My brother once ate an entire wedge of brie thinking it was pie. The story goes like this:
We were in Atlanta at a fancy engagement party for my sister. I would have been 16, and my brother was 21, so he was already a fully grown adult. The party was at some old genteel country club, with different tables for different varieties of commonly known party food: you know, veggie plates, shrimp, fruit, etc. I don’t remember there being desserts, but if there were, they would have been on their own dessert table, naturally. Just like there was an entire table devoted to a large assortment of cheese. It was the cheese table. My brother and I, being younger and from out of town, had to make nice with a lot of adults and people we didn’t know in a pretty formal setting. We were dressed for the occasion too, I in a dress, he in a coat and tie. Like I said, it was fancy.
So, at some point in the party, my big lug of a brother walked up to me frantically, hands down at his side, trying not to make a scene. “Leslie, Leslie, Leslie!,” he exclaimed in a whisper-yell. “Do not eat the pie. It’s DISGUSTING!” I paused, slightly puzzled. “Pie? What pie?” I asked. “Show me.”
My brother walked me over to a beautiful spread on a table covered with different types of cheeses, as well as some grapes, which is often visibly paired with cheese. He pointed out the pie to me; a giant, hulking wheel of brie. There was no mistake that it was brie. It was very distinctly brie, with the white rind with melty cheese oozing out the middle. “Michael, that’s not pie, that’s CHEESE! How much did you eat.”
“About three-fourths. I didn’t want to be rude.”
I’ve told this story about 100 times through the years, and it’s funny every time. Imagine watching it happen. A big guy in a sport coat with a military haircut eating a wedge of brie. On a plate. With a fork. The image never gets old.
I’ve never ever heard of another person eating brie while thinking it was pie. But surely you or someone you know has made some kind of food foible before. Tell us about them in the comments below.
Illustration by Sam Woolley