SC - Pie Pastry

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 01:23:29 -0800
>From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
>Subject: Re: SC - pie crusts--??
>
>At 12:52 AM -0500 12/16/97, MISS PATRICIA M HEFNER wrote:
>>-- [ From: Patricia M. Hefner * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] --
>>
>>Does anyone have a pie-pastry recipe?
>
>Let me answer on a tangent, by asking a different question:
>
>Does anyone have good information on when medieval pie crusts were pastry
>(i.e. a dough with significant amounts of shortening) and when they were
>basically flour/water (like a pizza crust) or something else? My impression
>is that while you may occasionally get instructions for the crust, most of
>the recipes simply tell you to make a coffin or whatever. We do most of
>ours as pastry, but I have a strong suspicion that many should be
>flour/water--perhaps all that do not specify additional ingredients. The
>earliest explicit pastry shell recipe that comes to mind is, I believe,
>16th century.
>
>David/Cariadoc
>http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
>
>

I have found that most of the manuscripts consulted for original recipes
contain recipes for BOTh tarts and Pies. My observations of the pastry
phenomenon in English cooking  manuscripts goes something like this:
In general (and there are plenty of holes in the theory)--
A recipe that calls for raising a coffin or shaping a paste will require a
stiff coffin-type dough that is capable of standing on it's own, even when
filled with the fairly stiff and heavy fillings of that era. In general, the
earlier one  looks, the more frequently one finds recipes encased in free
standing pastry (I believe it is because of the general expensiveness of
using tart tins---it is far cheaper to cok a dish that requires no container
whatsoever. Tins, like any other cooking utensil, do wear out, and in the
case of metal pie pans my observance is that the cutting in the tin serves
to hasten it's demise). In addition, Self-enclosed foods are handy, and keep
for longer periods of time.
These foods are Pies (Pyes, etc..). I use a stiff hot-water based pastry
since I have never found a period recipe for coffin-dough, and I use salted
butter, which hardens nicely, giving the pastry additional strength. The
practice of stiff doughed, free standing pies continues to this day. I have
a copy of an 18th century newspaper account of a "raised" game-pie baked so
large that a platform with wheels was made to ship it to London by train,
where it was unloaded and later served at a dinner gathering, being wheeled
around to the guests, who helped themselves to the parts they wished. 

Tarts (tartes, etc...), on the other hand, are mostly made with
short-pastry, and the pastry lines a tin or pan of some sort. Taillevant has
a recipe for Parma Tarts which are raised, however, but do not have a lid.
Most of the tart recipes I have come across in English/French manuscripts do
not contain red meat unless it is left-over or cut-up, pre-cooked, or
hashed. They usually do not have an upper crust.

So we get to the question of timing----we know both types of pies existed
from the High Middle ages onwards. So the question is this: how early does
the first Tart make an appearance? We know that it is fairly common/standard
in 1375 because of Taillevant. Does anyone have much earlier evidence? Do we
know where it originated in the world? Apecius has a recipe for Ham in
pastry, so we know that pastry existed fairly early.  The question remains
whether the pastry was used in pie-shell form early on, and if so, when and
where?

Aoife

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