Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Pies

Episode Date: November 26, 2025

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

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There's Chuck. Jerry's not here. Dave's not here. But a bunch of pie talk is here. So strap in, everybody. Actually, I should say unbuckle, everybody. That's right. Unbuckle the top button.

or that belt loop because this made me want to eat pie. I love pie. I think we talked a little bit about pie in our cake episode. Sure. About the merits of pie. And, of course, there's also the great legendary, I dare say, Paul L. Tompkins bit on cake versus pie. Oh, I'm not sure about that one. Yeah, that's from way back in the day.

It's a good bit. But pie has been around for way before Paul of Tompkins, thousands of years. But it's only in the last, like, a couple of few hundred years that it's like what we kind of know is, pie. But they had it 8,000 years ago in Egypt, if you count kind of a messy, semi-sweet, you know, rustic smorgasbord of grains. Sure. Called galettes, right? Yeah. And you said 8,000 years ago, that's not that long after we started domesticating crops, which means that pies were one of the first things we started making when we created agriculture. Yeah. And of course, they used honey as the

sweetener back then, and they'd bake it over some hot coals. Yeah. And then the Greek, ganged to that, didn't they? They did. About 5,000 years later, they loved taking stuff from the Egyptians, and they carried on with Galettes. They did something that I think is a historic crime. They replaced sweet stuff like honey with meats. I like a good meat pie, but I feel like we had not gotten into sweet pies enough to be

deploring from that yet. One of the other thing the Greeks did, though, was they created pastry dough like we would we would think of pastry dough today, essentially. Yeah, it's a big leap forward there, dough-wise. The Romans, of course, come along next, and they didn't add a whole lot to the technique or tradition. What they did was they brought it to Europe, and that's where it really flourished was when it was in the hands of the Europeans.

Yeah, not just Europe, but like if you look back at dishes from around the world, you're like, oh, that's pie. That's pie. That's pie. There's something called Sambusa and Ethiopia, which is a ham pie. There's obviously empignadas from Spain and then in Latin America, Spanacopoda in Greece. I've not heard of the Zwebelkuchen, but I would love to try it. It's a savory and sweet pie from Germany. Schwebelkuchen?

Yes. Yeah. And then there's tortier from Quebec, which also sounds pretty great. That's a savory meat pie. Like I say, I like meat pies. Got no problem with meat pies. Yeah. I think that we just, we need both, I guess.

Yeah, agreed. I mean, when I hear the word pie, I immediately think of like a sweet dessert pie. But I love a Jamaican hand pie or a I say impanata. I guess it is impaniana, isn't it? Yeah, empignata. I couldn't find the end with the till date on the insert thing on word. Yeah, I got you. One other thing, Chuck, do you remember when we were in the UK on tour and I got hooked on pork pies?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, those are so good. And I got hooked on pork pie hats. Yeah, I know you did. It was great. I tried to eat that one. Right off my head. The English, speaking of the English, that's where things really got interesting because they were like, man, throw some fish in that thing. Throw any kind of meat in you want.

We'll spell it P-Y-E and we'll also bake those bones in there as little handles. Not just the bones, the legs of like a game bird, like a pheasant would be sticking out and hanging over the side of the pie. Yeah, just grab it by the leg. grab that pheasant like a rabbit I guess that's no different than just eating a chicken leg It's a little different I'm talking about like the feet here is what I understand Oh okay

Like the whole leg down to the toenails is what they left on Toonails? You ever seen a chicken toenail? I haven't looked that closely I've just always assumed they were there They also called them coffins, two Fs and a Y Again they love those Ys instead of eyes And of course that means box

yeah because that's what they were making there was like sturdy walls a sturdy bottom a crust over the top and these were actually what the Greeks were basically making pies for too the point of the pie was to seal in the juices of like the savory mixture of meats and stuff right yeah it was a way to bake a bunch of stuff together and then serve it as one thing onto a table um that was the point of pies they didn't care about pastries in medieval england like the actual crust was considered inedible by the rich, but the lower classes would eat the pie crust when they had to. So they also made pies without tops whatsoever.

Those are tarts. That's what they still call on the day. Those, I think, were more pastry edible forward. Yeah, I think you're right. If you're talking about recipes, they started appearing in Europe and cookbooks, like way back in the 1300s. I think there was a German cookbook you dug up from 1553.

I didn't actually look in the cookbook itself. I just saw a reference to it. Oh, sure, yeah. Sorry. That's okay. But they were like, hey, you know what you do? You put a little hole in the middle of that pie and the lid, and you blow in it and puff that thing up and then seal it. And that thing looks great on a table.

Yeah. But you will notice from that recipe, that means there's nothing inside. They were just baking the pie, an empty pie, essentially, is what they were making. And you would say, well, that's madness. What's the point of that? There's actually a trend in England. I think from the 15th to maybe the 18th centuries where you would present, like at a royal dinner or something like that, an enormous pie that was filled with live things. So you would bake the pie pastry and then put the live things in it before you served it.

And so that's where, you know, that rhymes sing a song of six pence, where they talk about four and 20 blackbirds baked into a pie. Isn't that a pretty dish to serve before the king or whatever? Yeah. that's what they're talking about is this trend in in europe in royal courts of europe where you would serve like a pie to the king and cut it open and all these beautiful birds would fly out or a string ensemble would stand up and start playing yeah like if you think you got to have a big pie to put a couple of dozen blackbirds in there you weren't kidding about the string ensemble like they would have a pie big enough what i don't understand is how are they are they not killing these people and birds no by big Bake the pie pastry first and then put the people in before they served it. How does that work? You would take the pie, put it together, put the top on, put a hole in it, blow in it, close it up. Yeah, but how did the people get in there?

Oh, I'm sure there was like a little door cut into the side or something like that. But they were not anywhere near the pie while it was in the oven. Oh, the pie hatch. I wasn't thinking. Oh, pie hatch, the pie hole. Yeah, the pie hole. Remember that show? What was it called?

better no pushing up daisies that the guy the main protagonist had a pie shop called the pie hole oh that i've told you about before it's such a charming show truck you got to see it all right yeah you got a long list for me though so that one move that one toward the top it's just a very sweet neat cute little show all right well speaking of cute uh we'll take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about a few specific all-time great pies right after this Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. Hi, Kyle, could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc, and send me the link. Thanks.

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. It's not his fault. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. My name is Evan Ratliff. I decided to create Kyle, my AI co-founder, after hearing a lot of stuff like this from OpenAI CEO Sam Aldman. There's this betting pool for the first year that there's a one-person, a billion-dollar company, which would have been like unimaginable without AI and now will happen.

I got to thinking, could I be that one person? I'd made AI agents before for my award-winning podcast, Shell Game. This season on Shell Game, I'm trying to build a real company with a real product run by fake people. Oh, hey, Evan. you join us. I found some really interesting data on adoption rates for AI agents and small to medium businesses. Listen to Shell Game on the IHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health, and I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mailroom. And I'm Jordan, the show's

producer. And like a lot of guys, I haven't been to the doctor in many years. I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking, but aren't. Because guys usually don't go to the doctor unless a piece of their face is hanging off or they've broken a bone. Depends which bone. Well, that's true. Every week, we're breaking down the unique world of men's health, from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility, and things that happen in the bedroom. You mean sleep? Yeah, something like that, Jordan. We'll talk science without the jargon and get you real answers to the stuff you actually wonder about. It's going to be fun, whether you're 27, 97, or somewhere in between.

Men's health is about more than six packs and supplements. It's about energy, confidence, and connection. We don't just want you to live longer. We want you to live better. So check out the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. All right. We're back. We're going to mention one, two, three, four, five all-time great pies. It is for us in real time. It's the week before Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. So we've got to talk about pumpkin pie, which was brought to the new world by the colonists on the Mayflower. But it's interesting because when they got here, Native Americans were like, hey, look at these things we got. They're coming.

called pumpkins. And one day they will invent spices to put with these that taste nothing like pumpkins, but you will totally associate that with pumpkin. Right. And so like the first pumpkin pies were actually not pies at all. They were, they used the pumpkin themselves as basically the pie crust put in honey and spices and stuff like that and baked it over hot coals. Then they ate that. But the thing is you still think of like, okay, well eventually like it got figured out in the United States or the English colonies, right? No, that's not the case. Pumpkin pie actually got exported with the pumpkins in a couple of decades over to France.

The first recipe that even mentions a pumpkin pie called the Pumpillon Pie was published in a French cookbook by a French chef in 1651, and it wouldn't be another few decades, actually another century or so, before it showed up in a recipe in an American cookbook. That's right. In 1796, it was in the very first American cookbook, in fact, from Amelia Simmons called American Cookery by an American orphan. And, yeah, that pumpkin pie was in there. It kind of like the one we know it. It was kind of a pumpkin pudding. But that's not super unlike pumpkin pie. No, because you baked it in a pie shell. So if you ask me, that's pumpkin pie. Agreed. So pumpkin pie seems pretty American. That's why the French thing was so puzzling. But apple pie, 100.

percent American. Like, don't even come at me with anything else. Take it, Chuck. Well, buddy, apples don't come from America. They're native to Asia. So they were brought over to the new world by the colonists. And I think we all know that the perfect apple pie is that Dutch apple pie. And they're the ones, they were the OGs. A couple of years, a couple of hundred years, prior to those apples coming over from Asia, the Dutch had sort of mastered that apple pie. Man, I always assumed it was the 1970s when the Dutch finally made Dutch apple pie. No, no. Okay, all right.

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

Where did that come from? Apparently, World War II, there was a catchphrase for the GIs there when they're like, why are you going off to pop this, fight this wall? And they would say, well, sir, for mom and apple pie, of course. And they'd say, good out there, boy. That's right. Win it for us. If you think that helmet's going to protect you, you've got another thing coming.

What else? That was kind of dark. It got dark going from apple pie to that, but yeah, sure. We could talk cherry pie briefly. Cherry pie is not my favorite pie, but I'll opt for pumpkin or apple or certainly key lime, which we'll get to before cherry pie. But I'll eat a piece of cherry pie with some ice cream if you got it for me. Yeah, as long as it's not sour.

Like a good cherry pie in the vein of a good apple pie, I think is excellent stuff. Yeah, and House of Pies in Los Felis in Los Angeles, the neighborhood where I lived, had all kinds of great pies. But, like, I want, like, a warm cherry pie. I don't want, like, the cold one where that jelly has sort of, you know, I don't like it cold. No, that's what I'm saying.

If you make it and serve it, like, you would have a good piece of apple pie. It's good. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you 100%. Okay. But that one, apparently, the first cherry pie was either created for Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century or by her. Yeah. It's one of the oldest pies that is still around today, apparently.

Yeah. What's next? Boston cream pie is worth a mention. You might be like, this is not even a pie. That's basically a layer cake. You're right. But we wanted to explain where that came from. I don't think I've ever had Boston cream pie. I hadn't either. I was like, okay, we got to do Boston cream pie. And then I was like, oh, this is a little more interesting than I thought. Because it turns out Boston cream pie is a cake. It's not a pie in any sense whatsoever.

The reason it's called Boston Cream Pie is because it's based on another recipe called Washington Pie. And Washington Pie was the same thing. It was a Boston Cream Pie cake baked in a pie crust. So a cake and a pie crust. And then eventually the Boston Cream Pie came along. They did away with the crust, but they kept the name Pie, which is why Boston Cream Pie is called Pie, even though it's a cake. That's right. And notably, it was invented for the grand opening of the Parker House Hotel in 1856.

which has got to be where Parker House rolls come from, right? I don't know. I've never heard of them before, but let's say, yeah. You've never heard of Parker House rolls? I've heard of Cider House Rules. Parker House rolls are one of the best things in the world. You know them if you've seen them. And then, like, a lot of, it's become trendy in recent years

at, like, a nice restaurant will serve you Parker House rolls and like a little four baked in a four pack for the table. That sounds like King's Hawaiian, kind of. Well, they kind of are. They kind of look like that. King's Hawaiian, I think, is the Hawaiian sweet version of the Parker House roll. I probably had those then, yeah. Yeah, big, beautiful, flaky, like buttery with a little sea salt on top.

Man, it's the best thing ever. Very nice. Yeah. I've actually stayed in the Parker House. It's now an Omni Hotel. And they didn't throw a roll at your face when you walked in? Not that I saw, no. Actually, one of the only times I was ever worried about getting Legioneer's disease was when I stayed there.

And then let's move on to key lime pie, because this is the pride of Florida. If you never had a slice of key lime pie, you're cheating yourself essentially. Just get your hands on one. It's one of my, it's top two pies for me. Agreed. Along with a crumbly apple probably. I like that too. Or pecan pie.

The Dutch apple crumble style, that one? Yeah. Pecan pie, yeah, those are my top three. Pecan pie, Dutch apple, and key lime. Okay. So key lime, one of the great things about it is, I mean, I don't want to say, like, if you walk into a 7-Eleven and buy a slice of key lime pie there, it's going to be as good as one that you get in the Florida Keys. But they're so similar to one another and there's a specific way to make it, that's not that far off. You're still kind of treating yourself.

So go out and get some key lime pie. You don't have to be a purist. But if you are a purist and you want to know where it comes from, supposedly the local lore is that a woman only known as Aunt Sally made them in the late 19th century down in Key West at the Curry house, which was the estate of Florida's first millionaire, William Curry. So you know he was important and a really good guy. But she came up with this as a recipe that she adapted from local Key West fishermen that they had come up with it themselves. Yeah, that's one story.

Another is that they came later than that, and I think they were supposedly adapted from a recipe from New York for magic lemon cream pies that the Borden Condensed Milk Company put out in the 1930s. But some people say, no, it's actually the opposite. They got that magic lemon cream pie from the key lime pie and kind of stole it, even though hats off to your Borden condensed milk, because that stuff is the best. Yeah, again, I want to shout out the Ube condensed milk. It's not boring. I don't remember who makes it, but oh, my God. It's seriously, you'll never taste anything that has a better taste than that. I'm going to move on to that for my family, my grandmother made.

She called it Lemon Icebox Pie. Oh, yeah, those are great. Yeah, it's sort of the same thing as a key lime pie, but just with lemon, in that it doesn't have meringue. Like, why would you want to ruin a lemon pie by putting meringue on it? I don't know. I can go either way with that. Nah, not my... I'd rather replace it with Ready Whip, though.

Oh, well, now you're talking. Okay. Everybody, I think it's pretty obvious that we are going to immediately go start eating pie after recording this. We hope you go enjoy some pie, too, and short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite. favorite shows.