Best Piece Of Trivia You Learned This Week: Boston Cream Pie

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Every week on Facebook or Twitter, we ask our listeners to tell us an interesting piece of trivia they have learned. Whether it is true or false does not matter. And we got this one from Paige Lindsay Sebring of Lexington, S.C. She sent us a fact. And the fact is Ho Chi Minh invented Boston cream pie. So, Jonathan, what do you think? Did the Marxist-leader of North Vietnam create the official state dessert of Massachusetts?

JONATHAN COULTON, BYLINE: I have a question.

EISENBERG: Yeah?

COULTON: When you say Ho Chi Minh and Boston cream pie, you're talking about the two things that I'm thinking of when you say those words?

EISENBERG: That is right. Yeah.

COULTON: Well, I'm going to say - there is a culinary thing happening in Vietnam, right? There's a sort of French influence there...

EISENBERG: That's right. That is right...

COULTON: ...In the food.

EISENBERG: ...Because of the colonialization.

COULTON: The colonial history. So - but I don't know - so you know the French love cream. So that's in support of this idea.

EISENBERG: I have to tell you, Jonathan, the best part of these trivia questions are hearing your amazing logically deductive brain in action...

COULTON: This like - you know what - this is...

EISENBERG: ...Work it out.

COULTON: OK, so French love cream...

EISENBERG: Yeah.

COULTON: We got that. I have another question. What's Boston cream pie?

EISENBERG: What is the exact definition?

COULTON: Yeah, what is it?

EISENBERG: OK, it is technically not a pie.

COULTON: Oh, here we go.

EISENBERG: It is a cream-filled cake that I believe has chocolate sauce on it.

COULTON: Cream-filled cake with chocolate sauce. Can anyone verify that this is what a Boston cream pie is?

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: It's not even a pie?

EISENBERG: It's not a pie. Yeah, I know.

COULTON: How's it going to be associated with Boston? Now I'm trying to think, is there any connection between Boston and Vietnam? I'm going to say no, this is complete garbage. And there's no way that Ho Chi Minh invented Boston cream pie. Also P.S., it's not a pie. Those are the two things I'm going to say about this.

EISENBERG: So just the question is flawed because...

COULTON: The question is flawed because it is not a pie.

EISENBERG: OK, it is false, but it is less implausible than you think because - get this - as a young man Ho Chi Minh fled Vietnam to avoid persecution and wound up in Boston. He ended up in Boston in 1912. He worked as a baker in the Parker House hotel. The Parker House hotel is where Boston cream pie was invented.

COULTON: Woah.

EISENBERG: But it was invented - it was actually introduced at the Parker House hotel in 1856. So it happened before him, but he probably made hundreds of them. Maybe Ho Chi Minh made the best versions that they had ever had. So a lot of people mistakenly think because he worked there that he invented it.

COULTON: So let me propose this slight modification. Maybe what we can say is that Ho Chi Minh reinvented Boston cream pie.

EISENBERG: He might have.

COULTON: I'll allow that.

EISENBERG: Thank you very much to Paige Lindsay Sebring for that false, lovely fact.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Coming up we're going to talk to author Curtis Sittenfeld about her many novels, including "American Wife," which is loosely based on former first lady Laura Bush. Now, George never commented on it, as it's hidden in a place he'd never look, inside of a book. So stay tuned. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.