Savoury pie made with wild game
Game pie
is a form of
meat pie
featuring
game
. The dish dates from Roman times when the main ingredients were wild birds and animals such as
partridge
,
pheasant
,
deer
, and
hare
. The pies reached their most elaborate form in
Victorian England
, with complex recipes and specialized
moulds
and serving dishes. Modern versions are simpler but savoury combinations of
rabbit
,
venison
,
pigeon
, pheasant, and other commercially available game.
[1]
Early history
[
edit
]
Game pies were consumed by the wealthy in the days of the
Roman Empire
.
Wilhelm Adolf Becker
states that the emperor
Augustus
consumed pies that contained chicken, pheasants, pigeon, and duck.
[2]
In the
Middle Ages
, "bake mete"
[3]
described a pie in which meat or fish is baked with fruit, spices, etc. The meats and sauces were placed in a tough and inedible pastry shell, or "coffin" with a lid sealed on, then baked. There was no pan: the pie shell itself acted as the container. Frequently the pastry was considered superfluous and was discarded.
[4]
The process of raising the sides of the pie to form a strong protective crust is described in old cookery books as "raising the coffin".
[5]
The term "mete" referred to the pie, not the meat: a 15th-century cookbook gives a bake mete recipe for a pear custard pie.
[6]
Describing the
franklin
in the 14th-century classic
The Canterbury Tales
,
Chaucer
said:
"Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, Of fissh and flessh, and that so plentvous"
.
[7]
The best meat might be reserved for the wealthy, while their servants ate inferior pies made of the left-over "umbles" ? liver, heart, tripes, and other offal, hence the term "eating
humble pie
".
[8]
In medieval times, birds that might be found in a game pie included
heron
,
crane
,
crow
,
swan
,
stork
,
cormorant
, and
bittern
as well as smaller birds trapped by nets such as
thrushes
,
starlings
, and
blackbirds
.
[9]
The 15th-century cookery book
Un Vyaunde furnez sanz nom de chare
describes a
croustade
of veal, herbs, dates, and eggs baked in a coffin, but other sources describe croustades of chicken and pigeon.
[10]
Birds were often placed on top of game pies as ornaments, or 'subtelties', a practice that continued into the
Victorian age
. An 1890s edition of
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
shows a game pie topped by a stuffed pheasant.
[11]
Tudor and Stuart periods
[
edit
]
Through most of the period of the
Tudor
and
Stuart
monarchs, roughly from 1500 to 1685, it was common for the rulers and their courtiers to stage elaborate feasts where the attraction was as much the entertainment provided by musicians, comedians, jugglers and acrobats as the food itself. Sometimes the two were combined. Around 1630, at a dinner attended by
Charles I
, a huge game pie was placed on the table. But when the crust was removed, a dwarf armed with sword and buckler sprang from the coffin.
[12]
On another occasion, the king was served a surprise pie containing live birds, perhaps the origin of the rhyme "
Sing a Song of Sixpence
".
[13]
The game pies of that period were sweeter than in later times, often containing fruit as well as meat, game and spices.
[14]
The Tudor Christmas Pie was a rich pie of traditional birds such as partridge, chicken and goose with a recent addition, the turkey, which had been introduced to England from the
New World
in 1523.
[15]
Game pie was not restricted to the rich.
Until the 1816 Gaming act, country people had the right to catch small game such as rabbits and pigeons to supplement their diet.
[16]
More valuable game were reserved for the rich, but perhaps not entirely successfully.
Shakespeare
in
The Merry Wives of Windsor
alludes to a Venison pasty made from "ill-killed" deer.
[17]
France
[
edit
]
In 1653,
Francois Pierre La Varenne
published his groundbreaking work
Le Patissier francois
. On the frontispiece, is a country kitchen where the cook is making a game pie surrounded by the dead game that would have been included.
[18]
The
Oreiller de la Belle Aurore
is an elaborate game pie named after Claudine-Aurore Recamier, the mother of
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
. The large square pie, which was one of her son's favorite dishes, contains a variety of game birds and their livers, veal, pork, truffles, aspic, and much else, in puff pastry. It is described in the classic encyclopedia of
gastronomy
, the
Larousse Gastronomique
.
[19]
Golden age of game pies in England
[
edit
]
In the 18th century, game pies prepared for the prosperous gentry could be very elaborate.
Hannah Glasse
, in her best-selling
The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy
, first published in 1747, gave a recipe for a Christmas pie that included pigeon, partridge, a chicken and a goose, all boned and placed one inside the other, and then placed within an enormous turkey.
[20]
[21]
In his 1816 autobiography
William Hutton
recalls of his maternal grandmother:
She was a careful yet liberal housekeeper, and well skilled in cookery, pastry, and confectionery. I have heard of a pie she raised in the form of a goose trussed for the spit; the real goose was boned; a duck was boned and laid within it; a fowl was boned and laid within the duck; a boned partridge within the fowl; and a boned pigeon within the partridge. The whole having been properly seasoned, the interstices were filled with rich gravy.
[22]
Benjamin Disraeli
in his novel
Venetia
describes an English dinner around 1770 that included
...that masterpiece of the culinary art, a great
battalia pie
, in which the bodies of chickens, pigeons, and rabbits, were embalmed in spices, cock's combs, and savoury balls, and well bedewed with one of those rich sauces of claret, anchovy, and sweet herbs ... [on] the cover of this pastry ... the curious cook had contrived to represent all the once-living forms that were now entombed in that gorgeous sepulchre.
[23]
At some point, it became customary for game pies to be served cold. An enormous game pie was made for the
Earl of Sefton
in the first part of the 19th century to be presented to the corporation of
Liverpool
. It contained a great variety of game, stuffed one bird within another, as well as truffles, veal, bacon and other ingredients. The meats were first cooked, then cooled with ice and placed in a huge pastry shell with a crust, which was further cooked for three hours. After pouring a hot aspic sauce into the pie through a funnel, it was allowed to cool again for two days before being served cold.
[24]
The 1845 cookbook
The practical cook, English and foreign
describes similar game pies of chickens, pigeons, partridges, hares, rabbits, pheasants, gray plovers, grouse, wild fowls or small birds, which may have slices of ham added. With all of these, calf's foot jelly or the bone of a knuckle of veal stewed down to a jelly was added to form aspic when the pie was cooled. The cold pie would then be sliced and served in the same way as its relative, the modern
pork pie
.
[25]
Moulds and dishes
[
edit
]
In the second half of the 18th century, potters such as
Josiah Wedgwood
introduced industrial processes that made it practical to mass-produce glazed pottery containers capable of withstanding the heat of the oven, at relatively low prices.
[26]
Following a suggestion by
Richard Lovell Edgeworth
in 1786, Wedgwood started making game pie dishes with an inner liner to hold the contents and an ornamental cover. These were a useful alternative to the traditional pastry coffin, since there were endemic shortages of wheat at this time caused by the early
industrial revolution
coupled with the disruption of trade during the
Napoleonic wars
[27]
Wedgwood's dishes often had raised bas-relief ornaments of dead game and vine leaves, and a lid handle often modeled on a hare or root vegetable.
[28]
Some designs gave the illusion of a pastry coffin and lid. William Jesse in his 1844 biography of Beau Brummel says this design was introduced in 1800 when the royal household prohibited the use of flour for pastry in their kitchens, using rice instead.
[29]
The invention of the sprung metal pie form made it possible to use a finer pastry than the old-fashioned
hot water crust pastry
, and also to impart much finer decorative detail to the surface of the pastry. The
moulds
were sold in many different designs.
[30]
The potter
Herbert Minton
introduced
Majolica
wares in 1851, earthenware ceramics decorated with relief figures and brilliant glazes. Until not long before, only the aristocracy and the gentry had had the right to consume game and there were still many restrictions. Expensive Majolica game pie dishes, draped with images of sumptuous game animals, were used by aspiring middle-class families to signal that they had the wealth or connections to obtain the game that they served to their guests legally rather than through the black market.
[31]
Later Victorians and the 20th century
[
edit
]
As the
Victorian age
advanced, the middle classes grew rapidly, with aspirations to a lifestyle that had been reserved to the privileged few. Pioneers such as
Alexis Soyer
introduced new cooking techniques for the masses based on scientific principles and gas ovens.
[32]
Mrs. Beeton
addressed a broad audience in her 1861
Book of Household Management
, giving simple recipes for grouse and partridge pie and for preparing other common game such as wild duck, hare,
corn-crake
, pheasant, plovers, ptarmigan, quail, venison, etc.
[33]
The game pie gradually waned in snob appeal and popularity. In
The Mating Season
,
P.G. Wodehouse
notes that
Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright
once hit the game pie at the
Drones
six times with six consecutive bread rolls from a seat at the far window.
[34]
In
Vile Bodies
, a novel about the period between the first and second world wars,
Evelyn Waugh
describes the game pie at Shepheard's, a fictional club, as "quite black inside and full of beaks and shot and inexplicable vertebrae".
[35]
Modern variants
[
edit
]
Many restaurants today serve game pies and there are many modern recipes, but they are usually quite different from the traditional cold game pie. Commonly they contain a savoury stew of commercially available meats such as rabbit and venison, quail and pheasant, but not birds such as pigeons, thrushes, starlings, blackbirds, and crows that were commonly used in the past. They are usually served hot, and may have no shell but only a pastry cover ? or in restaurants only a puff-pastry lid added at the last minute.
[36]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Mark Hix
Game pie
; Serves 4?6 26 November 2005 Independent
- ^
Frederick Metcalfeby (1888).
Gallus: or, Roman scenes of the time of Augustus. With notes and excursuses illustrative of the manners and customs of the Romans
. Frederick Metcalfe (trans.). Longmans, Green. p. 462.
- ^
Medieval Recipe Translations - A bake Mete Ryalle
. The Early English Text Society by N. Trubner & Co. 1888.
A Royal Pie. Take and make little pie shells, & take Chicken boiled; or Pork boiled; or them both: take Cloves, Mace, Cubeb, & hack all together, & mix it with crumbled marrow, & add just the right amount of Sugar; then place it a pie shell, & in the middle place a piece of marrow, & all over some Sugar, and let it bake; & this is for a supper.
- ^
"History of Pie"
. Linda Stradley ? WhatsCookingAmerica
. Retrieved
2009-08-16
.
- ^
"Here Begins the Book of the Nature of Beasts: Eberle Umbach"
. Robert Frost's Banjo. January 28, 2009
. Retrieved
2009-08-17
.
- ^
"A Bake Mete"
. Gode Cookery
. Retrieved
2009-08-21
.
- ^
Geoffrey Chaucer (1886).
Canterbury tales, Volume 1
. Kegan Paul, Trench & co.
- ^
E. Cobham Brewer (2004).
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898)
. Kessinger Publishing.
ISBN
1-4192-1607-4
.
- ^
"Medieval Game Birds"
. Medieval Life and Times
. Retrieved
2009-08-16
.
- ^
"Crustade"
. Joyce Baldwin
. Retrieved
2009-08-16
.
- ^
"Bake Metes and Mince Pies"
. Ivan Day (Historic Food). Archived from
the original
on 2009-06-14
. Retrieved
2009-08-21
.
- ^
John Cordy Jeaffreson
(1875).
A book about the table
. Hurst and Blackett. p.
58
.
- ^
The American magazine, Volume 25
. Crowell-Collier Pub. co. 1888. p. 367.
- ^
"Food and feasts"
. National Maritime Museum. Archived from
the original
on 2011-06-09
. Retrieved
2009-08-21
.
- ^
"A Tudor Christmas"
. localhistories.org
. Retrieved
2009-08-21
.
- ^
Martin Trevor Wild (2004).
Village England: a social history of the countryside
. I.B.Tauris.
ISBN
1-86064-939-4
.
- ^
Willian Shakespeare (1886).
The merry wives of Windsor: a comedy
. G. Bell and sons. p. Act 1, Scene 1.
- ^
Andrew Lang.
"Elzevirs"
. D.J. McAdam
. Retrieved
2009-08-16
.
- ^
Prosper Montagne (1961). Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud (ed.).
Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine, and Cookery
(English translation of the 1938 ed.). New York: Crown Publishers.
ISBN
0-517-50333-6
.
- ^
Hannah Glasse (1998) [1747]. "VIII Pies".
The art of cookery made plain and easy
. Applewood Books.
ISBN
1-55709-462-4
.
- ^
"Hannah Glasse's recipe for a Yorkshire Christmas Pie :? Original Recipe with a modern redaction"
. Celtnet Recipes. Archived from
the original
on March 8, 2012
. Retrieved
April 21,
2011
.
- ^
William Hutton, Catherine Hutton (1816).
The life of William Hutton: including a particular account of the riots at Birmingham in 1791; to which is subjoined, the history of his family
. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.
- ^
Benjamin Disraeli
(2006).
Venetia, Volume 7 of Bradenham edition of the novels and tales
. Read Books.
ISBN
1-4067-3661-9
.
- ^
Charles Dickens, ed. (1868).
All the Year Round
, Volumes 19-20
. p. 564.
- ^
Joseph Bregion, Anne Miller (1845).
The practical cook, English and foreign: containing a great variety of old receipts, improved and re-modelled, and many original receipts in English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, American, Swiss, and Indian cookery ; with copious directions for the choice of all provisions
. Chapman and Hall. p.
191
.
- ^
Samuel Smiles (1894).
Josiah Wedgwood, F. R. S.: his personal history
. John Murray.
- ^
"Game pie dish"
. Old and Interesting.
- ^
"Game pie dish ? 1869"
. Wedgwood Museum
. Retrieved
2009-08-20
.
- ^
William Jesse (2008).
The life of George Brummell, esq., commonly called Beau Brummell, Volume 1
. READ BOOKS. p. 45.
ISBN
978-1-4437-0391-8
.
- ^
"Pies and Chewitts"
. Ivan Day. Archived from
the original
on 2009-02-06
. Retrieved
2009-08-16
.
- ^
Jeffrey B. Snyder.
"Victorian Views of Nature Revealed in Majolica"
. Unravel The Gavel. Archived from
the original
on 2009-09-07
. Retrieved
2009-08-20
.
- ^
Ruth Cowen (2008).
Relish: The Extraordinary Life of Alexis Soyer, Victorian Celebrity Chef
. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
ISBN
978-0-297-64562-7
.
- ^
"Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Chapter 23 ? Game Recipes"
. mrsbeeton.com. Archived from
the original
on 2009-09-02
. Retrieved
2009-08-20
.
- ^
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (2002).
The mating season
. Overlook Press.
ISBN
1-58567-231-9
.
- ^
Evelyn Waugh (1988).
Vile bodies
. Marshall Cavendish.
ISBN
0-86307-691-2
.
- ^
"BBC Game pie recipe"
. BBC
. Retrieved
2009-08-16
.
External links
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Roman times
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Middle Ages
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16th century
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17th century
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18th century
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19th century
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20th century
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