SC - Re: A Harmless Salada LONG

[ChannonM@aol.com]

In regard to pies and tarts and what, if anything, they were baked in, I did 
some checking on this a few months back when I taught a class on hot water 
pastry for our monthly Baronial culinary night.

I noticed that there actually seemed to be two distinct types of pie/tart 
referred to in period pictures and texts. One was generally called _Pie_, 
was as tall or taller than it was wide, seems to have been made with 
hot-water pastry, and was generally made by specialized pie-makers, and 
baked in a full-size oven. The other was called _Tart_ (or torte, torta). It 
was shallow and broad, as our modern American pies are, and was made with a 
flour-water-olive oil pastry or any of several different kinds of 
shortcrust, but not hot-water pastry. It could be baked at home, on the 
hearth, in a lidded pan with coals placed both beneath the pan and on top of 
the lid, making a small oven of the pan itself. The filling for a Pie could 
include whole, unboned poultry or joints of meat (though it did not always), 
and seems to have often been served by scooping the contents out of the 
crust after the lid was removed (the lid being put back on the leftovers to 
save them for the next day). Tarts, on the other hand, were filled with 
fine-textured mixtures, which could be sliced, and served, with the crust. 
The hot-water pastry crust of the Pie was sturdy enough that it would hold 
its shape in the oven without benefit of a pan (indeed, that was largely the 
point), and so it was baked without one. The (usually) more tender and 
thinly-rolled dough of the Tart needed more support, not only for its own 
sake, but also because it was frequently filled with fillings like custard 
or applesauce which were fairly liquid before being baked. The dough for a 
Tart was laid in a _trap_, a pie pan/pie plate, before it was filled. Pies 
always had a top crust, which was necessary to keep the filling moist during 
the long baking their deep shape required. Tarts could have a top crust or 
not, as they were shallow, and baked relatively quickly.

I would be interested to hear if others have gotten these impressions as 
well.
A couple of specific references:

I am looking at some drawings from _Opera_ by Bartolomeo Scappi, 1570, as 
reproduced in Elizabeth David's _Italian Cooking_ (the 1996 edition with all 
the pretty pictures). The drawings are of cooking equipment. He shows 
several round pans which he labels _tortere_. One has sloping sides and is 
very shallow,looking very much like an American pie pan. Another has 
straight sides and is slightly deeper (there is no scale here, but if the 
pans were 9 inches in diameter, I would say the first would be about 1 inch 
deep, the second about 1-1/2 inches). Then there are pans labelled _padelle 
da torta alte_ which are slightly deeper (1-1/2 to 2 inches, again assuming 
a 9 inch diameter) and have a shallow rim around the top edge as well. One 
of these appears to have a torta with a lattice-top in it! He also shows a 
_tortera con il coperto_, an assemblage of one of the shallower tortere 
sitting on/in a short, 3-legged base, with a sort of inverted pan on longer 
legs above it for a lid. There are other items labelled _coperchi per 
tortere_ which appear to be another sort of lid - they look like nothing so 
much as the flat, broad-brimmed hats worn by Cardinals. Unfortunately, I do 
not have a picture of these pans actually in use, but Platina's recipes for 
torte seem to refer to these same arrangements.

>From the same Elizabeth David book, a reproduction of a late 15th Century 
fresco in Val d'Aosta shows a pie-baker's shop. One man is spreading a lump 
of dough out by pressing with his hands, while another is using a peel to 
put a completed pie into a large oven built into the wall. Many more pies 
await on the counter. They are all the same shape, cylindrical with a 
slightly domed top, but of varying sizes. The majority look to be about 8 
inches across and 5 inches high, with some smaller ones about 6x4 inches, 
and a large one about 10x5 inches. They appear to be free-standing, and 
there are no molds or pans pictured in the shop.

Hope this helps. There's more, but I gotta get to bed.

Morwyn

P.S.  Seamus & 'Lainie, next time you're up in Portland,you're welcome to 
come by and look at the books - worth a thousand words & all.

> > > Illuminations and pen drawings show round pies (though they seem to be
> > > quite large!) and the occasional square one. And there's also an ivory
> > > carving that show a guy with something in his hand that looks for all
> > > the world like a Hostess Fruit Pie...
> >
> > Well, I'll have the advantage of seeing them in a few days [;-)], but
> > for the sake of those not in attendance.....
> >
> > Are the sides of the pie straight up, or sloping like modern pie tins?
> > Are they in a container, or is it just the pastry?
>
>I'll get you for this, sweetheart.
>
>*AHEM* Running off of memory- and not certain if the illuminations are
>In The Basement or in the UO Library...
>
>IIRC, the sides are pretty well straight up or at only a slight slope.
>And I don't remember seeing any pans. However, this does not mean that
>they didn't have them, as it would be easy to used a fairly stiff
>pastry, and then remove the pie from the pan. Do it all the time for
>potpies.
>
>'Lainie


Morwyn of Wye, O.L.
Barony of Three Mountains, An Tir
(Portland, OR, USA)
mka Linda Taylor, lmt_inpnw at hotmail.com

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