Humble Pie Should Be Changed To Humble Salad

Who looks like they're being humbled?

"Frickin' Frank needs to be knocked off his high frickin' horse. I wanna make him eat some humble pie!" - Everyone at some point. Probably earlier today.

We've all been on both the giving and receiving ends of consuming humble pie. It's impossible to go through life without being a part of this grand pie eating contest. If for some reason you haven't heard the idiom before, it means to face humility and get knocked down a peg after your lack of humility has been pissing people off. No one wants you to eat humble pie if you've been perfectly humble and awesome to them. It's that sweet, selfish sense of justice that differentiates it from plain old apologies and admissions of error. And we assuage our conscience by remembering that humility is good for building character.

So, it's a negative, unpleasant, hard to swallow experience that is ultimately good for you, which is why it makes no sense to me that it's associated with pie. Pie is freaking delicious and awesome but not at all good for you! Sure, maybe if you eat way too much it becomes unpleasant deep down in your stomach, or later on it's humbling weighing yourself, but the idiom is usually about some or a slice of humble pie, not lots of it. Some pie is pretty darn pleasant.

I looked up the origin of the term, and it does actually make sense in historical context. Way back in the day, there was umble pie, which was made from all the crappy parts of deer no one really wants to eat, so not something you'd eat unless you were of humble financial situation. So it makes sense that at some point humble and umble, two words sounding very similar, got turned into an idiom. When umble pie was still a thing, the idiom had clear context.

But times change, and now pie is super tasty, whether in dessert or meat pastry form. Umble pie is long gone and it no longer makes sense to associate humility with something universally regarded as delicious and awesome. Just ask yourself, when you want to see someone knocked down a peg, and if you have to translate that sentiment into food form, would you give them pie? Hell no, even if it was a kind of pie you know they don't like, you know they'd still be like, "Cool, free pie! Thanks, that's so thoughtful of you!"

So what would we all like to give someone we want to see fall on their ass? Salad. We all know that no one really likes salad. The only reason anyone ever eats it is because they're trying to lose weight or eat healthy. No one ever really wants to eat it, it's just a sacrifice made for a greater good. Some people think they like salad, or occasionally think they've had a good salad as an exception to the rule, but they're just lying to themselves. I know because I've fallen prey to such self-denial many times. I've even homemade salads! But the reality is it's never truly enjoyable, and even when you do get some genuine tasty satisfaction, you know damn well it was only good for a salad and you'd rather have eaten something much more awesome than a stupid sucky salad. Like pie! Or pie with meat!

Thus, seeing as pie is tasty and wonderful but bad for you, and salad sucks but is good for you, I declare it's high time we rebrand humble pie as humble salad. I know it doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely, but it's sentimentally accurate and sure as hell makes more sense in modern context. No one will ever be thankful you gave them metaphorical salad, and that's what knocking someone off their high horse is all about.