subject: The First Pie Recipe And Its Development [print this page] A pie recipe as we know requires baking in a dish with a pastry lining and after what goes in as a filling a piece of pastry is placed to cover the entire dish. This pie is not the same as a tart which is left open after the filling is added and baked, also using a pastry base and both being baked in dishes until done. Before the pie is left to cool and removed from its mould a spatula or sharp knife is inserted on the side to enable it to come loose when cooled down.
The fillings in a pie recipe can either be savory or sweet. They can be made in a variety of sizes from a large family sized one to individual bite sized ones. The filled dish can either be covered with the same pastry which was used to line the dish before filling setting aside a piece for the cover or you may even use mashed potato, especially if it is a savory dish.
History tells us that the pie recipe originally came to be developed in 9500BC by the Egyptians who called them galettes. These were with honey fillings made for a treat and wrapped with a case of ground barley, oats, wheat or rye. From these evolved the earliest forms of desserts and sweet pastries.
It is considered that the first to try pastry making were The Greeks. They first mixed water with flour and developed it further by adding fat to the pastry in their pie recipe which they used for wrapping meat as they found that it helps to contain the juices while cooking. This preparation was light to carry on long trips and kept well.
The Greeks are thought to be the first to discover pastry when they mixed flour with water and later added fat to make dough which they used to wrap meat in, to seal in juices while it cooked. This method of cooking allowed them to carry their food on long journeys as it was light in weight as well.
This knowledge was soon transferred to the Romans who used salt and spices to flavor and preserve their meat which they adopted into their version of the pie recipe. With the expansion of the Roman Empire a transport system was developed with good roads and pie making soon became known throughout Europe from where the practice soon spread to England around the 12th century. Later the early settlers carried their pie recipe with them to America. The hard to find resources found in the New World needed to be stretched and so the shallow round shaped pans came to be used to "cut corners". The earliest pies contained fruit and berries that were pointed out to be edible by the Native Indians of North America.
The development recipe has gone a long way since those early beginnings and the basic pie recipe has evolved with many changes into a diversity of forms and variety, each finding a niche made famous it each regions. The pastry too has adopted new methods to change it's consistency, such as the short crust pastries, flaky crust pastries, and a variation of same.
