[Sca-cooks] What is the difference between a pie and a tart?

[JIMCHEVAL at aol.com]

An old issue, apparently:
 
". A tart , s . [ a pie made of fruit ]"
http://books.google.com/books?id=gyvBKDNXp4oC&dq=pie%20tart&pg=PT570#v=onepa
ge&q&f=false
1727
 
"TART (S.) a small fruit-pie."
http://books.google.com/books?id=1X14e0cGJ-MC&dq=pie%20tart&pg=PT795#v=onepa
ge&q&f=false
1760
 
 
 
"PIES AND TARTS. WHEN we were boys there was a clear distinction between a  
tart and a pie. A pie was a pie and a tart was a tart. But now, alas, the 
terms  are interchanged without sense or reason'
http://books.google.com/books?id=BNZMAAAAMAAJ&dq=pie%20tart&pg=PA151#v=onepa
ge&q&f=false
1870
 
 
"What is the difference between a pie and a tart? Sir Walter Besant says  
that a fruit tart of any kind is an open thing; a pie is a covered thing. 
This  is a simple definition that will commend itself to most persons, although 
it is  far from being accepted universally. It was regarded as one of the  
eccentricities of the eccentric Lord Dudley that he would say "apple pie,"  
contending with Sir Walter that the term tart applied to open pastry only. 
It  was the fashion of his period apparently to call fruit pies " tarts," and 
meat  pies " pies." In Abraham Hayward's articles on "The Art of Dining," 
as they  originally appeared in The Quarterly Review, there is a footnote to 
the word  "pies," correcting it to "tarts."  "

http://books.google.com/books?id=Je0mAQAAIAAJ&dq=pie%20tart&pg=PA285#v=onepa
ge&q&f=false
1898

"It  is the word Pie. Time was when this word covered everything whether 
meat or  fruit baked in a dish or tin under a crust of pastry. The word Tart 
on the other  hand denoted a piece of pastry bearing its sweet burden 
uncovered"
http://books.google.com/books?id=qvg9AQAAMAAJ&dq=pie%20tart&pg=PA74#v=onepag
e&q&f=false
1898
 


Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

Newly translated from  Pierre Jean-Baptiste Le Grand d'Aussy:
Bread, Pastry and Sweets in Old Regime  France
https://www.createspace.com/5069278
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OJZKRTQ