Medieval Steak and Ale Pies

I have a complex sociological theory based on years of research that all human cultures have a food that is a hot filling in an edible wrapper. Yes, my theory is that a shared common thread of humanity is The Hot Pocket.

The idea of cooking food in a technically edible wrapper goes back to Neolithic times. The ancient Egyptians get the credit for first using a primitive bread-like pastry bowl to cook in. Eventually, when the Ancient Greek and Egyptian cultures began to mix (see: Cleopatra), the ancient Greeks followed the Egyptian lead and started to cook similar dishes with their own favorite fillings, like olives. Unsurprisingly, the Romans copied the Greeks and adopted the recipe themselves, a popular pie-like dish was unfortunately named a “placenta.” When the Romans conquered most of the world, they brought their recipes with them and the locals started to remix with their own ingredients.

One of the most notable of Roman occupations, was of course England (London still has its original Roman walls to this day). As steamed vegetables and meats seem baked into their DNA, the people of the isle of Britain embraced the Roman recipe and ran with it. Originally, the English called the dish “coffins,” not in a morbid way, the word literally means “box.” The outside pastry crust was made so thick that it could withstand several hours of baking over a fire, so wasn’t made to be eaten, but as more of an early bread bowl. Not only did the crust act as a perfect vessel for cooking, it also helped keep the food inside fresher longer, a major bonus in a time without refrigeration and as anyone who has eaten at Medieval Times: Dinner and Tournament can tell you, this was also a era without utensils, making the hard pie crust a perfect built-in food delivery system.

The hard medieval coffins would have been full of root vegetables and meat, which depending on your economic level was anything from pork, to steak, to gamey birds like crow — hence the phrase “eat crow.” Often, the feet of the bird would be stuck into the sides of the pie to act as handles, a feature you can sometimes see referenced on old-fashioned pie pans.

The word “Pie” evolved from “Pye”, which referred to Magpies, not because they used the bird as filling, but because they are known to collect…

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