Making Pies and Scottish Historic Cooking
Wednesdays are now Pie Day at my house. It all started when I was researching my Scottish Migration book, I became interested in how my Scottish ancestors cooked. I started wondering if, like haggis is made by boiling meat and grains in a sheep's stomach or a cloth sack, did they maybe cook many things draped in boiling water. I was given "A History of English Food" by Clarissa Dickson Wright, and I've been reading her books and watching her old BBC cooking shows on YouTube ever since.
For a recent event I made two pies. That got me thinking that if I made pies more often, I would get better and faster at it. I decided, "that's it. If this is going to happen, I need to set a time and date for my pies." So now Wednesdays are pie day. I can plan a week in advance, scour all my British cookbooks and come up with a pie to make. It turns out, our British ancestors in England and Scotland made pies with anything they had! Hundreds of years ago, people ate many more creatures than we do. They made fish pie, pork and apple, chicken and leek, steak and kidney, pheasant, eel or rabbit pie. Anything that moved could be in a pie. Often they put meat and fruit together, the original mincemeat!
My first pie was pork and apple which my husband was not sure about. But the apple was not too sweet in this "savory" or salty, main dish pie. My second pie was ham and leek. This one, from the British recipe of milk and eggs, ended up being a quiche! Quiches count. In addition to milk and egg, the recipe called for twelve leeks. With my huge American leeks, I used three leeks and made two pies! Food is different these days!
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