Yorkshire Christmas Pie

For some poor folk in Yorkshire, this Christmas will be one to remember for the wrong reasons; the north of England has been lashed by terrible storms and unbelievable amounts of rain, breaking all records, a thing to be despaired at as floods pour through villages and towns, wiping out any thoughts of festivities…

There is a traditional Christmas Pie, and here is what Joan Poulson wrote about them in her little recipe booklet; these pies were prepared in Yorkshire and then shipped south and in 1770 one was reported as being “nine feet in circumference at bottom, weighed about twelve stone, and will take two men to present it at table. It was neatly fitted with a case, and four wheels to facilitate its use to every guest that inclines to partake of its contents at table”.

This is what Mrs Poulson wrote:

In the eighteenth century, these pies were specially made in Yorkshire at Christmas-time and as well as being the most spectacular feature of banquets in this county, they were sometimes sent to London where they provided the talking-point at such places as the Guildhall. They were very large and heavy and a wagon carrying one as a present from Sheffield to the Lord chancellor in 1832 was delayed after breaking down.
The pies consisted of boned poultry, fitted one inside the other, all with an extra thick pastry case. Sometimes the birds were partly cooked before being put in the pie.
A typical and very old recipe – ‘one turkey, one goose, one fowl, one pigeon, a little sausage meat, some forcemeat, six or eight hard-boiled eggs, half an ounce of salt, some good gravy or jelly, raised pie crust.
Bone all the birds and season the inside of each one with pepper ans salt. Put the goose inside the turkey, the fowl inside the goose, and the pigeon inside that, filling the interstices with some forcemeat, the sausage meat and the hard-boiled eggs, each cut into quarters. sew up the turkey to give it the appearance of a whole bird and then lay it in a thick raised crust. Cut or mark the ld at the top, brush it over with some beaten egg yolk and ornament the top and sides. bake it in a slow oven for some four hours, according to the size of the pie, then carefully raise the lid and pour in some savoury gravy or jelly, let it stand to cool. When cold, seal the whole in the top with butter.
This will keep a long time as the pastry is not meant to be eaten, merely to provide a container.

This idea of stuffing a bird within a bird goes back a very long way, to Roman times, and was sometimes even more elaborate than the Yorkshire Pie Mrs Poulson mentions; all sorts of birds were used, and the amazingly named Grimod de La Reynière, had sixteen birds in his recipe, including a bustard, plover, lapwing, thrush, lark, bunting and garden warbler…

His recipe calls for a bustard stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a goose stuffed with a pheasant stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck stuffed with a guinea fowl stuffed with a teal stuffed with a woodcock stuffed with a partridge stuffed with a plover stuffed with a lapwing stuffed with a quail stuffed with a thrush stuffed with a lark stuffed with an ortolan bunting stuffed with a garden warbler stuffed with an olive stuffed with an anchovy stuffed with a single caper, with layers of Lucca chestnuts, force meat and bread stuffing between each bird, stewed in a hermetically sealed pot in a bath of onion, clove, carrots, chopped ham, celery, thyme, parsley, mignonette, salted pork fat, salt, pepper, coriander, garlic, and “other spices,” and slowly cooked over a fire for at least 24 hours.
http://www.vice.com/read/the-rti-sans-pareil-is-17-birds-stuffed-inside-each-other-and-it-is-delicious

This idea of stuffing creatures within creatures, encasing them in pastry, cooking them and eventually eating them – or presenting them to someone else to eat,  occurs in many different countries; in fact, this idea travelled the Atlantic and was very popular with George Washington and his family.

Here is a very interesting article about Yorkshire Pies:

http://www.yorkshirelife.co.uk/food-drink/the_history_of_the_yorkshire_christmas_pie_1_3103216