[Sca-cooks] Pie Shapers: Was Speaking of Beets

[Elise Fleming]

Bear wrote:

> Using molds with a pie shaper or for a pie cover would probably work, but I 
> haven't seen anything to suggest it occurred.  It's an interesting question.

And it may depend on what we are referring to as a "pie".  I would agree that the early pies would have been hand-raised.  It would appear that most beautiful pie formers with their lovely decorations were well after our period.  The pie formers that we used were for 4-6" items and that size probably wouldn't be called a "pie", would it?  Given that we were making late Tudor/early Stuart foods (all recipes from Markham), a small wooden former was probably used then, since Ivan is pretty authenticity-minded.

Ivan has some of the post-period pie formers on his web site: http://www.historicfood.com/Pie%20recipe.htm#piefrm .  If you go to 
http://www.historicfood.com/services.htm#pieformtwo there is his display of "an actual feast which took place in their livery hall in 1566."  "Their" refers to the Grocers' Company.  The big swan pie was probably hand-done with pastry decorations laid on.

Alys Katharine

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/