Short Stuff: Pimento Cheese!

Published Dec 2, 2020, 10:00 AM

Pimento cheese was originally nothing like it is now: It was mass produced, it was made from cream cheese and it was conceived in New York. Today it’s something much better, thanks to the South!

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Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh. There's Chuck and Cherry's here, um, sitting again on behalf of producer Dave, who actually produces these. So I guess she's maybe in coaching on Dave's territory. I don't know. I don't want to put my foot in that hornet's nest. But anyway, this short stuff, like I was saying about pie, Yeah, yeah, I don't want to say that with Italian because it's Spanish. That was close, Um, it's nearby. But the the fact is, Chuck, you've just hit upon uh, an artifact of culinary history that there used to be an extra I and pimento, and everyone said, I don't like this here. I don't like the way it looks, I don't like how it sounds. I'm getting rid of it, and by god, we did, and I don't like you. What do I gotta do with it? I'm just a poor pimento farmer. I've has been saying, pimiento, that's what I don't like. Yeah, so this is about pimento cheese, the the delicious, one of my favorite things that you can eat here in the South that many people most people I think associate with the South, Yeah, for sure, but it's not actually from the South, is it. No, it's started in New York, they think. As a matter of fact, Yes, what indeed chuck um around World War One? And even more what than that pimento cheese for almost no resemblance whatsoever to what we think of as pimento cheese today. It had the pimentos, those pimento peppers from Spain that are much milder than your average hot chili pepper, but they'll also have like a little bit of a little bit kick to them, and they're worth putting in um mixed together with um cream, cheese, mustard and some chives. That was the original pimento cheese. And it doesn't that sound delicious? I don't think it sounds very good. But apparently America around World War One was just absolutely nuts for it. Not just World War One. Apparently from about the nineteen twenties up to the nineteen forties, that form of pimento cheese was all the rage. Yeah, it was easily tinned, it was easily shipped. I think soldiers it was a big part of their rations in the war. Man so it was a little slice of home. Okay, I could see it like that in a little green can, and I think, you know, depending on what kind of mustard if it was. I'm not not the biggest mustard guy. But there are some kinds of Coleman's, some kinds of brown mustard I will eat in other things, but not just on its own. Have you had Coleman's yellow, fancy yellow mustard. Yeah, I'm not into yellow mustard at all. Okay, this is more brown. I know what you're saying. Totally get it. Give Coleman's a chance, and what it doesn't matter. It's just you know how Dukes is just somehow different in all the best ways as far as mayonnaise goes. Coleman's is just that way with yellow mustard. It's not like it's like, oh, this is what yellow mustard is supposed to taste like you know what I mean, I'll have to see. I mean I I historically have not had a yellow mustard I've ever liked at all. And I generally don't like mustard at all, but I changeally will like it in a dish. Okay, you're telling me to try something I really kind of hate. I'm telling you thinking that I will like it because you like it. You know, I'm just trying to turn you onto something I think is going to change your life. That's all I'm saying. Just try I just I just don't like mustard. I'll try Colemans and maybe it's maybe it doesn't taste like mustard. Just get yourself a little just a little bowl, not a big bowl, and then you know, put a bunch of Coleman's mustard in it, gate yourself a spoon. God, give it a half an hour. That makes me want to rouse, then and then see what you think. So cream cheese as pimiento cheese, those sweet little red pimmy into peppers. Uh. In the eighteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds, they started coming to America from Spain, and you know, people liked him. They were colorful, they were mild, they weren't very spicy at all, and Americans of that era thought that it was very very palatable thing to them. Yeah, and cream cheese was pretty new around the same time too, So people said, let's see what happens when we put these together, and they said, oh, this is really good. And so that version of pimento cheese sandwiches started popping up and like good Housekeeping cookbooks and things like that, and so um uh, food companies started mass producing. They they made mass produced versions like the soldiers got in World War One. That stuff was flying off the shelves. And so if you were having you know, um friends over for you know, finger food or something like that, you would probably serve pimento cheese sandwiches, but it would be a pimento spread that you would buy at the store and spread onto bread and then there you go. Um. And that is nothing like what pimento cheese is as we think of today. And the whole reason that it made this transition was because the South is wacky. And I think, Chuck, we should take a message break and then come back and talk about how the wacky South took pimento cheese and made it many times better. That's right. I'm gonna go have a spoonful of mustard and vomit and be right back. All right, So pimento cheese is all the rage all of a sudden, Uh, They've they've dropped that I and the recipes in America, so people finally understood it here in the US. They started mass producing it, and it was in grocery store, and then the South steps up and says, it's even here in Georgia as a matter of fact, and said, you know what, I think we can grow these little peppers right here. Can we have some seeds Spain. Yeah. In fact, Griffin, Georgia became the pimento capital of the United States. It's right. They got the seeds from the Spanish consulate in the early nineteen hundreds and by the time nineteen sixteen rolls around, they they're harvesting the stuff. They're making it rain with pimentos, and people are going crazy. So so Griffin, Georgia was the pimento capital during that first cream cheese pimento cheese boom between the twenties of the nineteen forties. Um. But the thing is in the South, Um, either there wasn't easy access to cream cheese or people were just like, I don't like this Yankee cream cheese stuff. Let's try something that I'm too. So they took what was a mass produced cheese spread and just aided to decoct it into their own thing. The South kid and they they kind of took the idea of pimento cheese and like turn it into something totally different. They got rid of the cheese, the cream cheese, they did away with the mustard, they didn't have anything to do with chives, and instead they said, let's keep the pimentos, so we can still call it pimento cheese, but let's change absolutely everything else. And it's kind of chuck akin to saying, like, uh, this this deviled chicken spread that's mass produced that you you make a sandwich out of. Let's figure out a way to alter that and call it chicken spread. Still, but then that will become the new chicken spread, and the other chicken spread will be lost to history. Basically, what's it? What's a chicken spread? You've never had chicken spread? A It is a salty delight, chuck. Is it like tuna fice salad or something or chicken salad? Yes, No, it's actually basically whipped chicken with a mild chunks in it. Still, you just it's as salty as the day is long, and you just put it on some bread and you've got a little sandwich, so don't add anything else to it. You just chicken spread on breader toast, plain breader toast and eat and um, like you'll you'll prune up from from all of the salt that suddenly invade your body. But it's really tasty, if not really really bad for you. I think I know what you're talking about, because when I worked at Golden Pantry and Athens in college, there would be uh, like road workers would come in during the middle of the day and get like potted chicken, tin chicken and salteens for their lunch. Is that what it was? Yeah, Or Vienna sausage would be on the same aisle with it, Okay. Yeah, if you just look slightly to the left of the Vienna sausage, you're gonna find the devil chicken spread. Blow the dust off of it. It's so good, though, I mean it's tasty. It's not good. Good's the wrong. It's just a tasty, terrible snack all right here in the South, like you said, they said, let's change it up all together. And so we don't like that cream cheese. We don't eat bagels down here in the South. Uh, let's find something else that's white and delicious and abundant. And that thing is mayonnaise. They replaced the cream cheese with mayonnaise added other cheese. You still I gotta cheese, sure, I think just because you know, they felt guilty about not adding cheese. Just having mayonnaise and pimentoes, that wouldn't be a dish. But they added shredded cheese, usually cheddar, and apparently it's your preference, up to your preference whether you use sharp or mild cheddar. But that's the other big ingredients. So you've got pimentos, mayonnaise, shredded cheese. You basically have pimento cheese with just those three ingredients. Yeah. And you know, the pimento cheese has become one of those things where every family has their own recipe. Uh, if you're into pimento cheese, and like you said, there are some small variations. You can add some little spices here and there. You can add uh some non cheddars. You can add a few different kinds of cheese if you want. Proportions may change a little bit. It's basically the same thing. Um. I've seen people add bacon and jalapenos, and uh, you know, my favorite is the palmetto cheese. But I started have you ever had the palmetto cheese? Oh? Yeah, I did my I did some research though, and I'm I kind of fell off them. Well, I did that same research and I kind of stopped halfway through because I was like, I don't really know if I want to know anymore? Have you? And I think I mentioned this last time we talked about Palmetto, which is when I started to do research. But um, Queen Charlotte from Charlotte, North Carolina, and they're a stuff you should know a listener. They sent us some if you'll remember, and it is just absolutely amazing stuff. It's really cheese if you can get your hands on, Queen Charlotte. Um, Palmetto cheese. You got pretty much the best you can get. But in the cheese, huh they sent us cheese. You're holding the cheese. This is years ago, and I offered it to you and I think you turned it down. I would never just hoard something that somebody sent to as you're crazy, I don't remember. Here. Have some of this mustard they said us mustard and then some other stuff you don't care about. I'll have to try that, Queen Charlotte. You should Um, yeah, of course I would have, Like I would not have just hoarded something somebody sent to us. Come on, all right, so, um, the great thing about pimento cheese too, is you can just make it yourself at home, which is just three Yeah, so that's what I would I would suggest trying. Um, you could also chuck, go to the Masters, which are very well known for pimento cheese, right, yeah, they just had the new Fall Classic. So if you go to the Masters, even if you've never been to the Masters, like me, you know that they have a pimento cheese sandwich there that's like as important as the golf that's being played, and they sell them for a dollar d But apparently there was a bit of a scandal because they used a guy named Nick Rangos who made their pimento cheese from the mid nineteen fifties all the way until and the Augusta National people said, you know what, we're gonna switch over to somebody else. Why would they do that. I don't know. They're all about tradition. But get this, the caterer they switched to is named as their companies called wife Saver, which if I have ever encountered a company that's owned by a man who's not married, it's whoever named wife Saver Caterers? But um, he he couldn't get the recipe from Nick Rangos. Nick Rango said, you know what, you're gonna drop me. This secret recipe is going to stay secret, And in fact, he carried the secret recipe to his grave. But wife Saver figured out how to make it and figured out that there is indeed a secret secret ingredient to that recipe, and they're keeping that recipe secret too. So no one knows how to make the pimento cheese at Augustina National except for uh John wife Saber. And also, you know, if you've if you're from a different part of the country, you've never had it. It's generally eaten cold, like you spread on a cracker. You can you can eat just a pimento cheese sandwich between two pieces of bread, or you can use it as your cheese. If you have like a turkey sandwich or something and you want to use pimento cheese instead of sliced cheese, that's delicious. It's also good with um cheeseburgers. Is the cheese on a cheeseburger. Yeah, Like you can eat it hot or warm. It's generally served cold, but it is pretty good on a cheeseburger. It is good. It tastes totally different hot than it does cold. I mean not not like, oh, this is the hot version of pimento cheese. It tastes like a different thing, almost, Oh you think, I think so. It really brings out the like heat and the pimento. To me, I don't find pimentos to have any heat. I need to, I need to branch out. I need to grow some pimentos. I'm curious to do that. Go down to Griffin and be like, hey, give me some pimentos. Yeah, you got anything else? I got nothing else. Well that's it for short stuff. Everybody, Tomato cheese Away. Stuff You should know is a production of I Heeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H

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