SC - Traps?
Linda Taylor
lmt_inpnw at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 9 01:13:44 PST 2000
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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