Great British Food Christmas 2024

THE SWE E T ( AND SOUR ) H I STORY OF MI NCE P I E S The origins of the mince pie can be traced back to the Renaissance period when, across Europe, a kind of fusion food revolution was underway. One which saw sweet and sour flavours melded together inmyriad ways. “There would be meat and fish pies made with acidic gooseberries or verjus,” says Ivan, “and the mince pie comes from this. If you look back at the cookery book of Robert May ( The Accomplisht Cook , 1660), it’s full of mince pies. Some made with fish, shrimp, crabs... basically they were a mix of meat or fish, and dried fruit.” It wasn’t until 1940, and war-era Britain, that meat began to be phased out of the Christmas bake during rationing times. “Some people were making meatless mince pies in the 1800s, but they’d almost certainly put suet in,” adds Ivan. “It made them very succulent.” A P I E FOR CHR I STMAS A pastry creation that, it has to be said, hasn’t taken off in quite the same way is the Yorkshire Christmas Pie. “It’s one of those things that’s a bit of a culinary joke,” Ivan laughs. “You get a really big turkey, bone it out so you’ve got a kind of big ‘whoopy cushion’, then added a boned-out goose and a succession of smaller birds, one inside the other, encasing it in pastry.” The most talked about version was written by gentlewoman Hannah Glasse whose first cooking book ( The Art of CookeryMade Plain and Easy , 1747), was the biggest seller of the 18 th Century, reprinted around 20 times. Though she was not a trained cook, her writings would inspire others. “There’s an account from a hall in the Lake District from 1763 of what sounds like a ‘mass extinction pie’,” Ivan jokes. “It had turkey and goose, around 49 yellowhammers, and blackbirds!” A P I E TO SAVOUR Ivan’s favourite pie, and one of the many from throughout history he’s recreated, is the Georgian lumber pie. “You’d get veal or chicken andmince it raw, adding a little bit of suet,” he explains greedily. “There would be herbs and spices, and sometimes fresh barberries, and skinned and chopped pistachio nuts. You’dmake meatballs, like Italian polpette, wrap them in caul fat and bake them in the oven.” The balls would be popped into a raised pie ‘coffin’ with grapes, gooseberries and any other fruit that might look good, along with a touch of verjus, and perhaps sugar, before returning to the oven. It was finished decoratively, with a separately baked puff pastry lid, carved or pressed with intricate designs. “That survived into the 18 th Century. Cooks devoted whole chapters to these kinds of pies.” DE S I GNS ON THE PAST The pie world of the past can be neatly separated into the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. For the lower andmiddle classes, where ovens weren’t common in households, a trip to ye olde pie shop would be considered a decadence. These cook shops inmajor cities would fire up the ovens and bake all manner of goods alongside pies, selling them in situ, and via street and fair sellers, who’d rustle up business and shout about their wares, sometimes balancing them on trays on their shoulders or heads. On the other side of the spectrum, as we enter the 17 th Century and beyond, the art of pastry had become incredibly modish. Women of good standing would jostle to land a place on courses run by experts such as Edward Kidder, who operated various cookery schools in London in the 18 th Century. There are books, Ivan says, published from the 1650s, showing astonishing design work. One, by Robert May in 1660, has fold out plates, delighting with its “beautiful drawings of sweet and savoury pies and tarts, drawn a bit like knitting patterns”. Ladies would pick up ‘trade cards’ from pastry cooks, he says. “These would tell you what they bake, showed a picture of what they did, and at the bottommight indicate they could teach ladies how to cut pastry. It was a huge subject back then. “Into the 19 th Century, cookery books get more andmore elaborate. There’s a tremendous amount of recipes, often using specialist moulds and presses. They’re very technically difficult to make,” Ivan adds. A VE RY MODE RN P I E The early 20 th Century, Ivan calls the ‘trough of despond’ in the pie world. An era of mass manufacturing, pies in tins, microwaveable pies in trays, pumped with UPF. “The 50s to 70s are when British food hit rock bottom for me,” he explains, adding that the foodie revolution of the last 30 years has ushered in hope not just for pies, but our national food identity as a whole. “I think the food of Britain has a very bright future,” he says. “It’s in a totally different place. Yes, you still get those awful pies in pubs, consisting of a ceramic dish with gunk in, topped with a frozen pastry lid, but then there are the likes of The Pie Room at The Holborn, and Jeremy Lee at Quo Vadis making versions that are heaven on earth. There’s an awful lot to be positive about.” See Ivan’s historic food recreations on Instagram@ivanpatrickday and follow his Food History Jottings blog online Britain’s worstpie To honour King James I and his family, a feast was laid on in 1606, with a menu including owl pie, filled with not one, but eight varieties of the species. “It’s horrific,” says Ivan. “To me, they’re the pussycats of the bird world.” greatbr i t i shfoodawards.com 86 FEATURE | BRI T I SH P I ES