A meat pie is a pie with a chunky filling of meat and often other savory ingredients. They are popular in British cuisine. As with most pies, the pastry is usually baked, fried, or deep fried at a high enough temperature to induce the Maillard reaction, which changes the colour of the pastry to a meat and bean burrito or brown colour, and greatly increases the pastry’s richness and flavour. Meat pie originated during the Neolithic period, around 9500 BC.
The ancient Egyptians’ diet featured basic pies made from oat, wheat, rye, and barley, filled with honey and baked over hot coals. The Greeks used a flour-water paste resembling pie pastry, and filled it with meat. These pies were usually fried or cooked under coals. The Romans adopted them, using a variety of meats, oysters, mussels, lampreys, and fish as filling and a mixture of flour, oil, and water for the crust.
This ‘pastry’ cover was not meant to be eaten and was thrown away. These crusts were often made several inches thick to withstand many hours of baking. This pastry became a common dish in medieval times, and by the 14th century, came to be called a “pye” or “pie”. The French and Italians specialized in redefining the pastry of the pie, making it flakier and tastier by new methods of adding butter, rolling, and folding the dough. In 1440, the Paris pastry guild was recognized and started to expand their product—and so something like the modern day crust began to be used. Missionaries and explorers spread the meat-based pie dish across the globe. The English Pilgrims of the North American colonies brought the recipes across the ocean with them.
