HISTORY OF PIES

• Pie has been around since the ancient Egyptians. The first pies were made by early Romans who may have learned about it through the Greeks. These pies were sometimes made in "reeds" which were used for the sole purpose of holding the filling and not for eating with the filling.
• The Romans must have spread the word about pies around Europe as the Oxford English Dictionary notes that the word pie was a popular word in the 14th century. The first pie recipe was published by the Romans and was for a rye-crusted goat cheese and honey pie.
• The early pies were predominately meat pies. Pyes (pies) originally appeared in England as early as the twelfth century. The crust of the pie was referred to as "coffyn". There was actually more crust than filling. Often these pies were made using fowl and the legs were left to hang over the side of the dish and used as handles. Fruit pies or tarts (pasties) were probably first made in the 1500s. English tradition credits making the first cherry pie to Queen Elizabeth I.
• Pie came to America with the first English settlers. The early colonists cooked their pies in long narrow pans calling them "coffins" like the crust in England. As in the Roman times, the early American pie crusts often were not eaten, but simply designed to hold the filling during baking. It was during the American Revolution that the term crust was used instead of coffyn.
• Over the years, pie has evolved to become what it is today "the most traditional American dessert". Pie has become so much a part of American culture throughout the years, that we now commonly use the term "as American as apple pie.

What is a pie?

A Pie is what happens when pastry meets filling. Pie can be closed, open, small, large, savory or sweet. The basic concept of pies and tarts has changed little throughout the ages. Cooking methods (baked or fried in ancient hearths, portable colonial/pioneer Dutch ovens, modern ovens), pastry composition (flat bread, flour/fat/water crusts, puff paste, milles feuilles), and cultural preference (pita, pizza, quiche, shepherd's, lemon meringue, classic apple, chocolate pudding). All figure prominently into the complicated history of this particular genre of food.

The first pies were very simple and generally of the savory (meat and cheese) kind. Flaky pastry fruit-filled turnovers appeared in the early 19th century. Some pie-type foods are made for individual consumption. These portable pies... pasties, turnovers, empanadas, pierogi, calzones...were enjoyed by working classes and sold by street vendors. Pie variations (cobblers, slumps, grunts, etc.) are endless!

How old is a "pie?"
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the word "pie" as it relates to food to 1303, noting the word was well-known and popular by 1362.

Why call it a "pie?"
"Pie...a word whose meaning has evolved in the course of many centuries and which varies to some extent according to the country or even to region....The derivation of the word may be from magpie, shortened to pie. The explanation offered in favor or this is that the magpie collects a variety of things, and that it was an essential feature of early pies that they contained a variety of ingredients."
---The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, 2nd edition, Tom Jaine editor [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2006 (p. 603)

The First Pies
Food historians confirm ancient people made pastry. Recipes, cooking techniques, meal presence and presentations varied according to culture and cuisine. In the cradles of civilization (Mediterranean region including Ancient Rome, Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Arabia) the primary fat was olive oil. When combined with ground grains, it produced a rudimentary type of pastry. The challenging part of researching these early pies is most of us rely on translators of original texts. These can vary according to scholarly proficiency and educated interpretation. Moreover, there are several editions of ancient texts and recipe numbers/titles do not always match.

Food historians confirm the ancients crafted foods approximating pie. Modern pie, as we Americans know it today, descends from Medieval European ingredients (fat=suet, lard, butter) and technology (pie plates, freestanding pies, tiny tarts).

"The idea of enclosing meat inside a sort of pastry made from flour and oil originated in ancient Rome, but it was the northern European use of lard and butter to make a pastry shell that could be rolled out and molded that led to the advent of true pie."
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 254)

"If the basic concept of 'a pie' is taken to mean a mixture of ingredients encased and cooked in pastry, then proto-pies were made in the classical world and pies certainly figured in early Arab cookery. But those were flat affairs, since olive oil was used as the fat in the pastry and will not produce upstanding pies; pastry made with olive oil is 'weak' and readily slumps."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson, 2nd edition, Tom Jaine editor [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2006 (p. 603)

Ancient Roman recipes
"[287] [Baked picnic] Ham [Pork Shoulder, fresh or cured] Pernam The hams should be braised with a good number of figs and some three laurel leaves; the skin is then pulled off and cut into square pieces; these are macerated with honey. Thereupon make dough crumbs of flour and oil. [1] Lay the dough over or around the ham, stud the top with the pieces of the skin so that they will be baked with the dough [bake slowly] and when done, retire from the oven and serve. [2]"

---Apicius, Book VII, IX, Apicius: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, edited and translated by Joseph Dommers Vehling, facsimile 1936 edition [Dover Publications:Mineola NY] 1977 (p. 169)

[NOTES (appended to this recipe: [1] Ordinary pie or pastry dough, or perhaps a preparation similar to streusel, unsweetened.

[2] Experimenting with this formula, we have adhered to the instructions as closely as possible, using regular pie dough to envelope the parboiled meat. The figs were retired from the sauce pan long before the meat was done and they were served around the ham as a garnish.]

Compare with this Latin text, English translation and modern instructions:
"Pernam, ubi eam cum caricis plurimis elixa veris et tribus lauri foliis, detracta cute tessellatim indicis et melle complebis. Deinde farinam oleo subactam contexes et ei corium reddis et cum farina cocta fuerit, eximas furno ut est et inferes." Boil the ham with a large number of dried figs and 3 bay leaves. Remove the skin and make diagonal incisions into the meat. Pour in honey. Then make a dough of oil and flour and wrap the ham in it. Take it out of the oven when the dough is cooked and serve. (Ap. 393)...

"Cover the base of a pan, large enough to take the ham, with figs and lay the ham, stuffed with figs, on top. Fill the pan with water, and add 3 bay leaves. Cover, and boil the ham for 1 hour over a low heat. In the meantime make the pastry...When the ham is cooked, dry it well and make incisions all over the flesh. Baste it with honey while it cooks. Then wrap it in the dough and decorate it. Preheat the oven to 200 C/400 F/Gas 6, and bake for 30 minutes until the crust is golden. leave to cool." (p. 268) "Pastry dough: Roman pastry dough was made with lard or olive oil rather than butter. Use double the weight of fat in flour. Spelt flour needs rather less fat than wheat flour. Rub the fat into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Pour in a little salted water and press the crumbs into a ball. Leave in a cool place for several hours. Then roll it into a sheet on a marble surface dusted with flour, and use as the recipe requires." (p. 195)
---Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome, Patrick Faas [Palgrave MacMillan:New York] 2003?

Cato's Layered cheesecake has pastry bottom crust.

Mesopotamia
"Mersu (Date and Pistachio Pastry). Mersu was a widely known pastry. Different inventories list different ingredients for mersu, so there were many recipes. mersu always seemed to contain first-quality dates and butter; beyond that, different records list pistachios, garlic, onion seed, and other seemingly incongruous ingredients. Bakers who specialized in this treat were known as the episat mersi, so mersu-making was probably an involved and respected process." ---Cooking in Ancient Civilizations, Cathy K. Kaufman [Greenwood Press:Westport CT] 2006 (p. 31)

[NOTE: Modernized recipe follows (p. 31-32). Finished product wraps dough around filling, free form, not in a pie dish.]

Medieval European pies
There is some controversy whether the pastry crust used in Medieval times was meant for eating or as a cooking receptacle. The answer is both. A careful examination of these early recipes reveals crust purpose.

"Originally pies contained various assortments of meat and fish, and fruit pies do not appear until the late sixteenth century...pies could be open as well as having a crust on top."
---An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 254)

American pies
"As a favored dish of the English, pies were baked in America as soon as the early settlers set up housekeeping on dry land. Beyond mere preference, howevers, there was a practical reason for making pies, especially in the harsh and primitive conditions endured by the first colonists. A piecrust used less flour than bread and did not require anything as complicated as a brick oven for baking. More important, though, was how pies could stretch even the most meager provisions into sustaining a few more hungry mouths...No one, least of all the early settlers, would probably proclaim their early pies as masterpieces of culinary delight. The crusts were often heavy, composed of some form of rough flour mixed with suet."

---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004 (p. 272)


Photo Credit: sweets.seriouseats.com

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