Battalia pie (obsolete spelling battaglia pye) is an English large game pie, or occasionally a fish pie, filled with many small "blessed" pieces, beatilles, of offal, in a gravy made from meat stock flavoured with spices and lemon. The dish was described in cookery books of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Confusion with words for battle led to the pie being crenellated, or shaped to resemble a castle with towers.

Etymology

A battalia pie was so named because it was filled with beatilles, small blessed objects (from Latin beatus, blessed) such as, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Cocks-combs, Goose-gibbets, Ghizzards, Livers, and other Appurtenances of Fowls (1706)".[1][a] The Oxford Companion to Food records that the Latin etymon was originally used to reference religious items such as rosaries and nun's pincushions, before its co-option by cooks.[3] It is not connected with Italian battaglia, battle, but it was regularly confused with that meaning, and battalia pies were built with crenellated battlements around the edges, and sometimes as castles complete with towers.[4]

Recipe

The 1658 cookery book The Compleat Cook by "W. M." gives an early recipe for battalia pie:

In literature

Former prime minister of the United Kingdom and author Benjamin Disraeli describes an English dinner of the previous century in his 1837 novel Venetia, with

that masterpiece of the culinary art, a great battalia pie, in which the bodies of chickens, pigeons, and rabbits, were embalmed in spices, cock's combs, and savoury balls, and well bedewed with one of those rich sauces of claret, anchovy, and sweet herbs ... [on] the cover of this pastry ... the curious cook had contrived to represent all the once-living forms that were now entombed in that gorgeous sepulchre.[20]

Recreations

Battalia pies were recreated at Naworth Castle in 2006[21] and at Westport House, Ireland in 2015.[22]

Notes

  1. ↑ The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby similarly defines "Beatilies, beatilia, battalia" as "tit-bits (e.g. cockscombs or sweetbreads) in a pie."[2]
  2. ↑ A casing, for example in Thomas Dawson's The Good Huswifes Jewell.[5]
  3. ↑ Bones were cooked to add flavour and to release gelatine.
  4. 1 2 A lear or caudle was a thickened sauce poured through a hole into a pie shortly before serving. Eliza Smith's lear consisted of "Claret, Gravy, Oyster Liquor, two or three Anchovies, a faggot of sweet Herbs and an Onion; boil up and thicken with brown Butter, then pour into your savoury Pies when called for."[10][11]

References

  1. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, "Battalia pie".
  2. ↑ Digby, Kenelme (1910). Macdonell, Anne (ed.). The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened (PDF). Philip Lee Warner. p. 283.
  3. ↑ Davidson, Alan (2006). The Oxford Companion to Food (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 64. ISBN 978-0-19-280681-9.
  4. 1 2 3 Clarkson, Janet (13 November 2012). "Battalia Pie". The Old Foodie. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  5. ↑ "Coffins. Pastries - Savoury Double Crust Pies". The Foods of England. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
  6. ↑ "W. M." (1658) The Compleat Cook, London.
  7. ↑ "Battaglia Pie". Foods of England. Retrieved 21 April 2025.
  8. ↑ May, Robert (1660) The Accomplisht Cook. Nathaniel Brooke.
  9. ↑ John Nott (1723) The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary. Charles Rivington.
  10. ↑ Clarkson, Janet (12 November 2012). "Battalia Pie". The Old Foodie. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  11. ↑ "And Now For Something Completely Different: The British Tradition of The Savory Pie". British Food in America. 47 (Winter 2015). Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  12. 1 2 Stead, Jennifer (1995). "Introduction". "First Catch Your Hare ... ": The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Blackawton, Devon: Prospect Books. pp. xx. ISBN 978-1-903018-37-8.
  13. ↑ Smith, Eliza (1739) The Compleat Housewife. J. Pemberton. Page 10.
  14. ↑ "And Now For Something Completely Different: The British Tradition of The Savory Pie". The Lyrical. 44 (Spring 2015). Retrieved 26 March 2015.
  15. 1 2 Staveley, Keith; Fitzgerald, Kathleen (2011). Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts. pp. 258, 276. ISBN 978-1-55849-861-7.
  16. ↑ McWilliams, James E. (2005). A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 224, 358, 367. ISBN 0-231-12992-0.
  17. ↑ Willis, Michael (1831). Cookery Made Easy: Being a Complete System of Domestic Management, Uniting Elegance with Economy. To which are Added, Instructions for Trussing and Carving ... Method of Curing and Drying Hams and Tongues ... Ketchups, Quin's Sauce, Vinegars, &c., &c. ... T. Allman. p. 110.
  18. ↑ "Our Food". The Spectator: 37. 29 April 1893. Retrieved 8 February 2016.. Mrs Buckland seems from the article to have been a descendant of Francis Trevelyan Buckland.
  19. ↑ Buckland, Anne Walbank (2008) [1893]. Our viands; whence they come and how they are cooked, with a bundle of old recipes from cookery books of the last century. Ward and Downey. ISBN 978-1429012362.
  20. ↑ Disraeli, Benjamin (2006). "4". Venetia, Volume 7 of Bradenham edition of the novels and tales. Read Books. ISBN 1-4067-3661-9.
  21. ↑ Historic Food 2005-6
  22. ↑ "Lords ladles in Westport". The Connaught Telegraph. 28 June 2015. Archived from the original on 22 August 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  • Historic Food 2005-6 A gilded battalia pie stands in the centre of a loaded table at Naworth Castle.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battalia_pie