December 18, 2013 • 44 mins
Pie is an ancient food that began as a utilitarian and often inedible necessity and evolved over centuries into its current role as a sweet treat and dessert nemesis of cake. Cristen and Caroline get in the holiday cooking spirit by examining the anthropology of pie as well as its many gendered layers.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from housetopporks dot com.
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,
and since the holidays have arrived, we decided to talk
about pie for an entire podcast. That's right, it's history.
(00:26):
It's very multifaceted, beautiful, tasty, bubbly history. Yes, and there's
lots of gender involved with piemaking that we'll get into later.
But first off, Caroline, I want to ask you what
your favorite pie is or do you have a favorite pie.
Are you more of a cake person? Well, I gotta
(00:46):
say I was not a pie fan. When I was
growing up. We didn't really do pies in the urban household.
We were cake people. Um, so pecan pie was as
adventurous as we would get. Honestly, I gotta say I
just prefer cake. Really, So, you don't have a favorite pie, no,
(01:07):
unless chocolate is involved, really, then that's my only stipulation.
Oh yeah, chocolate can absolutely be involved in a pie.
Let me tell you in fact, Caroline, baking fact about
your co host Kristen, I will not refer to myself
in the third person anymore. Is that my family, like
(01:28):
known recipe that I and I alone make is a
French silk pie chocolate pie, and make my own whip
cream topping, which is not a part of the recipe.
I just put it on top because what makes a
pie better than whipped cream? Nothing? Yeah, absolutely nothing. Um So,
even though my family isn't a super heavy and desserts,
(01:50):
my mom always enjoyed baking and so I kind of
inherited that from her. And I love a good pie.
I love a good pie. And you know what I'm
gonna say, I prefer pie to cake because it's not
as heavy as cake. Yeah. Wow. See, I feel like
pie with its pastry crust and it's lattice work and
(02:13):
it's uey gouey nous like pie is kind of heavy.
We can we're gonna have to agree to disagree wars. Well,
you know, it's not heavy actually, so I take back
some of what I said. My mom does quote unquote
make a pie sometimes lemon ice box pie, but nothing
about it is homemade. So it's the store about crust
(02:35):
and it is like the jello, you know, putting lemon
pudding stuff with a cool whip on top, and my
dad eats it. He's the only one who eats it.
That actually sounds pretty good to me. But I guess
it's only confirmation that I'm I'm a pie person, I'm
a pie lady. But one thing, though, that is indisputable
is that pie at least beats cake in terms of
(02:57):
historical longevity. Pies have been around for so long. Yeah,
and they are very significant too, pretty much every culture
that has come before us. Yeah. We learned some tasty
historical facts about pie from the American Pie Council, because yes,
there's a pie lobby that exists, and also from the
New York Times, both of which describe how pie has
(03:20):
been around since the ancient Egyptians. I feel like the
ancient Egyptians always factor into our stuff. I've never told
you conversations. Um, And it was a very old culinary invention.
Janet Clarkson, who wrote Pie a Global History, says that
once upon a time, everything baked in the oven that
(03:42):
was not a bread was a pie, right And and
because the way that things had to be cooked and preserved,
I mean, it's not like there were refrigerators or regular
ovens hanging around, so often food would be put into
this sort of terrible sounding clay like pastry and and
(04:02):
baked in an effort to preserve it. And the first
pies were actually made by early Romans who then may
have learned about it through the Greeks. So we think
we're the originators of the pastry shell, which they made
by combining flour and water, which sounds like such a
basic thing. Obviously it's kind of a cornerstone fundamental of baking.
(04:24):
But that flower and water combo was pretty revolutionary, and
those pies using a pastry shell very rudimentary. Pastry shell
would have been a step above what they used to do,
which would have simply been wrapping reads or large leafs
around meats in particular to preserve its juicy goodness. Just
(04:47):
put that pie in some grass, yeah, grass pie, or
it sounds like what I used to make in the
backyard of the child. Um. Anyways, the speaking of the Romans,
they enjoyed meat pies during the dessert course, so pie
was still a dessert for them, but it was it
was meaty, not not berry ish. Um. And the first
published Roman pie recipe was for goat, cheese and honey pie,
(05:10):
which to me actually sounds incredible. Yeah, that sounds very good.
And Cato the Elder, for instance, wrote about the most
popular pie of his time, which was called placenta placenta pie.
You read about this in day Agricultura. And I don't
have the recipe for placenta in front of me, but
I believe it is one of those savory pies that
(05:34):
would have come out during the secun di mensa or
that dessert course. And I can only imagine the visual
now being created in listeners minds by the two words
placenta pie. Well, I know what's being created in mine. Well,
so anyway, um, let's let's travel to England in the
twelfth century up pies. That's when pies originally appeared. And
(05:58):
of course they were spelled very early English e with
a y instead of an eye, and they were predominantly
meat pies. We really don't get into sweet fruity pies
until a lot later and during the Middle Ages. The
pie crust, like I was saying earlier, was more of
a baking dish. It was kind of a container and
food preserver, and it was so sturdy that cooks actually
(06:19):
might have reused it from time to time. Yeah, there's
some medieval text talking about how the poorer masses might
have gotten the discards of this really thick, almost inedible
pie crust from wealthier people's pies, but this was because
of how meat was cooked at the time. It was
(06:41):
cooked on an open spit, which rendered it drier and
smaller because all those juices were being released, and so
people started wrapping it up to yeah, to keep that
almost like a pot pie, to keep all that that meaty,
juicy goodness inside. And they called this bake meat m
(07:03):
e t E. And so for hundreds of years, this
primitive pie crust was really the only type of baking
dish available. And fun fact, because it really served as
a dish for your food rather than something that would
enhance the flavor of say a dessert, the crust of
pie was referred to as a coffin. Mm hmmm, yeah,
(07:29):
that's weird and morbid. Well because at that time coffin
simply denoted baskets, right, um well, Often these meaty pies
were made using foul and the legs This is I
just the legs were left to hang over the side
of the dish and used as handles, which also indicates
(07:50):
how tough those pie p y e crusts were at
the time. Um, but when we move into the fourteen century,
By this point the Oxford English Dictionary notes that pie
had become a popular word. So clearly, you know, people
were eating pie. There was a lot of pie going around.
And then in the sixteenth century in England we have
(08:13):
the emergence of fruit pies or tarts also called pasties.
And I love this English tradition credits the making of
the first cherry pie to Queen Elizabeth the first. Is
she the type? Is she the type too have made
a pie? I don't see Queen Elizabeth a verse making
(08:34):
a pie at all. I don't either, But I mean,
I guess those are the kinds of benefits you get
if you are a queen. People just say you do
marvelous things such as make the first cherry pie. Yeah,
and I would have asked Queen Elizabeth, I would have
accepted that compliment, and I would have saiden. Indeed, these days,
if you were queen, your your special thing would probably
(08:55):
be in contemporary terms of be like Queen Caroline. You, oh, yes,
you invented working. Of course, he took the first selfie.
You're exactly right, I actually take credit for t working anyway,
um and working selfies. That's right. So speaking of pie
(09:15):
events in the sixteenth century, apple pie is mentioned in
the fift eighty nine poem by Our Green Thy Breath
is like the scheme of apple pies hot cinnamon bra
basically um. But pies also took a weird turn around
this time as well, because there was a meat pie craze.
(09:39):
This was described in an article in The l A
Times talking about the history of pot pies, and it
mentions that a mid sixteenth century cookbook included a recipe
for a and just vegetarians and vegans listening, you might
want to put down your headphones right now because it
was a five bird pie, in which each bird was
(10:03):
stuffed inside the other bird, and then all of that
wrapped up in in a pie. So like the predecessor
to a turre duck in yes, but pie, but pie,
but that could only be topped by pies that would
contain live birds and animals. This was like a really
(10:25):
fun party trick for super rich people. They would say,
make me a pie with with live snakes inside of it. Yeah,
like Indiana gents. Um, Well, at least it wasn't monkey brains,
I guess. But I mean they also had people popping
out of pies. I mean the we think of like
the cheesy woman popping out of a cake today, But
(10:48):
people did pop out of these pies. They did not
go through the oven. But yeah, there are stories about
like little people popping out of pies and then serving
as the court jester, or a young woman who popped
out of a pie and she was bound to symbolize
like the religious constraints of of the pope. You know,
they got elaborate with these pies. Yeah, that whole nursery.
(11:10):
I'm about a sing a song of sixpence that talks
about how many four blackbirds baked in a pie that
is in reference to these quote unquote surprise pies that
are full of surprises, and by surprises live animals and people. Well,
so do you eat? Was there anything once the birds
flew out of the pie? Was there anything to eat
(11:31):
in it? Because I'd be afraid there would just be
a lot of bird dudo inside of it. Well, probably
if you were at a feast hosted by someone as
wealthy as to have one of these surprise pies I'm imagining.
And also because like medieval tapestries would show this that
there would be a table before you laden with other dishes.
So maybe it's you know that sounds delicious, Yeah, minus
(11:53):
the birds that are flying the minus minus the bird
poop from all of those. But that's a general life policy, yes, yes, um. Well, so,
speaking of cakes, also, cakes were not the original wedding food.
Before wedding cakes, bride pies were popular in England the
seventeenth century. Bride pies were probably actually savory rather than sweet,
(12:18):
and there was a tradition of putting a glass ring
inside them and whatever woman got a piece with the
ring was said to be the next bride. Also sounds dangerous,
uh in terms of tooth chipping. Well, judging by how
fast I tend to eat pastries and pies, I would
probably suck that sucker down. You just swallow it. Yeah, okay,
(12:40):
But we have that shift though toward the popularity of
the wedding cake, as well as the tradition of the
white wedding dress with the marriage of Queen Victoria to
Prince Albert in eighteen forty. But one of the reasons
too why you would have savory bride pies as opposed
to wedding cakes is because of the price of sugar.
(13:03):
The price of sugar was very high. Um. But Queen
Victoria had a nine foot tall wedding cake that I
believe wied five pounds um. But a lot of this
was the product of people donating goods to this royal
wedding feast, because even for a queen, all that sweet
(13:26):
cake would have been such an exorbitant expense. Wells, you
know when when the English colonists moved over to America,
they brought the pie tradition with them. This is coming
again from the American Pie Council in the New York
Times and Time magazine. The colonists basically eight pie out
of necessity because it was an incredibly calorie dense food
(13:49):
and like we said, it could preserve quite a few
of their food items. Yeah. And Andrew F. Smith, who's
a food historian and author, said that the crust was
a bit of a problem because there were none of
the old World grains. But if settlers had a pie
ton and maze, that worked. And he talks about how
(14:09):
pies use less flour than bread and could be easily
and cheaply baked. And again, though these early American pie
crusts weren't so much intended to be eaten as designed
to hold the filling during the baking and during the
American Revolution the term crust was used instead of coffin,
So we're still having evolution of pie making, even as
(14:34):
the crust part is still not so much delectable. Well,
and plus, I mean, pie was your handy dandy finger
food because before the mid mid eight hundreds, most Americans
didn't have forks. We went for a long time in
our nation's history without having many forks. So we were
a nation founded upon hot pockets escension. Yeah, I I
(15:00):
think that we. Yes, this episode is brought to you
by hot pockets. Now, even though most Americans didn't have
works before the mid nineteenth century, what we did have,
though was pumpkin pie. Because the first recipe known recipe
at least for pumpkin pie, was written in the seventeenth
(15:20):
century in England, and it was really just like, hey,
we've got this the squash, spice it up, put it
in one of your coffins, and bought a boom. You've
got pumpkin pie. But then when we come over to
the America's it wasn't popularized over here until the early
eighteen hundreds. Yeah, it originated from the delectable British spiced
(15:43):
and boiled squash. Boiled, they boiled it. Oh that we
get a self in it somehow, Well I guess yeah, yeah,
you're you're not wrong. Um. But apple pie another another favorite.
It's an old world fruit introduced by the colonists, and
apple pies could be saved over the wind tore and
ice houses. So it was a great sweet, as we said,
(16:04):
calorie riffic treat that they could rely on to get
them through long cold winters. Yeah. But speaking of that
sweet treat, one of the appeals of an apple pie
maybe was that it was naturally sweet, because again, these
old World pies would not have had the benefit of
of sugar because again the price of sugar was so
(16:27):
high for so long, so instead of using sugar, the
initial pies sweeteners would have been things like maple syrup
and molasses. Although once the price of sugar started to
drop in the United States in the mid eighteen hundreds,
you have more and more sweeter pies take over. Because
in seventeen a cookbook from the time listed only three
(16:49):
types of sweet pies, but then by the late eighteen hundreds.
You only have still eight types of sweet pies, But
by nineteen forty seven, the modern Encyclopedia of King list
sixty five different varieties of sweet pies. Yeah, and that
Graham cracker crust that my mother buys from the grocery
store to use in my father's weird jello lemon ice
(17:12):
box pies. It's infinitely easier than a pastry cut crust.
But it's relatively new, and it didn't come around until
about the nineteen thirties, and it was it was very
controversial among pie people. But I'm going to go ahead
and say it. A Graham cracker crust is just so good. Well,
I think in my mind a Graham cracker crust is
(17:33):
second only to an Oreo crust. Oh, I agree with
you there. Yeah, that's another thing about my signature French
silk pie. I'll make an Oreo crust for it. Well. No,
my my aunt every year makes for Thanksgiving. Her specialty
is making a cheesecake, a beautiful plain cheesecake with an
oreo crust, and it is I could eat the whole thing.
But here is here's a fun fact about American pie traditions.
(17:57):
Because the most popular hi in the United States is
the apple pie. There's a whole saying of as American
as apple pie. We've got bye bye miss American pie.
You know, we're all about apple pie over here. But
it was not America's first beloved pie. In fact, George
(18:18):
Washington himself was not an apple pie guy so much
as a sweetbread pie, which means that old Martha Washington
because this was in one of her rescue books. She
liked to make a sweetbread pie pie for Georgie boy.
But sweetbreads are not so sweet as savory because they
(18:39):
are animal intestines. Yeah, like organ meats. Oh, what's worse?
Birds popping out of your pie or organ meats? Well,
I well, at least you wouldn't have to eat the
empty bird crust thing crust pie. So contrary to all
of this American lore about apple pies being the most
(18:59):
American thing, it was actually mince pie that was America's
number one treat during the nineteenth and early twentieth century,
and mince pie had some surprises in it, namely rum yeah.
During prohibition. In fact, mince pie became sort of like
a bootleggers delight because, as pointed out in a great
(19:21):
article on the history of mince pie in the Chicago Reader.
A nineteen nineteen article in the Chicago Tribune reported that
the average alcohol content of canned mints like the filling
the mince pie filling, the alcohol content was fourteen point
one two per cent. That's that's a heavy pie. Yeah,
(19:44):
that is a heavy pie. But before then, though, Americans
were already crazy about mince pie. I mean, what was
it there was? Oh yeah, there was an eighteen eighty
article in the Montpellier Argus and Patriot that said, mince pie,
like masonry, arouses curiosity from the mystery attaching to it.
(20:05):
It's popularity shall never wane until faith is lost in sight.
That's how much we loved mince pie. Yeah, and the
guy in the Reader was comparing the downfall, the fading
out of the mince pie popularity too if we suddenly
just decided to stop eating cheeseburgers as a nation, Like
(20:26):
it was that popular and that ingrained in our diet.
But it was also similar to us loving cheeseburgers so much,
we also knew that it wasn't so good for us
because mince pie is essentially a combination of animal fat
and sort of roast beef ish type of meat ground up,
(20:48):
and then you had a bunch of spices and obviously
a lot of booze if it's during prohibition, and you
bake it all together. And this guy in the Chicago
Reader baked his own mince pie and he enjoyed it
for its fatty, spicy goodness. Um. But there were some
strange things that were going along with this mince pie craze,
(21:09):
such as Albert Allen's mince pie defense in nineteen o seven. Yeah,
so Alan was in Chicago and he used mince pie
as a defense for fatally shooting his wife in nineteen
oh seven. He said that he was this mince pie
had created such bad nightmares that he was like gambling
and someone was trying to steal money from him, and
(21:30):
so he wanted in his dream, wanted to shoot the guy.
And he woke up and he had shot his wife dead. Yeah.
And there was another case where a guy on a
boat died and at first I thought there was foul play,
but it turned out that he had just eaten way
too much mince pie. And so for that reason, there
were all these warnings about the bizarre side effects of
(21:52):
eating mince pie because apparently you couldn't eat just one piece.
All these stories about people eating like entire mints pies, um,
and it led to things like, of course indigestion, but
also nightmares, hallucinations, and even just death. Reading that Chicago
Reader article and you know, reading all of the ingredients
(22:14):
that the guy used, I mean the amount of animal fat,
like weird, weird animal fat that he put into it.
I'm sure it did like instantly clog your arteries, but
I can also imagine how savory that probably is as well. Again,
vegetarians and vegans, I'm sorry, but the topic of our
(22:36):
Thanksgiving podcast, The Mother of Thanksgiving herself, Sarah Josepha Hale,
makes an appearance in the mince pie craze. Yeah. She
wrote in eight forty one in the Victorian American cookbook
The Good Housekeeper, the dangers of eating too much of
this pie, well pie in general, right, not just mince pie. Um.
(22:59):
She talked out how people of delicate constitutions um should
not eat pie because it would injure them, and that
the nature of pastry is just indigestible, and so she
said it would really be a great improvement in the
matter of health if people would eat their delicious summer
fruits with good light bread instead of working up the
flour with water and butter to a compound that almost
(23:20):
defies the digestive powers and baking therein the fruits till
they lose nearly all their fine original flavor. So Americans
have been panicking about the national diet for ever. It
seems like yeah, well, especially since they tied it into
like doing crazy things like eating poorly and drinking too
much made you just act like a crazy person. Well,
(23:42):
and also at the turn of the century there was
this movement towards more exercise for people focusing on diet.
I mean, speaking of graham crackers, you have the invention
of the graham cracker that was supposed to be you know,
that your staple food that you kind of lived off
up to be healthier. So men's pies bore some of
(24:02):
the brunt for that. And also just at that time,
people were making a lot of pies because for so
long it was the standard way that we ate food. Um,
but piemaking did go through a twentieth century declined because
of things like women entering the workforce, and so we
(24:25):
didn't have all that time to make pies. I know,
I can't imagine. I can't imagine the amount of time
dedicated to cooking all of these meals every day, cooking
elaborate pies from scratch. Um. Pie making did rebound a
little bit after World War Two because modern food advances
appeared that made pie making easier. You have things like shortening,
(24:47):
You have ready made crusts, box mixes, and instant pudding.
You have refrigeration. Although all of those post World War
Two innovations that were so time changing and revolutionary in
those kids at the time, would now be very much
looked down upon by modern piemakers who are all about
going old school with no shortening and using good butter
(25:11):
and flour. Um. And apparently there was in the nineteen
eighties a pie revival, it's according to the History Kitchen,
and I feel like pie making and baking is really
regaining a lot of attention today as well. But it's
funny to look back and see that the most popular
(25:31):
pies in our country still hearken back to those earlier
eras of needing to preserve food, living off of the land,
needing to have something to do with strange confounding gourds
like pumpkins because, according to a two thousand eight survey
from the American Pie Council and Crisco, U n of
Americans prefer apple pie, followed by pumpkin at thirteen, pecan
(25:55):
at twelve, banana cream at ten percent, and cherry at
nine percent. What I want to know is where are
the key lime pie lovers? Hello? Are you out there?
Because I'm sitting here because and I love a key
lime pie and pie. Maybe they had weird stipulations about
the ingredients. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know,
but I will say that cherry pie always makes me
(26:17):
think of twin peaks as well, and it makes me
crave cherry pie. God, I just want pie, Caroline, I know,
I really just want a lot of food. Right now,
I'm I'm yeah, it's pie hour and by that I
mean lunchtime. Um. But we've got to now talk about
gender and pie because there's a funny thing about pie
(26:40):
where in you don't see a lot of culinary evolution.
We're still eating the same pies that our forefathers and
four mothers were eating, and in a similar kind of way,
pie making the act of making a pie is still
very much linked specifically to the female all experience. Absolutely.
(27:03):
I mean, you know, back in the day, that's that's
who was in the kitchen making those pies, whether it
was from scratch or whether it was using those modern
pie advances. And a two thousand eight pie Slice of
Life survey Man two thousand eight was a big year
for pie surveys. I was conducted by Schwann's Consumer Brands
of North America. They asked survey respondents which mother would
(27:27):
make the best pie because obviously they you know, wouldn't
be which person It would have to be a stereotypical
TV mom. Yeah, of course. Well, so respondents said that
Carol Brady of the Brady Bunch of People picked her
to make the best pie of all the TV moms,
followed by The Cosby Shows Claire Huxtable with and to that,
(27:48):
I say, please, Claire Huxtable doesn't have time to make
up pie. She's a lawyer. I was thinking the same thing.
Well anyway. Coming in third with sixtent was Desperate Housewives
Brie van de Camp and Everybody Loves Raymonds Deborah Barrone
with We should also know, though, that the same survey
did also ask who makes the best pie. The number
(28:10):
one answer was mom, number two was, well, your grocery store,
and number three was Grandma. So again we have, uh,
you know, women making the pies. And there is a
book called Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? American Women
and the Kitchen in the twentieth Century by Mary Drake mcpheely,
and she talks about how in the rural America of
(28:34):
the past, a woman's reputation might be attached to her
piemaking skills. And she talks about this folk song called
Billy Boy, which I had forgotten that I knew. We
used to sing it when I was a kid, And
there's this verse about how well can she make a
cherry pie? Charming Billy because he's talking about this amazing
woman that he met, and it's like, well, yeah, she
(28:56):
might so be great and really pretty, but can she
bake you a pie? And he's like, yes, she can
make a pie. She's the apple of my eye. And
then they're like, Okay, in that case, Billy, go ahead
marry this woman, thank god, because who cares about any
other skills? Yeah? Um. But even though as home cooking
became less essential, mcpheeley says piemaking continue to be seen
(29:21):
as a measure of a woman's true value. Yeah, I
mean I think I think, uh, women are kind of
getting the chaft there if our our skills and our
value is based on our our cooking ability. Although I mean,
you know, like my mother and in our house has
always done all of the cooking, it just seems like
it's more of more of the woman's domain. And much
(29:45):
like Sarah Josefa Hale wanted Thanksgiving, for instance, to serve
as a time for women to show off their culinary
skills and really be able to get in there and
celebrate a holiday for once, pies were kind of that
bump up to It was like, you know, show off
your skills with lattice designs, crazy things with crazy pastry
(30:06):
shapes and things. Yeah, I feel like pie making is
deceptively difficult, because I've tried to make a number of
pies and honestly, one of the reasons why I make
French silk pie is because it's so simple. You literally
melt chocolate, melt butter, put in a bunch of sugar
and mix it until it's smooth and poured into an
(30:29):
oreo shell or whatever. Gonna shell you want. But to
make a fruit pie one that has that thick but gooey,
perfect filling, and to do something like a lattice work
I have tried and failed so many times, and it
might taste okay, But to make a pie that looks
good and taste good is such a challenge. And I
(30:52):
feel like we always think that cakes are so impressive
because you they have to rise, and these these creations
are almost like just like the huge towers and you
have the frosting and all the stuff that's going on,
whereas pies might look so simple to pull off. But
I can see how in the complexity of actually making pies,
(31:15):
how that translates to being this sort of milestone culinary
task historically for women, because like, well, if you can
make a pie, then you must be good at other
things well. And I mean even the act of baking
is celebrated by some as a feminist act. Nigella Lawson,
(31:37):
famous TV cook, got slammed for saying that baking is
a feminist act. She said baking is the less applauded
of the cooking arts, whereas restaurants are a male province
to be celebrated. There's something intrinsically misogynistic about decrying a
tradition because it has always been female. I'm not being
entirely facetious when I say it's a feminist tract. But
(31:59):
speaking of feminism and pie making, we did find a
paper that looked into dessert making not so much as
a culinary action, what how that relates to women's gender roles,
but how we refer to women often in terms of
pie and other sweets. This is a paper by Caitlin
(32:22):
Hines called Rebaking the Pie but Woman as dessert metaphor,
and she talks about how, for instance, by eighteen sixty four,
the word tart, which is a type of pie, it
had the slang definition of a term of approval to
a young woman for whom some attraction is felt. And
you know, here women being referred to as slices of
(32:43):
pie or slices of cake, which Hinz talks about how
that implies objectification, sexual consumption, and that like pie, women
are simply meant for sharing. Yeah, she writes, as desserts,
women can be bomded, soldat, elaborately decorated, admired for their
outward appearance, dismissed as sinful, and decadent, etcetera, etcetera. And
(33:06):
she cites the late Alan Dundee's who was a UC
Berkeley anthropology professor, and basically he discusses the socially sanctioned
saccharine quality of females, which is confirmed later in life
by such terms of endearment a sweetheart, honeybunch, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And so basically, you know, saying that these terms, these
(33:28):
sugary terms, are a way to dismiss women, kind of
in one fell swoop. But I mean the thing is
that reading this paper about women as dessert metaphors, like
I understand it, there's obviously a lot of power in language,
and when you stop and think about the terms and
the slang that we used to refer to people who
(33:48):
are not exactly like ourselves, you can uncover some problematic
things in that. But with this whole conversation about piemaking
and whether or not my be wrong to call someone
sweetie pie, I think I don't think that that that's
the issue. I don't see anything wrong with you know,
(34:08):
women making pies. I love to make pies. I love
to eat pies. Um, I don't know, it's like where
I feel like when in reading that kind of uh analysis,
that kind of really specific analysis on the intersection of
pies and desserts and feminism, what did you think was it?
(34:29):
Is it kind of too much at that point? I
I mean I tried to keep an open mind reading
that paper, um, because I see what she's getting at
as far as using terminology, using slang to dismiss women
or or somehow reduce them. Um. But yeah, I mean
it's it's it's the paper talking about women as pastry.
(34:53):
But that ties perfectly back to what Nigella Lawson was
saying in terms of don't dismiss baking as a less
legitimate or respectable form of a culinary art compared to
something like molecular gastronomy, something that seems you know, more scientific,
um or or more male you know. Um. So it's
(35:16):
fascinating when you sit and think about the gender politics
tied up with pie, because even today it's still considered
a female province, the making of the pie. There was
this blog post over at Chow from two thousand seven
talking about cookbook that was put out at the time
by Patti Pinner called Sweetie Pies, an uncommon collection of
(35:39):
womanish observations with pie and the blogger Karaz Wauro talks
about how the entire cookbook is a gender specific spin
on the art of pie baking. Yeah, she quotes Pinner
who says, uh that she is a descendant of that
generation where a woman's appear, arn's manner, and domestic prowess
(36:02):
were synonymous with her feminine identity and that kind of
uh in light of talking about baking and a woman's
place and feminism and everything. I mean, that's kind of
that takes you aback for a minute. Um, But I
think penn Er is celebrating pies and baking and just
that that kind of artistry that goes along with it.
(36:23):
It is weird that she said that she's a descendant
of that generation where you're feminine identity was synonymous with
your domestic prowess. But it's I feel like we have
more maybe freedom to reclaim a lot of that stuff.
These days. There has been a revival of domestic arts,
(36:45):
whether it is pie making or baking, or knitting or canning,
whatever it might be. I feel like a lot of
women are circling back to these kinds of slower ways
of making things. In the home. Yeah, well, I mean yeah,
we've talked about stuff like that before, like even with
our Manic Pixie Dream Girl podcast, you know, where it's like, well,
(37:07):
you shouldn't dis you know, girly things or baking or
cupcakes just because they make you think of some type
of woman that you don't like, or you know whatever.
We shouldn't dismiss people's pastimes or eating habits or baking
habits just because we also tend to associate them with
(37:27):
a bygone era. Exactly. Yeah, And by the same token,
we shouldn't dismiss maybe men who want to get in
on the pie baking game. I for one would love
it if my boyfriend never wanted to make me a pie.
I should just ask him. I bet he just say,
baked me a pie. Bake me a pie, please, sir um.
But speaking of which, there was a recent post by
(37:49):
this guy, Brian O'Neill over the Post Gazette and m
He talks about how he made his very first pie.
He was like, I know, this probably doesn't sound like
a big deal to you, uh, he says. Quote. I
was born in nineteen fifty six, a member of one
of the last generations for which gender roles were rigidly defined,
at least in my house, and it was a celebratory
(38:11):
act for him. He was like, I I made an
apple pie and it was delicious, and I didn't make
the crust myself, but I still felt pretty cool doing
this thing that would have felt like a subversive act
for a man of my generation. Yeah. I mean if
he had done that, if he had been that age
the year he was born making that pie, people would
(38:32):
be like, what are you? Why are you doing that?
Let your wife do that? Why are you cooking that pie?
Where's your Betty Draper? You need some scotch? Go sit down. Um.
But speaking of male bakers, you know now we want
to hear from you, guys. We want to know whether
or not you're baking pies, ladies, anybody else. What's your
favorite pie? Do you enjoy piemaking? Are you more more
(38:55):
of a cake person like Caroline? I'm not gonna judge, really,
I don't discriminate against any sweets, but you know what,
it's so, there are plenty of people who prefer the
cake over the pie. I just I'm just more in
the pie camp, which may or may not have been
part of my interests of pursuing this podcast topic. Um,
(39:16):
but yet again, I do feel like pie is one
of those topics where it seems so simple and unassuming,
but when you start unpacking the history, there's so much. Yeah.
I mean, it fed entire cultures for centuries. It was
the way that people sustain themselves. That it was brought
(39:36):
to the New world. You know, it was entertainment. It
was yeah, so many different things. And bride pie, I
like that idea. Screw wedding cake, savory breade. I'll haven't
been spied my wedding. Please, So send us all of
your pie related thoughts and any pictures of pie. I'll
appreciate that any pie recipes, send them all our way.
(40:00):
Because it's the holidays and it's time to eat, folks.
So email us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters. You can also tweet
us tweet us pie picks at Mom's Stuff podcast, or
you can also message us on Facebook. And we've got
a couple of messages to share with you when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
to our letters. So we have a couple of letters
(40:26):
here from our episode on fecttion affection revolution, and this
first one is from Lisa. She writes, I am a
plus size woman, size twenty four, and I'm also a
teacher at local high school. I've always been self conscious
about my weight because I haven't always been plus size.
I realized that I have a great power to influence
(40:47):
how young women see themselves just by the way that
I talk about and dress myself. Can it be hard
to find fashionable plus size clothes? You bet you, But
the hunt is with it for me. And I am
still young twenty seven, and I know that my students
are looking at me as a role model. What kind
of message would I send if I work clothes it
didn't fit properly, baggy or too tight, or if I
(41:09):
hunched and was constantly trying to hide my body. I'm
a fun, smart, likable person in my weight has nothing
to do with that. I try to look my best
every day so my students see that it doesn't matter
what size you are if you love yourself and love others.
I want to show them a woman who is not
ashamed of herself in any way, a woman who knows
it's what's inside your head and your heart that matters.
(41:30):
And how do I accomplish that by my demeanor, my carriage,
and my style. Let's stop worrying about our size and
worry more about our self worth and the messages we
are sending to the next generation of women. Here here, Lisa,
good for you. Um I have a letter here from
Danielle about our fashion episode, and I just want to
say thank you for including the picture of your freaking
(41:52):
adorable dog. I squealed. Um. So Danielle says, I'm an
overweight twenty three year old woman and I have struggle
with finding cute clothes that are well made for years.
I am so glad that you did a podcast on
the World of Fatchen And even though I'm a plus
size woman, I had never heard of the fatchan movement.
I don't know how that is even possible, but I
loved it. Although I'm one of the women who is
(42:14):
trying to get healthier and work out a few times
a week, which is when I tend to listen to
your podcast, I do love being able to find clothes
that fit my body now so that I can still
look and feel good while trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Also,
you ask for places to find cute plus size clothing,
and one site that I found that I really like
is simply be dot com. I just got a Christmas
(42:35):
dress from there and I'm eagerly awaiting. It's a rival
so awesome. Thank you for your letter, Daniel, and thanks
to everybody who's written in. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send your letters. You can
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, find us
on Facebook and like us while you're at it. We're
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(42:58):
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you should head over to YouTube and check us out
over there too. We're at YouTube dot com, slash stuff
Mom Never Told You, and don't forget to subscribe for
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(43:19):
works dot com. If you're a guy in need of
some new clothes, you should add over to jack Threads
dot com, which has quickly become the online shopping destination
for dudes and you want to know why. Everything on
(43:39):
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for get go to sign up Dot jack threads dot
(44:02):
com and skip that waitlist
Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from housetopporks dot com.
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,
and since the holidays have arrived, we decided to talk
about pie for an entire podcast. That's right, it's history.
(00:26):
It's very multifaceted, beautiful, tasty, bubbly history. Yes, and there's
lots of gender involved with piemaking that we'll get into later.
But first off, Caroline, I want to ask you what
your favorite pie is or do you have a favorite pie.
Are you more of a cake person? Well, I gotta
(00:46):
say I was not a pie fan. When I was
growing up. We didn't really do pies in the urban household.
We were cake people. Um, so pecan pie was as
adventurous as we would get. Honestly, I gotta say I
just prefer cake. Really, So, you don't have a favorite pie, no,
(01:07):
unless chocolate is involved, really, then that's my only stipulation.
Oh yeah, chocolate can absolutely be involved in a pie.
Let me tell you in fact, Caroline, baking fact about
your co host Kristen, I will not refer to myself
in the third person anymore. Is that my family, like
(01:28):
known recipe that I and I alone make is a
French silk pie chocolate pie, and make my own whip
cream topping, which is not a part of the recipe.
I just put it on top because what makes a
pie better than whipped cream? Nothing? Yeah, absolutely nothing. Um So,
even though my family isn't a super heavy and desserts,
(01:50):
my mom always enjoyed baking and so I kind of
inherited that from her. And I love a good pie.
I love a good pie. And you know what I'm
gonna say, I prefer pie to cake because it's not
as heavy as cake. Yeah. Wow. See, I feel like
pie with its pastry crust and it's lattice work and
(02:13):
it's uey gouey nous like pie is kind of heavy.
We can we're gonna have to agree to disagree wars. Well,
you know, it's not heavy actually, so I take back
some of what I said. My mom does quote unquote
make a pie sometimes lemon ice box pie, but nothing
about it is homemade. So it's the store about crust
(02:35):
and it is like the jello, you know, putting lemon
pudding stuff with a cool whip on top, and my
dad eats it. He's the only one who eats it.
That actually sounds pretty good to me. But I guess
it's only confirmation that I'm I'm a pie person, I'm
a pie lady. But one thing, though, that is indisputable
is that pie at least beats cake in terms of
(02:57):
historical longevity. Pies have been around for so long. Yeah,
and they are very significant too, pretty much every culture
that has come before us. Yeah. We learned some tasty
historical facts about pie from the American Pie Council, because yes,
there's a pie lobby that exists, and also from the
New York Times, both of which describe how pie has
(03:20):
been around since the ancient Egyptians. I feel like the
ancient Egyptians always factor into our stuff. I've never told
you conversations. Um, And it was a very old culinary invention.
Janet Clarkson, who wrote Pie a Global History, says that
once upon a time, everything baked in the oven that
(03:42):
was not a bread was a pie, right And and
because the way that things had to be cooked and preserved,
I mean, it's not like there were refrigerators or regular
ovens hanging around, so often food would be put into
this sort of terrible sounding clay like pastry and and
(04:02):
baked in an effort to preserve it. And the first
pies were actually made by early Romans who then may
have learned about it through the Greeks. So we think
we're the originators of the pastry shell, which they made
by combining flour and water, which sounds like such a
basic thing. Obviously it's kind of a cornerstone fundamental of baking.
(04:24):
But that flower and water combo was pretty revolutionary, and
those pies using a pastry shell very rudimentary. Pastry shell
would have been a step above what they used to do,
which would have simply been wrapping reads or large leafs
around meats in particular to preserve its juicy goodness. Just
(04:47):
put that pie in some grass, yeah, grass pie, or
it sounds like what I used to make in the
backyard of the child. Um. Anyways, the speaking of the Romans,
they enjoyed meat pies during the dessert course, so pie
was still a dessert for them, but it was it
was meaty, not not berry ish. Um. And the first
published Roman pie recipe was for goat, cheese and honey pie,
(05:10):
which to me actually sounds incredible. Yeah, that sounds very good.
And Cato the Elder, for instance, wrote about the most
popular pie of his time, which was called placenta placenta pie.
You read about this in day Agricultura. And I don't
have the recipe for placenta in front of me, but
I believe it is one of those savory pies that
(05:34):
would have come out during the secun di mensa or
that dessert course. And I can only imagine the visual
now being created in listeners minds by the two words
placenta pie. Well, I know what's being created in mine. Well,
so anyway, um, let's let's travel to England in the
twelfth century up pies. That's when pies originally appeared. And
(05:58):
of course they were spelled very early English e with
a y instead of an eye, and they were predominantly
meat pies. We really don't get into sweet fruity pies
until a lot later and during the Middle Ages. The
pie crust, like I was saying earlier, was more of
a baking dish. It was kind of a container and
food preserver, and it was so sturdy that cooks actually
(06:19):
might have reused it from time to time. Yeah, there's
some medieval text talking about how the poorer masses might
have gotten the discards of this really thick, almost inedible
pie crust from wealthier people's pies, but this was because
of how meat was cooked at the time. It was
(06:41):
cooked on an open spit, which rendered it drier and
smaller because all those juices were being released, and so
people started wrapping it up to yeah, to keep that
almost like a pot pie, to keep all that that meaty,
juicy goodness inside. And they called this bake meat m
(07:03):
e t E. And so for hundreds of years, this
primitive pie crust was really the only type of baking
dish available. And fun fact, because it really served as
a dish for your food rather than something that would
enhance the flavor of say a dessert, the crust of
pie was referred to as a coffin. Mm hmmm, yeah,
(07:29):
that's weird and morbid. Well because at that time coffin
simply denoted baskets, right, um well, Often these meaty pies
were made using foul and the legs This is I
just the legs were left to hang over the side
of the dish and used as handles, which also indicates
(07:50):
how tough those pie p y e crusts were at
the time. Um, but when we move into the fourteen century,
By this point the Oxford English Dictionary notes that pie
had become a popular word. So clearly, you know, people
were eating pie. There was a lot of pie going around.
And then in the sixteenth century in England we have
(08:13):
the emergence of fruit pies or tarts also called pasties.
And I love this English tradition credits the making of
the first cherry pie to Queen Elizabeth the first. Is
she the type? Is she the type too have made
a pie? I don't see Queen Elizabeth a verse making
(08:34):
a pie at all. I don't either, But I mean,
I guess those are the kinds of benefits you get
if you are a queen. People just say you do
marvelous things such as make the first cherry pie. Yeah,
and I would have asked Queen Elizabeth, I would have
accepted that compliment, and I would have saiden. Indeed, these days,
if you were queen, your your special thing would probably
(08:55):
be in contemporary terms of be like Queen Caroline. You, oh, yes,
you invented working. Of course, he took the first selfie.
You're exactly right, I actually take credit for t working anyway,
um and working selfies. That's right. So speaking of pie
(09:15):
events in the sixteenth century, apple pie is mentioned in
the fift eighty nine poem by Our Green Thy Breath
is like the scheme of apple pies hot cinnamon bra
basically um. But pies also took a weird turn around
this time as well, because there was a meat pie craze.
(09:39):
This was described in an article in The l A
Times talking about the history of pot pies, and it
mentions that a mid sixteenth century cookbook included a recipe
for a and just vegetarians and vegans listening, you might
want to put down your headphones right now because it
was a five bird pie, in which each bird was
(10:03):
stuffed inside the other bird, and then all of that
wrapped up in in a pie. So like the predecessor
to a turre duck in yes, but pie, but pie,
but that could only be topped by pies that would
contain live birds and animals. This was like a really
(10:25):
fun party trick for super rich people. They would say,
make me a pie with with live snakes inside of it. Yeah,
like Indiana gents. Um, Well, at least it wasn't monkey brains,
I guess. But I mean they also had people popping
out of pies. I mean the we think of like
the cheesy woman popping out of a cake today, But
(10:48):
people did pop out of these pies. They did not
go through the oven. But yeah, there are stories about
like little people popping out of pies and then serving
as the court jester, or a young woman who popped
out of a pie and she was bound to symbolize
like the religious constraints of of the pope. You know,
they got elaborate with these pies. Yeah, that whole nursery.
(11:10):
I'm about a sing a song of sixpence that talks
about how many four blackbirds baked in a pie that
is in reference to these quote unquote surprise pies that
are full of surprises, and by surprises live animals and people. Well,
so do you eat? Was there anything once the birds
flew out of the pie? Was there anything to eat
(11:31):
in it? Because I'd be afraid there would just be
a lot of bird dudo inside of it. Well, probably
if you were at a feast hosted by someone as
wealthy as to have one of these surprise pies I'm imagining.
And also because like medieval tapestries would show this that
there would be a table before you laden with other dishes.
So maybe it's you know that sounds delicious, Yeah, minus
(11:53):
the birds that are flying the minus minus the bird
poop from all of those. But that's a general life policy, yes, yes, um. Well, so,
speaking of cakes, also, cakes were not the original wedding food.
Before wedding cakes, bride pies were popular in England the
seventeenth century. Bride pies were probably actually savory rather than sweet,
(12:18):
and there was a tradition of putting a glass ring
inside them and whatever woman got a piece with the
ring was said to be the next bride. Also sounds dangerous,
uh in terms of tooth chipping. Well, judging by how
fast I tend to eat pastries and pies, I would
probably suck that sucker down. You just swallow it. Yeah, okay,
(12:40):
But we have that shift though toward the popularity of
the wedding cake, as well as the tradition of the
white wedding dress with the marriage of Queen Victoria to
Prince Albert in eighteen forty. But one of the reasons
too why you would have savory bride pies as opposed
to wedding cakes is because of the price of sugar.
(13:03):
The price of sugar was very high. Um. But Queen
Victoria had a nine foot tall wedding cake that I
believe wied five pounds um. But a lot of this
was the product of people donating goods to this royal
wedding feast, because even for a queen, all that sweet
(13:26):
cake would have been such an exorbitant expense. Wells, you
know when when the English colonists moved over to America,
they brought the pie tradition with them. This is coming
again from the American Pie Council in the New York
Times and Time magazine. The colonists basically eight pie out
of necessity because it was an incredibly calorie dense food
(13:49):
and like we said, it could preserve quite a few
of their food items. Yeah. And Andrew F. Smith, who's
a food historian and author, said that the crust was
a bit of a problem because there were none of
the old World grains. But if settlers had a pie
ton and maze, that worked. And he talks about how
(14:09):
pies use less flour than bread and could be easily
and cheaply baked. And again, though these early American pie
crusts weren't so much intended to be eaten as designed
to hold the filling during the baking and during the
American Revolution the term crust was used instead of coffin,
So we're still having evolution of pie making, even as
(14:34):
the crust part is still not so much delectable. Well,
and plus, I mean, pie was your handy dandy finger
food because before the mid mid eight hundreds, most Americans
didn't have forks. We went for a long time in
our nation's history without having many forks. So we were
a nation founded upon hot pockets escension. Yeah, I I
(15:00):
think that we. Yes, this episode is brought to you
by hot pockets. Now, even though most Americans didn't have
works before the mid nineteenth century, what we did have,
though was pumpkin pie. Because the first recipe known recipe
at least for pumpkin pie, was written in the seventeenth
(15:20):
century in England, and it was really just like, hey,
we've got this the squash, spice it up, put it
in one of your coffins, and bought a boom. You've
got pumpkin pie. But then when we come over to
the America's it wasn't popularized over here until the early
eighteen hundreds. Yeah, it originated from the delectable British spiced
(15:43):
and boiled squash. Boiled, they boiled it. Oh that we
get a self in it somehow, Well I guess yeah, yeah,
you're you're not wrong. Um. But apple pie another another favorite.
It's an old world fruit introduced by the colonists, and
apple pies could be saved over the wind tore and
ice houses. So it was a great sweet, as we said,
(16:04):
calorie riffic treat that they could rely on to get
them through long cold winters. Yeah. But speaking of that
sweet treat, one of the appeals of an apple pie
maybe was that it was naturally sweet, because again, these
old World pies would not have had the benefit of
of sugar because again the price of sugar was so
(16:27):
high for so long, so instead of using sugar, the
initial pies sweeteners would have been things like maple syrup
and molasses. Although once the price of sugar started to
drop in the United States in the mid eighteen hundreds,
you have more and more sweeter pies take over. Because
in seventeen a cookbook from the time listed only three
(16:49):
types of sweet pies, but then by the late eighteen hundreds.
You only have still eight types of sweet pies, But
by nineteen forty seven, the modern Encyclopedia of King list
sixty five different varieties of sweet pies. Yeah, and that
Graham cracker crust that my mother buys from the grocery
store to use in my father's weird jello lemon ice
(17:12):
box pies. It's infinitely easier than a pastry cut crust.
But it's relatively new, and it didn't come around until
about the nineteen thirties, and it was it was very
controversial among pie people. But I'm going to go ahead
and say it. A Graham cracker crust is just so good. Well,
I think in my mind a Graham cracker crust is
(17:33):
second only to an Oreo crust. Oh, I agree with
you there. Yeah, that's another thing about my signature French
silk pie. I'll make an Oreo crust for it. Well. No,
my my aunt every year makes for Thanksgiving. Her specialty
is making a cheesecake, a beautiful plain cheesecake with an
oreo crust, and it is I could eat the whole thing.
But here is here's a fun fact about American pie traditions.
(17:57):
Because the most popular hi in the United States is
the apple pie. There's a whole saying of as American
as apple pie. We've got bye bye miss American pie.
You know, we're all about apple pie over here. But
it was not America's first beloved pie. In fact, George
(18:18):
Washington himself was not an apple pie guy so much
as a sweetbread pie, which means that old Martha Washington
because this was in one of her rescue books. She
liked to make a sweetbread pie pie for Georgie boy.
But sweetbreads are not so sweet as savory because they
(18:39):
are animal intestines. Yeah, like organ meats. Oh, what's worse?
Birds popping out of your pie or organ meats? Well,
I well, at least you wouldn't have to eat the
empty bird crust thing crust pie. So contrary to all
of this American lore about apple pies being the most
(18:59):
American thing, it was actually mince pie that was America's
number one treat during the nineteenth and early twentieth century,
and mince pie had some surprises in it, namely rum yeah.
During prohibition. In fact, mince pie became sort of like
a bootleggers delight because, as pointed out in a great
(19:21):
article on the history of mince pie in the Chicago Reader.
A nineteen nineteen article in the Chicago Tribune reported that
the average alcohol content of canned mints like the filling
the mince pie filling, the alcohol content was fourteen point
one two per cent. That's that's a heavy pie. Yeah,
(19:44):
that is a heavy pie. But before then, though, Americans
were already crazy about mince pie. I mean, what was
it there was? Oh yeah, there was an eighteen eighty
article in the Montpellier Argus and Patriot that said, mince pie,
like masonry, arouses curiosity from the mystery attaching to it.
(20:05):
It's popularity shall never wane until faith is lost in sight.
That's how much we loved mince pie. Yeah, and the
guy in the Reader was comparing the downfall, the fading
out of the mince pie popularity too if we suddenly
just decided to stop eating cheeseburgers as a nation, Like
(20:26):
it was that popular and that ingrained in our diet.
But it was also similar to us loving cheeseburgers so much,
we also knew that it wasn't so good for us
because mince pie is essentially a combination of animal fat
and sort of roast beef ish type of meat ground up,
(20:48):
and then you had a bunch of spices and obviously
a lot of booze if it's during prohibition, and you
bake it all together. And this guy in the Chicago
Reader baked his own mince pie and he enjoyed it
for its fatty, spicy goodness. Um. But there were some
strange things that were going along with this mince pie craze,
(21:09):
such as Albert Allen's mince pie defense in nineteen o seven. Yeah,
so Alan was in Chicago and he used mince pie
as a defense for fatally shooting his wife in nineteen
oh seven. He said that he was this mince pie
had created such bad nightmares that he was like gambling
and someone was trying to steal money from him, and
(21:30):
so he wanted in his dream, wanted to shoot the guy.
And he woke up and he had shot his wife dead. Yeah.
And there was another case where a guy on a
boat died and at first I thought there was foul play,
but it turned out that he had just eaten way
too much mince pie. And so for that reason, there
were all these warnings about the bizarre side effects of
(21:52):
eating mince pie because apparently you couldn't eat just one piece.
All these stories about people eating like entire mints pies, um,
and it led to things like, of course indigestion, but
also nightmares, hallucinations, and even just death. Reading that Chicago
Reader article and you know, reading all of the ingredients
(22:14):
that the guy used, I mean the amount of animal fat,
like weird, weird animal fat that he put into it.
I'm sure it did like instantly clog your arteries, but
I can also imagine how savory that probably is as well. Again,
vegetarians and vegans, I'm sorry, but the topic of our
(22:36):
Thanksgiving podcast, The Mother of Thanksgiving herself, Sarah Josepha Hale,
makes an appearance in the mince pie craze. Yeah. She
wrote in eight forty one in the Victorian American cookbook
The Good Housekeeper, the dangers of eating too much of
this pie, well pie in general, right, not just mince pie. Um.
(22:59):
She talked out how people of delicate constitutions um should
not eat pie because it would injure them, and that
the nature of pastry is just indigestible, and so she
said it would really be a great improvement in the
matter of health if people would eat their delicious summer
fruits with good light bread instead of working up the
flour with water and butter to a compound that almost
(23:20):
defies the digestive powers and baking therein the fruits till
they lose nearly all their fine original flavor. So Americans
have been panicking about the national diet for ever. It
seems like yeah, well, especially since they tied it into
like doing crazy things like eating poorly and drinking too
much made you just act like a crazy person. Well,
(23:42):
and also at the turn of the century there was
this movement towards more exercise for people focusing on diet.
I mean, speaking of graham crackers, you have the invention
of the graham cracker that was supposed to be you know,
that your staple food that you kind of lived off
up to be healthier. So men's pies bore some of
(24:02):
the brunt for that. And also just at that time,
people were making a lot of pies because for so
long it was the standard way that we ate food. Um,
but piemaking did go through a twentieth century declined because
of things like women entering the workforce, and so we
(24:25):
didn't have all that time to make pies. I know,
I can't imagine. I can't imagine the amount of time
dedicated to cooking all of these meals every day, cooking
elaborate pies from scratch. Um. Pie making did rebound a
little bit after World War Two because modern food advances
appeared that made pie making easier. You have things like shortening,
(24:47):
You have ready made crusts, box mixes, and instant pudding.
You have refrigeration. Although all of those post World War
Two innovations that were so time changing and revolutionary in
those kids at the time, would now be very much
looked down upon by modern piemakers who are all about
going old school with no shortening and using good butter
(25:11):
and flour. Um. And apparently there was in the nineteen
eighties a pie revival, it's according to the History Kitchen,
and I feel like pie making and baking is really
regaining a lot of attention today as well. But it's
funny to look back and see that the most popular
(25:31):
pies in our country still hearken back to those earlier
eras of needing to preserve food, living off of the land,
needing to have something to do with strange confounding gourds
like pumpkins because, according to a two thousand eight survey
from the American Pie Council and Crisco, U n of
Americans prefer apple pie, followed by pumpkin at thirteen, pecan
(25:55):
at twelve, banana cream at ten percent, and cherry at
nine percent. What I want to know is where are
the key lime pie lovers? Hello? Are you out there?
Because I'm sitting here because and I love a key
lime pie and pie. Maybe they had weird stipulations about
the ingredients. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know,
but I will say that cherry pie always makes me
(26:17):
think of twin peaks as well, and it makes me
crave cherry pie. God, I just want pie, Caroline, I know,
I really just want a lot of food. Right now,
I'm I'm yeah, it's pie hour and by that I
mean lunchtime. Um. But we've got to now talk about
gender and pie because there's a funny thing about pie
(26:40):
where in you don't see a lot of culinary evolution.
We're still eating the same pies that our forefathers and
four mothers were eating, and in a similar kind of way,
pie making the act of making a pie is still
very much linked specifically to the female all experience. Absolutely.
(27:03):
I mean, you know, back in the day, that's that's
who was in the kitchen making those pies, whether it
was from scratch or whether it was using those modern
pie advances. And a two thousand eight pie Slice of
Life survey Man two thousand eight was a big year
for pie surveys. I was conducted by Schwann's Consumer Brands
of North America. They asked survey respondents which mother would
(27:27):
make the best pie because obviously they you know, wouldn't
be which person It would have to be a stereotypical
TV mom. Yeah, of course. Well, so respondents said that
Carol Brady of the Brady Bunch of People picked her
to make the best pie of all the TV moms,
followed by The Cosby Shows Claire Huxtable with and to that,
(27:48):
I say, please, Claire Huxtable doesn't have time to make
up pie. She's a lawyer. I was thinking the same thing.
Well anyway. Coming in third with sixtent was Desperate Housewives
Brie van de Camp and Everybody Loves Raymonds Deborah Barrone
with We should also know, though, that the same survey
did also ask who makes the best pie. The number
(28:10):
one answer was mom, number two was, well, your grocery store,
and number three was Grandma. So again we have, uh,
you know, women making the pies. And there is a
book called Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? American Women
and the Kitchen in the twentieth Century by Mary Drake mcpheely,
and she talks about how in the rural America of
(28:34):
the past, a woman's reputation might be attached to her
piemaking skills. And she talks about this folk song called
Billy Boy, which I had forgotten that I knew. We
used to sing it when I was a kid, And
there's this verse about how well can she make a
cherry pie? Charming Billy because he's talking about this amazing
woman that he met, and it's like, well, yeah, she
(28:56):
might so be great and really pretty, but can she
bake you a pie? And he's like, yes, she can
make a pie. She's the apple of my eye. And
then they're like, Okay, in that case, Billy, go ahead
marry this woman, thank god, because who cares about any
other skills? Yeah? Um. But even though as home cooking
became less essential, mcpheeley says piemaking continue to be seen
(29:21):
as a measure of a woman's true value. Yeah, I
mean I think I think, uh, women are kind of
getting the chaft there if our our skills and our
value is based on our our cooking ability. Although I mean,
you know, like my mother and in our house has
always done all of the cooking, it just seems like
it's more of more of the woman's domain. And much
(29:45):
like Sarah Josefa Hale wanted Thanksgiving, for instance, to serve
as a time for women to show off their culinary
skills and really be able to get in there and
celebrate a holiday for once, pies were kind of that
bump up to It was like, you know, show off
your skills with lattice designs, crazy things with crazy pastry
(30:06):
shapes and things. Yeah, I feel like pie making is
deceptively difficult, because I've tried to make a number of
pies and honestly, one of the reasons why I make
French silk pie is because it's so simple. You literally
melt chocolate, melt butter, put in a bunch of sugar
and mix it until it's smooth and poured into an
(30:29):
oreo shell or whatever. Gonna shell you want. But to
make a fruit pie one that has that thick but gooey,
perfect filling, and to do something like a lattice work
I have tried and failed so many times, and it
might taste okay, But to make a pie that looks
good and taste good is such a challenge. And I
(30:52):
feel like we always think that cakes are so impressive
because you they have to rise, and these these creations
are almost like just like the huge towers and you
have the frosting and all the stuff that's going on,
whereas pies might look so simple to pull off. But
I can see how in the complexity of actually making pies,
(31:15):
how that translates to being this sort of milestone culinary
task historically for women, because like, well, if you can
make a pie, then you must be good at other
things well. And I mean even the act of baking
is celebrated by some as a feminist act. Nigella Lawson,
(31:37):
famous TV cook, got slammed for saying that baking is
a feminist act. She said baking is the less applauded
of the cooking arts, whereas restaurants are a male province
to be celebrated. There's something intrinsically misogynistic about decrying a
tradition because it has always been female. I'm not being
entirely facetious when I say it's a feminist tract. But
(31:59):
speaking of feminism and pie making, we did find a
paper that looked into dessert making not so much as
a culinary action, what how that relates to women's gender roles,
but how we refer to women often in terms of
pie and other sweets. This is a paper by Caitlin
(32:22):
Hines called Rebaking the Pie but Woman as dessert metaphor,
and she talks about how, for instance, by eighteen sixty four,
the word tart, which is a type of pie, it
had the slang definition of a term of approval to
a young woman for whom some attraction is felt. And
you know, here women being referred to as slices of
(32:43):
pie or slices of cake, which Hinz talks about how
that implies objectification, sexual consumption, and that like pie, women
are simply meant for sharing. Yeah, she writes, as desserts,
women can be bomded, soldat, elaborately decorated, admired for their
outward appearance, dismissed as sinful, and decadent, etcetera, etcetera. And
(33:06):
she cites the late Alan Dundee's who was a UC
Berkeley anthropology professor, and basically he discusses the socially sanctioned
saccharine quality of females, which is confirmed later in life
by such terms of endearment a sweetheart, honeybunch, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And so basically, you know, saying that these terms, these
(33:28):
sugary terms, are a way to dismiss women, kind of
in one fell swoop. But I mean the thing is
that reading this paper about women as dessert metaphors, like
I understand it, there's obviously a lot of power in language,
and when you stop and think about the terms and
the slang that we used to refer to people who
(33:48):
are not exactly like ourselves, you can uncover some problematic
things in that. But with this whole conversation about piemaking
and whether or not my be wrong to call someone
sweetie pie, I think I don't think that that that's
the issue. I don't see anything wrong with you know,
(34:08):
women making pies. I love to make pies. I love
to eat pies. Um, I don't know, it's like where
I feel like when in reading that kind of uh analysis,
that kind of really specific analysis on the intersection of
pies and desserts and feminism, what did you think was it?
(34:29):
Is it kind of too much at that point? I
I mean I tried to keep an open mind reading
that paper, um, because I see what she's getting at
as far as using terminology, using slang to dismiss women
or or somehow reduce them. Um. But yeah, I mean
it's it's it's the paper talking about women as pastry.
(34:53):
But that ties perfectly back to what Nigella Lawson was
saying in terms of don't dismiss baking as a less
legitimate or respectable form of a culinary art compared to
something like molecular gastronomy, something that seems you know, more scientific,
um or or more male you know. Um. So it's
(35:16):
fascinating when you sit and think about the gender politics
tied up with pie, because even today it's still considered
a female province, the making of the pie. There was
this blog post over at Chow from two thousand seven
talking about cookbook that was put out at the time
by Patti Pinner called Sweetie Pies, an uncommon collection of
(35:39):
womanish observations with pie and the blogger Karaz Wauro talks
about how the entire cookbook is a gender specific spin
on the art of pie baking. Yeah, she quotes Pinner
who says, uh that she is a descendant of that
generation where a woman's appear, arn's manner, and domestic prowess
(36:02):
were synonymous with her feminine identity and that kind of
uh in light of talking about baking and a woman's
place and feminism and everything. I mean, that's kind of
that takes you aback for a minute. Um, But I
think penn Er is celebrating pies and baking and just
that that kind of artistry that goes along with it.
(36:23):
It is weird that she said that she's a descendant
of that generation where you're feminine identity was synonymous with
your domestic prowess. But it's I feel like we have
more maybe freedom to reclaim a lot of that stuff.
These days. There has been a revival of domestic arts,
(36:45):
whether it is pie making or baking, or knitting or canning,
whatever it might be. I feel like a lot of
women are circling back to these kinds of slower ways
of making things. In the home. Yeah, well, I mean yeah,
we've talked about stuff like that before, like even with
our Manic Pixie Dream Girl podcast, you know, where it's like, well,
(37:07):
you shouldn't dis you know, girly things or baking or
cupcakes just because they make you think of some type
of woman that you don't like, or you know whatever.
We shouldn't dismiss people's pastimes or eating habits or baking
habits just because we also tend to associate them with
(37:27):
a bygone era. Exactly. Yeah, And by the same token,
we shouldn't dismiss maybe men who want to get in
on the pie baking game. I for one would love
it if my boyfriend never wanted to make me a pie.
I should just ask him. I bet he just say,
baked me a pie. Bake me a pie, please, sir um.
But speaking of which, there was a recent post by
(37:49):
this guy, Brian O'Neill over the Post Gazette and m
He talks about how he made his very first pie.
He was like, I know, this probably doesn't sound like
a big deal to you, uh, he says. Quote. I
was born in nineteen fifty six, a member of one
of the last generations for which gender roles were rigidly defined,
at least in my house, and it was a celebratory
(38:11):
act for him. He was like, I I made an
apple pie and it was delicious, and I didn't make
the crust myself, but I still felt pretty cool doing
this thing that would have felt like a subversive act
for a man of my generation. Yeah. I mean if
he had done that, if he had been that age
the year he was born making that pie, people would
(38:32):
be like, what are you? Why are you doing that?
Let your wife do that? Why are you cooking that pie?
Where's your Betty Draper? You need some scotch? Go sit down. Um.
But speaking of male bakers, you know now we want
to hear from you, guys. We want to know whether
or not you're baking pies, ladies, anybody else. What's your
favorite pie? Do you enjoy piemaking? Are you more more
(38:55):
of a cake person like Caroline? I'm not gonna judge, really,
I don't discriminate against any sweets, but you know what,
it's so, there are plenty of people who prefer the
cake over the pie. I just I'm just more in
the pie camp, which may or may not have been
part of my interests of pursuing this podcast topic. Um,
(39:16):
but yet again, I do feel like pie is one
of those topics where it seems so simple and unassuming,
but when you start unpacking the history, there's so much. Yeah.
I mean, it fed entire cultures for centuries. It was
the way that people sustain themselves. That it was brought
(39:36):
to the New world. You know, it was entertainment. It
was yeah, so many different things. And bride pie, I
like that idea. Screw wedding cake, savory breade. I'll haven't
been spied my wedding. Please, So send us all of
your pie related thoughts and any pictures of pie. I'll
appreciate that any pie recipes, send them all our way.
(40:00):
Because it's the holidays and it's time to eat, folks.
So email us. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
where you can send your letters. You can also tweet
us tweet us pie picks at Mom's Stuff podcast, or
you can also message us on Facebook. And we've got
a couple of messages to share with you when we
come right back from a quick break and now back
to our letters. So we have a couple of letters
(40:26):
here from our episode on fecttion affection revolution, and this
first one is from Lisa. She writes, I am a
plus size woman, size twenty four, and I'm also a
teacher at local high school. I've always been self conscious
about my weight because I haven't always been plus size.
I realized that I have a great power to influence
(40:47):
how young women see themselves just by the way that
I talk about and dress myself. Can it be hard
to find fashionable plus size clothes? You bet you, But
the hunt is with it for me. And I am
still young twenty seven, and I know that my students
are looking at me as a role model. What kind
of message would I send if I work clothes it
didn't fit properly, baggy or too tight, or if I
(41:09):
hunched and was constantly trying to hide my body. I'm
a fun, smart, likable person in my weight has nothing
to do with that. I try to look my best
every day so my students see that it doesn't matter
what size you are if you love yourself and love others.
I want to show them a woman who is not
ashamed of herself in any way, a woman who knows
it's what's inside your head and your heart that matters.
(41:30):
And how do I accomplish that by my demeanor, my carriage,
and my style. Let's stop worrying about our size and
worry more about our self worth and the messages we
are sending to the next generation of women. Here here, Lisa,
good for you. Um I have a letter here from
Danielle about our fashion episode, and I just want to
say thank you for including the picture of your freaking
(41:52):
adorable dog. I squealed. Um. So Danielle says, I'm an
overweight twenty three year old woman and I have struggle
with finding cute clothes that are well made for years.
I am so glad that you did a podcast on
the World of Fatchen And even though I'm a plus
size woman, I had never heard of the fatchan movement.
I don't know how that is even possible, but I
loved it. Although I'm one of the women who is
(42:14):
trying to get healthier and work out a few times
a week, which is when I tend to listen to
your podcast, I do love being able to find clothes
that fit my body now so that I can still
look and feel good while trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Also,
you ask for places to find cute plus size clothing,
and one site that I found that I really like
is simply be dot com. I just got a Christmas
(42:35):
dress from there and I'm eagerly awaiting. It's a rival
so awesome. Thank you for your letter, Daniel, and thanks
to everybody who's written in. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot
com is where you can send your letters. You can
follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast, find us
on Facebook and like us while you're at it. We're
on Tumbler as well at stuff Mom Never Told You
dot tumbler dot com, and also on Instagram. Oh please
(42:58):
instagram us your pie pick shore as we are at
stuff Mom Never Told You. And last, but certainly not least,
you should head over to YouTube and check us out
over there too. We're at YouTube dot com, slash stuff
Mom Never Told You, and don't forget to subscribe for
more on this and thousands of other topics, How stuff
(43:19):
works dot com. If you're a guy in need of
some new clothes, you should add over to jack Threads
dot com, which has quickly become the online shopping destination
for dudes and you want to know why. Everything on
(43:39):
the site is up to eight off, including apparel from
cool brands like Converse, Penguin and Busted Teas and right
now for stuff Mom never told you. Listeners, you can
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Dot Jack threads dot com slash mom today, So don't
for get go to sign up Dot jack threads dot
(44:02):
com and skip that waitlist
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