A wonderful guest post from Eye on Life Guest Writer and B&B innkeeper, Nancy Hinchliff. In this post Nancy serves up everything you ever wanted to know about the history and lore of pie, including a historical recipe or two. A perfect culinary read for the holiday season.
Where it All Started
The origins of pie can actually be traced to the ancient Egyptians, who incorporated nuts, honey and fruits into bread dough. However, according to most food historians, pie pastry actually originated with the Greeks. At that time they were made of a flour and water paste which was wrapped around meat to seal in the juices
The Romans took home these Greek recipes and developed their own pies, cakes and cake-like puddings.
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It was around around the early 1500s that the first pies appeared on the European continent They were called “coffins” or “coffyns” and were savory meat pies with tall crusts which were sealed on the top and bottom. Open crust pies were called “traps”. These pies held assorted meats and sauces and were baked like a modern casserole with no pan.
The pie craze then spread throughout Europe, via the Roman roads, every country adapting them to their own customs and foods. English women were baking pies long before the settlers came to America. By the 1700s American pioneer women often served pies with every meal.
Coming to America
Samuel Clemens, who used the pseudonym Mark Twain, loved pie and often ate baked Huckleberry pie baked by his life-long housekeeper, Katy Leary. After a trip to Europe, where he developed a strong dislike for European food, he developed a long list of food he wanted to partake of back in the United States. After noting that “…it has been many months…since I have had a nourishing meal…” he ironically devised a recipe for “English Pie”. His tongue-in-cheek recipe, hinting at the awfulness if these pies, follows:
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Mark Twain’s Recipe for Pie
“…Take a sufficiency of water and flour and construct a bullet-proof dough. Work this into the form of a disk, with edges turned up some three fourths of an inch. Toughen and kiln-dry for a couple days in a mild but unvarying temperature. Construct a cover for this “formidable creation”, in the same way and of the same material. Filled with stewed dried apples. Aggravate with cloves, lemon peel and citron, and add two portions of New Orleans sugar. Then solder on the lid and sit in a safe place until it petrifies. Serve cold at breakfast and invite you enemies.”
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A Variety of Pies
Many of the pies which became associated with Kentucky, came from the Shakers of the Amish in Indiana. Two very popular ones are the Sugar Cream Pie and the Shaker Lemon Pie. Another is Vinegar Pie.
Only three ingredients go into Shaker Lemon Pie: lemon slices (peel and all), sugar, and eggs. The filling is more like marmalade. Where did the Shakers get the lemons? It is said that they traveled in boats to New Orleans to sell their wares and return with cash and lemons. This is a very tart lemon pie which uses whole lemons, rind and all, inside the pie. They are first sliced very thin, then macerated overnight, four lemons to two cups of sugar. The key to this pie is slicing the lemons very thin.
When lemons are not in season, pioneer women baked pies with vinegar, which substituted for lemon juice. They were custardy and still had a fruit-like flavor from the vinegar. Vinegar Pie remained popular in regency England, throughout the nineteenth century, even after English settlers brought it to America.
Sugar Cream Pie was a simple, basic, “desperation” pie made with ingredients that were always nearby or on-hand at the farm. When making this pie “finger-stirring” in the unbaked crust was necessary, so as not to whip the cream before baking.
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Talk About Work Intensive
(This is the way they used to do it…we’ve come a long way, baby)
Mince Pies Traditional Recipe
Ingredients:
For the pastry
400g plain flour
110g golden caster sugar
40g ground almonds
200g butter (or for a crisper pastry – 100g butter 100g lard)
1 large lemon (zest only)
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp whole milk
For the mincemeat:
1 Large Bramley apple (400g) peeled, cored and chopped small
250g raisins
250g sultanas
250g currants
200g candied peel (diced small)
200g shredded suet (fresh or packet)
200g soft dark brown sugar (muscovado)
150ml Brandy
1 lemon grated zest and juice
1 orange grated zest and juice
100g flaked almonds (broken small)
2 tsp mixed ground spice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
Instructions
Making the Mince Meat
Wash all the dried fruit under running water in a colander and leave to dry. Peel, core and chop the apple small. Then, in a large mixing bowl (oven proof at low temperatures) combine all the ingredients, except for the brandy, stirring them in so that no one ingredient is clumping together. (Tip: try to get the most lemon and orange zest and juice out of the fruit as possible). Then cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave the mixture in a cool place overnight, so the flavours have a chance to initially mingle, deepen and develop.
The next day pre-heat the oven to a low temperature of 120°C. Cover the mixing bowl loosely with foil and place it in the oven for 3 hours – after 3 hours on a low heat remove the bowl from the oven. The suet will have melted and the apple will have stewed and macerated, leaving the mincemeat covered in a thin, watery fat. This is fine, and exactly what we want; with this method of preparing the mincemeat the melted fat (with the added alcohol) will stop any fermentation during storage (making this recipe fine to store for several months).
After removing from the oven, and as it cools, stir the mixture from time to time; instead of the suet being in tiny shreds (from packet suet or shredded from fresh suet) it will have melted from being in the oven, and so by stirring it in, the fat will coat all the dried fruit and fresh apple as it cools.
When the mincemeat is cold, stir again, adding in the brandy. Leave this covered with a clean cloth overnight, the next day stir for a final time and then pack the mincemeat in jars which have been sterilised, ready to be used in Mince Pies when needed. When filled right to the top (with very little air space left, or air pockets in the mincemeat) seal the jars and store in a cool, dark, dry place like a store cupboard or pantry. Age for at least 4 weeks (can be left significantly longer).
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Making the Mince Pies
Start by greasing 2 x 12 small pie tins or small muffin tins. Add the sieved flour and ground almonds into a large mixing bowl. Add in the butter and mix it together with your fingers until it looks like very fine breadcrumbs.
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Making The Pastry Dough For The Mince Pies
Sprinkle in the sugar and add in the lemon zest, egg yolk and milk and mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture starts to clump together. Tip the mixture onto a board and gently squeeze the pastry in your hands until it comes together into a soft, silky and pliable ball – add a little extra milk if it feels dry. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
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Preparing To Make The Traditional Mince Pies With An Aged Jar Of Traditional Mincemeat
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Preheat an oven to 190°C. Roll the mince pie pastry on a lightly floured surface to about 3mm and using a 7cm fluted pastry cutter, cut out 24 discs and line two 12-hole small pie tins with them. Use a smaller 6cm fluted cutter to cut 24 discs for the lids or pie tops. Spoon 2 tsp of mincemeat (made earlier) into each tart, dampen the edge of the pastry bottom with milk and sit a smaller pastry disc on top, crimp with your fingers or a fork to seal. Brush the tops with a little milk. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 190C until golden brown, remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Finish with a dusting of icing sugar over the top. Serve the mince pies warm or at room temperature, dusted with icing sugar.
Nancy Hinchliff, Innkeeper
Aleksander House Bed and Breakfast
Website/Reservations: www.aleksanderhouse.com
Blogs:
www.innnotes.blogspot.com,
www.businesswomensforum.blogspot.com
Roberta Kyle, Senior Editor |
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