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Notes from America with Kai Wright

America's Fourth: Beyond Pie and BBQs

Notes from America with Kai Wright

WNYC Studios

News Commentary, Politics, History, News

4.41.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2017

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This fourth of July, one year after the podcast began, we look back at a culture that’s made us so anxious, but also what holds us together, and where we’re going as a nation. Since nothing seems to bind Americans more together than food, we’re starting off with a key marker of American culture--pie. Kai Wright and Karen Frillmann spend some time partaking in a key American tradition-baking a cherry pie.They’ll talk pie-making with food writer Kathy Gunst, coming together in the kitchen and what gets passed down along with a recipe. Kai Wright and Karen Frillmann bake a pie. (Cayce Means) Then we’ll turn to Nancy Solomon, who's having a BBQ on a very diverse block in New Jersey where everyone from Donald Trump supporters to liberal lesbians live. We’ll hear about their anxieties, and see just what they’re doing to alleviate any potential tensions as the state gears up for a gubernatorial election later this year. Jim O’Grady delves into what exactly the Declaration of Independence means today. Finally, we’ll be listening in to you, and your thoughts and fears, about the cultural wars in America. Episode Contributors: Kai Wright Jim O’Grady Arun Venugopal Nancy Solomon Karen Frillmann Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Sources: Professor Andrew Shankman, Rutgers University, author of Original Intents Professor Andrew Schocket, Bowling Green State University, author of Fighting over the Founders The New York Public Library and it's original copy of The Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand

Transcript

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0:00.0

Okay, so you bake a pie. Cherry pie.

0:05.0

Sour Cherry pie.

0:06.0

Sour Cherry pie.

0:08.0

Sour Cherry pie. Have to have sour cherries.

0:10.0

What's the difference between a sour cherry and a cherry?

0:12.0

It's a different variety. So the sour cherries, if you see them at the market, they'll be at the green market today. They're coming in just about now in the Hudson Valley. So 4th of July, you can have Sour Cherry Pie.

0:24.3

And the skin is... This is our executive producer, Karen Frillman, and in addition to being

0:29.6

our fearless leader, she's a baker.

0:32.8

And she's making us a sour cherry pie,

0:35.0

because it's the fourth.

0:36.8

And I'm gonna add about half a cup of sugar to it.

0:41.6

Now, I learned to bake from my mother. My mother would put a

0:47.2

cup and a half of sugar in this pie. But you're only doing a couple. As culture involves I'm only doing half a couple. As culture evolves I'm only doing half a cup. Now which

0:56.4

means that my Cherry pies are very tart but people seem to like it. You've got a

1:01.6

little more bite than your mom.

1:03.5

I think so.

1:05.5

Yeah, I've met them both and it's true.

1:07.5

Karen's New York City to the bone, Queens actually.

1:10.7

But her midwestern mom put a little middle America in or two and it shows up this time

1:15.8

a year.

1:16.8

So did she explicitly teach you how to cook pie or how did this come to be? I would just watch but from very early on I wanted to get my hands in it and she

1:29.2

would always she would let me do it and I still you will see my pie crust looks like a seven year old.

...

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