Shepherd’s Pie

You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that a dish called shepherd’s pie would have lamb in it. Nor do you need to be a food historian to deduce that this homely but immensely beloved “pie” in which mashed potatoes top the lamb below could not have arisen until potatoes had become a staple in Britain in the early nineteenth century. In fact, shepherd’s pie in its modern form—mashed potatoes on top of ground lamb—came along later in the century, after the invention of meat grinders.