THE COMBACK KID: Pot Pie

It doesn’t have anything to do with weed (pot) and everything to do with what’s inside.

Basically, a pot pie is meat and vegetables baked inside crusts. It’s been around for thousands of years.

How about singing a song of sixpence with a bit of truth?

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened

The birds began to sing –

Wasn’t that a dainty dish

To set before the king?

According to Wikipedia, “a sixteenth century amusement was to place live birds in a pie . . . so [they would] fly out when it was cut up.”

Truth can be stranger than fiction.

Compliments of Wikimedia Commons

Pies were around long before Mother Goose.

The first pies are believed to be from ancient Egypt, over eight thousand years ago. They used barley, wheat, or oats, made into pastry and baked over hot coals. It was filled with ingredients like honey and chicken. The pastry was inedible.

The ancient Greeks cooked sliced meats in pastry shells, called artocreas. It was a great way to preserve ingredients without a refrigerator in the kitchen.

BBC reported that “the [ancient] Romans took the concept of pies even further.” They made pie cases to “preserve the juices and flavors and was not intended to be eaten.” Many believe that they were the first to bake in live birds.

Cato the Elder, a second century BC Roman senator, wrote a recipe for placenta (flat cake) believed to be one of the earliest closed-pie recipes.

Yuck.

As the Roman Empire spread, so did their pies. Different cultures adapted pies to their tastes. The crust was improved in Northern Europe where they used wheat and replaced the oil with butter or lard, making the crust softer and edible

Renaissance cooks took their pies seriously. The BBC adds that “In Britain the first pies had mainly meat fillings . . . in pastry cases that were not necessarily for eating.” Like the Romans, the pastry made food last longer and saved space on sea voyages.

The Brits molded pies along the bottom of a pan or pot called a coffyn (coffin). If you chose a poultry filling it was often served with legs dangling over the edge for handles.

Want a coffin for dinner . . . with dangling legs?

Pies became so popular that cooks would compete to make them centerpieces in exclusive banquets. They decorated pies with flowers, fancy designs, and dough sculptures. An egg wash, saffron, even gold flakes topped the design. Fillings might include tiny chicks stuffed with gooseberries, live actors reciting poetry, and musicians.

Legend says that Queen Elizabeth I, famous for her love of Shakespeare and literature, ate the first cherry pie baked specially for her.

Now you’re cooking.

Queen Elizabeth I, Compliments of Wikimedia Commons

During the Industrial Revolution, pies became more popular. The rich ate fillings of fresh game and fish. The poor dined on mutton and beef from old animals. The wealthiest ate pigeon pot pie made from specially-raised birds.

Pie recipes crossed the ocean with the colonists. The American Pot Pie was born.

The “coffins” were renamed “crusts.” The first American cookbook, American Cookery (1796) included recipes for stew, mince, salt pork, and chicken pies. The Lancaster Pennsylvania Dutch created a soupy pie with square noodles, potatoes, vegetables, and chicken. They called it “slippery pot pie.”

Later, during World War II, there was a dramatic change in family life. Full-time homemakers worked assembly lines to replace men at war. They needed something quick and easy to prepare – like frozen dinners.

What’s better than America’s beloved comfort food?

In the 1950s, Swanson TV Dinners launched a frozen chicken pot pie. Morton, Marie Callender, and Stouffer’s became their competitors. These days, over 190 million pies are sold in grocery stores every year.

Today, pot pies are back in demand. Cody Bolden writes in Pie Bar, “Pot pie has also recently made a comeback in restaurants.” Pot pies are everywhere, from frozen to fresh, home to restaurant, and everything in-between. You can get – or make – the traditional. There is also vegan, curry, and gluten-free along with taco, lamb, cheeseburger, and pizza.

Pot pies around the world might have different names but they’re basically the same. Check out Israeli pastel, South African hoenderpastei, Brazilian empadão de frango, and Greek kreatopita. Celebrate National Great American Pot Pie Day in September.

Dream about the most expensive pot pie ever made, recorded by Guinness World Records as costing $14,620. The ingredients included Japanese wagyu beef from hand-massaged cows, Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine, and rare black truffles, all finished with edible gold leaf.

Such a bargain.

Your cozy, comforting pot pie is just as delicious. Enjoy.