In reading about the history of pie, I discovered an amazing story, the life and times of Jeffrey Hudson. Jeffrey Hudson was born in England in 1619 with a birth defect—he was born a pituitary dwarf and would grow to be tiny but perfectly proportioned, "a rarity of nature." As a seven-year-old boy who stood only 18 inches tall, he caught the attention of the Duke and Duchess of Birmingham, and his family basically handed him over to them. In those days with royalty wanting to find amusement in every little thing, kitchen staff would bake big pies and stuff the crusts with living things like birds and bunnies that would fly or hop away when the crust was ceremoniously cut at the table—four and twenty black birds baked in a pie and all that. Not long after Jeffrey came to live with the Duke and Duchess, he was presented in such a pie at a dinner to honor Queen Henrietta. Being one to collect oddities like giants and monkeys, the Queen added Jeffrey to her menagerie and made him...