Kreatopita
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A meat pie is a
pie A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), swe ...
with a filling of
meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...
and often with other savory ingredients. They are found in cuisines worldwide. Meat pies are usually
baked Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many other types of foods can be baked. Heat is gradually transferre ...
, fried, or deep fried to brown them and develop the flavour through the Maillard reaction. Many varieties have a flaky crust.


History

The origins of the meat pie have been traced back to the Neolithic period, around 9500 BC. Versions of what are now known as pies were featured on ancient Egyptian tomb walls, and in ancient Greek and Roman texts. The ancient Egyptians' diet featured basic pies made from oat, wheat, rye, and barley, filled with honey and baked over hot coals. The Greeks used a flour-water paste resembling pie pastry, and filled it with meat. These pies were usually fried or cooked under coals. The Romans adopted the Greek creations, using a variety of meats, oysters, mussels, lampreys, and fish as filling and a mixture of flour, oil, and water for the crust. This 'pastry' cover was not meant to be eaten and was discarded. In Northern Europe, cooks made pastry with lard and butter to make a stiff dough that could hold an upright pie. These medieval pastry dishes were called "coffins/coffyns", that is, a basket or box, and were: :savory meat pies with the crusts or pastry being tall, straight-sided with sealed-on floors and lids. Open-crust pastry (not tops or lids) were known as "traps." These pies held assorted meats and sauce components and were baked more like a modern casserole with no pan (the crust itself was the pan, its pastry tough and inedible). These crusts were often made several inches thick to withstand many hours of baking. Some historians suggest the tough, almost inedible, crust was given to the servants while the lords and ladies of the house ate the contents. This pastry became a common dish in medieval times, and by the 14th century, came to be called a "pye" or "pie". Between 1387 and 1400,
Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...
wrote, in ''
The Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...
'', of a cook who "koude rooste, and sethe, and broille, and frye / Máken mortreux, and wel bake a pye". The etymology of the word is unknown, but may be related to the
magpie Magpies are birds of the Corvidae family. Like other members of their family, they are widely considered to be intelligent creatures. The Eurasian magpie, for instance, is thought to rank among the world's most intelligent creatures, and is one ...
(also called "pie"), perhaps because both were spotted, or because the bird collects miscellaneous articles, and almost anything can be wrapped in pastry and cooked. The French and Italians specialized in redefining the pastry of the pie, making it flakier and tastier by new methods of adding butter, rolling, and folding the dough. In 1440, the Paris pastry guild was recognized and started to expand their product—and so something like the modern day crust began to be used. Colonizers spread meat pies across the globe. The crust of the pie helped preserve food during the winter. Pies were not popular in the United States until the 1800s, and today most pies in the United States are meatless and sweet, except for pot pie. In Canada, on the other hand, both English and French meat pie traditions have persisted, notably the iconic tourtière of French Canada.


Regional variations

The Natchitoches meat pie is one of the official state foods of the US state of Louisiana. The Nigerian meat pie is similar to the
Jamaican beef patty A Jamaican patty is a semicircular pastry that contains various fillings and spices baked inside a flaky shell, often tinted golden yellow with an egg yolk mixture or turmeric. It is made like a turnover as it is formed by folding over the circ ...
. It can be baked or fried, and the filling can be almost anything from minced beef, with potatoes and carrots (the most widely used) to just onions and tomatoes. Latin American meat
empanadas An empanada is a type of baked or fried turnover consisting of pastry and filling, common in Spanish, other Southern European, Latin American, and Iberian-influenced cultures around the world. The name comes from the Spanish (to bread, i.e., ...
may be pies or more often pasties; different pastry shells and fillings are used, and they may be baked or fried. Empanadas usually contain much onion and green or red pepper, in combination with meat or fish. Empanada dough takes many forms, from those made with cornmeal to puff pastry. Ground beef with olives, fried egg, pulled pork, diced steak, even cheese and salami are used in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and Peru for example. The Australian version of Irish steak and Guinness pie has a filling of round steak with Guinness Stout Beer,
bacon Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sand ...
, and onions. It is served with potato chips and vegetables and is popular in Irish pubs. In Australia, the meat pie is a common convenience food often found in petrol stations, pubs, restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets and convenience stores. The English steak and kidney pie was invented in 1975 by Nigel Borthwaite at the Suet and Offal Marketing Board in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Middle Eastern meat pies are called sfiha and contain ground beef, olive oil, plain yogurt,
tahini Tahini () or tahina (, ) is a Middle Eastern condiment made from toasted ground hulled sesame. It is served by itself (as a dip) or as a major ingredient in hummus, baba ghanoush, and halva. Tahini is used in the cuisines of the Levant and E ...
, allspice, onion, tomatoes and pine nuts. Greek meat pies are called ''kreatopita'' and contain ground beef, onions and feta cheese. The filling for ''kreatopita'' is wrapped in phyllo dough. Indian meat pies are called samosa and usually contain peas, spiced potatoes, coriander, lentils, or ground beef or chicken and are often served with chutney. In Turkmenistan, a meat pie is called ''ishlekli'' or a shepherd's pie. Traditionally, ''ishlekli'' was baked by shepherds, who buried it in the hot sand of the Turkmen desert and coals. Today, ishlekli is mostly baked in the oven, but the traditional method is still preserved by the Turkmen shepherds. Chinese meat pies have several variations, notably the Xianghe meat pie .


See also

* Baozi * British Pie Week, 4–10 March *
Clam pie A clam pie is a savory meat pie prepared using clams, especially quahogs as a primary ingredient, and it is a part of the cuisine of New England. It likely predated the English settlements in Southern New England, having been a feature of indigen ...
* Empanada *
Fish pie Fish pie, also known as fisherman's pie, is a traditional British dish. Origins According to ''Cook's Illustrated'', the dish likely was created as a dish for Lent that made use of fish scraps. John Murrell's 1615 '' A New Booke of Cookerie'' ...
* Flipper pie *
Game pie 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, wit ...
*
Hujiao bing Hújiāo bǐng or pepper bun () is a type of baked bun that originated in city of Fuzhou, the capital of China's Fujian province. It is a street food that has become popular in Taiwan and can be found in night markets or mini food stalls throughou ...
* Lihapiirakka *
Meat pie (Australia and New Zealand) In Australia and New Zealand, a meat pie is a hand-sized pie containing diced or minced meat and gravy, sometimes with onion, mushrooms, or cheese and often consumed as a takeaway food snack. This variant of the standard meat pie is considered ...
* Pasty *
Pâté chaud Pâté chaud (), "hot pastry pie"), also known as bánh patê sô, is a Vietnamese savory puff pastry. The pastry is made of a light layered and flaky exterior with a meat filling. Traditionally, the filling consists of ground pork but chicken an ...
*
Pie floater The pie floater is an Australian dish particularly common in Adelaide. It consists of a meat pie in a thick pea soup, typically with the addition of tomato sauce. Believed to have been first created in the 1890s, the pie floater gained populari ...
* Pork pie * Pot pie * Rabbit pie *
Rapure Rappie pie is a traditional Acadian dish from southwest Nova Scotia, New-Brunswick and areas of Prince Edward Island. It is sometimes referred to as rapure pie or râpure. Its name is derived from the French ''patates râpées'' meaning 'grated p ...
* Scotch pie *
Sea-pie Sea-pie is a layered meat pie made with meat or fish, and is known to have been served to British sailors during the 18th century. Its popularity was passed on to the New England colonies sufficiently to be included in Amelia Simmons's landmar ...
* Shepherd's pie * Steak and kidney pie *
Steak pie A steak pie is a traditional meat pie served in Britain. It is made from stewing steak and beef gravy, enclosed in a pastry shell. Sometimes mixed vegetables are included in the filling. The dish is often served with "steak chips" (thickly sl ...
* Tourtière


References


Bibliography

* N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meat Pie Savoury pies Street food