life, love and pies
Mmmmm, pies.............
I was asked, today, what exactly constitutes a pie. Where the question came from is a good question - I suspect it may have to do with the fact that myself and the person who asked were, on Tuesday night, in a Fuller's Pie And Ale House, on Tottenham Court Road.
Nonetheless, it's a good question, and one I have pondered regularly. You may think it's simple - a pie is a small, round (or possibly rectangular) thing, covered in pastry, with foil wrapped around the base, and with some sort of meat/vegetable/cheese filling. Marvellous. But, whilst we all acknowledge size can vary, size, despite what I'm told by disappointed women, isn't everything. What about cottage pies? Or shepherd's pies? Where's the pastry? There isn't any, yet they're still called pies. Plenty of pubs sell steak and ale pies with a puff-pastry top, yet no base at all (other than the porcelain dish they're served in). And yet the pastie isn't a pie strictly speaking, yet differs only in shape. Indeed, topologically, it's equivalent to a pie. But then, topologically, a coffee-cup is equivalent to a doughnut, so perhaps we shouldn't take these mathematical abstractions too seriously (although I've often claimed that we are all just mathematical abstractions. But I'm prepared to admit it may just be me, and you're all well-rounded human beings. Better than me, obviously. But I, as usual, digress...) Surely a pastie has more in common with the traditional pie than a cottage pie does?
As with so many things, Wittgenstein provides insight. His "Philosophical Investigations" contains (indeed, some may say it largely just is) a large discussion on language games. Whilst the concept may be fluid, and the terms at the edge may change, there exists a "pie family" that we can refer to, at least at the moment - or until it's determined by speakers of English - via some sort of consensus - that my definition of pie is wrong.
So, let's go for the extended pie family:
Traditional meat/potato/cheese/steak/etc pies - covered in pastry.
Pies which have a puff-pastry top but no real base to speak of - as long as they're served in a dish, to preserve some sort of shape.
Cottage/shepherd's/fish/vegetable pies which have no discernible pastry at all, but still have some sort of shape, and a potato topping.
Pasties - very definitely part of the pie family.
Flans/quiches - pastry base, and definitive shape.
Sweet pies - obviously, but I think we need to make it explicit.
Things that aren't pies:
Samosas - they have a batter coating, not a pastry one, and traditionally are grouped separately than the above.
Stews - although a pie-esque filling, they lack a definite shape, defined by a pastry (or potato) border.
Sandwiches. Obviously. This isn't stupid, you know.
But the borderlines are flexible. And we need more discussion.
I was asked, today, what exactly constitutes a pie. Where the question came from is a good question - I suspect it may have to do with the fact that myself and the person who asked were, on Tuesday night, in a Fuller's Pie And Ale House, on Tottenham Court Road.
Nonetheless, it's a good question, and one I have pondered regularly. You may think it's simple - a pie is a small, round (or possibly rectangular) thing, covered in pastry, with foil wrapped around the base, and with some sort of meat/vegetable/cheese filling. Marvellous. But, whilst we all acknowledge size can vary, size, despite what I'm told by disappointed women, isn't everything. What about cottage pies? Or shepherd's pies? Where's the pastry? There isn't any, yet they're still called pies. Plenty of pubs sell steak and ale pies with a puff-pastry top, yet no base at all (other than the porcelain dish they're served in). And yet the pastie isn't a pie strictly speaking, yet differs only in shape. Indeed, topologically, it's equivalent to a pie. But then, topologically, a coffee-cup is equivalent to a doughnut, so perhaps we shouldn't take these mathematical abstractions too seriously (although I've often claimed that we are all just mathematical abstractions. But I'm prepared to admit it may just be me, and you're all well-rounded human beings. Better than me, obviously. But I, as usual, digress...) Surely a pastie has more in common with the traditional pie than a cottage pie does?
As with so many things, Wittgenstein provides insight. His "Philosophical Investigations" contains (indeed, some may say it largely just is) a large discussion on language games. Whilst the concept may be fluid, and the terms at the edge may change, there exists a "pie family" that we can refer to, at least at the moment - or until it's determined by speakers of English - via some sort of consensus - that my definition of pie is wrong.
So, let's go for the extended pie family:
Traditional meat/potato/cheese/steak/etc pies - covered in pastry.
Pies which have a puff-pastry top but no real base to speak of - as long as they're served in a dish, to preserve some sort of shape.
Cottage/shepherd's/fish/vegetable pies which have no discernible pastry at all, but still have some sort of shape, and a potato topping.
Pasties - very definitely part of the pie family.
Flans/quiches - pastry base, and definitive shape.
Sweet pies - obviously, but I think we need to make it explicit.
Things that aren't pies:
Samosas - they have a batter coating, not a pastry one, and traditionally are grouped separately than the above.
Stews - although a pie-esque filling, they lack a definite shape, defined by a pastry (or potato) border.
Sandwiches. Obviously. This isn't stupid, you know.
But the borderlines are flexible. And we need more discussion.
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