Letters To FNH »
This Woman Really Hated Her Paula Deen Pie
 |
We get a lot of interesting mail here on FNH. We usually post a collection of them every few weeks to give you a little glimpse into our world, but this correspondence was so special… so endearing… that we felt it deserved its own post.
Back story: A few weeks ago, Paula Deen was busy getting ready to launch her own line of baked goods at Wal-Mart. Apparently, the Deen train moves fast, because not only have the new products hit stores, but people have already become horrified by their awfulness.
That brings us to this email. A woman named Jules bought one of Paula’s signature pies and was so disgusted by it, she ran to her computer and wrote this charming, well crafted e-mail to the first person she could find. Apparently, that was me:
i had bought a crunchy apple pie from walmarton saturdaysept 19 th. for $ 7.50 it was the worse tasting,mushy bottom,not a crunch to it pie, i have ever eaten.i have been a chef for over 30 years now retired.i never thought of myself being a baker. butttt come on your name is on the product. sorry.
Though I’d never heard of a store called “walmarton”, and usually don’t reply to these e-mails, this time I couldn’t resist:
Hi Jules,
Was this a Paula Deen crunchy apple pie you’re talking about? What was wrong with it?
Two minutes later, I received this more in-depth reply. Apparently I angered her, because she started writing IN ALL CAPS:
yes it was a PAULA DEEN CRUNCHY APPLE PIE. IT WAS UNDER COOKED BOTTOM AND ALTHROUGH THE PIE WAS DOUGHY. I THOUGHT IT WAS A PAR BAKED PIE, I LOOKED ON PLASTIC TOP TO MAKE SURE IT WASN’T A PAR BAKED THATS HOW RAW THE DOUGH WAS.I THROUGH IT OUT AND SPIT OUT THE BITE I TOOK FROM IT.
Wow. It must have been really gross for her to have to “through” the whole thing out. The poor thing. Still, I felt I needed more info, so I wrote Jules one more e-mail to clear a few things up:
Hello Jules. I am not sure what a PAR BAKED PIE is. Can you explain it? What state did you purchase this pie in? What made you purchase this Paula Deen pie? Are you a big fan?
On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, exactly how disgusting was the pie?
You mentioned you’ve been a chef for 30 years. What’s your favorite thing to cook?
Jules replied yet again, and this time, was kind enough to explain the workings of a par baked pie:
a par baked is something that is a little bit baked,then u bake it when u need it.i just saw the pie it looked good . bought it in XXXXX,florida.1being the worse it was a minus 2. i cooked around the world ,being of italian decent i prefer italian cooking.
You hear that, Giada? It might be time to consider your own line of pies.
Other posts on Food Network Humor:
---UPDATE: Paula Deen’s Wal-Mart Apple Pie---Pioneer Woman Is The New Paula Deen
---Woman’s World Invites Us To “Party Like Paula Deen”
---Letters To FNH: Paula Deen Spotted In Optical Shop
---Get Ready, Y’all: Paula Deen Baked Goods Coming To A Wal-Mart Near You
- Letters To FNH
Filed Under
Post your comments
HELP US PAY THE BILLS!
If you enjoy the content on Food Network Humor and would like to help me pay the website bills, please use the "donate" option below. Any amount is greatly appreciated.
Thank you! -Jill
LISTEN TO THE LATEST PODCAST: Episode 20
THIS WEEK: Another tailgating weekend! Alex G's onion rings, an awful slow cooker experience, Ina & Jeffrey Garten's lame steak throwdown, Jennifer Hudson's annoying Weight Watchers commercial, Restaurant Impossible's cheap makeovers, and more.
Categories
- Best Of FNH (92)
- Closed Captions (20)
- FN on Facebook (5)
- FNH Google Search Terms (6)
- FNH Interviews (1)
- FNH Podcast (20)
- FNH Voicemails (1)
- Food Fight (5)
- Food Network Hosts (858)
- Aaron McCargo Jr (13)
- Adam Gertler (2)
- Aida Mollenkamp (6)
- Alex Guarnaschelli (6)
- Alton Brown (29)
- Anne Burrell (30)
- Bobby Flay (43)
- Claire Robinson (10)
- Dave Lieberman (1)
- Duff Goldman/Mary Alice (30)
- Giada De Laurentiis (65)
- Guy Fieri (150)
- Ina Garten (76)
- Ingrid Hoffman (2)
- Paula Deen (138)
- Rachael Ray (113)
- Sandra Lee (144)
- Sunny Anderson (7)
- The Neelys (4)
- Tyler Florence (14)
- Foodie of the Week (1)
- General: Food Humor (108)
- General: Food Network (494)
- Letters To FNH (33)
- Lists (34)
- New Rules (3)
- Next Food Network Star (81)
- Next Iron Chef (18)
- Numbers in the News (2)
- Open Thread (8)
- Reader Submitted Posts (28)
- SHOW SWAP (1)
- Things We Hate (11)
- Twitter Conversations (34)
- Uncategorized (1)
- Worst Cooks In America (6)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
MORE POPHANGOVER WEBSITES:
|
|
Contact FNH The PH Creators |
We are not affiliated with the Food Network, or any of their hosts, in any way. This is a satire, humor, and parody website.
(c) 2011 Food Network Humor - All Rights Reserved
84 Responses
JustANobody, I’m with you. It’s a real head-scratcher how this woman made it 30 years in the chef business. Of course, the word ‘chef’ has taken on an entirely new meaning since FN came on scene. Anybody who picks up a knife or spatula is now labeled ‘chef’. It’s laughable and pitiful at the same time. Hey, wait, I guess that makes me a chef! Wow Wee!! I have several knives and a gaggle of spatulas and tons of wooden spoons! I must be a Master Chef!
@Ferd: Stop hatin’ on Wal-Mart, y’all.
Pauler’s the focus friend Ferd, not Walmart.
LOL- OH Come On- I was holding back :)
And Byrdie, I think that makes you “Master Chef Extraordinaire” ha! :D
I thought the term was blind baked, not par baked, but I guess you learn something every day.
How do people manage to fire off these emails to people and don’t even know where they are sending them? Unreal.
“I thought the term was blind baked, not par baked, but I guess you learn something every day.”
I’ve always thought that “blind baking” referred to pre-baking a pie crust, torte shell, etc. without the filling that is added later.
Par-baked means that the bread, pie, etc. is partially-baked and will need more oven time before it can be eaten. This is similar to par-boiling potatoes for a recipe that includes other ingredients added to the potatoes and then baked before serving, i.e. scalloped and/or au gratin potato dishes.
A little humor, oh_come_on. Thus the “y’all.”
Paula Deen admitted in a magazine interview once that she does not eat the food she cooks. That pretty much tells you everything.
“Paula Deen admitted in a magazine interview once that she does not eat the food she cooks. That pretty much tells you everything.”
I’ll buy that – she probably eats worse! LOL!
That said, I saw PD make Steak Diane last week and will prepare her version for DH and I tonight. I haven’t made this in years and hesitate to order it in a restaurant because of the cream (I have that lactose thing going on in recent years). Paula’s recipe has no cream, and I will double up on the mushrooms and add a splash of Cognac.
JustANobody, thank you! Can you imagine if I had a commerical grade stove!? OMG. I would be able to rule the world!! (throw head back and insert diabolical laugh here)
Because I am an avid fan of FNH, I, byrdie, went on a fact finding mission of great magnitude. I fought the traffic. I braved the parking lot. I entered the local Wally World and YES: I did it on a Friday afternoon. I know, I know. I risked life and limb fighting the crowds. But I did it all for my pals at FNH. And I can report that I not only survived but I came back with some investigation resulted in some very interesting information.
I found the Poopy’s pastry products! My first encounter was on the “manager’s clearance” rack. It was there I spotted “Paula Deens Gooey Butter Cake”. Yes, on clearance. Marked down from $3 to $1.80. I saw three of these cakes on clearance, and then spotted a “Paula Deen Fudge Pie”, marked down from $7.50 to $4.50. As I picked up the “Gooey Butter Cake” (serves two), I began to read the label. It was then that I almost ran screaming from the building. “Gooey” had 18 grams of fat (28%); saturated fat 55% and TRANS FAT OF 1%! Yes, trans fat, my friends. Not to mention 40 grams of sugar. And this was per serving. Oddly enough “Gooey BUTTER Cake” had butter as an ingredient about 20 from the first ingredient, meaning the sat fat came from wonderful stuff like Palm Oil.
The “Fudge Pie”? 38% fat, 70% sat fat and .5% trans fat with 39 grams of sugar.
I eventually recovered from my horrors and went to the bakery department. There I found the other items, the apple and pecan pies. Although I was afraid to look at the label, I reached down to my inner strength and found much of the same horrible, artery clogging substances.
There you have it. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. And now, I need to lie down for a while.
Quick! Someone get Byride a Viking Professional Range! (by the by, Vikin makes outstandin products!)
Move over RR, Byrdie is on her way UP!
Hey, while you’re tossing in stuff, Just, can you add a couple of SubZero’s too? LOL!!
@Byrdie you are AWESOME!
thanks for the report!
Just as suspected, her products are filled with unhealthy heart clogging crap y’all!
Don’t have much sympathy for “Jules”. Why is someone who claims to be an accomplished chef doing buying a Paua Deen pie from Walmart? Serious case of poor judgement. Play with fire and you’ll get burned. Paula Deen=crap and not just on a driveway.
Perhaps Jules is now working as a writing instructor…
Thanks for your devotion to the fine folks here at FNH. Was there “clearance” milk available to accompany Poopy’s mark-down desserts?
You deserve a fine bottle of Sauvigonon Blanc for your superb efforts in providing the unhealthy “nutrition” information about Pauler’s products. Mazel Tov!
Cherry, join me in a glass! Happy Friday!!
@Designer – I remember you had made a comment about sat fats, so I specifically wanted to find that info out. Glad to be able to inform so we all can stay around longer!!
Gotta love Pauler’s extensively photoshopped image on that website, nary a line or wrinkle to be found.
My bad. Not sat fats, but TRANS fat. Anybody that eats that knowingly is just crazy.
This is the type of food that would be good in a bomb shelter as it will not go bad.
Good point, Teague. Of course, even in the midst of nuclear desolation, I still don’t think I could choke down one of those fat-laden messes.
@Ferd I think I’d starve to death as well.
@Jillian did you ever let this accomplished-Walmart-pie buying-spellcheck phobic- alleged ‘chef’ know that she was talking to FNH, or was she thinking that one of the Deens was actually talking to her.
I can sort of see how some addle minded simpleton in a rush could get tins confused with an FN site…but it does take some sort of twisted mindset to think that this is Paula Deen’s official site.
this was hella funny. More like this. Please.
1.) Wal-Mart.
2.) Paula Deen.
3.) Nuff said.
The purchaser was expecting what? A Jacques Torres creation? You get what you pay for.
I demo’d Paula Deen’s pies at one of my stores and people gagged on it. Not cooked,,,raw. Sooo disapointed in thid product…no quality control. Paula..PLEASE get on the ball and take this off the market!
Lori, as long as people buy her crap she won’t remove her name (and the royalty checks) from any product, good, bad or indifferent. She would be cutting her own throat. What needs to happen is that the purchases that are crappy need to be returned to the store for a refund. If enough people do that, Wally World, or any other retailer or website, is going to drop her products. It’s the power of the dollar that will speak volumes!
I HAD THE SAME EXPERIENCE WITH MY PAULA DEEN APPLE PIE. I AM A PAULA DEEN FAN AND WILL EAT ANYTHING WITH A COOKED APPLE IN IT. SO MUCH SO THAT IT IS A FAMILY JOKE!!!THAT PIE IS RAW. I THOUGHT IT MUST BE PAR BAKED SO I TRIED TO COOK IT. IT WON’T COOK.
Sandy, calm down. Take a deep breath. Feeling a bit better?
Take the piece of shit pie back to the store where you bought it and get your money back. Remember, as a fan of Pauler you deserve ‘her very best from her to you’ blah blah blah. Or ‘her very best attempt to get your money’ or was it, ‘your very best dollars for a crappy product that I allow them to put my name on so I can pay for yet another house and more hairpieces and brighter choppers and…’
You’ve been take to the cleaners and you don’t even know your pants are off.
Next time, Sandy, break the prozac in half.
[...] of the Paula Deen apple pie she bought at Wal-Mart that she ran to her computer and wrote us a series of colorful e-mails. Since then, we’ve been getting dozens of letters from more – shall we say – [...]
Paula, Paula, Paula -take back your pie!
ditto – on the comments of a soggy pie.
We did salvage it! We cooked it in our toaster oven at 400 for about 10-15 minutes. It is now edible.
I have seen first hand how many pies that have come back and the comments are all the same. I too bought one and brought it back. Walmart needs to rethink their partnership.
I just bought a Paula Dean Rum Pecan Pie and it is beyond disgusting…..how can you screw up a pie so badly? It was so sickly sweet is made my teeth ache and to me had little to no pecan flavor…..just gross.
My hubby is eating a piece of the Paula Dean apple crunch pie as we speak…..he says it tastes ok, but the crust is very soft and mushy.
Paula Dean….your pies bomb, and for signifactly more $ than the other walmart pies they had sitting there….you get a big “yuk” from us and we certainly won’t be buying something with your name on it in the future.
I received a Paula Deen pie from someone else. I didn’t have the negative experience these people are talking about. I personally thought it was the most delicious apple pie I had ever had. If you check the ingredients online, it has applesauce listed. Maybe these people are not used to that in a pie. As for the crust? It probably could be put in the oven to finish baking to their liking. My family also liked the pie.
Yesterday, 2-4-10, my husband went to Wal-Mart and came home with the Apple Crunch Top Pie. It really looked good in the package but not when it sat on the plate. My husband is a marvelous cook and pies are his specialty. He is always looking for a new kind, flavor, etc. and when he say the Wal-Mart Special, he brought it home. The top crust looked and was delicious but the rest was a big disappointment. The apples did not have any flavor, they were soft/mushy, there were no spices detected (cinnamon), and the bottom crust was not cooked through. We are not going to eat the rest because we know we can do better by using Washington State Apples and a good receipt. We did not pay $7.50, it was on sale for $4.50. That price was way to high for what we got.
Paula, we enjoy watching your programs and getting new ideas for ourselves. But do become more diligent in what you put out to the public and do take our criticism to heart and make good decisions.