Giant pies were the style in the old days. The Victorians build an empire on stomachs full of rich food. Today, British people have a much healthier diet - but no empire

British Food - The Romans gave us meat pies

We have the Romans to thank for bringing the meat pie to Britain. They sealed meat inside a flour and water paste before cooking. Hardly edible, this primitive pastry was used purely as a container for cooking the meat.

During the Middle Ages pie crusts assumed a box-like shape and were known as “coffins” and in old recipes the action of raising the sides of the pie to form a strong protective crust is described as “raising the coffin”. Today, medical evidence tells us if we eat too much pastry we’ll end up in one - a victim of cholesterol. But in those good old days little attention was paid to the consumption of calories.

Mrs. Hanna Glasse, the first woman to produce a best-selling cookery book, passed down a recipe for an enormous Christmas pie. Included in the ingredients were pigeon, partridge, a chicken and a whole goose, all carefully boned and placed one inside the other and then put inside an enormous turkey.

British Food - A Giant Pie

Bigger again than Mrs. Glasse’s pie was one described in the Newcastle Chronicle of January 6,1770 ... a pie made by a Mrs Dorothy Patterson, housekeeper at Howick. It is near nine feet in circumference at bottom, weighs about twelve stones, will take two men to present it to table; it is neatly fitted with a case and four small wheels to facilitate its use to every guest that inclines to partake of its contents at table."

The practice of eating meat pies cooked with spices and fruits continued well into the 18th Century. Sweet veal pies of that period contained layers of marrow above and below the meat, along with candied orange, raisins and brandy. In 1806, the great statesman William Pitt, uttered on his death bed one of his more meaty statements. "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's veal pies.

British Food - Game Pies

During the 19th Century the taste for sweetened meat pies gradually switched to the less extravagant savoury pie. Today, pies, large or small, are as popular as ever. There are local varieties of the meat pie in every region of Britain. The most famous is probably the pork pie from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, where it is still made commercially on a large scale. Its characteristic pink-coloured filling comes from adding a small amount of anchovy essence or extract to the chopped meat. Game pies or meat pies, such as the Melton Mowbray, are made with a special pastry called 'hot-water crust', different from other pastry in that it is hot and must be worked quickly The lard and water are brought to boiling point in a saucepan, poured immediately into a basin containing the flour and salt, and mixed to a smooth paste.

British Food - Regional Pies

Many regional pies have passed into history along with the taste for them, such as Muggety Pie from Gloucestershire containing the entrails of sheep or calves; Lamb Tail Pie from the Cotswolds, Rook Pie from Somerset filled with legs and breasts of skinned rooks, and Star-Gazy Pie from Cornwall, with whole herrings or pilchards standing on their tails, heads poking through the pastry, gazing at the stars. Could you bear to eat them, with those blank eyes staring out at you?

While the gentry feasted on huge meat or game pies, servants ate pies made of the edible entrails, or 'umbles', of deer cooked in stock with fruit and spices. Hence the origin of the expression 'to eat Humble Pie'.

Read my blog

Related articles:

British Food - Meat Pies for All

Traditional British Food- Steak &Kidney Pie

British Easter Food - Simnel Cake

British Easter Food - Hot Cross Buns

British Food - Cornish Pasties

British Food - Fish Pie