Walnut pie – or pye as in the name of this Somerset recipe, sounds delicious! Apparently, Somerset émigrés took it to north America, in 1776, so my source says, and it evolved into the national favourite, pecan pie.
The word ‘pie’ is very old, and appears in other senses than the delicious pastry enclosing a savoury or sweet filling; for example, magpie, piebald and the Pied Piper. Piebald means a pattern of two different colours, (‘bald’ meant spotted); by the time of the Pied Piper, it had evolved into also meaning a pattern of many colours.
Whatever the origins of other words, the pastry connection is oldest, and the other words come from that; a pie, as in a dish of stuff enclosed in pastry is very old, and from earliest times, what went into a pie was a jumble of ‘stuff’, meats, fruit, vegetables, left-overs. It was only much later in the early 1600’s that specific pies such as fruit pies began to appear. Magpies, originally just ‘pies’, are well-known for collecting ‘stuff’, a random jumble of things which appeal to them and maybe that is how they got their name – or maybe the pie word resulted from a similarity to them and their habits, or maybe their name came from a Latin source and there is just a coincidental connection to pastry!
There are many other ‘pie’ words and phrases, pie-eyed, Simple Simon the pieman, pie-chart, easy as pie, pie in the sky, but also in a sense we no longer use, a wily pie was a cunning person – maybe I might start using that, I rather like it! Sugar pie as an endearment is sweet – but there are actually sugar pies, I never realised! Although there are many recipes for them, they originated in northern Europe, particularly France and Belgium – I wonder if it is the origin of treacle tart?
Here are some more pie idioms:
- a finger in every pie
- a piece of the pie
- apple pie order
- as easy as pie
- as nice as pie
- cutie pie
- humble pie
- a finger in every pie
- pie hole (mouth)
…and at last Walnut Pye – I think the spelling ‘pye’ is just an adopted affectation to make the recipe seem old; looking at the origins of ‘pye’ it is a surname, probably arriving from ‘pie’ or possible the Welsh name Pugh. My uncle worked for the electrical firm Pye’s, and he always told people he was a Pye-man… they naturally assumed he made pies!
Walnut Pye
- pastry (8 oz plain flour, pinch of salt, 5½ oz butter, 2½ oz icing sugar, 1 egg yolk, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tbsp cold water – rub flour, salt, sugar, butter together to form crumbs, mix with egg , lemon juice and water to make a dough, chill for an hour)
- 4 oz chopped walnuts
- 4 oz ground almonds
- 4 oz brown sugar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- beat yolks, sugar and honey together until very light and fluffy, then add all other ingredients except egg whites
- beat egg whites until stiff then fold into walnut mixture
- roll out pastry for bottom and top of a pie, line a greased tin with pastry
- spread mixture evenly into pastry-lined tin, damp the edges, fit the top, pressing to seal, crimp the edges
- bake at 180°C, 350°F, gas mark 3-4 for 40 mins
- dredge with icing sugar and serve luke-warm or cold with cream, crème fraiche, yoghurt – whatever your choice!
Lois Elsden 
I stopped at a restaurant in Georgia years ago and asked for a beer and was told it was a dry county so no alcohol so I got a coffee. The owner brought me a piece of pecan pie to try for free so I felt obliged to eat it. It took me a half hour to choke it down. I had never eaten anything so sickly sweet and will never again.Soon as I got over the county line I found an old Mom And Pop bar and knocked back a few beer to get rid of the taste of the pie.I’ll stick to grits thanks.
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I only ever tried it once, with pretty much the same reaction, although I only had a small piece and left the rest after the first mouthful! the walnut ‘pye’ doesn’t look as sweet, maybe I’ll make it for my English class…
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