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July 7, 2023 37 mins

This small, sweet fruit and its brambles grow so well around the world that they’re sometimes considered a menace. Anney and Lauren dig into the science and history of blackberries.

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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to save your prediction of iHeart Radio.
I'm any Reo and I'm more in vocal Bam and
today we have an episode for you about blackberries. Yes,
and I love blackberries me too. Oh yeah, I'm a
big berry person in general.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
There, she's a big berry person.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
The fruit, the TV show, the whole package. Yeah. Absolutely.
Was there any particular reason it was on your mind?
I think I like it was kind of like the
topic of a fruit or vegetable was sort of do
in my weird concept of a schedule for for episode topics,
and I was like, what's a good what's a good

(00:52):
summer fruit?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
And we're vegetable and yeah, I realized we had not
done an episode on blackberries.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
So here we are, here we are. Oh, I love them.
I love them. When I was a kid, we had
a bunch of BlackBerry bushes, like a bunch of them
in our backyard, and we would go out in the
summer and we would have these buckets and we would
just collect all the blackberries and it was just the

(01:18):
best thing.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely, Like like a freshberry right off of
a bush that you just pulled off of a bush
is one of the absolute best things on the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So yes, yes, and they were so like sweet but
tart and was so good.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, they're like a little bit warm from the sun.
I'm like, oh yes, oh yeah, it's a whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah, and I do think, like as an adult but
also as a kid, it just feels like, oh, I'm
in like, I don't know, some book I've read about
them collecting berries on an adventure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but
I think I talked about this in the blueberry episode.
We used to have blueberry just too. They're kind of

(02:00):
all gone. I don't know. I'll have to check the
BlackBerry bushes are still there because it was a lot
of them.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Sure, blackberries are very prolific, tenacious.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to check. I've been meaning to
check because I do. I do love them, and they
are very expensive. I used to buy them every week. Yeah,
they've gotten pricey. Yeah. I had to give it. Like
I calculated my budget and I had, like the price
of berries is a huge chunk of wow, pretty pretty

(02:37):
small amount I was spending every week at the grocery
store pre pandemic, so I had to give them all.
But I love both.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, yeah, I do. I will buy them when they're
right like in season on sale. That is when I
when I go for I totally buy produce based on
like whatever cheap that day.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
We used to make BlackBerry cobbler with ice cream and
it's one of my favorite things. Yeah, yes, and one
of my Star Wars Nerdy cocktails, the Tattooing Sunrise, just
essentially like a French seventy five with rosemary, but then
it has two blackberries in it, which are Yeah, it's

(03:24):
pretty good and I might have one over this holiday
weekend right all right?

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Oh man, I could see that working with kumquats too.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh yeah, ideas, Yes, well, we have done a lot
of berry episodes.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Sure, sure, I would say, like like pineapple is goind
is one that comes to mind as a similar type
of fruit.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Mm hmm. Like we've done raspberry. I feel like we've
done raspberry. I think we have. We did like raspberry
brambleberry or something cloudberries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've done some
some things there probably we don't know, we don't know.

(04:17):
We were like sprinting to the finish this weekend.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Yeah, we also just I mean I feel like we've
said it before, but like like I think we both
jettison all information like right out the air lock as
soon as we.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Finished an episode. Yeah, and I just have the vaguest
sense of like I remember Jedison that I get. Yeah,
my friends will ask me like, oh, what were you
just working on today, and I'm like, no one knows,
could have been anything anyway, But I guess that thanks
us to our question. Blackberries, what are they? Well, the

(04:59):
BlackBerry is a type of fruit that is not botanically
a berry. It is a multiple fruit drupe, which means
that it's made up of tiny individual fruits that have
all grown smooshed together in a single unit, about the
size of like the ball of your thumb, or like
the ball of my thumb. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I don't know what your thumb is, like your thumb
mileage may vary, but yeah, when it's ripe, it has
this very thin, delicate, purple black skin encasing flesh that's
very soft and juicy, but has like a little bit
of a crunch and hee to it overall, because each
of those little mini fruits contain a tiny seed, and
because the structure that they grew on is stuck inside

(05:41):
inside the berry, unlike a raspberry, which comes free of
its structure, which is why they're hollow. Yeah, blackberries are sweet,
tart and tangy and fruity and like just a tiny
bit like floral and fresh tasting. Mostly though they taste
like purple. Yeah, yeah, like dark purple. Yeah, not like

(06:04):
Grimace purple.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
That's a different. That's a different and not like grape
no soci no no, no, no true purple m hm.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
And they're just delightful little little like juice multi bombs
with a with a really nice contrast of textures. They're
like a they're like they're like that friend who is
just an absolute marshmallow of a human person on the outside,
but they're actually really complex and they have got a

(06:36):
dang backbone under all that fluff.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah yeah, because it starts out like really sweet and
like soft, and then there's that tartness and kind of
texture that comes in. Yeah, it's again, very good one,
and shout out to that friend because that friend is
always such a good friend. Oh man. Uh Okay that
the term BlackBerry does refer to a number of species

(07:01):
in the genus Rubus, both wild and cultivated. They're in
the rose family, and they grow in these like shrubby, viny,
leafy brambles pretty much everywhere temperate, all over the world.
The thorny stems are called canes, and they vary a
little bit in how they grow species to species, but
they spend their first year of life like growing a

(07:23):
network of canes which can trail to the ground and
take root. They grow taproots, which is it's like what
a carrot is, all right, Like they're a source of
nutrition for the plant over the winter, except you know,
in the case of carrots, we eat them instead of
letting the plant use it. Yes, suckers, you don't have

(07:44):
opposable thumbs or nervous systems. There's nothing you can do
about a carrot anyway.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Then in a BlackBerry second year, once they're established, they
will bloom in little pink or white, five petaled flowers,
and each flower contains multiple ovaries, each of which, if pollinated,
will start developing into a tiny individual fruit. But they're
so close together that they kind of like vultron up
into a single fruit. That fruit will be oblong, maybe

(08:15):
an inch or so, like three centimeters. They're greenish and
firm while they're developing. Then they turn like deep blush
red when they're unripe and will darken and soften and sweeten, sweeten, sweeten,
sure they as they ripe in they're sold fresh or frozen,
or processed into pures or juices.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
They can be eaten.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Fresh out of hand or like at a salad, cooked
down and strained to make jams or jellies or sauces,
either sweet or savory. They can be baked whole or
chopped into pies or sweet muffins or other baked goods.
The puree can be frozen into sorbets or other desserts.
The juice can be made into wine or liqueurs. They

(08:57):
can be dried and added to cereals. The leaves and
taproots are also used to make teas, but more like
medicinally than for funsies I think most of the time. Yeah,
although they do add a nice stringency, so there you go.
They are also grown as border hedges in some cultures.
I mean, if I came upon a BlackBerry bramble, I

(09:19):
certainly would not try to move through it like that
is not a shrub you want to mess with. Nope,
I will say side aside for a moment. I also
had at my aunt and uncle's house when I was
growing up, they had BlackBerry bushes kind of out out
out in the back, and uh, I try very hard

(09:44):
to not cuss in front of my grandmother because she
is a very nice lady and it would offend her.
And like, not saying things that offend people is like
the easiest baseline human thing to do, right, you know.
And I think that like one of the young only
times in my life that I've ever slipped was when
we were picking blackberries and I kept sticking myself with

(10:07):
the thorns and I'm just going like, damn it, damn it.
I still feel bad about it to this day.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah, those things stick with you, you know.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
You know, I'm I'm sure no one else remembers this anyway. Okay, side,
what about the nutrition on their own? Any kind of
cussing shame aside? Blackberries are pretty good for you, Lots
of micronutrients and fiber. You know, they can be on

(10:42):
the sugary side. They will help fill you up, but
to keep you going, I'd say eat a protein a
little bit fat. They are delicious by the way, with
especially like a like a darker meat, like a game meat,
maybe like a like a venison or a duck or
something like that. Oh yes, yeah, medicinally speaking. Okay, So,
like these are plants that have been used as see

(11:04):
abovey like tea's and stuff for a long time, for
a whole lot of different purposes. And they do contain right,
a bunch of tannins and other antioxidants which can help
prevent negative effects in your body. But you know, savor motto,
more research is necessary. Bodies are complicated. Before ingesting a

(11:27):
medicinal amount of anything, you should consult a medical health
professional who is not us. No, that's not what we are.
No never, I just I just eat berries.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
That's what they said. We do have some numbers for you,
we do.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Commercial farms can produce some six pounds per acre per year.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
The US BlackBerry market was valued at thirty one point
one million dollars in twenty seventeen, and with some outliers,
from nineteen eighty to two thousand and six, about twenty
three million pounds of blackberries and I believe specifically produced
in the US have been frozen for commercial sale. And
this is in part due to how delicate blackberries are

(12:26):
and how quickly they go bad, which I'm sure most
of us are familiar with the US also imports a
lot of blackberries, about one hundred and thirty million pounds
fresh largely from Mexico and frozen about twenty four million,
largely from Chile. Yep.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well, there are so many BlackBerry festivals around the United States.
I think I looked at like a dozen before I
ran out of steam and like, yeah, so, like okay.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
One in North.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Carolina has a BlackBerry eating contest and a BlackBerry cobbler
parade with free cobbler.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I'm not sure how it works. Let us know.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Bremerton, Washington has one that draws some twenty five thousand
visitors and offers over fifteen BlackBerry themed foods, plus bottles
of BlackBerry wine for just fourteen bucks, plus a kid's
area called on Your Berry Way.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah. A new festival this year in Louisiana had a
jam and jelly competition and featured BlackBerry dumplings specifically. Another
one out in Round Valley, California, is in its fortieth year.
They have a car show, square dancing, and what appears
to be berry stomping again right in There's a BlackBerry

(13:49):
jam festival in Lowell, Oregon that has horse shoes and cornhole,
which I did not know that you could have together.
I thought that those were like streams will never cross. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah. They also have a BlackBerry eating contest where you
cannot use your hands and so you just like put
your face down into like a bowl of blackberries. And
this has led to one of my new favorite photographs
on the entire planet, which is this this child with
like red BlackBerry stains on his face, looking exactly as

(14:23):
fairal as I feel inside.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
All right, yeah, I mean it does feel like you're
kind of war paint like berry. Right, Yeah, this is amazing.
I gotta look this up.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I posted on my on my Twitter account, so you
can go nice.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Perfect. I love these rules we put in place, like
you just many eat blackberries as you can without your head, okay,
like all right, cool, let's add that in there. Sure well,
we do have quite the history for you. We do,

(15:10):
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from a quick break for a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
thank you.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
So.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Blackberries are native to several areas, including the Americas, Asia,
and Europe, and they have been used medicinally in North
America and Europe for hundreds of years, and then all
the way back to ancient Greece, and not just the berries,
the bark, the leaves, and teas, the juice, and for

(15:47):
all kinds of things used to treat like eye ailments,
stomach ailments, mouth ailments. Before I realized I have a
thing with tea, I really liked a BlackBerry tea.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Oh sure, yeah, nice and tart right bums me. Yeah, Oh,
I'm sorry, that's all right.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
No, you understand, you understand, indeed I do. Indeed, Yes,
the indigenous Americans used blackberries culinarily in all kinds of
ways as well. They would make them into cakes that
could be reconstituted with water for the winter, and they
would make fruit leather, or they'd put it in pemmican,

(16:27):
which we've talked about before, kind of like an early
energy granola bar thing.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah sure, with meat, Yeah, with meat, like a jerky
jerky bar, yeah, which.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
I found was really good. Again with the blackberries and yeah, yeah.
And that's just for instance. In the Middle Ages in Europe,
but blackberries were used to make a pigment on manuscripts specifically. Yeah.
Some sixteenth century cookbooks claimed that the berries were bad

(16:58):
for the stomach and caused the bad boobs because the
berries were so sensitive.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
What so they'll they'll make you sensitive because they're sensitive.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Huh yeah, all right, yeah, yeah sure, But people, especially
those from the lower class still ate them. By the
eighteenth century, that idea had faded away completely, and in
fact they were considered a healthy, profitable crop by then.

(17:32):
Around the time in England the berries were used to
make dyes for textiles. So I just find that very
funny that it went from like bad mood. Donate it too,
that's a health food. Yeah yeah. The so called Himalayan
giant BlackBerry, not from the Himalayas, but from Armenia and

(17:54):
northern Iran, was purposely introduced to Europe in eighteen thirty
five as a crop, and it spread rapidly throughout Europe,
very rapidly. And then later Luther Burbank introduced them to
the US West Coast, where they quickly took root and
also spread very rapidly with the help of birds and deer.

(18:17):
There are so many essays and articles you can find
about how and why they spread so quickly. Yeah, yeah, yes.
By nineteen forty five, these berries were well established there
and Burbank was not formally trained, but he was very
big into horticulture. He brought this farm, He purchased his

(18:39):
farm to experiments, and he intended to develop fresh fruits
and vegetables that could survive transport for longer, so that
urban centers could have access to these things. So again,
BlackBerry is very delicate, very sensitive, hard to transport, trying
to find a hybrid or something that would serve that transport.

(19:02):
And he is the one that gave this berry its name.
It's thought because of the size of the berry and
not the place of origin, although I believe he thought
that they were from India, like he purchased the seeds
from India, so it's possible it was both. Allegedly, he
is responsible for eight hundred strains of plants and varietals. Uh.

(19:26):
It is largely considered an invasive species or at least
a menace in these areas. Like I've read a lot
of like hate love yeah articles.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Right, tenacious was a really good. Annie suggested that to me,
and you are correct. Yes, they are very good at growing.
That's I mean, that's why they're native to everywhere in
the world because birds like them too spread the seeds
when they fly and then they just grow like heck,
in pretty much any kind of soil.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yes, yes, And it just numerous articles of people being like, well,
I can't it's the taste of summer and I love them,
but also they destroy.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
All these other things and I hate Yeah, if you
are planting them in your yard, be careful.

Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yes, yes, And it is a serious problem in Australia
where it was introduced over one hundred fifty years ago
in New Zealand, and they like have rules around it
trying to get rid of it. So yes, be careful,
do your research. Burbank also had some shall we say,

(20:32):
interesting views on eugenics. Yay yep, cool yep. From what
I read, Frido Collo painted him using his corpse as
a reference. Okay, Frida, I don't know. Yeah, let me

(20:54):
know if that's true. I believe that's what I ran into, all.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Right, thing to google later that's into it or not.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Cultivation and hybridization of the BlackBerry took place in the
US between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty and during the
American Civil War. One of the ways some Southern Americans
made a living was by berry picking. BlackBerry picking typically
done by women and children who sold these berries door

(21:25):
to door. It was something bordering on play for children,
like even though it was work, it was kind of
like like what I was talking about earlier, where you
feel like, oh, it's a little funny thing I can do.
And it was an activity that built social ties. People
would talk while they did it. These blackberries were used
to make desserts like cobblers, dumplings, preserves wine. They were

(21:49):
still used medicinally as well. In eighteen seventy six, a
Southern newspaper published this quote, to be cheerful, as the
BlackBerry crop hardly ever fails. It's good to think that
there is something still to depend on, is it not. Yeah. However,
many people were picking berries not grown on their land,

(22:11):
and several anti trespassing laws were enacted in the eighteen
seventies and eighties to prevent that, and many of these
were racists because many black families used BlackBerry picking to
supplement their income, so it was a very targeted Many
of the walls were very targeted. Skipping ahead and.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Mostly as an excuse for food poetry. The children's picture
book Jamberry, published in nineteen eighty three, by by Bruce
Deagan Degan, sure, and to include a quote from it.
I don't know how many of y'all grew up with
this book. I definitely did. I don't know if Yeah,

(22:57):
Ani's shaking her head what I'm excited? Okay, it's just
it's a really sweet little picture book about a kid
and a bear, like going on a berry picking adventure
as you do. All right, So here quote from it
quickberry quackberry pick me a BlackBerry rumble and ramble and
BlackBerry bramble. Billions of berries for BlackBerry jamble.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
It's just cute. Yeah, yeah, I like BlackBerry jamble right. Fun.
As recently as the nineteen nineties, it wasn't common to
see blackberries and retail stores, or at least like not
a lot of them. Instead, they were largely gathered at

(23:42):
you picklucations or farmers' markets due to how perishable and
delicate they were. And I know we talked about that
in our Strawberry episode too, Yeah, because that was my
I have. I've had experience with you pick with strawberries
and apples and blueberries. I don't know if I ever
did blackberries though, but yeah, it's just where you go
and yeah, sure, pick your own. But the introduction of

(24:07):
new cultivars changed the whole game. Access to freshberries, coupled
with the touting of blackberries as a health food only
increased demand, and it increased it by a significant amount.
And I just had to put this in here because
I didn't This didn't come up with my research. I

(24:28):
just happened to come across it. The first BlackBerry device,
which I had one. Oh I did, but but it's
so funny because I didn't get a phone. I mean
it must have been like two thousand and six. Sure,
so I was like way behind. I was in a
strange place in terms of technology. But the first BlackBerry

(24:50):
device was introduced to nineteen ninety nine, and now there's
a movie about it about like it's Rise and Fall.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, yeah, and okay, all right, like like you put
this note in here. As I was doing my my
reading today, I had to really specify, like, no, the fruit,
not the technology company. And so so I'm gonna go
a little bit tech stuff on y'all. If anyone here
remembers me from the days that I was on tech stuff,

(25:20):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
I was not good at my job.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
I was still learning, but but okay, so so yes.
The first BlackBerry was a two way like pager slash
email device if you're unfamiliar. It had a it had
a full keyboard like plus a small screen on something
the size of a modern smartphone. Actual phone capacity did

(25:46):
not come until the next model.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
But uh, but yeah, they they came in black, and
part of why it was named the BlackBerry was because
the keys like kind of resemble the sections of a
BlackBerry fruit. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Lexicon Branding is the company that suggested the name. They've
also named products like the Swiffer and the Apple Power Book.
So yeah, interesting and like really though, like if y'all
were not in touch with the tech world or the
business world in the early two thousands, it is hard
to explain how big the brand was. Like by twenty ten,

(26:23):
like a little bit over a decade after introduction, they
had forty three percent of the smartphone market in the
United States. People called them crackberries because people were like
always on them, like always checking them and tappity tap
tapping that tiny, tiny keyboard. It was so small, heck,

(26:43):
but yeah, but then touch screens happened and the brand
fumbled and just never recovered they pivoted to digital security
services and then shut down all device services in twenty
twenty two.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, don't have mine. I always have. I'm like very
survivalist in terms of technology, which makes no sense. Yeah,
but I have all of my old phones. Yeah, still
saying it's it's yeah. The keyboard is so so little,

(27:20):
so little, very tiny, so big, yeah compared to the keyboard, right,
I mean, and I've got tiny little noodle fingers, like
I like, I can't imagine an actual human sized human
using this thing. But I remember when I got it
because I my parents were very much in the line

(27:42):
of like, we're not going to get you a cell phone,
and so I had like the cheapest of the cheap,
and so I would get like the latest whatever was
like way out of trend. But when I got a BlackBerry,
I remember being like, oh.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, cool, right, I mean that was my immediate response,
Like I was like, wow, you we're a cool kid,
I was. I think that's an incorrect thought on my part.
I don't think that that made anybody cool necessarily. I
never had one, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, it's kind of like a TAMAGATCHI feel like that
makes you anyway, we're going off. We are we are.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Oh my goodness, okay, any anyway about we're ostensibly a
food show. In two thousand and four, the University of
Arkansas released the first cultivars that can fruit in their
first year. Yeah, exciting research is ongoing with the BlackBerry absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
Because they are still Yeah. Like I said, I feel
like when I can find them, I have to be
very careful because they might already be bad. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yeah, they are one of the products that I do
inspect pretty carefully because right, yeah, I'll check next time
I go home.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
I want to see there's still yeah. Yeah, definitely report back, yes,
m mm hmm. But I think that's what we have
to say about the BlackBerry for now. It is.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
We do have some listener mail for you, though, and
we are going to get into that as soon as
we get back from one more quick break for a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with listeners. Man, some reason,

(29:49):
I always associate blackberries with like sunrise at sunset.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
Sure, yeah, it's that kind of color palette. You've got
that yeah hole and that bright red yeah yeah, just
kind of that like being out in the summer and
the passage of the sun. Yeah, Jan wrote, he was
writing in about my comments about using sugar based weapons

(30:17):
in Dungeons and Dragons. Oh yes, Jan wrote, you think
so little of your dungeon players, Annie. All my cleric
would have to do is conjure up a sleet storm
our control weather precipitation, assuming we were outside, that sugar
sword would be liquid jello. And second, which is part

(30:40):
of the fun of DNN, you think you're being all
amazing and brave and cool and then absolutely not to
know zero percent. I love it. I never said Ananas
was this potential character I was talking about was smart,

(31:00):
just that she you know, worked in the kitchen. What
could I transfer? Sure, but that would have been very,
very funny. That would have been pretty hilarious.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, I oh man right, Ye, some folks who are
running like a like a weird like Candyland based game, and.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
It sounds like something that we should absolutely get into. Yeah. Oh,
we talked about it. I think we have too much
on our plates for now, but we did talk about
doing like a one off food yeah, D and D
campaign podcast, So it could be possible she'll show up
and I would I would love to play a character
who honestly thought, like, this is the coolest thing. That's

(31:45):
good idea.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, sugar is the scariest thing, so therefore making weapons
out of sugar is.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
The scariest thing. Yeah, and then it just starts. Yeah,
I like it. It'd be fun.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Oh goodness, Kirsten wrote, the swordfish episode reminded me of
two stories I must share, neither of which involved swordfish. Coincidentally, though,
both involve my grandmother's any story about learning that the
family's prize trophy fish wasn't the fish she thought it
was reminded me of a similar moment I had with
my Grammy's famous pumpkin pie. After hyping it up for

(32:26):
days that I was going to make my grammys very
special and superior pumpkin pie for a work Thanksgiving pot luck,
I found out the truth. I was poised, pen and
paper in hand, standing outside the grocery store when I
called Grammy to finally learn the secret family recipe. She
started off by telling me, Okay, so first you find
the Libby's canned pumpkin. This is very important. It must

(32:48):
be the Libby's canned pumpkin. She paused for a dramatic effect,
and then you turn it over and follow the recipe
on the back of the can. Earth shattering, But I
stand by it. It's still the best pumpkin pie I've
ever had. Next, the listener mail at the end of
the Swordfish episode about biscotti blasted a deeply buried childhood

(33:09):
memory to the top of my mind. My bubby always
had a tin of piscotti in the kitchen. The plain
ones repulsed me as a small child, but I loved
the chocolate dipped ones, or actually just the chocolate. I
vividly remember sneaking into the kitchen, carefully eating all the
chocolate off of multiple biscottis and putting the chewed up

(33:29):
chocolate list piscatti back in the tin. No idea if
anyone ever realized what was happening, but it must have
been pretty gross to go for a treat and find a.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Soggy, chewed up piscotti in the tin.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Oh no, uh okay, ps, it's mango season in Miami again.
Pictures of some of this year's hall and utilizations of
said mangoes attached. Also a few pictures of my cats,
as Swiper, who once a whole tin of muffins and
Mozzi Mosy who was all almost named some moores for
her colors. Since I know you guys enjoy furry friend pictures.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Right, Oh my goodness. My gray cat is always interested
in what I'm eating, but once he realizes it's not
like salmon, he's not interested in it anymore. But I
have known cats, yeah, who would like take anything like
hot dog buns, like whole avocado, like like anything. Mm

(34:32):
hmmm hmm. Well, I mean maybe maybe a lesson has learned,
because I feel like I've done that as a human
and had time. Yeah, but who knows. Also, yes, Mango season,
I feel like one of the pictures attached was a

(34:54):
mango and rice and a rice wrapper, which I was
just saying. I had a bunch of.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, Yes.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
I do appreciate your story about the pumpkin pie. I
know I've said it before. That is an episode of
Friends told Oh. But also I had a similar thing
with I would make these I always knew they were
Duncan Hines, but I would make these Duncan Hines brownies
in high school. I mean, I guess, thank you, but

(35:27):
people assumed they were made from scratch. Oh, huh. And
they asked me for the recipe, and I was kind
of like, do I lie about this or do I
tell them it's just yeah. I think eventually I was
just kind of like, it's from a box, so yeah,
you can. I can show you which kind of Duncan
Hines I get that. I can tell you, like the

(35:49):
specific because Duncan Hines a lot of a lot of
box things do this, but I can tell you the
specific like egg ratio I use, Oh okay, sure, yeah,
but it's like one of two options, yeah, cakey or chewy,
so right, And then my mind on one of her
like most requested desserts is the Hershey's Chocolate Pie, which

(36:10):
is essentially just melted Hershey's and whip cream. But it's
so good. Oh sure, So I stand by you, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Absolutely, there's a reason that they have these recipes on
the back of these products because they work right right.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
And I would theorize as I emailed back, that people
did know what was going on with these chocolate lists
Piscatti and maybe didn't say anything about it, but I
feel like somebody had to, oh yeah, which I love.
I love that because I love when you can tell
someone has been in a place based on the food

(36:49):
that is there or the food that is missing. Yes,
I love it. I think it's great. But yes, thanks
to both of these listeners for writing and if you
would like to write to us you can. Our email
is hello at savorpod dot com and we are also

(37:10):
on social media.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Myheartradio, you can visit the iHeartRadio 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 are coming your way

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Anney Reese

Lauren Vogelbaum

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