Choices That Matter

Some time ago my girlfriend Alex and I had just finished enjoying lunch in Carmel, CA when our waitress brought out the dessert menu.

Normally a cause for joy, the afterword of our meal instead turned contentious when I lobbied that we order Key Lime Pie. While Alex agreed to lose her key lime virginity, she let it be known that cake was the superior dessert.

I couldn’t believe my ears.

While it wasn’t something I had given much thought to prior to that fateful Key Lime Pie, the specter of showing her that popular opinion fell in my favor was too good to pass up so we decided to run the following Twitter poll…

Via my scientific and wide ranging poll, it was clear we were a nation divided.

What troubled me was how half the population could be so blind to the wonders of pie. Do they know nothing of Thanksgiving? Maybe this was just a polling miss? An aberration?

After a long, and contemplative ride home from the restaurant I remembered the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr….

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

…and what do we say to the God of death?

“Not today.”

I couldn’t stay silent. This sacred duty had been thrust upon me — defender of the pie here on Medium dot com.

A few ground rules in this debate…

1. We are speaking about each dessert broadly
   I don’t care if your Aunt Ruth makes a killer bundt cake, I’ll be assessing each dessert at the highest level of its definition, taking into account the wide swath of possibilities each offers.
2. Cheesecakes and Pancakes will not be considered
   Cheesecake is a cake in name only, given that it has a crust, filling, and is literally a goddamn pie. I don’t want to get into the semantics of whether it is a cake or a pie — so it will be considered its own entity and ignored. Same goes for pancakes.
3. I won’t dismiss the value of cake
   Cake is fine, pie is better.

So, why pie?

A pie is greater than the sum of its parts

Your average pie has three major components — the bottom crust, the filling, and the top layer (either a flakier crust, fresh fruit, or cool whip-esque topping). Each of these components works together to create a deep and varied dessert experience. The savory crust compliments the flavorful and soft filling , working in tangent so you have a diversely textured dessert experience.

If you have a pie with a lighter filling (Pumpkin, Key Lime, Chocolate Moouse), it is complimented by the density of the bottom crust. On the contrary if you have a pie with a dense filling (Apple, Peach, Blueberry) the crust ensures the flavors do not become too overwhelming in one bite — siloing the sweet and the savory.

Compare this with the spongy and single-faceted nature of cake where the frosting and cake itself provide similar densities and flavor profiles — sweet and sweeter. There is little diversity in the cake — it is the same bite each time and thus you face diminishing returns starting with that second bite.

Cake is central heat — it warms your home evenly. It’s reliable but unexciting.

Now consider pie — a bonfire in the backyard — providing a layered experience of smell, sound, and light to compliment the heat it warms you with on a cool summer night.

Cake relies on style over substance

The “best” cakes rely on elaborate décor by way of frosting and miniature figurines topping their 48th layer. They use different colors of the exact same topping in order to appear varied and different. This is all flash and no substance.

I want a dessert experience I can taste, not the one constructed to troll for Instagram likes.

Cake is the tech bro who just cashed out his stock. He buys a flashy car and a throws a party for his friends, but when the party ends he will eventually have to find another gig to maintain his lifestyle.

Pie is the seasoned investor who spent years diligently saving to retire at 40, carefully diversifying his capital in non-correlated asset classes to protect against risk and insure his retirement dream. Pie drives a nice car and owns a modest home in a safe neighborhood with good schools— but pie will travel the world while cake toils away at his 4th startup in as many years.

Cake Only Remains Popular Due to Antiquated Societal Norms

Cake gets a lot of attention around happy occasions. Birthday cakes, wedding cakes, retirement cakes. Pie receives no such glory and thus less promotion as a celebratory dessert.

There is no logic to this other than a push by BIG CAKE to ensure it remains the dominant player in the market despite an inferior product offering. Candles are a marketing gimmick, and you can put those in pie anyway. Wake up to the conspiracy people!

Pie is for the everyman

Lastly, but perhaps most importantly — Pie is a dessert to be enjoyed by all. There is no $2,000 pie you can get for your destination wedding that 3 of your 8 friends will attend. Pie is earnest and readily available to suit your every need.

At the state fair? Have some delicious pie with fresh fruit from the farming regions outside your urban utopia.

On a cold drive back home after a long day at the office? McDonalds will give you 2 Pies for a buck. The warm filling and flaky crust will briefly take your mind off the fact you worked an 11 hour day in your miserable office.

It’s clear now our nation is more divided than ever. Those who voted cake were probably fed a diet of fake cupcake news, upset with the dessert establishment, ready for change.

Those in the pie camp (present company included) clearly lacked appropriate empathy for those who chose cake because of its promise for a happy celebration.

I happen to think that the center will hold — that our desire for dessert will trump the heated choice over what the proper dish should be.

The alternative of endless bickering would make both sides worse off, concluding our meals with no dessert.

Because if we succumb to that zero-sum end, we haven’t a meal at all.