Game pie
Encyclopedia
Game pie is a form of meat pie
featuring game
. The dish dates from Roman times when the main ingredients were wild birds and animals such as partridge
, pheasant
, deer
, and hare
. The pies reached their most elaborate form in Victorian England, with complex recipes and specialized moulds and serving dishes. Modern versions are simpler but savory combinations of rabbit
, venison
, pigeon, pheasant, and other commercially available game.
Game pies were consumed by the wealthy in the days of the Roman empire
. Wilhelm Adolf Becker
states that the emperor Augustus
consumed pies that contained chicken, pheasants, pigeon, and duck.
In the Middle Ages
, "bake mete" described a pie in which meat or fish is baked with fruit, spices, etc. The meats and sauces were placed in a tough and inedible pastry shell, or "coffin" with a lid sealed on, then baked. There was no pan: the pie shell itself acted as the container. Frequently the pastry was considered superfluous and was discarded. The process of raising the sides of the pie to form a strong protective crust is described in old cookery books as "raising the coffin".
The term "mete" referred to the pie, not the meat: a 15th century cookbook gives a bake mete recipe for a Pear Custard Pie.
Describing the Franklin
in the 14th century classic The Canterbury Tales
, Chaucer said: "Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, Of fissh and flessh, and that so plentvous". The best meat might be reserved for the wealthy, while their servants ate inferior pies made of the left-over "umbles" – liver, heart, tripes, and other offal, hence the term "eating humble pie
".
In medieval times, birds that might be found in a game pie included heron
, crane
, crow
, swan
, stork
, cormorant
, and bittern
as well as smaller birds trapped by nets such as thrushes, starling
s, and blackbirds.
The 15th century cookery book Un Vyaunde furnez sanz nom de chare describes a Croustade
of veal, herbs, dates, and eggs baked in a coffin, but other sources describe croustades of chicken and pigeon.
Birds were often placed on top of game pies as ornaments, or 'subtelties', a practice that continued into the Victorian age. An 1890s edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
shows a game pie topped by a stuffed pheasant.
and Stuart monarchs, roughly from 1500 to 1685, it was common for the rulers and their courtiers to stage elaborate feasts where the attraction was as much the entertainment provided by musicians, comedians, jugglers and acrobats as the food itself. Sometimes the two were combined. Around 1630, at a dinner attended by Charles I
, a huge game pie was placed on the table. But when the crust was removed, a dwarf armed with sword and buckler sprang from the coffin. On another occasion, the king was served a surprise pie containing live birds, perhaps the origin of the rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence
.
The game pies of that period were sweeter than in later times, often containing fruit as well as meat, game and spices.
The Tudor Christmas Pie was a rich pie of traditional birds such as partridge, chicken and goose with a recent addition, the turkey, which had been introduced to England from the New World
in 1523.
Game pie was not restricted to the rich.
Until the 1816 Gaming act, country people had the right to catch small game such as rabbits and pigeons to supplement their diet.
More valuable game were reserved for the rich, but perhaps not entirely successfully. Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor
alludes to a Venison pasty made from "ill-killed" deer.
published his groundbreaking work Le Pâtissier françois. On the frontispiece is a country kitchen where the cook is making a game pie surrounded by the dead game that would have been included. The Oreiller de la Belle Aurore is an elaborate game pie named after Claudine-Aurore Récamier, the mother of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
. The large square pie, which was one of her son's favorite dishes, contains a variety of game birds and their livers, veal, pork, truffles, aspic, and much else, in puff pastry. It is described in the classic encyclopedia of gastronomy
, the Larousse Gastronomique
.
, in her best-selling The Art of Cookery
made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747, gave a recipe for a Christmas pie that included pigeon, partridge, a chicken and a goose, all boned and placed one inside the other, and then placed within an enormous turkey. In his 1816 autobiography William Hutton recalls of his maternal grandmother:
Benjamin Disraeli in his novel Venetia
describes an English dinner around 1770 that included
At some point, it became customary for game pies to be served cold. An enormous game pie was made for the Earl of Sefton
in the first part of the 19th century to be presented to the corporation of Liverpool
. It contained a great variety of game, stuffed one bird within another, as well as truffles, veal, bacon and other ingredients. The meats were first cooked, then cooled with ice and placed in a huge pastry shell with a crust, which was further cooked for three hours. After pouring a hot aspic sauce into the pie through a funnel, it was allowed to cool again for two days before being served cold. The 1845 cookbook The practical cook, English and foreign describes similar game pies of chickens, pigeons, partridges, hares, rabbits, pheasants, gray plovers, grouse, wild fowls or small birds, which may have slices of ham added. With all of these, calf's foot jelly or the bone of a knuckle of veal stewed down to a jelly was added to form aspic when the pie was cooled. The cold pie would then be sliced and served in the same way as its relative, the modern pork pie
.
introduced industrial processes that made it practical to mass-produce glazed pottery containers capable of withstanding the heat of the oven, at relatively low prices. Following a suggestion by Richard Lovell Edgeworth
in 1786, Wedgwood started making game pie dishes with an inner liner to hold the contents and an ornamental cover. These were a useful alternative to the traditional pastry coffin, since there were endemic shortages of wheat at this time caused by the early industrial revolution
coupled with the disruption of trade during the Napoleonic wars
Wedgewood's dishes often had raised bas-relief ornaments of dead game and vine leaves, and a lid handle often modeled on a hare or root vegetable. Some designs gave the illusion of a pastry coffin and lid. William Jesse in his 1844 biography of Beau Brummel says this design was introduced in 1800 when the royal household prohibited the use of flour for pastry in their kitchens, using rice instead.
The invention of the sprung metal pie form made it possible to use a finer pastry than the old-fashioned hot water crust pastry
, and also to impart much finer decorative detail to the surface of the pastry. The moulds were sold in many different designs. The potter Herbert Minton introduced Majolica
wares in 1851, earthenware ceramics decorated with relief figures and brilliant glazes. Until recently, only the aristocracy and the gentry had the right to consume game and there were still many restrictions. Expensive Majolica game pie dishes, draped with images of sumptuous game animals, were used by aspiring middle-class families to signal that they had the wealth or connections to obtain the game that they served to their guests legally rather than through the black market.
introduced new cooking techniques for the masses based on scientific principles and gas ovens.
Mrs. Beeton addressed a broad audience in her 1861 Book of Household Management
, giving simple recipes for grouse and partridge pie and for preparing other common game such as wild duck, hare, corn-crake, pheasant
, plovers, ptarmigan, quail, venison, etc.
The game pie gradually waned in snob appeal and popularity. In The Mating Season, P.G. Wodehouse notes that Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright
once hit the game pie at the Drones
six times with six consecutive bread rolls from a seat at the far window.
In Vile Bodies
, a novel about the period between the first and second world wars, Evelyn Waugh
describes the game pie at Shepheard's, a fictional club, as "quite black inside and full of beaks and shot and inexplicable vertebrae".
Meat pie
A meat pie is a savoury pie with a filling of meat and other savoury ingredients. Principally popular in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, meat pies differ from a pasty in the sense that a pasty is typically a more portable, on-the-go item, as opposed to a more conventional pie.-History:The...
featuring game
Game (food)
Game is any animal hunted for food or not normally domesticated. Game animals are also hunted for sport.The type and range of animals hunted for food varies in different parts of the world. This will be influenced by climate, animal diversity, local taste and locally accepted view about what can or...
. The dish dates from Roman times when the main ingredients were wild birds and animals such as partridge
Partridge
Partridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...
, pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
, deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
, and hare
Hare
Hares and jackrabbits are leporids belonging to the genus Lepus. Hares less than one year old are called leverets. Four species commonly known as types of hare are classified outside of Lepus: the hispid hare , and three species known as red rock hares .Hares are very fast-moving...
. The pies reached their most elaborate form in Victorian England, with complex recipes and specialized moulds and serving dishes. Modern versions are simpler but savory combinations of rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
, venison
Venison
Venison is the meat of a game animal, especially a deer but also other animals such as antelope, wild boar, etc.-Etymology:The word derives from the Latin vēnor...
, pigeon, pheasant, and other commercially available game.
Game pies were consumed by the wealthy in the days of the Roman empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Wilhelm Adolf Becker
Wilhelm Adolf Becker
Wilhelm Adolf Becker was a German classical scholar.-Biography:He was born at Dresden, the son of German art historian, numismatist and author Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker. At first destined for a commercial life, he was in 1812 sent to the celebrated school at Pforta. In 1816 he entered the University...
states that the emperor Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
consumed pies that contained chicken, pheasants, pigeon, and duck.
In the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, "bake mete" described a pie in which meat or fish is baked with fruit, spices, etc. The meats and sauces were placed in a tough and inedible pastry shell, or "coffin" with a lid sealed on, then baked. There was no pan: the pie shell itself acted as the container. Frequently the pastry was considered superfluous and was discarded. The process of raising the sides of the pie to form a strong protective crust is described in old cookery books as "raising the coffin".
The term "mete" referred to the pie, not the meat: a 15th century cookbook gives a bake mete recipe for a Pear Custard Pie.
Describing the Franklin
Franklin (class)
The term franklin denotes a member of a social class or rank in England in the 12th to 15th centuries.In the period when Middle English was in use, a franklin was simply a freeman;...
in the 14th century classic The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...
, Chaucer said: "Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, Of fissh and flessh, and that so plentvous". The best meat might be reserved for the wealthy, while their servants ate inferior pies made of the left-over "umbles" – liver, heart, tripes, and other offal, hence the term "eating humble pie
Humble pie
To eat humble pie, in common usage, is to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error. Humble pie, or umble pie, is also a term for a variety of pastries, originally based on medieval meat tripe pies.- Etymology :...
".
In medieval times, birds that might be found in a game pie included heron
Heron
The herons are long-legged freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae. There are 64 recognised species in this family. Some are called "egrets" or "bitterns" instead of "heron"....
, crane
Crane (bird)
Cranes are a family, Gruidae, of large, long-legged and long-necked birds in the order Gruiformes. There are fifteen species of crane in four genera. Unlike the similar-looking but unrelated herons, cranes fly with necks outstretched, not pulled back...
, crow
Crow
Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
, swan
Swan
Swans, genus Cygnus, are birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae...
, stork
Stork
Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family Ciconiidae. They are the only family in the biological order Ciconiiformes, which was once much larger and held a number of families....
, cormorant
Cormorant
The bird family Phalacrocoracidae is represented by some 40 species of cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed recently, and the number of genera is disputed.- Names :...
, and bittern
Bittern
Bitterns are a classification of birds in the heron family, Ardeidae, a family of wading birds. Species named bitterns tend to be the shorter-necked, often more secretive members of this family...
as well as smaller birds trapped by nets such as thrushes, starling
Starling
Starlings are small to medium-sized passerine birds in the family Sturnidae. The name "Sturnidae" comes from the Latin word for starling, sturnus. Many Asian species, particularly the larger ones, are called mynas, and many African species are known as glossy starlings because of their iridescent...
s, and blackbirds.
The 15th century cookery book Un Vyaunde furnez sanz nom de chare describes a Croustade
Croustade
A Croustade is a French culinary term meaning a crust or pie-crust of any type. They are usually made of flaky pastry or puff pastry, but there are also bread croustades , potato croustades , rice, semolina and vermicelli croustades, among others.-References:* Le Guide Culinaire by Auguste...
of veal, herbs, dates, and eggs baked in a coffin, but other sources describe croustades of chicken and pigeon.
Birds were often placed on top of game pies as ornaments, or 'subtelties', a practice that continued into the Victorian age. An 1890s edition of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management was a guide to all aspects of running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton. It was originally entitled "Beeton's Book of Household Management", in line with the other guide-books published by Beeton.Previously published as a part...
shows a game pie topped by a stuffed pheasant.
Tudor and Stuart period
Through most of the period of the TudorTudor dynasty
The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...
and Stuart monarchs, roughly from 1500 to 1685, it was common for the rulers and their courtiers to stage elaborate feasts where the attraction was as much the entertainment provided by musicians, comedians, jugglers and acrobats as the food itself. Sometimes the two were combined. Around 1630, at a dinner attended by Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
, a huge game pie was placed on the table. But when the crust was removed, a dwarf armed with sword and buckler sprang from the coffin. On another occasion, the king was served a surprise pie containing live birds, perhaps the origin of the rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence
Sing a Song of Sixpence
Sing a Song of Sixpence is a well-known English nursery rhyme, perhaps originating in the 18th century. It is also listed in the Roud folk song index as number 13191.-Lyrics:...
.
The game pies of that period were sweeter than in later times, often containing fruit as well as meat, game and spices.
The Tudor Christmas Pie was a rich pie of traditional birds such as partridge, chicken and goose with a recent addition, the turkey, which had been introduced to England from the New World
New World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
in 1523.
Game pie was not restricted to the rich.
Until the 1816 Gaming act, country people had the right to catch small game such as rabbits and pigeons to supplement their diet.
More valuable game were reserved for the rich, but perhaps not entirely successfully. Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare, first published in 1602, though believed to have been written prior to 1597. It features the fat knight Sir John Falstaff, and is Shakespeare's only play to deal exclusively with contemporary Elizabethan era English middle class life...
alludes to a Venison pasty made from "ill-killed" deer.
France
In 1653 François Pierre La VarenneFrançois Pierre La Varenne
François Pierre de la Varenne , Burgundian by birth, was the author of Le Cuisinier françois , the founding text of modern French cuisine. La Varenne broke with the Italian traditions that had revolutionized medieval French cookery in the 16th century...
published his groundbreaking work Le Pâtissier françois. On the frontispiece is a country kitchen where the cook is making a game pie surrounded by the dead game that would have been included. The Oreiller de la Belle Aurore is an elaborate game pie named after Claudine-Aurore Récamier, the mother of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin was a French lawyer and politician, and gained fame as an epicure and gastronome: "Grimod and Brillat-Savarin...
. The large square pie, which was one of her son's favorite dishes, contains a variety of game birds and their livers, veal, pork, truffles, aspic, and much else, in puff pastry. It is described in the classic encyclopedia of gastronomy
Gastronomy
Gastronomy is the art or science of food eating. Also, it can be defined as the study of food and culture, with a particular focus on gourmet cuisine...
, the Larousse Gastronomique
Larousse Gastronomique
Larousse Gastronomique is an encyclopedia of gastronomy. The majority of the book is about French cuisine, and contains recipes for French dishes and cooking techniques...
.
Golden age of game pies in England
In the 18th century, game pies prepared for the prosperous gentry could be very elaborate. Hannah GlasseHannah Glasse
Hannah Glasse was an English cookery writer of the 18th century. She is best known for her cookbook, The Art of Cookery, first published in 1747...
, in her best-selling The Art of Cookery
Art of Cookery
Written in 1747, Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy represents one of the most important references for culinary practice in England and the American colonies during the latter half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th...
made Plain and Easy, first published in 1747, gave a recipe for a Christmas pie that included pigeon, partridge, a chicken and a goose, all boned and placed one inside the other, and then placed within an enormous turkey. In his 1816 autobiography William Hutton recalls of his maternal grandmother:
She was a careful yet liberal housekeeper, and well skilled in cookery, pastry, and confectionery. I have heard of a pie she raised in the form of a goose trussed for the spit; the real goose was boned; a duck was boned and laid within it; a fowl was boned and laid within the duck; a boned partridge within the fowl; and a boned pigeon within the partridge. The whole having been properly seasoned, the interstices were filled with rich gravy.
Benjamin Disraeli in his novel Venetia
Venetia (Disraeli novel)
Venetia is a minor novel by Benjamin Disraeli, published in 1837, the year he was first elected to the House of Commons.The novel traces the eponymous heroine’s development from romantic idealist into social pragmatist against a backdrop of British industrialisation.A contemporary reviewer, writing...
describes an English dinner around 1770 that included
...that masterpiece of the culinary art, a great battalia pie, in which the bodies of chickens, pigeons, and rabbits, were embalmed in spices, cock's combs, and savoury balls, and well bedewed with one of those rich sauces of claret, anchovy, and sweet herbs ... [on] the cover of this pastry ... the curious cook had contrived to represent all the once-living forms that were now entombed in that gorgeous sepulchre.
At some point, it became customary for game pies to be served cold. An enormous game pie was made for the Earl of Sefton
Earl of Sefton
The title Earl of Sefton was created in the Peerage of Ireland in1771 for the 8th Viscount Molyneux. The Earls of Sefton held the subsidiary titles Viscount Molyneux, of Maryborough in the Queen's County , in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Sefton, of Croxteth in the County Palatine of Lancaster...
in the first part of the 19th century to be presented to the corporation of Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. It contained a great variety of game, stuffed one bird within another, as well as truffles, veal, bacon and other ingredients. The meats were first cooked, then cooled with ice and placed in a huge pastry shell with a crust, which was further cooked for three hours. After pouring a hot aspic sauce into the pie through a funnel, it was allowed to cool again for two days before being served cold. The 1845 cookbook The practical cook, English and foreign describes similar game pies of chickens, pigeons, partridges, hares, rabbits, pheasants, gray plovers, grouse, wild fowls or small birds, which may have slices of ham added. With all of these, calf's foot jelly or the bone of a knuckle of veal stewed down to a jelly was added to form aspic when the pie was cooled. The cold pie would then be sliced and served in the same way as its relative, the modern pork pie
Pork pie
A pork pie is a traditional British meat pie. It consists of roughly chopped pork and pork jelly sealed in a hot water crust pastry . It is normally eaten cold as a snack or as part of a meal.-Types:...
.
Moulds and dishes
In the second half of the 18th century, potters such as Josiah WedgwoodJosiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...
introduced industrial processes that made it practical to mass-produce glazed pottery containers capable of withstanding the heat of the oven, at relatively low prices. Following a suggestion by Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Richard Lovell Edgeworth
Richard Lovell Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish politician, writer and inventor.-Biography:Edgeworth was born in Pierrepont Street, Bath, England, grandson of Sir Salathiel Lovell through his daughter, Jane Lovell....
in 1786, Wedgwood started making game pie dishes with an inner liner to hold the contents and an ornamental cover. These were a useful alternative to the traditional pastry coffin, since there were endemic shortages of wheat at this time caused by the early industrial revolution
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
coupled with the disruption of trade during the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
Wedgewood's dishes often had raised bas-relief ornaments of dead game and vine leaves, and a lid handle often modeled on a hare or root vegetable. Some designs gave the illusion of a pastry coffin and lid. William Jesse in his 1844 biography of Beau Brummel says this design was introduced in 1800 when the royal household prohibited the use of flour for pastry in their kitchens, using rice instead.
The invention of the sprung metal pie form made it possible to use a finer pastry than the old-fashioned hot water crust pastry
Hot water crust pastry
Hot water crust is a type of pastry used for savoury pies, such as pork pies, game pies and, more rarely, steak and kidney pies. Hot water crust is traditionally used for making hand-raised pies....
, and also to impart much finer decorative detail to the surface of the pastry. The moulds were sold in many different designs. The potter Herbert Minton introduced Majolica
Victorian majolica
Victorian Majolica is earthenware pottery made in 19th century Britain, Europe and the USA with molded surfaces and colorful clear lead glazes.-History:...
wares in 1851, earthenware ceramics decorated with relief figures and brilliant glazes. Until recently, only the aristocracy and the gentry had the right to consume game and there were still many restrictions. Expensive Majolica game pie dishes, draped with images of sumptuous game animals, were used by aspiring middle-class families to signal that they had the wealth or connections to obtain the game that they served to their guests legally rather than through the black market.
Later Victorians and the twentieth century
As the Victorian age advanced, the middle classes grew rapidly, with aspirations to a lifestyle that had been reserved to the privileged few. Pioneers such as Alexis SoyerAlexis Soyer
Alexis Benoist Soyer was a French chef who became the most celebrated cook in Victorian England. He also tried to alleviate suffering of the Irish poor in the Great Irish Famine , and improve the food provided to British soldiers in the Crimean War.-Biography:Alexis Benoist Soyer was born at...
introduced new cooking techniques for the masses based on scientific principles and gas ovens.
Mrs. Beeton addressed a broad audience in her 1861 Book of Household Management
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management was a guide to all aspects of running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton. It was originally entitled "Beeton's Book of Household Management", in line with the other guide-books published by Beeton.Previously published as a part...
, giving simple recipes for grouse and partridge pie and for preparing other common game such as wild duck, hare, corn-crake, pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
, plovers, ptarmigan, quail, venison, etc.
The game pie gradually waned in snob appeal and popularity. In The Mating Season, P.G. Wodehouse notes that Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright
Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright
Claude Cattermole "Catsmeat" Potter-Pirbright is a recurring fictional character from the Jeeves stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a member of the Drones Club and a longtime school friend of Jeeves's master Bertie Wooster...
once hit the game pie at the Drones
Drones Club
The Drones Club is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being a gentlemen's club in London. Many of his Jeeves and Blandings Castle stories feature the club or its members....
six times with six consecutive bread rolls from a seat at the far window.
In Vile Bodies
Vile Bodies
Vile Bodies is a 1930 novel by Evelyn Waugh satirising the Bright Young People: decadent young London society between World War I and World War II.-Title:The title comes from the Epistle to the Philippians 3:21...
, a novel about the period between the first and second world wars, Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
describes the game pie at Shepheard's, a fictional club, as "quite black inside and full of beaks and shot and inexplicable vertebrae".
Modern variants
Many restaurants today serve game pies, and there are many modern recipes, but they are usually quite different from the traditional cold game pie. Commonly they contain a savoury stew of commercially available meats such as rabbit and venison, quail and pheasant, but not birds such as pigeons, thrushes, starlings, blackbirds, and crows that were commonly used in the past. They are usually served hot, and may have no shell but only a pastry cover – or in restaurants only a puff-pastry lid added at the last minute.See also
- Tourtière du Lac Saint-Jean