SC - pie beans?

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Mark Harris wrote:

> What are *pie beans*? Are these some kind of special synthetic bean-like
> item made for this purpose? Or do you mean just use a pile of uncooked
> beans?

Pie beans are either any dried beans, or small aluminum pellets that are
made specifically for the purpose of putting into an empty pie shell to
help hold its shape, and hold its bottom down flat while it bakes, since
modern shortcrust pastry (which is what most piecrusts are today) has a
tendency to puff up a bit, and sometimes quite a lot, while baking, if
our friend gravity isn't kind to us. You can buy the aluminum ones (at
least I THINK they're aluminum) in the supermarket, a baking supply
store, or a five-and-dime. Regular beans come from the supermarket.
Either type is sometimes used in conjunction with an empty pie plate,
which you put inside your pie shell, and then weight down with the
beans. 
 
> What was the medieval solution since they didn't use pie pans? Or was
> their pie dough different enough that it didn't puff up? Or did they
> not pre-cook the crust as in this redaction?

They did use pie pans, apparently, at least some of the time. The
frequent instruction is to make a coffin (a pie shell) in a trap (a pie
plate of some kind).  

We're not too sure what their pie dough was like, as there are very few
period pastry recipes, especially in English, but based on its apparent
behavior, it was probably a variant on the hot-water-and lard pastry you
find English meat pies are generally made from, but often with the
addition of egg yolks, probably added during the kneading, to avoid
their being cooked by the hot lard and water. This type of pastry puffs
up a bit, but not as much as the types in which the shortening is rolled
or rubbed in, such as short crust or puff pastry, which have built-in
air pockets that are lovely places for steam to puff up the dough. Also
medieval pies were apparently baked longer, at somewhat lower
temperatures, that modern ones, so the effect would be less drastic.

Some recipes do call for the pie crust to be prebaked (they usually call
for the crust to be baked until it is hard), but many more do not. In
any case the recipes don't seem to allow for the pastry puffing up
unintentionally, so either it didn't happen, or the solution was so
obvious to period cooks it bore no mention. I honestly don't know which,
though.

Adamantius

"Think about it! 		/ "How delectable! 
Lots of other 			/ 
gentlemen'll soon		/ Also undetectable!
be coming 			/
for a shave,			/
won't they?			/ How choice!
Think of				/
All them				/ How rare!"
PIES!"

		Stephen Sondheim, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street",
1978
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================