Easter Traditions, Old and New + Taste Testing Special Soda

Traditions play an integral role in any holiday. Each year we are reminded of old traditions that may have been around for generations, and we adopt a new one or two. And food almost always plays a significant part. Join us as we discuss some of our most loved Easter traditions, and share how they've evolved. Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/oW8FuFP5iDY When a listener wrote to us and asked us to share some of our family's Easter traditions, we couldn't help but turn it into an entire episode! Together, Tara and I stroll down memory lane and share some of our earliest Easter memories, and you won't be surprised to hear that they revolve around food! We discuss how the blending of family members ushered in new and wonderful traditions, such as the first time Tara discovered grain pie, aka Pastiera Napoletana, and instantly fell in love! Taste Test - Manhattan Special We're loving the new taste test segment and hope you are too! Here we're trying 3 flavors of the Italian specialty soda, Manhattan Special: Orange, Vanilla, and Original. If you have the means to pick these up, we invite you to follow along and taste test with us! Resources Pizzagaina Recipe Easter Bread Recipe Torta Pasqualina Recipe Antipasto Platter Recipe Lasagna Recipe Boneless Leg of Lamb Recipe Slow Roasted Leg of Lamb and Potatoes Recipe Spiral Ham Recipe Limoncello Spritz Recipe If you enjoyed the Easter Traditions Old and New Episode, leave us a comment below and let us know!   We love your questions.  Please send them to [e-mail] (remove the 11111 for our contact).  There’s no question not worth asking. If you enjoy our weekly podcast, support us on Patreon and you will get 2 more bonus episodes each month! Thanks for listening! For a complete list of all podcast episodes, visit our podcast episode page.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
- Welcome back to the Sip Feast podcast,

(00:02):
episode number 43 Easter Traditions.
So this is gonna be eight days
or nine days from Easterwhen this one airs.
It's gonna give youplenty of time, I think,
to get your whole game plan ready.
Uh, the, the impetus, the inspiration
for this episode comes from aviewer named Krista and Tara.
You have the question from her, right?

(00:22):
- That's right. Kristasays, hello, Jim and Tara.
Hello again from Maryland.
I'm curious to know whatyou guys make for Easter
and the night beforeEaster as Italian Americans
and any Easter family traditions.
I come from an Irish Catholicfamily in my dad's side
and German Lutheran on my mom's side.
And our Easter is usually the Easter vigil

(00:43):
mass fasting all day.
And Easter Sunday, we makesome sort of steak dinner,
like filet mignon or prime rib.
I'd love to hear your traditions.
So thank you Krista, for your question
and for inspiring this entire episode.
- Yeah, this is, I mean,this won't be all inclusive,
what we discuss here.
Uh, we're gonna talk about stuff that

(01:04):
I guess I did when I was young,
the Easter traditions that I remember.
'cause I don't remember everything.
And then we'll talk aboutwhat we do now, kind
of the modern modernizingof our traditions
and kind of the, we're a little bit more
practical these days.
Family's a littlesmaller, stuff like that.
Uh, before we get into it,I'll just tease this one up,

(01:25):
this taste test, it's right in back of me.
If you are a frequentviewer, you will realize
that the taste test item isalways in back of the two of us.
It's right in the center of us.
But for all you listenersout there, it's going
to be a drink taste test.
And don't worry, we will do our best.
And I think we do a good job

(01:46):
of describing everythingwe are eating or drinking
and kind of trying to bringyou here, even if you are
just in the audio format.
That's right. Would you say so, Tara? Yes.
I think you did an excellentjob in the previous episode
when we talked about allthe Trader Joe's stuff. Oh,
- Thank you. Yeah.
- You did a good job.Yeah. Not as good as me.
I mean, she did, she did an okay job.

(02:06):
I, I just, you know, I mean, come on,
- Whatever.
- I mean, what, what, what do you expect,
- Kim?
Uh, I'll never be as great as you
- And Well, you're, you know,
you are better than me in one regard.
You are a lot thinner than me.
And I am, I am worried about when we,
and it's fast approachingwhen we switch the set here,

(02:27):
we're moving to chairs
that will not have thishuge table guarding my belly
like it does right now.
So I'm gonna sit in a chair
and when you see the wide shot,
you're gonna see probablyfrom head to toe.
So that's giving me a littlebit of anxiety. Tara, maybe
- You should stop eating so much.

(02:47):
- Well, it's tough'cause we're doing these
taste tests now. You know?
- That's what's the problem.I don't know about that.
- Well, anyway, um,, I'm actually happy
that we're gonna have the chairs,
I think think it'sgonna be more laid back.
This table is nice and everything,
but I feel like it's a little too formal.
- Yeah. I, I always sayI kind of feel like,
you know, weekend update.

(03:08):
- Yeah. You- Know,
- It's too formal.
- So, yeah. I like, I like thechairs more casual setting.
I think that'll be morefun and more relaxed.
- I think we'll keep talkingabout it until it's completed.
So chairs are gonna be green.
This wall's gonna have to change.
'cause I think gr greenand gray will not work.
I'm thinking we'll paintthis like white probably.
So everything will be different here.

(03:29):
Uh, the only thing that won't be different
will be the two of us.
It'll still, it'llstill be us. Yeah. Yeah.
Until one of the kids popson and stuff like that.
- Yeah. Uh, Sammy expressedthe desire to maybe
co like, co co-host a podcastwith you instead of me,
um, one episode.
So, well, that'd be good. Wemight do that future. It'd

(03:51):
- Be nice to get her in the- Future.
Yes. So do you wanna,
do you wanna talk about someof the Easter traditions
that you had when you were a child?
Yeah. And then I can sharea little bit about mine.
- Yeah. So this isn't- To answer Krista's question. Yeah.
- Do you want, do you want meto go first or do you wanna go
- First? Yeah, you go first.

(04:11):
- So this is not all inclusive
because I can't reallyremember everything.
I'm sure I'm missing something.
Probably if my mother's listening,
she'll probably correct me.
Um, I think though, for the most part,
and it just changed dependingon whether we were at our
house or at my aunt's house,like a family member's house

(04:31):
each, because, you know,when you're at going
to someone's house,it's, they're, you know,
they're the ones who get to set the
rules, what, what you have.
And I think we would rotate every year.
So as far as my, the house I grew up in,
there would always be stuffedartichokes for Easter.
That was a common thing.
We would start off withantipasto, you know,
so there'd be like a, a nicespread of that church first,

(04:54):
then anti pasta.
And then it would go into,maybe there would be like,
like a, something baked or whatnot.
But it would always be,then there would be a,
like a pasta first, the baked pasta.
Mm-Hmm. . So itwould either be sonna stuff,
shells, not really big ziti.
Manag gott was common.

(05:16):
That one I think my mother did the most.
And then after that, wewould rest For a while,
this was awfully similar to Thanksgiving.
But then after that,we would rest a while.
And then we would have the main course.
And the main coursewould normally be a pork
wine, I think in our house.
It was a pork wine. I thinklater on late when I got older,
my mom was doing the spiral ham.

(05:37):
And then there would besome, like, roasted potatoes.
There would be like green beans, uh,
or some other type of green.
There would be like a salad.
But really the start of the show
for us would always bethe stuffed artichokes.
That was kind of the one thateverybody looked forward to.
Mm-Hmm. asfar as like pizza gaina
or pizza rustic.
Go. You might know it as, or pina.

(05:58):
There's, it's all the samething. It's a baked meat pie.
Uh, we didn't have that.
My mom said that she did haveit when she was growing up.
Uh, she said she had a family member
that would always make it,and my mom hated it, so
that's why she neverwanted to make it for us.
Oh, really? I believe, I believe,
and I might be mixing up stories here.
Mm-Hmm. . But this was,

(06:19):
I think she told me thisrelatively recently,
so I think we might havehad it at some point.
I'm, I'm not positive.Mm-Hmm. .
It definitely wasn't likethe stuffed artichokes were.
So that's kind of my little thing. Yeah.
You know, and I'm, I'm probablymissing some stuff too.
- Yeah. So did your mom
observe the whole fastingperiod in during lunch? Oh,

(06:40):
- Yeah. She's strict Catholic.
- Okay. So she would,- My mother's like, you know,
she would, you know, she'sdefinitely afraid, like,
you know, not being perfect Catholic.
- So she would abstain fromeating meat on Fridays.
Did she actually fast from meat on
Good Friday and the satlike the day before Easter?
- You know, I think she did, but I can't,

(07:01):
I can't SI can't re recall.
You know, that's the thing. Yeah.
- Yeah. It's hard to remember. Yeah.
Because I know that's why the,
the pizza gainer is kindof like the big deal.
Like that's something that youwould eat almost at midnight,
right, on Easter. Yeah.
- Especially you went midnight Easter.
If you went to midnightmass, then you would, um,
- Was there midnight mass for Easter?
I know that's a Christmas Eve thing.

(07:22):
- Maybe not then. Somaybe people just would
eat it at, at Yeah.
When it got to 12 o'clock. Yeah.
- See, I, I didn't grow upwith that, with that sort
of heritage. I would say
- The school I went to, uh,everybody was Catholic, though.
Everybody's, well, same, yeah.
Everybody's pretty muchCatholic in, in Long Island.
- Same for me. So my, where I grew up,

(07:44):
same thing. Everybody was Catholic.
- Not everybody, meaningthe majority of people in
- Long Island.
I was not, I was oneof the minority. Yeah.
I was not Catholic. I was raised Lutheran.
Although both of my parents were Catholic.
They both converted to Lutheranwhen I was, I don't know,
I might've been like three or four.
I know I was baptized Catholic,

(08:04):
but then, then they switched.
Um, so we weren't reallythat strict with fasting
during the Lent period.
Um, although my mom taught Sunday school.
So I grew up understandingthat whole period
of being like a very kindof like the holiest time.

(08:26):
I feel like during Lent,
and especially leading upto Easter, that was kind
of like the height of like the Holy
- Week, Palm Sunday,- Palm Sunday, you know, um,
rosary beads, mondy th we didn't have rose
rosary beads are a Catholic thing.
That is not a Lutheranthing. Mondy Thursday,
- I should know that.
- I would go to, I would goto church on Good Friday.

(08:47):
At first when I was little,I remember being taken
to the stations of the CrossMa Mass, which is for children.
And then as I got older,we would go to the stations
of the cross that were for adults.
It was very somber.
Um, I remember thepastor would, at the end,
he would just walk out and slam the door.
It was almost like symbolic

(09:09):
of maybe the rock beingpushed in front of Oh yeah.
The tomb where, where Jesuswas. It was a very somber day.
I remember. Huh. Um,
and then, you know, you'd go to church on,
on Easter Sunday in the morningafter the Easter Bunny came.
But as far as food
and, you know, Italian-Americans,I, I've shared on previous
episodes that my connectionto Italian-American

(09:31):
heritage was through mypaternal grandmother.
So my dad's mother, Jane,
she was 100% Italian, last name Gallo.
Uh, her family camefrom Kta Pallota Sicily.
So that is my connectionto Italian Americans.
Um, I am a mutt, like trueNew Yorkers. Yes. Yeah.

(09:54):
Anybody born on Long Island is, is a mix.
I'm a mix of a wholebunch of different things.
But, um, my, my grandma Jane,
she passed away whenI was in second grade.
So I was about seven years old.
So I don't have a whole lotof eastern memories with her.
In fact, the memories Ihave of that time of year

(10:18):
specific to Italian Americans is actually
with my dad's cousin Mary.
Um, every Palm Sunday,we would go to her house.
She lived in Bayside Queens.She's now, uh, passed on.
But I remember her makinga lot of food, which
I actually, what stands outfor me are her desserts.

(10:38):
So she would make st truthfully,truthfully is very popular.
Yeah. That was somethingwe would have on Easter.
And I remember it would,we would get there,
and the St truthfully pile wassitting there staring at us.
Yeah. We weren't allowed totouch it until, until dessert.
Um, and she would also have cannoli.
I know there was some sortof baked pasta involved,
but I honestly don't remember.
I just remember the desserts.
Now, my mom was taught how to cook by

(11:03):
my grandma Jane.
So when my dad marriedmy mom, my mom didn't,
I don't think she reallyknew how to cook much.
Her, um, grandmother who raisedher wasn't much of a cook.
In fact, I think she was a terrible cook
from my understanding.
Um, so my mom's cookingknowledge came from

(11:23):
her mother-in-Law at the time.
Jane. Um, so my mom wouldmake lasagna for, for Easter.
I don't remember other food on Easter.
I know my mom made stuff to artichokes
when I was growing up.
I don't remember if we ate them on Easter.
My Easter memories arevery blurry, to be honest.

(11:44):
In fact, I remember like the Easter bunny,
and I remember eating Cadbury eggs.
Yeah. But I don't remember a whole lot of
what we ate on Easter Sunday.
I remember always tryingto give something up ent,
but not observing a no meat on Friday.
I think that was, uh, becausewe were Lutheran. Yeah.
I don't think we were governed by the same

(12:05):
laws as the Catholic church.
So we could eat meat on Friday,
but I always tried to give something up.
Like one year I gave upcoffee for Lent. Yeah.
And that was brutal. I drank,
I drank coffee on Easter Sunday,and I got, I felt so sick.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Afterdrinking, it couldn't,
first time even, Icouldn't even eat the food.
But what I will say is that, um,

(12:27):
my later in life connectionto Italian, American
Easter traditions happenwhen my dad, my parents are,
my parents are, uh, divorced.
My dad remarried a woman,um, Angelina, Angie,
who is from Italy.
She moved here when shewas, I think nine or 10.
And she introduced me to what is now one
of my favorite Easter foods.

(12:49):
Mm-Hmm. . Andthat is grain pie. Mine too.
Pasta. I had never had it before.
And I remember having it at,it was either at her house
or her sister Rita's house.
And I, that's the best.Fell in love with it.
They had gotten it froman Italian bakery Yeah.
Near their house inBethpage. And I loved it.
And now we make it Yes. Ourselves.

(13:09):
- Let's, we should talk.
Let's, we, we gotta talk about this. No,
- That's, yeah.
That's, that's it. That's my, okay.
Those are my, those are my memories. Okay.
Of my, of my childhood Easter
and how they've evolvedinto my adulthood Easter.
- Yeah. I mean, yours is similar to mine.
You don't have I don't have that much.
I mean, I feel like now I have, we have
to make all these differentEaster stuff that, you know,

(13:30):
truth is, I didn't have these growing up.
So I made, uh, torta Pascal.
I think it's from, it's fromLaia. Okay. Laia. Okay. Yeah.
Which is what I suspectedbecause it's so much green in it.
Um, so that area of Italy,
they do, uh, the pesto greenpesto with, uh, potatoes in it

(13:51):
and the green beans, uh,they'll do like a green lasagna.
But I made this, I, I gotta be honest,
I wasn't the biggest fan of it.
I think the regular pizza rustica
or pizza guana is superior.
- I disagree.- You disagree.
I kind of figured you would disagree with
- That.
I love the, the torte pascal. Okay.
Because I really liked thehard-boiled egg that was in it.

(14:13):
And I loved the greens.
- You can add the hard boiled eggs
to your regular pizza rustica.
You can, so people will do that. The
- Pizza rustica is heavy, is more heavy.
I feel like the Pascal is,
- Pascal is lighter.
Yeah. I mean, they all, there'sa lot of dishes with eggs.
There's the Easter bread, which, you know,
the colorful Easter bread,
which is a brioche bread with eggs in it.

(14:33):
There's also a casatiello,which is, uh, another Easter pie
that is a Neapolitanspecialty that looks similar
to pizza rustica.
But it's baked in kind of likea bunt cake, uh, round pan.
And then it has braidson top with the hard,
with the hard eggs.
But we don't have thatone on the site yet.

(14:55):
But yeah, all of theserecipes, it not something
that I really, that wereally had it enjoyed.
I, I will Just one littlething about the Pascal one,
honestly, I think it would bebetter if it was Greek style.
I think because I made it
and I thought it lacked itneeded the feta in there.
It need, even though I puta lot of Pecorino in there
and, uh, andI think another cheese.

(15:18):
I think I had like three cheeses in there.
I just felt like it justdidn't have what it needed.
- I really liked it. Butyou disagree? So I disagree.
I really disagree. I loved it.
- The amount of greens thatI had in there. Mm-Hmm.
. And in, inItaly they'll do, like,
I did some research on this.
They'll do all different types,
like dandelion greens and other ones.
I think I usedpredominantly spinach in it.

(15:39):
Or maybe I used escarole also. I,
- I have up look at
- It, but, you know, andI gave options in it.
What, what you can usewhat, what you can't use.
It took a ton of greens, a lotof cheese, hard boiled eggs.
And you make a crust piecrust that, uh, is pasta.
A pasta fra, which is similar to honestly
what you use in a lotof different, uh, pies.

(16:01):
- You use Swiss chard and spinach.
- I use chard. Okay.There you go. I'm wrong. I
- Thought I was, and then it has ricotta.
Yeah. Uh, Parmesan ano, it hada little bit of nutmeg in it.
- So it had Parmesan, you know,
it probably should have pe it
should probably should have
Pecorino. That would make it better.
- But if it's coming from Legia,
- That's why.
You know, and that's thething, like, I always,

(16:21):
I always hold back when I'm making non,
when I'm making dishes thatI wanna be true to the area.
Like, I'm like, okay, letme use the Parmesan cheese.
But if you follow thevideos and the channel
and all that, you'll knowmy love for pecorino far
surpasses, uh, par Parmesano Reno cheese.

(16:42):
I just think it's, it'sjust better. It's saltier.
First of all. It's cheaper.It gives more of a punch.
I was reading a Sicilian cooking book,
and they said that Parmesanoano is unheard of in Sicily.
Unheard of now. Yeah. Thatbook was written 20 years ago.
It might be different now, but Yeah.
- No, I think it's, I think Pecorino or,

(17:02):
and it's another type of cheese that's,
- Well, they have other cheeses, but Yeah.
As far as like degradingcheese. Mm-Hmm. .
It's, it's Pecorino.Mm-Hmm. . Yeah.
I, I don't know. I feellike it's more versatile,
like far more the, the, like,the, the, the, the really, uh,
kind of, uh, pretentiouscooking people will say it's too
powerful, the pecorino, it's powerful.
It's not as complexas, as Parmesan cheese.

(17:25):
- So I actually,
I do like Parmesan oreganobetter than a Pecorino Romano
because I think it's, itis a little bit more mellow
and it has a nutty flavor,
whereas the Pecorino is more pungent.
It's that sheep's milk flavor.Um, and it's very salty.
- But you needed thathere without that. Yeah.

(17:47):
- Well, I, I know. Love this. Alright.
And I would thank you.
Eat it over and over again. Thank you.
- So let's keep going.- Some
of the other additions that we have.
- Yeah. So I know I spokeinitially about Quiera
before I went on a tangentabout the to Pascal.
Uh, we're just gonna do it inthe order that Tara has here.
So let's, let's keep it to way,

(18:07):
- Well, I've got, the wayI've ordered this list is kind
of like how you would start your Easter.
So assuming you are fasting
and you're going to break yourfast, whether it's midnight
or Easter morning, um,the first thing that
you could have would be the pizza gaina,
also known as pizza Rustica. Yes.

(18:28):
- Pina. Or, or the tort.Or the tort Pascal.
- Or the torte Pascal. That'sright. And then we also, or
- The Cas. Yeah.
- Yes. Casi. And we also talked about,
you already mentionedthis, the Easter bread.
Yes. Which is the brioche, whichactually, that is something
that I have had when I was a kid.
I remember going to the diner,I think on Easter morning.

(18:49):
Yeah. Preach. And the diner would have,
- That makes sense.
- The brioche bread withthe, um, Easter egg.
- That makes sense. And,
and by the way, that bread, you can,
you wanna bake it in the morning?
- Yes. So make the, whatare they called? Like nests,
- Braids, dough, overnight. Yeah.
- The brains overnight. Thebraids and the egg overnight.

(19:11):
Would you? No. Youwouldn't put the egg in it.
No, you would put the egg in in the
- Morning. In
- The morning.
Because otherwise, if youput the egg in overnight,
the dye from the Easteregg will start to seep in.
That's right. Even. And we'll color the
- Even still brioche.
It tends to, I mean, I, yeah.
I'm not perfect with this, which
- Is like, it's not a big deal.
- People will paint them with, um,
you can buy like markersnow that will won't bleed.

(19:33):
Versus if you use the traditional dipping
dye it, it will bleed.
And, you know, look, it, itdoesn't affect the taste.
It's the looks though.
And it, it really is it,they're delicious little,
the brioche bread.
Yeah. They're just fun. They're fun to
- Eat.
It's, it's fun because you get
to eat the hard boiled egg Yeah.
And the brioche bread. Andit's really, I don't know.

(19:54):
It's a really easy butdelicious breakfast. Yeah.
On Easter. Yeah. Yeah.
- You got your bread andyou got your bread and your
- Eggs to counteract whatever the Easter
bunny brings for you.
Right. Yeah. You don't wannajust have sugar for breakfast.
All right. Moving on
to later in the day whenyour guests start to arrive,
you'd have anti pasta.
Yeah. Right. So like,uh, anti pasta platter.

(20:18):
What are some of thethings you'd put on it?
- Well, I mean, you can goelaborate or very basic.
Um, you,
and you don't have to stickstrictly to the Italian theme.
I mean, I think shrimpcocktail are great. Mm-Hmm.
, you know.Mm-Hmm. . Uh,
you can do stromboli, whichis cooked, which, you know,
you know, it's not an antipas.
But then you can do, um,mushrooms. Marinated mushrooms.
You could do marinatedartichokes. You could do olives.

(20:39):
You could do some meats, some cheese.
Um, copana. Maybe not.
Maybe don't get toocarried away here, though.
The thing about ItalianAmerican food in general is
that it's always carried away.
That's actually one of thedifferences between the food,
this type of food and Italian food.
Italian food is like, I eat alittle bit of bite of pasta.

(21:02):
I have a little bit of meat, uh, here.
It's, um, I, you know, youknow Joey and, and, and,
and, uh, Maria and, andyou know, and the kids and,
and then the cousins and,
and everybody down thestreet might come over
and there's 40 people at the house.
So it's like you're makingall this food thinking
that an army's coming there,
but in the end it's like 80 of you.

(21:23):
So it's always better tohave more than you need
than not to have enough, because
you can just have it for leftovers.
That's right. The next day.
But I do feel that that'skind of a major distinction
that we don't talk enough about
between the two types of food.
Everybody likes to say, like,oh, it's just, you know,
they're, it's like you eattoo much pasta and all that.

(21:44):
It's not just that. It'severything is too much.
Everything is in excess.
- Mm-Hmm. - ,any restaurant you see now,
that's like smaller portions.
Those are opened uprecently within the last 20
years by Yeah.
People that are trying to inspire food
in how it is in Italy. Well,
- That's not just, I don't think
that's just Italian Americans, though.
I think that's Americans in general.

(22:06):
We eat like way more thanother countries do. It's true.
It's true. Yeah. It'sjust, I think having access
to, to more
- Things.
We have abundance. Yeah.
- Yeah.- We have abundance. Everybody has,
has more probably than we
need. Mm-Hmm. . You know,
- So after you've had yourauntie pasta, whatever

(22:27):
that may be, um, you might move on
to having some stuffed artichokes,
or you have a little adaptation
to stuffed artichokes. Right. So
- Stuffed artichokes are amazing.
They are time consuming.They're very time consuming.
No matter how good you think you are at

(22:47):
cooking, they take a while.
Um, prep is can be difficult.
Some, sometimes it'seasier than oth others.
Um, softening the artichokes.
Sometimes you need, ifthey're large artichokes,
you really wanna do it ahead of time.
If they're smaller ones, youcan stuff 'em and then bake 'em
or put 'em in a pot.

(23:08):
Doing 'em in a pot withliquid almost up to the top
covering it, is probablythe best way to do 'em.
Some people make 'em,even in the Instapot,
that's actually a reallygood use for the Instapot,
that if you watch this, you know,
and, you know, I don't,I don't like the tool
because I don't like tohave extra big honking tools
around that I barely use.
But in that regard, the Instapotis good for the artichokes.

(23:32):
They take a long time. There'sreally no way around it.
I, every time I make 'em and,and you know, it's a mess.
You're pulling all,all the pulp out of 'em
and like the choke, all that Mm-Hmm.
. It's like the,the, the, this least part.
And you just got this huge mess
and then you're like, gotanother, all these buckets
of water because youhave like vinegar water
or lemon water, so it doesn't turn black.

(23:52):
And you need a big worksurface. Mm-Hmm. .
And then if you have like 30 people
and you're making 30 of these,it can really be overwhelming
for a novice cook.
So when restaurants makethese stuffed artichokes,
they make them days in advance.
They're in the fridge. Sowhen they get an order at a,
at a place, they,
I mean, they probably don'teven keep 'em in the fridge.

(24:13):
They're probably out like rooming up.
They just take one and thenthey put it in the oven
and they put more liquid in the, in there.
And then they serve it. Becausethese things take forever.
Mm-Hmm. , youcould do the same thing,
prep em ahead of time, oryou could do the easy way,
as Tara said, you could justdo the baked artichoke hearts
with all of the same ingredients
that a typical stuffedartichoke would have.

(24:33):
- Yeah. So it's much easier.
And tastes just like a stuffed artichoke.
It's not as fun to eat.
Part of part of eating theartichoke is, is the fun.
You're, you're scraping thebreadcrumbs off the leaves,
eating the filling,
and finally you're rewarded at the end
with the artichoke heart,which I think is one

(24:53):
of the most heavenly foods on this planet.
- Yeah. It's so good.
It's such a, um, it's, it's hard
to like describe how good it is.
- It's, it's, there's nothing like it.
I mean, you can buy the artichokehearts in the, in the jar.
There's nothing that compares
to eating the heart froma stuffed artichoke.

(25:16):
- They do have nice ones.
I've seen, um, uh, Italianspecialty stores will carry 'em.
They're way bigger andthey're prepped often.
They're halved. Mm-Hmm.
much higherquality than the ones you get in
the can that are smaller.
Yeah. So that's an option too,if people have access. Yeah.
And like, they'll have like,all the way down to the stem,
they'll probably have like,the top of the artichoke cart,

(25:39):
like the artichoke cart itself,
and probably four or five inches of stem.
Yeah. All shaved perfectly.So it's completely edible.
You know, one thing we never talk about,
and it tastes similar toartichoke carts are cartoons.
So we never mentioned those. That's
- Right.
That's something that's big with,
I don't know if it's justbig with Italian Americans.
It might also be likesomething from Italy too.
But I feel like Italian Americans,it's very much a cultural

(26:02):
- Yeah.
And it's not just Italian.It's not just Italian.
It's supposedly, uh, parts ofAfrica too. Oh, really? Yeah.
From what I just read. Fromwhat I just read. Yeah.
They have a similar taste to, to it. Yeah.
But yeah, they're, they'refried and you eat 'em.
Uh, I don't know if it's
particularly an Easter thing though.
I'm, I'm assuming it probablyis consumed on Easter too.
But people ask often about them.

(26:23):
I'm like, no, I don't, I don't have 'em
because what am I gonna do?
I'm gonna make a recipefor that. And like,
five people are gonna be able to get 'em.
You know, they're gonna noteven gonna know what it is.
- Meat Farm sells them onLong Island. They do? Yeah.
- They do. How do they look?
- What do you mean?How do they look? Like,
- Do they look fresh when you walk by
- 'em?
Yeah, they look good. Yeah.
- Yeah. We gotta try it then. We should.
- Yeah. We should, weshould put a recipe up.

(26:43):
'cause a lot of people haveasked for it. They do. Okay.
Yep. So after you havethat, you may move, move on
to a baked pasta.
Yes. Like lasagna or asyou would say, mangu.
- Yeah. Yeah. Or manacotti.
- Manicotti. As I say it,manacotti stuffed shells. Right.
- They always like joke, likesomebody in the family can eat

(27:04):
like 20.
- That was my dad. Yeah. He could eat 20.
Reg, they always said 20 regulation size,
amount of cotton, regulation size.
And I'm like, what doesregulation size mean?
But that, that's, I mean,my dad, my dad was known
for being able to eat atremendous amount of food
and still be relatively thin.

(27:25):
- . Yeah.- Yeah.
You know, , his,
his appetite has been carbeda little bit as of late,
but he, um, yeah.
He used to be well known as
as as a good eater.
- This actually brings back memories
because I, as I said in theintro here, I didn't have,
I don't have too manymemories of Easter dinners.

(27:46):
I always, I feel likeThanksgiving is the one that like,
is more etched in my memory.
Mm-Hmm. . But Ido remember fighting, I think
with my brother aboutwhen, like, the ravioli
or shells
or, you know, the manic manicotti were,
were like towards the end.

(28:08):
And I was like, oh man.
Like, I'll flip you for it because like,
- What you were gonna trade.
Like, you were gonna take his food
- Because like, you want him.
And then, but then like, itwould always be my mother
or family member wouldbe like, you're gonna,
you're not gonna be ableto eat the pork, you know,
or you're not gonna be able to eat.
We got the stuffed artichokesstill coming, so. Yeah.
- What about Big Zdi?

(28:28):
- We never did the big Zdi.
I think the big Zdi is a great idea
because it's the easiestone of all of 'em to do.
Yeah. Though ravioli is simple too.
You buy ravioli from the, theready-made ones from Yeah.
What was that brand that theguy said? It is like pasta? Oh
- God.
Yeah. I can't remember
- Post Poso.
Posto. Yeah. Uh, it alludes me. Yeah.
We don't actually buy any ravioli really.

(28:50):
We don't buy any of that stuff.
Uh, I know you think we eat pasta
all the time, but we don't.
In fact, I feel like I'vebeen making meat dishes
nonstop now for
- The last You have, that'sbecause you have been for
- The last year or so. Yeah.
- That's, you've been doing a lot meat.
- I think we lost a lot of viewers.
I, we had like a sizablecontingent of like, vegetarian,

(29:12):
vegan viewers who would adapt our recipes.
- I think we still have those viewers.
- I hope we do. But I think they, Jan
- Jan is one of them.
They got mad messages. Us?No, I don't, I don't think
- So.
They got mad with all the beef dishes.
- No, I don't think so. Okay.
I think, I think theyunderstand that we're omnivores
and that's who we make our recipes for.
I think they're appreciativewhen we do put out a vegetarian

(29:34):
or vegan recipe.
But I think a lot of vegetariansknow, okay, Jim's recipe
for Putin, SCA has anchovy in it.
I'm gonna just omit the anchovy
and I can That's easy,easy to make vegetarian,
or, you know, I think theyknow what they need to do
to make the adaptations to our recipes.

(29:54):
- Yeah. No, I, I realize that,that I, I mean, I would hope
that most people think we'renot like trying to stick it
to one cuisine.
What, honestly, what happened was we
were slumping on YouTube for a while
and we were doing a lot of those.
Yeah. Those vegan vegetarian recipes,
they just weren't working.
They weren't, we weren'tgetting the views.

(30:16):
We definitely weren't gettingthe views that we needed
to justify, you know? Well,
- It wasn't even just doing that.
I mean, we, we did a drink video
that did not do well.
Like we were trying different things
and we couldn't seem toget out of this slump.
- You go in a big slump,you know, this is a little
inside baseball here, but ifyou, YouTube always judges you

(30:39):
by, they always tell you like,
this is your best video outta the last 10.
It's always outta 10. Sopeople who do this stuff
for a living, they're like,oh, I had a 10 outta 10.
It's like, it's like they're te
they're like sticking it to you.
They're like, you suck. You know?
And then, and then ifyou get a 10 outta 10,
and then you get another 10 outta 10,
so like two weeks in a row,
it's like devastating it,it could take like months.

(31:00):
Because what happens is it'sall just algorithm based.
It's all just like, oh, like,nobody likes this guy anymore.
This guy's sipping feast is a loser.
Like, let's just move onto the next guy. You know?
And, and then it's like,people will message us.
He'll be like, whathappened to you? I'm like,
I've been here the whole time.I'm like, you just, yeah.
- It's, YouTube isn't showing
- I'm invisible to you now.
Yeah. 'cause but thenit works the other way.

(31:20):
So if you get a one outta 10,
then it's like, things get reset.
And then they tend to showthings more to people.
So what happened for us is weput out a, a bunch of bombs
and then like, stink,everything kept was just,
you know, stinking up the joint.
And then we put out beef burgand yawn and it skyrocketed.

(31:43):
And so I was like, oh God,
well, all right, we gotta do beef.
And then I, every beef I put out
after that did well for a long time. Yeah.
- Yeah. So that's why wewere like, oh, we gotta
keep making beef recipes.
'cause that's what, that's
what YouTube is showing people right now.
So a lot of times when we'remaking recipes for the website,

(32:04):
it's what we wanna put out.
But sometimes for YouTube,it's like, all right, we have
to put out what we feelintuitively
YouTube is gonna show people.
- Yeah. It kind, it kind of stinks.
And a that's why you can see,
and it doesn't really, itdoesn't really matter for us
because it's just the two of us.
It's, but think aboutlike, these YouTubers
that got 20 people thatare working for them.

(32:26):
Like, all these peoplehave, like families,
and they're, they gotta paytheir mortgage and their bills.
So these YouTubers thenthey're like, they go crazy.
They're like, okay, every video's
gotta be better than the next.
And it's just, it's notsustainable for them.
It's really not. And henceyou see all these YouTubers
quitting, a lot of them are quitting
or scaling back, gettingrid of those teams.

(32:48):
And it's, it's gotta,
it's probably a really tough
conversation when they're letting them go.
But, you know, for us it's not, it's, we,
we do wanna do well, butthere's not a, not a lot
of people are hinging on, on this. Yeah.
- Yeah. That's just us really.
- Just one. The guy who'sediting this video right here.
That's right. Yeah. That's right.
Which we really appreciate, Billy.
- Yes, we do. Let's, let's move on.

(33:11):
We talked about baked pot,
the baked pasta course for Easter.
Up next is the main course.
So you talked about yourmom making the pork loin.
At some point you switchedover to the spiral ham.
One of the things thatwe've been doing since,
I feel like since Sammy was alittle girl, so this has to be

(33:31):
for at least the past 12 years you've been
making lamb
- Lamb. Yeah. For
- Easter.
Ever since we startedhosting Easter ourselves.
Yeah. We've been making lamb.
- Yeah. My mom didn't do thelamb really when we were kids.
I think it was a littleintimidating to her.
And I think it might'vebeen a little costly.
Um, lamb is more accessible now than

(33:53):
it was when we were young.
But that all being said, lambis still not an Italian thing.
It's more of a Greek thing.
So now if you do see Italianrecipes for lamb, most
of the time it's not a whole leg of lamb.
Mm-Hmm. . It's like chops.
Or, you know, there's a place in Italy,
it's like northern Italy too,where they eat a ton of lamb.
Mm-Hmm. . Butit's not the same thing.

(34:13):
Like when you think ofthat ubiquitous lamb
with potatoes, that's a Greek dish.
- Yeah. Well, actually my- Or the whole land. Yeah.
- Well, that's, yeah. My, myfriend Catherine, she's Greek.
She, I used to love hearingabout her Greek Easter.
Like she would come in
because it was usually like a week after.
It was not, it didn't reallysync up with, with our Easter,

(34:34):
but she would tell me,oh, we had, we had a pig
and we had a lamb, or we had a full
goat and we had a full lamb.
Like, and all the food
that she would described always sounded
so good. I was always so jealous.
- I just wanna correctmyself, uh, as Tara's saying
that there is Italianlamb head too. That's
- Oh, the cup boots.
Yeah. Cup, yeah. Cup. Yeah.
- Yeah. So yeah, just

(34:54):
before you, you're probablyyelling into the camera right
now or yelling into the,into your radio receiver gym.
I had to eat the lamb'shead when I was growing up.
Well, mm-Hmm. .There you go. That's it. Yeah.
No, I, I did not have thepleasure of having that.
My mother would .That would never happen.
- Can you imagine? Can't seeyour mom making lamb head.

(35:15):
- Oh my god. Imagine ifshe tells us that one time.
I'm feeling like, well, now we know
something's going on, . Yeah.
- No, I can't see that. Yeah.
So the way that you prepare the lamb
that we have on the website is boneless,
- Boneless - Roasted leg oflamb with garlic and rosemary.
- Yeah. And like, justherbs, garlic, rosemary,

(35:36):
like just really wellseasoned with salt and pepper.
Mm-Hmm. It's kind offoolproof for people. Yeah.
I even in the video, I showyou how to tie it, like how to,
how to do a slip knot and all that,
because that could maybe bea little bit intimidating.
There's not a lot of goodtutorials online about how to just
a slip knot or a butcher's knot.
It's the same thing. Like how to do it
and how to, how to turn.
Because you wanna turnthe lamb into a cylinder

(35:57):
when you open up a leg of lamb.
Now remember that bonelessleg of lamb has been de-boned.
So the butcher removed the bone for you.
But by doing that, he had tocut away all these tendons
and, um, you know, likeligaments and stuff.
Mm-Hmm. . And helike glands, glands, actually.
I know, I know. You're like, really?
You're like, you'resalivating right now. Right.
But that's all the stuffthat he cuts away to remove

(36:20):
that big ball joint ofthe, you know, of the bone.
So now it opens up completely,
but then that's what you're left with.
So when you see it in astore, it comes in a net,
in a plastic net and everything.
And then you're like, the second you open
that all up, it all opens up.
Mm-Hmm. .So you gotta tie it back.
- That's right.- And you're better off trying

(36:41):
to tie it back like a football Mm-Hmm.
like Idid in the video. Yeah.
So you gotta kind of reshape the thing.
- Reshape it. Yeah. Yep.- It's a little difficult. Yeah.
But not too difficult because sip
and feast takes care of you
and shows you exactly how todo it. Mm-Hmm. .
- And that is so good. Idid not grow up eating lamb.
As you may have heard memention in previous episodes.

(37:05):
I was raised vegetarian fromthe time I was eight years old
until I started like, sneaking chicken
in my school cafeteria.
'cause I was dying for some meat.
Um, so I never really grewup eating lamb or anything.
And, um, once you startedmaking it, I, it became one

(37:26):
of my favorite things to have.
And I look forward to, tohaving that every Easter.
- So, and by the time, thank you.
And by the time people seethis, we should have leg
of lamb bone in leg oflamb gr Greek style.
So just so you know,
that'll be easier than doing the bone list
because you're not gonnahave to tie it back up.
You just, you just gotta open the package.
Yeah, that's right. Just season it.

(37:47):
Well, but the whole Greekstyle is you roast a leg
of lamb on top of potatoesthat are in liquid,
and then the potatoes absorb the liquid.
And the liquid also steamsthe lamb to make it moist.
And then when the, thenwhen the lamb is tender,
you remove the lamb and then you continue
to cook the potatoes untilthey absorb all the liquid.
And then they start to moderately brown.

(38:08):
They're not gonna get as brown
as doing a standard roasted potato
with no liquid, obviously.
But they're still delicious.Mm-Hmm. .
And it's a Greek specialty.
- All right. So the lamb,the potatoes, it also have
some type of vegetable.
So cauliflower, asparagus, green beans
with garlic and oil.
Those are all I think somegood side vegetable dishes

(38:32):
to, to serve on Easter.
Definitely Easter. Anythingelse you'd add there?
- No, I would just becreative and do what you like.
Don't worry about what, you don't have
to follow any strict formula here.
Mm-Hmm. .If your family wants
something, that's what I would make.
- Yeah. And then my favoritepart is the dessert.
- The desserts. Yeah.The star of the show.

(38:54):
- The Pastier era is the best.
- Pastier, in my opinion,
is way better than the st Truthfully,
the truthfully look good.
They don't, you know,they don't taste as good.
So the stru, if you go back historically,
they actually share a lotof similarities to the Greek
fried dough balls thatare called Yeah. Adas

(39:17):
- S Yeah.
Hold on. I wanna make sure I'm,
I don't wanna say the wrong thing.
Yeah. The, those are Greek honey puffs.
- Yeah. Because remember, you know, Greek,
Italian, all the same thing.
Before, they weren'tGreek and Italian. Okay.
It was the Roman Empire
and those things probably
that's why there's such a similarity.

(39:38):
But honestly, if I had to pick,
I would go with the Greekone again. They're better.
- Was Greece part of the Roman Empire?
- Yeah. Right.- I don't know.
- Yeah. Eastern provinceof the Roman Empire.
Tyra's making me go nuts. Like,
I'm like, of course they were. Yeah.
- Listen, somebody's gottafact check this stuff. Okay.
- No, I I But that's, that's a similarity.
That's why a lot of the foods,there's so much overlap.
You know, like a lot of people

(39:59):
that get tested now from DNA tests Mm-Hmm.
who are in Sicily. Yeah.
They come back as Greek, you know? Yeah.
Because, you know, obviously there's a ton
of people moving through the area.
- So the eastern partof Sicily, I believe,
is heavily influenced by Greece.
There's, in Tarina there's like the Greek,
the amphitheater that's there, and,

(40:20):
- And the western part.
- I think the western partis North African African
influenced, like, you'll havethe cous cous and Yeah. Um,
- Yeah.
Yeah. There's too much of atangent there, but, but yeah.
Yeah. But anyway, I thinkthe, the honey, the, the,
the Greek dough balls are so much better
because they're softer.
The Italian ones thatare called truthfully,
they actually don't have any baking

(40:41):
powder or anything in them, though.
You will find recipes that,that do have baking powder,
but they're very small.
Really? You wanna make 'em likethe size of your fingernail,
like your pinky fingernail,like really small.
And then you can buildthese elaborate shapes,
pyramids, whatever you want.
And then you put this, uh, candied, uh,
citron. Right? Is that,is that what it is?
- Yeah. You can do that.Or you can do non peril

(41:02):
- Or non, yeah.
Yeah. But I think the candied, uh, is
that can citron isthat's what it is, right?
- Yeah. Candied fruit. Yeah.Candied fruit. Yeah. Yeah.
- Tara bought me like a whole
huge container over it last year.
It's in the back of the fridge.It's probably bad right now.
I wouldn't growing,growing mold or something.
Science experiment.
Probably, probably notgonna use that year.
Probably wouldn't use that.And I don't feel like making
stru fully either,because talk about a pain

(41:23):
- .
You can buy st truthfully. Yeah.
If you live on Long Island,you can go to uncle uncle's
or a lot of bakeries will have it.
If you, you go anywhere if you
wanna try it, go super market.
Yeah. You know, it is, it is easier
to buy it than it's to make it.
Same with, if you wanna getItalian pastries for Easter,
it's easier to buy thecannoli than it is for you
to make it at home.

(41:44):
I mean, it's, that's, that'sa tough one to me. I think
- We say this every three episodes.
Yeah. Do not make your own cannoli. Make
- Your own cannoli cream.
And you can buy the shellsfrom a bakery if you
- Want.
Yeah. But most people aren't gonna be able
to make the good cream
unless they can get the Esda epa
that is a super dry regatta.
Mm-Hmm. .Now it's every, you know,
you just go, I'll just use,I'll just use regular regatta.

(42:05):
You can't, it's, I mean, youcan, it just won't be the same.
Mm-Hmm. . Andtypically that imp pasta,
you gotta go to a bakery, askthem, they'll probably sell it
to you, because otherwiseyou gotta buy like a big five
gallon, uh, pail of it, you
- Know?
Yeah. But I would say ifyou're gonna make one Italian
dessert for Easter, youshould do the pasta,

(42:26):
because I think it is special for Easter.
Yes. The best. And it's the best.
It's made with gran, uh, granato Granato,
which is a wheat berry.
Yes. Barley. Right. Uh, is it barley
- Or farrow?
It's, it's, it's just, it's wheat berry.
- It's wheat. Yeah. It's wheat berry.
And you can get it in anItalian grocery store,
but you could also order it on Amazon.

(42:47):
And there's, uh, orange zest in it.
There's orange blossomwater, which I, yeah.
You don't need to put itin if you can't find it.
Um, it's just my favoritedessert. It's, it's so good.
If you, if you don't wanna make
that some other desserts you can make,
you can make an Italian cheesecake,
which actually tastes,I think, very similar.

(43:07):
Just doesn't have the grain in it.
- Very easy. Tara's Right.
An Italian cheesecake is super,
is is definitely the shortcutto having similar flavors.
Mm-Hmm. tothe, uh, past pastier natana.
But the thing is, pastier is
just, to me, it's the best thing.
It's the best thing about Easter.
I absolutely adore this dessert.

(43:29):
It's probably my, it'sprobably my favorite dessert.
- It's so, the filling, like I said,
is made with the, the ground.
I just wanna describe it for people.
'cause I feel like I'm not doing a
good enough job of describing it.
It's made with that,that wheat berry filling.
And the crust is a pasta, is
that right? Yes. And then you,
- And make window- Panes,
and then you'll make thelattice shape for the top.

(43:50):
So if you go into an Italian bakery
and you see a pie with the lattice top,
it's most likely the pasta.
- Yeah. And it's, there's a variance
of how they make it here.
So there's a lot of Italianbakeries here in Long Island.
There's, you know, plenty inall the other parts of, uh,
you know, the fiveboroughs and New Jersey.
And they all do it a little differently.

(44:11):
We've had really good ones.We've had some bad ones.
So I, I will say, simply,if you follow our recipe,
I think you're gonna makeone of the better ones.
It's that good. Now, I screwed up.
The first time I made it for the photos.
I didn't do my lattice correctly.Taste wise, it's the same.
I also didn't bake it longenough the first time.

(44:33):
So depending on how you make it, a lot
of times the bakeries will make a much
smaller version than I did.
Mine was fairly high.
And I've used them ininsert, uh, pie, you know,
like tart pan, whichyou need for this dish,
because if you don't dothat, you can't get it out.
Mm-Hmm. .Okay. So you, you have to,
we have all these, all theequipment you'll need if you
wanna make this, it'sall linked on the recipe.

(44:56):
And, you know, if you wannatry something different this
year, that's really gonna impress a lot
of your family members, Irecommend that you, uh, make,
make that one Mm-Hmm.. Right.
- That's a good one.And if you do make it,
let us know how you enjoyed it. Yeah.
- Let us know. There'splenty of recipes for it.
It's, and there's also,there's also a lot of shortcuts
for it, where you don'thave to use the granato,

(45:18):
you can use rice. Mm-Hmm.
- .- Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, you can do it differently.
You can use just barley or farrow.
I mean, it's, there's other ways to do it.
I think the granato is barley.
- It might be, I know it's wheat berry.
It's very, so if that's,
- Yeah. It's like that's,
- It's very similar in texture and taste.
Yeah. I don't know if it'slike scientifically Yeah.

(45:40):
Like the same thing. Yeah. But yeah, I
- Make a cream, you're mixing it together.
You're making thisreally delicious filling
with the orange flavors,
and then it's going in this pie shell,
and then it's getting a top lattice top.
And, uh, when you tasteit, it's, it's very unique.
You know, you, I often say when,
whenever we talk aboutdesserts, my favorite
dessert is a cannoli, or

(46:00):
- It's fto, but
- I never really include the paster,
because I only really think of the pastier
during Easter. Easter. Yeah.
- A lot of times people willcall it Easter pie. Easter pie.
Yeah. But people also callpizza Gaina Easter pie.
- That's right. That's,that's always the Yeah.
The, that confuses it. Yeah.
- Yeah, it does. Yep.- All right.
- All right. So Krista,

(46:22):
we hope we answered your question in, you know,
I don't know, 40 minutes orhowever long this episode was,
but thank you for sendingthat question over, um,
and for inspiring thisEaster episode. Yeah.
- Thank you, Krista. And, uh,
now we're moving into the thing.
You're actually here for
- .
They're here for the
- Others.

(46:43):
I'm kidding. I know. Ialways joke with Tara, like,
if these taste tests aredoing a lot better, I'm like,
are we just, are, arepeople gonna be like, Jim,
we don't even wanna hear anything else.
Just get to the taste tests .
Well, we're gonna do that right now. Okay.
So these are, we'll be recognizable
to you if you're from NewYork and you are over 50.

(47:05):
If you're not, it'll beless recognizable to you.
I would say if you're under 35,
you might not even know what these are.
Even if you live in the city, I
- Think if you grow up in anItalian American household,
you're gonna know whata Manhattan special is.
- I don't know. I feel like
- You definitely will.
I feel like these are in the,these are in pork stores.
- I know, but they're, they'revery, they're very niche.

(47:27):
So anyway, the articleI read in the New York
Times, now I've always known these.
Okay. Mm-Hmm. ,I've always known about it.
I don't know why. I just feel like,
I feel like even in theearly two thousands,
I would see them everywhere.
Mm-Hmm. inthe city. But it could
have been, I was just looking for it.
But the article was from2008 in the New York Times,
and it said that it was liketalking about the owner.
They were interviewingthe owner. They're saying
that they went from being everywhere.

(47:48):
Mm-Hmm. to beingan extremely niche product.
That was in 2008. Okay. 2008.
- Yeah.- So it's almost 20 years ago.
- That, that's frightening.But No, that's, that's true.
I mean, the only place I dosee these are Uncle Giuseppe's,
or if I were to go into apork store, I would see it.
- And these are, andthese are very expensive.
So I went on, I just wantedto check prices for you, uh,

(48:11):
before we actually getinto what these are.
But these Manhattan specials,they're made by a company
that started before 1900.
It's an Italian immigrants,
and this is the one that theyoriginally are known for,
which is the espresso.
Okay. It's like a coffee soda.
But yeah, they had likea booming enterprise.
And, and, and they still do.But again, they're niche.
And you can order them on Amazon,

(48:31):
but they're awfully expensive.
Amazon's will sell you a sixpack of them. It's on Prime.
It was, uh, $27, Ibelieve. What, $35. Wow.
It was very high for a reference for us.
We were able to buy thesefor, uh, $2 each. Right.
At Uncle Giuseppe's. Yep. Whichis still a little bit high.
I think you were able to getthese even cheaper in like

(48:53):
bodega and stuff in theearly two thousands. Hmm. All
- Right, well, so we havethree flavors here, right?
We have the original, which is the coffee
or espresso flavored soda.
We have creamy vanilla,
and we have an orangeflavored Manhattan special.
So do you think there's an order,
- Which I think we sa Ithink we saved their, the one

(49:14):
that they're, their names salike the one they're known for.
Yeah. For Let's save it For last. For
- Last.
'cause I think that's gonnabe the strongest. Yep.
I would maybe go fromlike, kind of similar
to when you do a wine tasting.
Yeah. You start with the lighter.
So let's start with the vanilla.
We're gonna share the bottle
- Because we actually aremarried to each other.
It's, we're not justfake husband and wife.
And even if we were fake husband
and wife, I would still share it.

(49:36):
Share it with her. Alright.
Well, I didn't get much
fizz there. I hope it's all right. Go
- Ahead.
Yeah. There is no fizz .
I feel like maybe we shouldhave poured it into a glass bag.
- Let's just see. No, there's fizz.
There's fizz. Yeah.
- Tastes like creamsoda to me. That's good.

(49:58):
- It- Is good.
- So you could see our, you could see our
disparity right away. Yeah.
- I mean, it's cream soda.- Tara was not impressed.
I, I think that is one
of the most delicious creamsodas I've ever had in my life.
- I'm not a big sodadrinker in general. Neither
- Am I.
- That's true. Althoughsometimes when we go out

(50:18):
to the diner, you'll order a Coke
- And it's sometimesit's so disappointing.
Like, I'll order a Coke,
and by the way, your safest bet is a Coke.
But sometimes I order a Sprite
and I'm like, when didyou change these lines?
Like 1986?
You know, it's like, I'm like, I'm like,
I've told Tyler I'm gonna die.
I'm gonna die tonight eatingmy mediocre Greek salad.

(50:39):
You know, .
- So you're a fan of thecreamy vanilla. Yeah,
- It's good. It's
- Good.
Keep you keep sipping it. It'sreally good. You can't stop.
Can't stop. Won't stop.
Pop open the orange. 'causeI wanna try that one. Well,
- Before I pop open the orange,
let me just tell the nutrition here.
It has 46 grams of carbs,so it's high in sugar.

(51:00):
That's all it is. Clearlythat's all it is, is sugar.
Uh, it actually When I wasreading that article, they said
that the owner, again,this article was from 2008.
He was so secretive, he wouldn'teven let them into photo.
I mean, he wouldn't evenlet them in period. Mm-Hmm.
, forget about Photoing.
He finally acquiesced and let them in,

(51:21):
but he would not reveal anythingabout the ingredients in
it, like, about their, their special Yeah.
Manhattan special andno photos were allowed.
But it basically, the articlewas saying that they have had
to adjust to the times,and again, this is,
this is almost 20 years ago,
and they were starting to sell online.
Right now, if you go to theirwebsite, you can buy a 12 pack

(51:42):
from them for $27.
The, the problem was the shippingis 18, so I added it up 27
and 18 37 45.
So you're at 45 for 12.
And then on Amazon itwas 20 or 36 for six.
So obviously if you wanna get it, go to go
to Manhattan Specials website,
but it's still so expensive, you know?

(52:04):
Mm-Hmm. What?
We just wanna tell youwhat the pricing is.
All right. Let's go to the orange.
- Crack it open,- Tara, go ahead.
- It tastes like orange. Tasteslike orange soda. .

(52:27):
See, I'd rather have,
I'd rather have theorange chatta Pellegrino.
- That's, that's pretty good though. Yeah.
- But it tastes like orange soda.
- I think Tara's being a little rough.
By the way, I've spoken this,I've spoken about in the past,
the, the companies thathave that built New York.
Built New York. Okay. Youthink of like polio. Okay.

(52:47):
- Ron Zoni.- Ron Zoni.
Well, Ron Zonis, I think islater, uh, Boar's Head. Okay.
There's a whole bunch of 'em.
A whole bunch of 'em that I'm forgetting.
This is one of those companies.
This company is foundedin the 1890s Mm-Hmm.
- .- And they're still around. Yeah.
- That's pretty cool. Like- They didn't
sell out to anybody. Yeah. You know?
- No, that's, that'spretty cool. I like that.

(53:09):
I wanna, I wanna try the
- Entons.
That's another one. They sold out.
They're no longer entons anymore.
- I do like Entons. All right.
This is the one I wanna try. Yeah.
- And let's see if they sayanything for ingredients here.
Uh, nope. There's nothing.
Um, contains carbonated water,pure coffee, cane sugar,

(53:30):
caramel color and preservatives.
Potassium sorbate sodium ate. So, yeah.
They're not revealing anything. Tara.
I could smell that right when I opened
that, I got a whiff of it.
- Mm-Hmm. .
Hmm. Yeah.
It tastes like, I have to say,
I'm very underwhelmed with all of these.

(53:52):
It tastes like carbonated coffee,
carbonated iced coffee, soda.
That's very sweet. But honestly,I think I could go the rest
of my life and not have an any one
of those three and be okay with it.
Well, yeah. They taste, they taste good.
They don't taste bad.

(54:13):
Like I expected thisto, I expected it to be
like, blown away by how good it was.
- I've had these before. Yeah.
- Um, because I love coffee.I, it's just, it's okay to me.
- I mean, I remember whenI was working in the city,
some people would have these Yeah.
But I never, like, really,
I think I had maybe a couple times,

(54:34):
I was never like reallydrawn to buying them.
Mm-Hmm. . I feel like the
labeling used to be very different too.
I used to remember itbeing like bright yellow.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don'tknow. Maybe I'm wrong. Yeah.
I can't remember. So, let's see.
Yeah, Rome 1925 goldmedal, whatever that means.
Since 1895. Yeah.
So that's when it, that'swhen it started in,

(54:57):
uh, in the United States.
- I could see there beingnostalgia kind of tied
to something like this.
- I had a, um, teacher,his, uh, name was Mr.
Aviano. He used to drink so
much chocolate soda.
Not this one. It was adifferent brand. What
- Is chocolate soda?

(55:18):
- I don't even know. He hadin the corner of the room,
he had like 30 boxes of like 12 liter,
like 12, you know, liters.
Separate liters. It was crazy.
He had so much, and he wouldalways have it in this big
styrofoam container every day.
But it must have tastedsomething similar to this.
It was probably like theknockoff of this one.
Maybe, you know? Yeah. Thisis like for a coffee d drink.

(55:40):
Try that. Doesn't wanna have a hot coffee.
- Yeah. I mean, honestly. All right.
So I could see that tastinggood on like a hot day
and it's like ice cold.
Yeah. But,
- So we had, we saw a lotof other ones when we were,
we picked these up at Uncle Giuseppe's.

(56:01):
They had about maybe eight more flavors.
We actually have a couplemore of them downstairs,
but we only wanted to do three today.
There was some other, uh, Italian sodas.
What was that one called? Mole. MOLE.
- I don't remember. It
- Was very, it was likecool mar like marketing.
It was, it was actually likemore prominent than this one.
So it must be a popularsoda in Italy. Mm-Hmm.
. Thisplace has so much stuff.

(56:23):
Like we could, we, you know,we could never run outta stuff,
but, you know, we don'twanna just strictly do those.
We, uh, actually the previous episode
we did Trader Joe's stuff.
But yeah, let us knowwhat you want us to do.
We can do Costco stuff,we can do whatever.
Um, if there's something like that you
specifically are lookingfor us to try, maybe
that you're having a hard time finding
or locating, we would love to do it.

(56:43):
I'm not gonna lie, I do enjoy doing these.
Uh, and we are trying tobe honest with you, I tend
to agree with Tara here.
Um, I was expecting more.
- Yeah. I just, I mean, ittastes like regular soda.
Like, I,
- I don't really know howyou make that better though.
That, that's kind of the thing. No,
- I don't think- You, it's,
it's good for what it is. Yeah.

(57:03):
- I don't know any other brand
that makes like a coffee soda.
Yeah. So it's really just this.
So if you want a coffee soda, then yeah.
Get a Manhattan special.But as far as like,
I know you really like the cream soda.
It tasted like, it tastedlike cream soda to me.
And the orange tasted like orange.
- The orange to me tastedexactly like orange
Fanta or, or whatever.

(57:25):
Uh, the cream soda isprobably the best cream
soda I've ever had.
Not that I'm a huge cream soda drinker.
And this one I don't reallyhave anything to compare it to.
'cause that's the onlyone I've ever had. These
- Are using, they'reusing cane sugar, right?
Yeah. So it's using cane sugar.
So it's better than the high fructose corn

(57:45):
syrup, right? Yeah.
- Yeah. I mean, o obviouslywe, we'd all be fine.
We'd all be better offif we didn't drink soda.
So that's kind of the predicament
that these companies are in.
You know, he is selling aproduct that is not really, uh,
it's not necessary foryour life support .
You know, it's not, yeah.
It's not like, you know,it's not, it's not as bad
as cigarettes, but it's not like it's
something that's good for you either.

(58:07):
- Speaking of soda, I actuallyreally like some of the
pro pre or probiotic sodasthat are out like Poppy
and Ali Pop.
So if anybody wants usto taste test those,
yeah. Let us know.
- I'm down, I'm down for the taste test.
So leave your comments,questions, complaints, criticisms,

(58:27):
anything that you have for us
to [e-mail].
It's the easiest way to reach us.
You can also though DM meon Instagram with questions,
video questions, what have you.
Let us know if you want somethingelse for us to taste test.
We wanna wish you a happy Easter.

(58:47):
This episode ha is coming out over a week
before Easter, so we'll, wish you another.
Happy Easter in nextweek's episode. Mm-Hmm.
, right, Tara?Mm-Hmm. .
Because we didn't wanna putout, we didn't wanna put this
episode out the day before Easter.
We feel like it wouldn'tgive you any chance. Yeah.
So there'll be another episode coming
out one day before Easter.
- That's right. We don't knowwhat that episode's about

(59:08):
yet, but Yeah.
- We haven't planned that one out. Yep.
We don't, we're not that far ahead. No.
- .- We'll see you next time. .