As you all are probably aware, today is pie day. Pie has a long rich history in western civilization. What started out as a cocoon to cook meat in has grown into the delicious delicacy that we all enjoy today. The evolution of the pie is a long and intricate story spanning the centuries, but my question is, would you eat the pies of old?
Early pies were basically just receptacles for meat. The crust wasn’t made to be eatable, but was supposed to withstand the crappy Middle Aged ovens and keep the filling fresh for longer than it would normally last. I don’t envy people who lived before refrigerators. A land where pie is only a storage device isn’t a place I’d like to spend too much time. In Medieval England, the crust was also called a coffyn. They were also called pyes. They apparently were quite big fans of the letter “y” back in the day. I don’t know about you, but if somebody gave me food in something they called a coffin, I wouldn’t be entirely convinced that the contents of the pie weren’t human.
I think I’ve done enough to convince you that you wouldn’t want to eat the crust, but if you lived back then, you might have had no choice. There’s some speculation among those who you might classify as pie experts as to whether the coffyns were thrown away or given to servants and the poor. Classy. Either way, you’d probably want to be rich in such a society, and the meat would be what you’d actually want to eat.
Not all the meat in medieval pyes was what you’d call traditional, though. Sure, there were pies filled with beef, lamb, and duck, but they also had magpie, pigeon, and blackbird. In fact, magpie might be the root word of pie itself. Because magpies collect colorful things in their nests and pies collect colorful fruit/meat in their warm, flaky innards. That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t mean you have to eat the damn things. It’s like making rat pie. Why are the British so weird? But I’m getting off topic.
Pies have certainly come a long way since their disgusting crust with flying rat filling. I’m sure glad that I live in modern times. Pies are one of the things that truly bring joy to my life, and if they were replaced by crusty rocks containing overspiced meat, I might just cry. So, bursting with gratitude that I’m eating a sweet fruit today instead of one from Medieval England, it’s my honor to wish you Happy Pie Day.
Sources:
http://www.piecouncil.org/Events/NationalPieDay/HistoryOfPies
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1862315,00.html