Savory Pies and Turnovers

The words from the nursery rhyme “Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye/Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie,” are not just poetic license. Such joke pies filled with birds, live frogs, even the court jester, were often the star at medieval banquets. One rather disconcerting survival is Cornish stargazey pie in which whole herrings poke their heads from a blanket of dough as if trying to escape.

A favorite in Britain is steak and kidney pie, dark and mellow, with one Victorian variant calling for an enrichment of oysters, but quick puff pastry crust may also cover game fillings such as pheasant or grouse with mushrooms, jugged hare, or venison with juniper berries. Pastry makes a convenient portable picnic case too, hence the pasties made in Cornwall for workers in the local tin mines. A traditional Cornish pasty, made from a circle of dough folded in half and joined along the top, is a complete and nourishing meal of meat, potato and vegetables, sometimes with a dessert of apples packed into one end.