Tarts

Mar 19, 2011 13:01

Prompted by a question on Sporcle: (Yup, still addicted ( Read more... )

dialect, food and drink

Leave a comment

steepholm March 19 2011, 13:35:40 UTC
I'm of the open/closed school, though on reflection it's strange that something called tart should have to be sweet. And a tarte tatin is different again.

I recently read that what they used to call pies in Elizabethan times (pretty much their main version of fast food) were more like what we'd call pasties or turnovers, which makes me wonder whether the "classic" container-with-filling+lie model is actually but a small province of the empire of piedom.

Reply

steepholm March 19 2011, 15:42:45 UTC
container-with-filling+lie model

Er, that should be 'lid', of course!

Reply

ladyofastolat March 19 2011, 17:05:17 UTC
Is a turnover just a sweet pasty, or are they different? *muses* I'm assuming a pasty is defined by being made by a single piece of pastry folded around its filling, and sealed with a single seam. Is this correct, I wonder? (Googling spoils the game, so I'm not doing it.)

Having made loads of Pie Banners, I feel I should find this Emperor of Piedom and offer him my services. I wonder if he has hideous wars with the neighouring Sultan of Stew.

Reply

steepholm March 19 2011, 17:13:55 UTC
I believe the international community is trying to keep them apart by establishing a buffet zone.

Reply

ladyofastolat March 19 2011, 17:27:20 UTC
It's traditional to respond "*groan*" at puns like this, but a more truthful response would be "LOL!" What a lovely image this is. I'm imagining buffet tables set up in the Debatable Land, with fierce border reivers pausing in their reiving to delicately nibble tuna vol-au-vents.

Reply

bunn March 19 2011, 19:56:16 UTC
I think a turnover lacks the thick crimped seam of a pasty, and is made of flaky pastry.

I've seen apple and black currant flavour pasties in some pasty shops, and I've also had a beef pasty made with an apple filling at one end: the idea being you are supposed to eat from the savory end to the sweet end, so the pasty is an entire meal including the pud.

Rather in the spirit of this entire post, I have just made some scones in muffin cases. I'm not entirely sure that the results are Right.

Reply

ladyofastolat March 19 2011, 20:06:47 UTC
I'm wondering if bakers in Cornwall have a permanent +5 to their Pasty Bluff Roll, which means that they can make pretty much anything they like and declare it to be a pasty, or if they're bound by narrow Cornish expectations of Cornish Pastyness, which means that they're less free to be daring.

Muffins are a whole new complicated kettle of fish, (though perhaps not literally.) As are scones, though only in the matter of pronunciation. (I say Scoan. Many people seem to take extraordinary offence at this.)

Food is Complicated.

Reply

philmophlegm March 20 2011, 00:08:31 UTC
Of course they're now legally bound by narrow definitions of Cornish Pastyness. This covers where the crimp is (side rather than top, which is controversial) and the type of meat (which very controversially can include minced beef instead of steak).

I pronounce scone as 'scoan' too. Not sure why. My mum does too, but my dad uses the more popular 'sconn'.

Reply

inamac March 19 2011, 19:26:34 UTC
I though that the Elizabethan (and earlier) term 'pie' tended to refer to what we now call 'raised' pies (of which the only common example is the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie), and could contain either sweet or savoury or a mixture (as today with turkey and cranberry or pork and apple raised pies).

Reply

steepholm March 19 2011, 19:50:40 UTC
You may well be right: I'm not even sure now where I read that thing about the pasties, though I think it was fairly reputable.

Reply

ladyofastolat March 19 2011, 19:57:56 UTC
I'm struggling to remember what pies looked like when I spent a month living in the 1570s. However, my food-related memories of that month don't go beyond potage, potage, potage, potage and potage with occasioanal treats such as potage surprise, but that was just potage with potage on top (to misquote Laurence Anholt.)

Reply


Leave a comment

Up