The spirit of cookery

contained living creatures, such a.s frogs and birds ; such pies with living birds came yet on the table of Charles I. — also toy-terriers, squirrels, hares, foxes, and mannikin pages ; thus, the dwarf Jeffrey Hudson was hidden in, and came out of, a surprise pie at an entertainment of the Duke of Buckingham’s at Burleigh-on-the-Hill in 1630. A recipe for a so-called London pie is given in a cookery-book entitled ‘ Archimagirus Anglo-Gallicus,’ ascribed by its compiler to Sir Theodore Mayerne, the Court physician, who, however, had no share in its production. The London pie contained marrow-bones (8), sparrows (18), potatoes (1 lb.), eringoes, lettuce stalks, chestnuts, oysters (a peck), eggs, lemon-peel pre- served, artichokes, spices and currants. (Eringoes = campestre, the fallow-thistle.) A moyister pie (modern Americans would call it a mammoth pie) was made by Mrs. Dorothy Patterson, housekeeper to Sir Henry Gray at Howick (1770), which contained many birds, of which a list is preserved, also rabbits and neats’ tongues, weighed 12 stones, and w.as moved round the dining-table on a carriage, as are joints at Simpson’s and elsewhere. Of mince or shred pies .Jeaffreson gives a history and recipe. Their earliest recorded examples are the veal tartlettes of the form of cury, consisting of veal, raisins, currants, etc., in a basis of paste, and covered, called coffins. The expression coffin or trap was applied to patt3’ — or pasty— cases : their contents were called sometimes tartee. Notwith- standing their antiquity, mince pies were objected to by the Puritans, who also opposed the use, at Christmas time, of plum porridge, fat pig and goose, and custards, for reasons which are no longer quoted. Jeaffreson discusses the decrease in the flesh ingredients of mince pies, and their supposed ultimate disappearance ; but this was not generally the fact — their decrease and omission, wherever it occurred, shows a deterioration of the art of cooking, and a degraded deviation from the finest models of national tradition. The restoration of royalty after the exhaustion of the Common- wealth brought with it a reviv.al of French cookery under the literary guidance of Giles Rose, chief cook to Charles II. He revived marrow pics and bacon tarts for a short time, after which they disappeared. MEAT PIES AND THEIR SAVOUR 565 The regulation of the piguancy of meat pies is one of the most important topics of their philosophy. Those who of opinion that savoury pies, pasties, and patties are dishes contrived rather to excite than to satisfy the appetite will think little of them unless they be highly spiced and made piquant with zest, curry-powder, forcemeat linings, quenelles, gravy, fungi, wine, herbs, pickles, and spices. But this is not at all owr idecuof pie, which, on the contrary, relates to a substantial nutritive preparation, and, as will be seen from , a perusal of the recipes contained in the best magiric works, is supported by the principles upon which nearly all are eonstructed, namely, that all those materials which have an insufficient amount of solid nutritive substance about them are to be supported by the liberal addition of such material in another shape, e.g., beef, veal, ham, farce, eggs, etc. Now, it is just this combination which enables a cook to reach in a pie a very high degree of savour, while avoiding the mere piquancy of stimulating preparations.