimento cheese, as you may have garnered from from the
(11:16):
description above, is often homemade, but you can buy prepackaged versions. UM.
And the FDA does have codes for pasteurized processed pimento
cheese which dictate that the weight of the pimentos shall
be not less than zero point two per cent of
the total weight of the finished product. Wow. Yeah, so
(11:39):
so technically very little pimento needs to go into pimento cheese,
very little. UM. South Carolina based Palmetto Cheese is America's
top she spread company. And you can get a pimento
cheese passport in South Carolina, like when you enter if
you want to go on a pimento cheese tray all
(12:01):
for you. And that's great. UM. As of twenty nineteen,
UM the brand Palmetto Cheese was sold in over nine
thousand grocery stores in forty states. Yes. Um, but they
recently got in some hot water when the founder called
Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization. Yeah. He later apologized
after Costca removed the product from their shelves and people
(12:24):
boycotted it. Boycotted the product. The company also began facing
out their mascot, which, in a similar vein to Aunt
Jemima and Uncle Ben, relied on racist stereotypes. This is
all ongoing. Well, hey, progress progress, slow progress that probably
should have been made earlier. But I'm I'm always glad
when progress happens. Mm hmm um. According to Kevin Clark,
(12:48):
co owner of Atlanta restaurant home Grown, they go through
about fifty to sixty pounds or twenty two point six
to twenty seven point two ms of Pimiento cheese per
week and I leave. He discussed how originally he didn't
put on the menu, but people kept asking about it,
and so finally he was like, Okay, I'll try it
on the menu, and then it became like a top
selling Yeah. Yeah. Homegrown is a breakfast slash diner kind
(13:14):
of place. Um. Local here in Atlanta, and right right,
it's a it's a very very small, very homy, but
very iconic Atlanta restaurant. Yes, yes, yes, um. We just
missed the Pimento Cheese festival in North Carolina. Why there's
a pimento cheese eating contest, which sounds to me for
(13:36):
many reasons, but especially like the heat. Oh no goodness.
And there's a sculpting contest, which I'm way more into.
Yes um. And I really like this quote from food
writer and Burn, who did a whole piece of pimento cheese.
Pimento cheese is just that cheese, peppers and possibilities, yes um.
(14:01):
But yeah, there have been a lot of shifting parts
in the story of pimento cheese. There have been, and
we are going to get into that history. But first
we are going to get into a quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(14:26):
thank you. Okay, So I just want to put in
here I love all of the extreme headlines for the
history of fimento cheese. We're talking like the shocking history,
you won't believe the history, the sandwich controversy that rocked
the Masters. Cheese is a big deal. I would agree,
(14:46):
but I was like, what am I getting into here?
People have strong feelings about this stuff, they do, and
as the headline suggest, there is some debate about the
history of this one, particularly its origin. Um. And as
you might imagine, pinning down the specifics of when a
spreadable cheese, mayo and sweet pepper mixture whenever that first occurred. Uh,
(15:08):
that's tricky. Um. According to Robert Moss, a serious eats
who did a whole piece on this and it was
very helpful. A lot of this is informed by it.
Go check it out if you want to learn more
about fomento cheese. Believe it or not, there's even more
than we're putting in here. Oh yeah, yeah. Um. This
iconic Southern food was actually invented in New York in
(15:33):
the eighteen seventies, a product of industrialization, um, which is
where a lot of the controversy comes in. But Boss
himself was like, you know, another thing about it that's
really not food? Does this all the time? Yeah? So,
as we discussed in our cream cheese episode, at this time,
farmers in the North were making soft, unripened cheese is
(15:55):
inspired by French nou chateel. Um. And Philadelphia became the
city prime early associated with these American cream cheeses, and
the Craft Cheese Company eventually acquired the top producer, Phoenix
Cheese with their Philadelphia brand cream cheese. Simultaneously, a new
product became available in the America's Spanish imported sweet red peppers.
(16:20):
In her seven book Miss Parallela's Kitchen Companion, the author
describes them as much milder than bell peppers and that
they were delicious when stuffed and baked um. Within the
next few years, these peppers were being sold canned um,
introducing them and the Spanish name pimientos to a larger
(16:41):
consumer base. The eye in that word was for the
most part dropped by the beginning of the twentieth century,
though I do still see it sometimes in in in
these are modern Internet days, and I'm very confused every
time I do see I thought it was another scupper
knog situation in where I've I've been missed spelling it
(17:03):
this whole time, and it's a Southern pronunciation that I've
just absorbed. But yes, I guess both do still exist.
Can get confusing, m Um. One group in particular, we're
big fans of both of these new to America products
(17:23):
domestic science or home economics practitioners. This was a social
movement run by women with a primary focus of increasing
efficiency in the home using science, particularly when it came
to cooking um. And they were also concerned with having
a good looking dinner table. They liked new scientific innovations
(17:48):
in the food space, like cream cheese. The fact that
it was white, which in their minds symbolized purity, was
just another plus. Um. They came up with all kinds
of recipes to use cream cheese. And yes, they loved
canned pimentos to the mild flavor coupled with the eye
catching color. The Boston Cooking School magazine featured a recipe
(18:08):
for a cauliflower and pimento salad and noting on account
of their brilliant color, pimentos are a pleasing addition to
many a salad, and when you sparingly, their sweet mild
flavor is usually relished. Likely usually in there, Usually you
know could be anything, could be, could be. And I
(18:32):
just want to put in here. I had to take
home back in high school, and I was furious. I'm
still mad about it. I know how to crack an egg.
I might not do it with funness, but I can
do it. I wanted to take Auto one oh one,
but no anyway my outrage segment. Oh goodness, Well I okay.
(18:53):
So I also had a home mack class for like
a quarter a single quarter of a year in middle school.
But it was alongside, like there was another quarter that
was like a like a robotics course. Uh, and another
quarter that was like music appreciation or something. Getting angrier
(19:14):
and angrier anyway. Um, so not a long after all
of those people were adding pimentoes and cream cheese together.
Like in nineteen o eight, there was this Good Housekeeping
recipe for a sandwich filling made up of cream cheese, chives, mustard,
(19:35):
and minced up pimentos. Eva Green Fullers up to Date
Sandwich Book contained a simple recipe for a pimento cheese
sandwich combined cream cheese and camp pimentoes and served between
bread easy um. Leading up to and directly after World
War One, a lot of very similar recipes to that
one were published. Manufacturers saw an opportunity to make money
(19:59):
with a new product, so they started adding chopped mementoes
with a little bit of red pepper and neuchatel Kurds
against selling it in nineteen and this was popular enough
that it went nationwide fairly quickly. For example, an add
from that very same year out of Minnesota red pimento
cheese something new, Yes, I love it, straight to the ford, Okay.
(20:27):
While the primary manufacturers were located in Wisconsin and New York,
it only took a year for the product to start
showing up in the western and southern United States. In
add out of Augusta, Georgia claimed pimento cheese. You know
how fine it is. This is good with a period.
I love that so much, and it was sold either
(20:50):
in slice form or by the jar speaking of the South.
The South was the hub of the pimento canning industry.
While all of this was happening, Spanish imported pimentos could
be quite expensive, so farmers associated with the Georgia Experiment
Station began trying their hand at domestic cultivation. In nineteen eleven,
(21:14):
they requested seeds from the Spanish consulate, and they were
the first American farmers to cultivate them that we know of.
In nineteen sixteen. This resulted in the true heart Perfection
pimento also great. They also innovated around a roaster that
sped up the process of peeling the peppers. This in
(21:36):
turn led to the growth of the pimento industry in
the area, and we're talking twenty five thousand acres dedicated
to cultivating pimentos by turning out ten million cans that
were shipped all across the country. A former teacher and
seed salesman started canning company Moody Dunbar, which we mentioned
at the top, in Tennessee in nineteen thirty three, and
(21:59):
they hand old most of this pimento canning. The company
also made and sold a canned pimento cheese spread that
was fairly easy to find in the South, but not
necessarily affordable to everyone, also possibly not accessible in rural areas,
really rural areas. Some speculate this is why pimento cheese
(22:19):
is so synonymous with the South. Um. The height of
pimento production from the nineteen forties does line up with
an explosion in popularity of pimento cheese, and of course
the two things could be related the increased availability and
lower cost of pimentos, meaning that more pimento cheese is
being made and sold at lower prices. Whatever the case,
(22:42):
by the nineteen hundreds Southern farmers had experimented and perfected
their own varieties of pimento cheese, and it was fairly
easy to find in the South. Still, and all the
hundreds of recipes published prior to World War Two, none
of them make it out to be a Southern thing.
It was described as more of a technical innovation or
(23:05):
a scientific food breakthrough. Very modern um. Great on a
sandwich for a quick, easy, satisfying lunch. Most of these
recipes called for store bought pimento cheese, so it wasn't
really a thing most home cooks were making, or at
least that's not what was in the not in the literature. Yeah,
(23:26):
pimento cheese is. Popularity declined after World War Two, and
some of the brands faded away entirely. Some of these
brands making pimento cheese um. But those Southern farmers and
cooks continued to make and sell homemade pimento cheese as
the manufactured options grew less and less. Robert Wilbanks wrote
in his work Gads in Alabama, Stories of the Great Depression,
(23:49):
the fimento cheese did not come from a store, but
was made at home by cutting and mixing hoop cheese
and pimentoes from a jar. And that's probably how a
lot of Southerners made it. Um. Pimentoes were ubiquitous in
the region, and you could get a lot of hoop
cheese for not that much money. Possibly rural areas didn't
have easy access to manufactured pimento cheese, if it was
(24:11):
available at all, so they had to make it themselves. Um,
yeah and uh. Note on hoop cheese. Hoop cheese is
a is a type of fresh cheese made by pressing
cheese curds in a in a hoop um to remove
the watery liquids. That is the way until you're left
with a kind of firm but like still soft cheese. Um.
(24:32):
And then it's not aged so it stays soft. It's
creamier than a cheddar, more like American cheese, but not
so processed. Yeah. Rights, and using hoop cheese and store
bought cheese is like cheddar instead of cream cheese was
key in the evolution of pimento cheese and in making
(24:53):
it a Southern thing, because the grated cheese needed to
be blended together. Another Southern favorite was bought into the mix,
the mayonnaise. The mayonnaise cream cheese might not have been
as available or popular in the South at the time
home cooks started adding other ingredients to their taste, from
(25:14):
pickles to helpinos. It was a popular food to bring
to pot luck's funerals to serve on. Sandwiches or crackers
are very communal kind of gathering food. Yeah. The story
goes that the founder of Regional Mayonnaise Dukes, Eugenia Duke,
sold pimento cheese sandwiches to soldiers in South Carolina before
nineteen seventeen, which is when she actually started selling her mayonnaise,
(25:37):
and in fact, the popularity of the sandwiches and the
mayo used in them maybe the reason she started selling
her mayonnaise first place. They're Duke's marketing maybe one reason
pimento cheese is so popular in the Carolinas as well.
Perhaps the most national attention pimento cheese has ever gotten, though,
(25:58):
was due to the Master's Golf Tournament, which takes place
every April and Augusta, Georgia, where pimento sandwiches are a
popular choice at this event. Um, here's where the sandwich
controversy comes in from. Luke Fader or fought perhaps at
(26:20):
Atlas Obscura, an event so wedded to perfection, so shrouded
in its own tradition, is surely one of the last
places you'd expect to find successive episodes of food based
spite politics. Here we are politics. I love that good, alright,
So let's let's get into this white politics. Yeah yeah.
(26:47):
Pimento sandwiches have long been a popular option at the Masters,
with attendees lining up to get their hands on one.
In the beginning, these sandwiches were made by one man,
South Carolinian, Nick Rangos, who is very active in the
Greek community around Augusta. Several caterers tried to crack this
code around his secret recipe and get to the bottom
(27:08):
of the secret ingredients. Many speculated he must have used
dukes mayo since he was from South Carolina, and or
that he may have used Greek seasonings m hmm. One
recipe published by the Junior League of Augusta suggested using
blue cheese and light mayo. This did not sit well
with many people, especially people from Rango's home state of
(27:32):
South Carolina, where only dukes is acceptable. Rangos caught the
attention of the Masters in the nineteen sixties due to
the fan base he'd built by selling his pimento cheese
sandwiches out of his South Carolina drug store. The Masters
organizers got rid of the husband and wife duo that
had been in charge of catering previously for this event
(27:53):
and for forty five years. Rangos and his children Billy
and Stella, made enormous amounts of homemade pimento cheese of
the tournament, and from what I read, they would like
drop it off at the border. Take the cheese. People
loved it and it became an icon itself, like that
was the thing you got when you went to this event. Yeah.
According to journalist Andy Bull, the Master's pimento cheese must
(28:17):
be the most famous sandwich in all of sport. Yeah.
About twenty years ago, the Masters decided not to renew
Rango's contract. The reasoning is unknown, but Rangos was very
unhappy about it. Rangos took the recipe with him to
the grave despite repeated request for it. His replacement, Ted Godfrey,
(28:44):
who ran a chain of fried chicken joints called Wife Safer,
did his best to mimic the recipe, a process that
took months and a lot of cheese. Yeah. It is.
It is a blend of multiple cheeses, and apparently he
went through thirty three different cheeses trying to find the
right blend. Yes. Yes. When he continued to struggle to
(29:06):
get to the bottom of this, a tournament worker gave
him a batch of Frangos pimento cheese that they had frozen.
Godfrey did his best to reverse engineer this, but the
Master's committee still is not satisfied. So Godfrey went to
the original supplier for an ingredients list, but still the
result did not meet expectations. Then, according to him, the
(29:31):
secret ingredient came to him in a dream. Finally he
nailed it down and people had no idea about the switch,
the sandwich switch. He also refused to share the recipe
when he was replaced by in house catering, and the
(29:55):
thinking on on this switch from Godfrey to in house
catering was that it was best to use all in
house vendors for like health inspection purposes, but Godfrey was
real salty about it. He says that he offered to
sell it to them in exchange for a couple of
series badges Master's series badges, which um are these high
(30:16):
demand tickets that grant you admission for all four days
of the Master's Tournament, and which are only sold to
patrons of the tournament, which is an exclusive list that
I don't think you can even apply to join at
the moment, Like someone has to die in order in
order for a spot to be opened up, and then
if they have a living spouse, the spouse is offered
(30:37):
the bat anyway, Um, it's a whole thing. And even
if you are a patron, you have to apply to
buy a badge, and it's not like guaranteed that you're
going to get one, like the plastic badges from previous
year's events are collectors items anyway, Like it was like
kind of a big ask and they said no, yeah,
(31:01):
So he left and not happy and he this him
leaving caught the attention of patrons and the national news.
Neither of their families, god Freed or Ringos will comment
when I asked about the recipe. A reporter for ESPN
interviewed Godfrey that same year in an expose that came
(31:22):
to be known as Pimento gate Um. While Ringos once
claimed there was no secret to the recipe, Godfrey told ESPN,
I cannot tell you what the secret is, but there's
a secret there. I love that. That's so good. It's
like sibling stuff, right U yep, um, Now that they're dirty.
(31:44):
Pimento cheese sandwich laundry was out because again, this is
the event that prides itself on being like so meticulous
and everything being under their control. Employees at the Master's
struggle to recreate the recipe with fans knowing what is
going on, so they had like this added pressure of
now people are really going to be paying attention. UM
(32:06):
Food bloggers took on the project as well, including blogger
Gina Dixon, who in took a crack at reverse engineering
the recipe based on the ingredients list printed on the
back of one of the rappers that she had. It
only took her a few hours according to her um
and she is somebody who has been a lifelong attendee
from like childhood of the Masters and enjoy or of
(32:28):
their Permento cheese sandwich. Her recipe, in her words, is
pretty close to the real thing um of note the
sandwiches and has pretty much always been a dollar and
fifty cents. Yeah. The brand that's responsible for putting together
the tournament is called Augusta National and uh, yeah, they
keep the food at the tournament inexpensive in general, I
(32:51):
think as a as a non to tradition, and also
to avoid customers who have already paid a premium for
tickets feeling like they're being gouged on snacks. Um. They
apparently pull in just ten million dollars a year from concessions,
but that's of a total of a hundred and twenty
million a year and so small, small percentage. Yes, um,
(33:14):
And I I was really tickled by in that Atlas
Obscura article about this. Um. He called out one of
his friends who tried to spend forty dollars on food
at the Master's and I couldn't do it and got
really sick. Oh no, yeah, so everything the food is
pretty cheap. Nothing else, but nothing else but right. As
(33:37):
more and more Southern authors started writing about pimento cheese, uh,
this pimento cheese that they had grown up with, that
had been made by family members, something they were nostalgic for.
Had this fondness for pimento cheese became more well known
and garnered more respects. Yeah. Starting around in the nineteen nineties,
recipes began appearing in cookbooks again. As Wayne wrote in
(34:01):
his listener mail that inspired this whole episode. The Southern
Food Ways Alliance hosted the Pimento Cheese Invitational and Oxford,
Mississippi in two thousand three. UM. Over three hundred folks
submitted recipes and wrote essays about their experiences with pimento
cheese what made it special to them. The winning recipe
from Nan Davis used her ants recipe that called for
(34:22):
homemade mayo and a blend of Worcester sauce, onion powder, sugar,
and red pepper. M Um and yeah. As the Southern
cuisine trend heated up in the twenty odds and teens,
um meno cheese spread sorry, I'm sorry, um more widely
(34:46):
across the United States, um to the point that it
was listed by Bonapetite as a food trend in Oh.
I would love to hear from other listeners outside of
the South if there's truth to that, or pimento cheese
is infiltrated other areas. I so, oh goodness. I forget
(35:08):
what article I was reading this in, but there was
one piece I I read preparing for this episode that
was talking about how Southerners have seen pimento cheese referred
to outside of the South, and about how like about
how like you can get dishes that include it in
you know, like anywhere in the country, but it might
(35:29):
be called like pimentos and cheese or like or like
a cheese and pimento spread or something like that, where
it's just like it's like, well, you were real close,
you were, you got you got near it? Right. Oh yeah, Well,
(35:55):
once we are able to safely start traveling again, we'll
have to keep an eye out. Oh yeah, yes, but
I think that's what we have to say about pimento
cheese for now. It is uh and we do have
some listener mail for you, but first we've got one
more quick break for a word from our sponsor. They
(36:18):
we're back, Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, We're back
with this listener. Yes, excellent. Have I mentioned I'm terrible
at golf? Yes, I have listener mail chimes with golf thieves. Uh. Yeah,
(36:46):
I also am. I even suck at putt putt like
I'm not. I'm just generally yeah, i'd like just never
learned how to do it. I cannot hit a golf
ball with a full swing with the golf club I
think that's impossible and that people who do it are magic.
So Valerie wrote, I listened to the root beer episode
(37:10):
in some letters about whether or not people like root beer,
and everybody talks about it as if there is a
single flavor called root beer. But in my experience, different
types of root beer taste very different from each other.
I don't drink sugary beverages anymore, but back in my youth,
hires an a and W root beer were sweeter and
entirely differently flavored from barks. The two flavors are so
(37:30):
different that to me, they might as well be entirely
different beverages. To me, Bark's taste very medicinal and unappealing
all my childhoodself like hires an A and W quite
a lot. The sugar ear the better. That makes sense.
That makes sense. That's sort of the you know not
everyone has a strong opinion about this. But the Coca
(37:50):
cola pepsi debate were there pretty similar. But to me,
pepsi is sweeter. Back when I drink soda, Coca cola
was the only way. I think that's also a very
Atlanta thing, um, because here you you grow up with
coca Cola products in more restaurants than not. And so yeah,
(38:11):
I coming from a family from the north, grew up
with Pepsi products and so as like a teenager when
I started seeing more like like I went to the
University of Florida and that is a Coca Cola campus,
and I was kind of like, what is this and
why my eyes wide in an outrage. That's like a system.
(38:36):
I talking to a pepsi person should be clear. Again,
I don't even drink either, but still, yes, um Coke
if y'all didn't know, is is based in Atlanta, so
it's a it's a very Atlanta thing. Yeah, at any rate,
(38:57):
uh Bob wrote, just heard the episode on set. Me
enjoyed it a lot. But when I heard you talk
about the uses for sesame, I noticed you left out
breakfast and our home here in China, a frequent addition
to the breakfast lineup that our Sun would choose before
leaving for college was glutinous rice balls um there as
the name implies, small white, somewhat squishy balls about the
size of ping pong balls and filled with those sweetish
(39:20):
black sesame filling. Other fillings are available, but the sesame
one is the most common a k A sweet sesame
dumplings ps. If you want a recipe for the perfect
dumpling dipping sauce, at least in my mind, it goes
like this. A couple of tablespoons of a good dark vinegar,
a teaspoon of minced garlic, a teaspoon or more of
(39:42):
homemade red chili oil with plenty of chopped read chilies
in it, and a quarter teaspoon of sesame oil. Throw
in a bit of freshly chopped cilantro stems, and all
never soy sauce. For me, that's more of a Southern
China thing. If you don't have any homemade chili oil,
it only takes a minute to make and the extra
will keep for a long time. Just put a couple
of tablespoons of red chili flakes like you might put
(40:04):
on a pizza, into a shatterproof bowl like the size
of a rice bowl, and then heat up enough oil.
Olive oil or some similar light tasting oil will do.
When it's really hot, like close to boiling or smoking,
just pour it over the chopped chilies. I usually make
about three quarters to one cup worth and use it
on lots of stuff tempted to do it with ghost
(40:25):
chili flakes too. Yes, all right, goodness, that sounds really
good to me. Um oh, now I want to try.
I've never cooked with ghosts chili. Oh no, that could
be a disaster. I don't feel like or I mean,
you'd probably enjoy it, but gosh, that's a lot. I'd
(40:48):
be like when I'm eventually, I feel like the foods
I make, it's just like how many hot sauces can
I add them here before? It's ridiculous And I feel
like that's what would happen. Yeah, yeah, chili flakes, it
would be kind of a arms race of spice. Oh
absolutely yeah. And um oh gosh, those are those little
glutinous rice sesame paste filled things are some of my
(41:12):
absolute favorite things. Um, I love. I've only ever had
them in the context of dim sum and uh in
America mostly. I mean, like, I understand that it's like
meant to be a brunch kind of situation. Um, but like,
I've never had it at home, and when I go out,
(41:33):
it's usually like a like a lunch to dinner kind
of situation for me and my friends. So right right,
they are delicious, Oh so good? Any kind of any
kind of glutinous rice related dumpling is probably my favorite. Yes,
that was a very sudden craving. I was not you
(41:57):
know you leave the Fimento cheese episode with with a
dim sum craving. That's just how it happens sometimes. Um.
Thanks to both of those listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can or
emails hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on
social media. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
(42:18):
I forgot where we are for a second. All three
places at savor pod, and we do hope to hear
from you. Savor is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
(42:38):
are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protiction of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb, and today we've
got an episode for you about pimento cheese. Such an episode.
You know, this is a shockingly long outline for something
that I thought a few weeks ago, like, could we
(00:28):
make a whole episode out of this? The answer is yes, absolutely, yes.
It turns out people have a lot to say about
pimento cheese. Gosh, they do. Yes, yes, And we are
following up on the listener request that we read I
believe in our listening realm a couple of episodes back
UM for pimento cheese. And as I said in response
(00:50):
to that, my family loves pimento cheese. It was sort
of a rare, special occasion food in our house. Yeah.
We usually got it homemade from like local markets, especially
if we'd stop at a farmer's market or something while traveling. Um,
and that's in my experience, is usually chunkier and brighter
than the stuff that you would get at the store. Um.
(01:11):
And I actually do like pimento cheese and small amounts
um despite the mayo. Sure, okay, yeah, it's a mayo
flavor strong. I do not like it. Also, I feel
like it's just a very rich food, so I have
a hard time consuming large amounts of it. Yeah yes, yes,
uh yeah, It's a food that I cannot really eat
(01:33):
because one of the ingredients is sweet peppers, which give
me all kinds of problems. Uh so, so I do
not consume it. The day that I realized what pimentos
are our day that I had pimento cheese in a
food and I was like, wait, hold up, no, what
(01:54):
are what are pimentos? That was It was a bad day.
Only we had done this episode before that. This was
a long heck and time ago. This was This was
very long ago. But wait, way before even food stuff,
even even before we were calling it eat stuff, so
(02:18):
which all of our folders are still called stuff, which
is very funny to me. It was never officially called that. No, no,
um and yet and yet uh yeah. This is also
a food that I did not grow up with. I
don't believe that I was aware of its existence until
I moved to Atlanta. Yeah so, like like many Southern foods. Uh,
(02:46):
the part of Florida that I'm from is not the
south and right, but April nine is apparently National Pimento
Cheese Day, so it has a national day that we
whisked right by. We did as for usual, Sometimes we
get it, but usually we don't. Um and see our
(03:10):
cream cheese episode because that one actually is pretty informative
to this one. UM and other cheese episodes and our
Mayo episode. If you want to hear a lot of
vitriol from me about how I despise, Oh wow, yeah,
after our after our Dr Pepper sponsorship, I wonder if
(03:30):
we could get a Mayo brand to sponsor us and
to torture ourselves with trying to please another sponsor that
that you objectively disliked the product of. I have a
some Dr Pepper in my fridge and it's the source
of great anger that was sent to me. I did
(03:53):
not buy it. No, no, as a thank you, I
think for doing for doing that ad read they want
to do well, you know what, any companies out there,
Mayo companies, don't you want to advertise with us? Come on?
I would give a glowing review to Duke's any day.
Any day I would sit silently in the background. Okay, okay,
(04:17):
But I suppose this brings us to our question. Yes,
pimento cheese. What is it? Well, pimento cheese is a
type of sandwich spread that can include It can include
many things, but but at its base, it's a shredded
cheese and chopped pimento peppers and some kind of creamy
(04:41):
binder to to create a thick and slightly chunky but yeah,
like just spread herble consistency, So let's let's break that down. Um.
The cheese is often a shredded, short, aged, semihard tangy
cheese like cheddar um, often a blend of white and
orange cheddars and or similar cheeses like Colby or Jack,
(05:04):
or even processed cheeses like Velveta. The pimentos. These are
usually jarred or canned sweet peppers which will have been
up peeled and cooked. No seeds. Yeah, Pimentos are a
type of sweet pepper that turn just bright orange e
red when they're ripe, whereupon they are sweet and just
(05:25):
a tiny bit tangy like, like little to no bitterness
or vegetal flavors in there. You can also use pickled
peppers or roast your own sweet peppers of whatever variety
you choose. The binder is yes, often mayo often Duke's
brand towards the East Coast and Blue Plate brand more
(05:45):
towards like Louisiana. Sometimes cream cheese may be involved as well,
and right, you generally want to use just enough to
stick everything together, but not enough to make a sandwich
kind of soggy or drippy. Right. Also, people will say
that you don't want to overmix the ingredients or it'll
get kind of mushy, which isn't the idea. Sometimes, trying
(06:09):
to go through my rolodex of pimento cheese experiences, it
can it can vary pretty widely. And speaking of to
this base, any number of seasonings may be added. Salt
and pepper, onion powder or freshly grated onion or green onions,
or garlic, worcester shear sauce, hot sauce, apple cider, vinegar,
(06:31):
lemon juice, paprika, cayenne, pepper, chili powder, chili sauce like
a saracia horserdish mustard. It can also feature kind of
like guest star mix ins um like colapenos or fresh
sweet pepper, dill, pickles, bacon, smoked gooda blue cheese, parmesan,
toasted pecans, chopped pimento stuffed olives. I've seen one recipe
(06:55):
call for persciuto. WHOA right, that's that's like a star cameo.
Second fancy pimento cheese. I love it, um and it
does pop visually, um with with the with the red
pimentos contrasted against the pale orange cheese and stuff. Yeah,
(07:16):
it does. But I did see this video right before
I was when I was looking at how to pronounce
something and they did a slow zoom in on pimento
cheese and the lighting just wasn't great and there's no music,
and I was like, oh, this is a very awkward.
I feel strange watching this. It um like like many foods,
(07:38):
you do have to have decent lighting to make it
look not like slimy food can have that like sheen
to it that can be very unappetizing depending on the
photographic quality. Um. Anyway, in real life it usually looks nice.
(07:59):
You usually yes, but but yeah so so the result
can vary sort of impressively in flavor. And everyone has
a version that they say is the best, and furthermore,
a ratio of cheese to binder that they say is
correct m hm. And if they sell it, no, you
(08:22):
cannot have their recipe, don't you know. It's a family secret. Um.
But what you've basically got here is a is a creamy,
tangy comfort food that that pairs well with other savory
foods UM, but could also stand on its own alone.
It's usually served chilled on white bread to form a
simple sandwich, or as a dip for vegetables or crackers
(08:43):
rits preferably, but it can also be served as a
grilled sandwich or a warm dip, and on warm dishes
like burgers or other hot sandwiches, on fried green tomatoes,
on baked potatoes or other potato dishes, UM, in egg
dishes like omelets, in grits, in mac and cheese, in
savory bay goods, in cast roles. You can make balls
(09:03):
of it and then bread them and then deep fry
them and then just eat them. Bless your heart. Of
course you can, of course you can. I'm pretty sure
I would just get like a spoonful and I'd have
one spoonful and I was dead and that was it. Yeah, okay,
pretty nice. Yeah. Uh. These days it is very much
(09:25):
a Southern thing. Um. It's sometimes called the Carolina caviare
and or the patte of the South. Um. It's a
popular topic at some iconic Atlanta restaurants like The Varsity, Homegrown,
and the Vortex. According to the country's being producer of
canned Pimento's Moody Dunbar, most of their sales do take
(09:46):
place in the South, with the Carolina as being their
top consumers. So eating all this pimento cheese, what about
the nutrition? Uh? Well, you know, che ease and mayonnaise
and or other binders are you know, calorically dense foods
um And you're not really getting enough pimento in there
(10:08):
to like really see a nutrient boost. Also, vegetables that
have been canned tend to lose a bunch of their
original nutrients. Always choose fresh or frozen vegetables when you can. Uh,
but fimento cheese does have a good punch of protein
and fat, so it'll fill you up and help keep
you going. You know, eat a eat a vegetable, a
real vegetable. I know you're talking about the pimentoes, But
(10:33):
cheese doesn't count as a vegetable. Cheese, No, neither does
cream cheese, neither does mayonnaise. Well, I also love that,
like I think at the places I mentioned the restaurants
that put it on as a topping. It's always really
Southern dish that you can. Yeah, and so it often
has like a fried green tomatoes, probably some bacon bacon,
(10:56):
and then like the burger patty or whatever. It's a lot.
It is often a lot. It is it is. It
is a celebratory food. Yeah, I would, I would agree
with that. UM, we do have some numbers for you. Yeah.
Pimento cheese, as you may have garnered from from the
(11:16):
description above, is often homemade, but you can buy prepackaged versions. UM.
And the FDA does have codes for pasteurized processed pimento
cheese which dictate that the weight of the pimentos shall
be not less than zero point two per cent of
the total weight of the finished product. Wow. Yeah, so
(11:39):
so technically very little pimento needs to go into pimento cheese,
very little. UM. South Carolina based Palmetto Cheese is America's
top she spread company. And you can get a pimento
cheese passport in South Carolina, like when you enter if
you want to go on a pimento cheese tray all
(12:01):
for you. And that's great. UM. As of twenty nineteen,
UM the brand Palmetto Cheese was sold in over nine
thousand grocery stores in forty states. Yes. Um, but they
recently got in some hot water when the founder called
Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization. Yeah. He later apologized
after Costca removed the product from their shelves and people
(12:24):
boycotted it. Boycotted the product. The company also began facing
out their mascot, which, in a similar vein to Aunt
Jemima and Uncle Ben, relied on racist stereotypes. This is
all ongoing. Well, hey, progress progress, slow progress that probably
should have been made earlier. But I'm I'm always glad
when progress happens. Mm hmm um. According to Kevin Clark,
(12:48):
co owner of Atlanta restaurant home Grown, they go through
about fifty to sixty pounds or twenty two point six
to twenty seven point two ms of Pimiento cheese per
week and I leave. He discussed how originally he didn't
put on the menu, but people kept asking about it,
and so finally he was like, Okay, I'll try it
on the menu, and then it became like a top
selling Yeah. Yeah. Homegrown is a breakfast slash diner kind
(13:14):
of place. Um. Local here in Atlanta, and right right,
it's a it's a very very small, very homy, but
very iconic Atlanta restaurant. Yes, yes, yes, um. We just
missed the Pimento Cheese festival in North Carolina. Why there's
a pimento cheese eating contest, which sounds to me for
(13:36):
many reasons, but especially like the heat. Oh no goodness.
And there's a sculpting contest, which I'm way more into.
Yes um. And I really like this quote from food
writer and Burn, who did a whole piece of pimento cheese.
Pimento cheese is just that cheese, peppers and possibilities, yes um.
(14:01):
But yeah, there have been a lot of shifting parts
in the story of pimento cheese. There have been, and
we are going to get into that history. But first
we are going to get into a quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(14:26):
thank you. Okay, So I just want to put in
here I love all of the extreme headlines for the
history of fimento cheese. We're talking like the shocking history,
you won't believe the history, the sandwich controversy that rocked
the Masters. Cheese is a big deal. I would agree,
(14:46):
but I was like, what am I getting into here?
People have strong feelings about this stuff, they do, and
as the headline suggest, there is some debate about the
history of this one, particularly its origin. Um. And as
you might imagine, pinning down the specifics of when a
spreadable cheese, mayo and sweet pepper mixture whenever that first occurred. Uh,
(15:08):
that's tricky. Um. According to Robert Moss, a serious eats
who did a whole piece on this and it was
very helpful. A lot of this is informed by it.
Go check it out if you want to learn more
about fomento cheese. Believe it or not, there's even more
than we're putting in here. Oh yeah, yeah. Um. This
iconic Southern food was actually invented in New York in
(15:33):
the eighteen seventies, a product of industrialization, um, which is
where a lot of the controversy comes in. But Boss
himself was like, you know, another thing about it that's
really not food? Does this all the time? Yeah? So,
as we discussed in our cream cheese episode, at this time,
farmers in the North were making soft, unripened cheese is
(15:55):
inspired by French nou chateel. Um. And Philadelphia became the
city prime early associated with these American cream cheeses, and
the Craft Cheese Company eventually acquired the top producer, Phoenix
Cheese with their Philadelphia brand cream cheese. Simultaneously, a new
product became available in the America's Spanish imported sweet red peppers.
(16:20):
In her seven book Miss Parallela's Kitchen Companion, the author
describes them as much milder than bell peppers and that
they were delicious when stuffed and baked um. Within the
next few years, these peppers were being sold canned um,
introducing them and the Spanish name pimientos to a larger
(16:41):
consumer base. The eye in that word was for the
most part dropped by the beginning of the twentieth century,
though I do still see it sometimes in in in
these are modern Internet days, and I'm very confused every
time I do see I thought it was another scupper
knog situation in where I've I've been missed spelling it
(17:03):
this whole time, and it's a Southern pronunciation that I've
just absorbed. But yes, I guess both do still exist.
Can get confusing, m Um. One group in particular, we're
big fans of both of these new to America products
(17:23):
domestic science or home economics practitioners. This was a social
movement run by women with a primary focus of increasing
efficiency in the home using science, particularly when it came
to cooking um. And they were also concerned with having
a good looking dinner table. They liked new scientific innovations
(17:48):
in the food space, like cream cheese. The fact that
it was white, which in their minds symbolized purity, was
just another plus. Um. They came up with all kinds
of recipes to use cream cheese. And yes, they loved
canned pimentos to the mild flavor coupled with the eye
catching color. The Boston Cooking School magazine featured a recipe
(18:08):
for a cauliflower and pimento salad and noting on account
of their brilliant color, pimentos are a pleasing addition to
many a salad, and when you sparingly, their sweet mild
flavor is usually relished. Likely usually in there, Usually you
know could be anything, could be, could be. And I
(18:32):
just want to put in here. I had to take
home back in high school, and I was furious. I'm
still mad about it. I know how to crack an egg.
I might not do it with funness, but I can
do it. I wanted to take Auto one oh one,
but no anyway my outrage segment. Oh goodness, Well I okay.
(18:53):
So I also had a home mack class for like
a quarter a single quarter of a year in middle school.
But it was alongside, like there was another quarter that
was like a like a robotics course. Uh, and another
quarter that was like music appreciation or something. Getting angrier
(19:14):
and angrier anyway. Um, so not a long after all
of those people were adding pimentoes and cream cheese together.
Like in nineteen o eight, there was this Good Housekeeping
recipe for a sandwich filling made up of cream cheese, chives, mustard,
(19:35):
and minced up pimentos. Eva Green Fullers up to Date
Sandwich Book contained a simple recipe for a pimento cheese
sandwich combined cream cheese and camp pimentoes and served between
bread easy um. Leading up to and directly after World
War One, a lot of very similar recipes to that
one were published. Manufacturers saw an opportunity to make money
(19:59):
with a new product, so they started adding chopped mementoes
with a little bit of red pepper and neuchatel Kurds
against selling it in nineteen and this was popular enough
that it went nationwide fairly quickly. For example, an add
from that very same year out of Minnesota red pimento
cheese something new, Yes, I love it, straight to the ford, Okay.
(20:27):
While the primary manufacturers were located in Wisconsin and New York,
it only took a year for the product to start
showing up in the western and southern United States. In
add out of Augusta, Georgia claimed pimento cheese. You know
how fine it is. This is good with a period.
I love that so much, and it was sold either
(20:50):
in slice form or by the jar speaking of the South.
The South was the hub of the pimento canning industry.
While all of this was happening, Spanish imported pimentos could
be quite expensive, so farmers associated with the Georgia Experiment
Station began trying their hand at domestic cultivation. In nineteen eleven,
(21:14):
they requested seeds from the Spanish consulate, and they were
the first American farmers to cultivate them that we know of.
In nineteen sixteen. This resulted in the true heart Perfection
pimento also great. They also innovated around a roaster that
sped up the process of peeling the peppers. This in
(21:36):
turn led to the growth of the pimento industry in
the area, and we're talking twenty five thousand acres dedicated
to cultivating pimentos by turning out ten million cans that
were shipped all across the country. A former teacher and
seed salesman started canning company Moody Dunbar, which we mentioned
at the top, in Tennessee in nineteen thirty three, and
(21:59):
they hand old most of this pimento canning. The company
also made and sold a canned pimento cheese spread that
was fairly easy to find in the South, but not
necessarily affordable to everyone, also possibly not accessible in rural areas,
really rural areas. Some speculate this is why pimento cheese
(22:19):
is so synonymous with the South. Um. The height of
pimento production from the nineteen forties does line up with
an explosion in popularity of pimento cheese, and of course
the two things could be related the increased availability and
lower cost of pimentos, meaning that more pimento cheese is
being made and sold at lower prices. Whatever the case,
(22:42):
by the nineteen hundreds Southern farmers had experimented and perfected
their own varieties of pimento cheese, and it was fairly
easy to find in the South. Still, and all the
hundreds of recipes published prior to World War Two, none
of them make it out to be a Southern thing.
It was described as more of a technical innovation or
(23:05):
a scientific food breakthrough. Very modern um. Great on a
sandwich for a quick, easy, satisfying lunch. Most of these
recipes called for store bought pimento cheese, so it wasn't
really a thing most home cooks were making, or at
least that's not what was in the not in the literature. Yeah,
(23:26):
pimento cheese is. Popularity declined after World War Two, and
some of the brands faded away entirely. Some of these
brands making pimento cheese um. But those Southern farmers and
cooks continued to make and sell homemade pimento cheese as
the manufactured options grew less and less. Robert Wilbanks wrote
in his work Gads in Alabama, Stories of the Great Depression,
(23:49):
the fimento cheese did not come from a store, but
was made at home by cutting and mixing hoop cheese
and pimentoes from a jar. And that's probably how a
lot of Southerners made it. Um. Pimentoes were ubiquitous in
the region, and you could get a lot of hoop
cheese for not that much money. Possibly rural areas didn't
have easy access to manufactured pimento cheese, if it was
(24:11):
available at all, so they had to make it themselves. Um,
yeah and uh. Note on hoop cheese. Hoop cheese is
a is a type of fresh cheese made by pressing
cheese curds in a in a hoop um to remove
the watery liquids. That is the way until you're left
with a kind of firm but like still soft cheese. Um.
(24:32):
And then it's not aged so it stays soft. It's
creamier than a cheddar, more like American cheese, but not
so processed. Yeah. Rights, and using hoop cheese and store
bought cheese is like cheddar instead of cream cheese was
key in the evolution of pimento cheese and in making
(24:53):
it a Southern thing, because the grated cheese needed to
be blended together. Another Southern favorite was bought into the mix,
the mayonnaise. The mayonnaise cream cheese might not have been
as available or popular in the South at the time
home cooks started adding other ingredients to their taste, from
(25:14):
pickles to helpinos. It was a popular food to bring
to pot luck's funerals to serve on. Sandwiches or crackers
are very communal kind of gathering food. Yeah. The story
goes that the founder of Regional Mayonnaise Dukes, Eugenia Duke,
sold pimento cheese sandwiches to soldiers in South Carolina before
nineteen seventeen, which is when she actually started selling her mayonnaise,
(25:37):
and in fact, the popularity of the sandwiches and the
mayo used in them maybe the reason she started selling
her mayonnaise first place. They're Duke's marketing maybe one reason
pimento cheese is so popular in the Carolinas as well.
Perhaps the most national attention pimento cheese has ever gotten, though,
(25:58):
was due to the Master's Golf Tournament, which takes place
every April and Augusta, Georgia, where pimento sandwiches are a
popular choice at this event. Um, here's where the sandwich
controversy comes in from. Luke Fader or fought perhaps at
(26:20):
Atlas Obscura, an event so wedded to perfection, so shrouded
in its own tradition, is surely one of the last
places you'd expect to find successive episodes of food based
spite politics. Here we are politics. I love that good, alright,
So let's let's get into this white politics. Yeah yeah.
(26:47):
Pimento sandwiches have long been a popular option at the Masters,
with attendees lining up to get their hands on one.
In the beginning, these sandwiches were made by one man,
South Carolinian, Nick Rangos, who is very active in the
Greek community around Augusta. Several caterers tried to crack this
code around his secret recipe and get to the bottom
(27:08):
of the secret ingredients. Many speculated he must have used
dukes mayo since he was from South Carolina, and or
that he may have used Greek seasonings m hmm. One
recipe published by the Junior League of Augusta suggested using
blue cheese and light mayo. This did not sit well
with many people, especially people from Rango's home state of
(27:32):
South Carolina, where only dukes is acceptable. Rangos caught the
attention of the Masters in the nineteen sixties due to
the fan base he'd built by selling his pimento cheese
sandwiches out of his South Carolina drug store. The Masters
organizers got rid of the husband and wife duo that
had been in charge of catering previously for this event
(27:53):
and for forty five years. Rangos and his children Billy
and Stella, made enormous amounts of homemade pimento cheese of
the tournament, and from what I read, they would like
drop it off at the border. Take the cheese. People
loved it and it became an icon itself, like that
was the thing you got when you went to this event. Yeah.
According to journalist Andy Bull, the Master's pimento cheese must
(28:17):
be the most famous sandwich in all of sport. Yeah.
About twenty years ago, the Masters decided not to renew
Rango's contract. The reasoning is unknown, but Rangos was very
unhappy about it. Rangos took the recipe with him to
the grave despite repeated request for it. His replacement, Ted Godfrey,
(28:44):
who ran a chain of fried chicken joints called Wife Safer,
did his best to mimic the recipe, a process that
took months and a lot of cheese. Yeah. It is.
It is a blend of multiple cheeses, and apparently he
went through thirty three different cheeses trying to find the
right blend. Yes. Yes. When he continued to struggle to
(29:06):
get to the bottom of this, a tournament worker gave
him a batch of Frangos pimento cheese that they had frozen.
Godfrey did his best to reverse engineer this, but the
Master's committee still is not satisfied. So Godfrey went to
the original supplier for an ingredients list, but still the
result did not meet expectations. Then, according to him, the
(29:31):
secret ingredient came to him in a dream. Finally he
nailed it down and people had no idea about the switch,
the sandwich switch. He also refused to share the recipe
when he was replaced by in house catering, and the
(29:55):
thinking on on this switch from Godfrey to in house
catering was that it was best to use all in
house vendors for like health inspection purposes, but Godfrey was
real salty about it. He says that he offered to
sell it to them in exchange for a couple of
series badges Master's series badges, which um are these high
(30:16):
demand tickets that grant you admission for all four days
of the Master's Tournament, and which are only sold to
patrons of the tournament, which is an exclusive list that
I don't think you can even apply to join at
the moment, Like someone has to die in order in
order for a spot to be opened up, and then
if they have a living spouse, the spouse is offered
(30:37):
the bat anyway, Um, it's a whole thing. And even
if you are a patron, you have to apply to
buy a badge, and it's not like guaranteed that you're
going to get one, like the plastic badges from previous
year's events are collectors items anyway, Like it was like
kind of a big ask and they said no, yeah,
(31:01):
So he left and not happy and he this him
leaving caught the attention of patrons and the national news.
Neither of their families, god Freed or Ringos will comment
when I asked about the recipe. A reporter for ESPN
interviewed Godfrey that same year in an expose that came
(31:22):
to be known as Pimento gate Um. While Ringos once
claimed there was no secret to the recipe, Godfrey told ESPN,
I cannot tell you what the secret is, but there's
a secret there. I love that. That's so good. It's
like sibling stuff, right U yep, um, Now that they're dirty.
(31:44):
Pimento cheese sandwich laundry was out because again, this is
the event that prides itself on being like so meticulous
and everything being under their control. Employees at the Master's
struggle to recreate the recipe with fans knowing what is
going on, so they had like this added pressure of
now people are really going to be paying attention. UM
(32:06):
Food bloggers took on the project as well, including blogger
Gina Dixon, who in took a crack at reverse engineering
the recipe based on the ingredients list printed on the
back of one of the rappers that she had. It
only took her a few hours according to her um
and she is somebody who has been a lifelong attendee
from like childhood of the Masters and enjoy or of
(32:28):
their Permento cheese sandwich. Her recipe, in her words, is
pretty close to the real thing um of note the
sandwiches and has pretty much always been a dollar and
fifty cents. Yeah. The brand that's responsible for putting together
the tournament is called Augusta National and uh, yeah, they
keep the food at the tournament inexpensive in general, I
(32:51):
think as a as a non to tradition, and also
to avoid customers who have already paid a premium for
tickets feeling like they're being gouged on snacks. Um. They
apparently pull in just ten million dollars a year from concessions,
but that's of a total of a hundred and twenty
million a year and so small, small percentage. Yes, um,
(33:14):
And I I was really tickled by in that Atlas
Obscura article about this. Um. He called out one of
his friends who tried to spend forty dollars on food
at the Master's and I couldn't do it and got
really sick. Oh no, yeah, so everything the food is
pretty cheap. Nothing else, but nothing else but right. As
(33:37):
more and more Southern authors started writing about pimento cheese, uh,
this pimento cheese that they had grown up with, that
had been made by family members, something they were nostalgic for.
Had this fondness for pimento cheese became more well known
and garnered more respects. Yeah. Starting around in the nineteen nineties,
recipes began appearing in cookbooks again. As Wayne wrote in
(34:01):
his listener mail that inspired this whole episode. The Southern
Food Ways Alliance hosted the Pimento Cheese Invitational and Oxford,
Mississippi in two thousand three. UM. Over three hundred folks
submitted recipes and wrote essays about their experiences with pimento
cheese what made it special to them. The winning recipe
from Nan Davis used her ants recipe that called for
(34:22):
homemade mayo and a blend of Worcester sauce, onion powder, sugar,
and red pepper. M Um and yeah. As the Southern
cuisine trend heated up in the twenty odds and teens,
um meno cheese spread sorry, I'm sorry, um more widely
(34:46):
across the United States, um to the point that it
was listed by Bonapetite as a food trend in Oh.
I would love to hear from other listeners outside of
the South if there's truth to that, or pimento cheese
is infiltrated other areas. I so, oh goodness. I forget
(35:08):
what article I was reading this in, but there was
one piece I I read preparing for this episode that
was talking about how Southerners have seen pimento cheese referred
to outside of the South, and about how like about
how like you can get dishes that include it in
you know, like anywhere in the country, but it might
(35:29):
be called like pimentos and cheese or like or like
a cheese and pimento spread or something like that, where
it's just like it's like, well, you were real close,
you were, you got you got near it? Right. Oh yeah, Well,
(35:55):
once we are able to safely start traveling again, we'll
have to keep an eye out. Oh yeah, yes, but
I think that's what we have to say about pimento
cheese for now. It is uh and we do have
some listener mail for you, but first we've got one
more quick break for a word from our sponsor. They
(36:18):
we're back, Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, We're back
with this listener. Yes, excellent. Have I mentioned I'm terrible
at golf? Yes, I have listener mail chimes with golf thieves. Uh. Yeah,
(36:46):
I also am. I even suck at putt putt like
I'm not. I'm just generally yeah, i'd like just never
learned how to do it. I cannot hit a golf
ball with a full swing with the golf club I
think that's impossible and that people who do it are magic.
So Valerie wrote, I listened to the root beer episode
(37:10):
in some letters about whether or not people like root beer,
and everybody talks about it as if there is a
single flavor called root beer. But in my experience, different
types of root beer taste very different from each other.
I don't drink sugary beverages anymore, but back in my youth,
hires an a and W root beer were sweeter and
entirely differently flavored from barks. The two flavors are so
(37:30):
different that to me, they might as well be entirely
different beverages. To me, Bark's taste very medicinal and unappealing
all my childhoodself like hires an A and W quite
a lot. The sugar ear the better. That makes sense.
That makes sense. That's sort of the you know not
everyone has a strong opinion about this. But the Coca
(37:50):
cola pepsi debate were there pretty similar. But to me,
pepsi is sweeter. Back when I drink soda, Coca cola
was the only way. I think that's also a very
Atlanta thing, um, because here you you grow up with
coca Cola products in more restaurants than not. And so yeah,
(38:11):
I coming from a family from the north, grew up
with Pepsi products and so as like a teenager when
I started seeing more like like I went to the
University of Florida and that is a Coca Cola campus,
and I was kind of like, what is this and
why my eyes wide in an outrage. That's like a system.
(38:36):
I talking to a pepsi person should be clear. Again,
I don't even drink either, but still, yes, um Coke
if y'all didn't know, is is based in Atlanta, so
it's a it's a very Atlanta thing. Yeah, at any rate,
(38:57):
uh Bob wrote, just heard the episode on set. Me
enjoyed it a lot. But when I heard you talk
about the uses for sesame, I noticed you left out
breakfast and our home here in China, a frequent addition
to the breakfast lineup that our Sun would choose before
leaving for college was glutinous rice balls um there as
the name implies, small white, somewhat squishy balls about the
size of ping pong balls and filled with those sweetish
(39:20):
black sesame filling. Other fillings are available, but the sesame
one is the most common a k A sweet sesame
dumplings ps. If you want a recipe for the perfect
dumpling dipping sauce, at least in my mind, it goes
like this. A couple of tablespoons of a good dark vinegar,
a teaspoon of minced garlic, a teaspoon or more of
(39:42):
homemade red chili oil with plenty of chopped read chilies
in it, and a quarter teaspoon of sesame oil. Throw
in a bit of freshly chopped cilantro stems, and all
never soy sauce. For me, that's more of a Southern
China thing. If you don't have any homemade chili oil,
it only takes a minute to make and the extra
will keep for a long time. Just put a couple
of tablespoons of red chili flakes like you might put
(40:04):
on a pizza, into a shatterproof bowl like the size
of a rice bowl, and then heat up enough oil.
Olive oil or some similar light tasting oil will do.
When it's really hot, like close to boiling or smoking,
just pour it over the chopped chilies. I usually make
about three quarters to one cup worth and use it
on lots of stuff tempted to do it with ghost
(40:25):
chili flakes too. Yes, all right, goodness, that sounds really
good to me. Um oh, now I want to try.
I've never cooked with ghosts chili. Oh no, that could
be a disaster. I don't feel like or I mean,
you'd probably enjoy it, but gosh, that's a lot. I'd
(40:48):
be like when I'm eventually, I feel like the foods
I make, it's just like how many hot sauces can
I add them here before? It's ridiculous And I feel
like that's what would happen. Yeah, yeah, chili flakes, it
would be kind of a arms race of spice. Oh
absolutely yeah. And um oh gosh, those are those little
glutinous rice sesame paste filled things are some of my
(41:12):
absolute favorite things. Um, I love. I've only ever had
them in the context of dim sum and uh in
America mostly. I mean, like, I understand that it's like
meant to be a brunch kind of situation. Um, but like,
I've never had it at home, and when I go out,
(41:33):
it's usually like a like a lunch to dinner kind
of situation for me and my friends. So right right,
they are delicious, Oh so good? Any kind of any
kind of glutinous rice related dumpling is probably my favorite. Yes,
that was a very sudden craving. I was not you
(41:57):
know you leave the Fimento cheese episode with with a
dim sum craving. That's just how it happens sometimes. Um.
Thanks to both of those listeners for writing in. If
you would like to write to us, you can or
emails hello at savor pod dot com. We're also on
social media. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
(42:18):
I forgot where we are for a second. All three
places at savor pod, and we do hope to hear
from you. Savor is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope that lots more good things
(42:38):
are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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