Pie say!

Today's baked goods pale in comparison to a Georgian festive speciality, says food historian Neil Buttery, as he lifts the lid on the Yorkshire Christmas Pye.

- Neil Buttery

The pie is a true British institution, part of our cultural identity; a dish that's enjoyed every day of the year. However, as the weather turns colder and the festive season draws nearer, it becomes an occasion in itself. Elaborate pies have always been eaten at this time of year, but, during the Georgian era—a period of great pomp and excess—a tradition arose whereby wealthy Yorkshire landowners gave huge pies filled with a whole range of game and poultry from their estates to their friends in towns and cities, such as London, York and Bath. These pies, called Yorkshire Christmas Pyes, would become the upper-class, festive sideboard essential right up to the late 19th century and were often huge. Really huge.

The first recipe for one appears in Hannah Glasse's 1747 classic The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Her pie is comparatively modest (as you will soon see) and requires five birds of increasing size: pigeon, partridge, chicken, goose and turkey. They were boned, heavily seasoned with nutmeg, mace, cloves and black pepper, then stuffed inside each other from smallest to largest, resulting in something that looked like a single, plump turkey, yet was, in fact, a rather grotesque Russian doll.

Glasse tells us to pop it into 'a good standing Crust', advising 'that the Wall and Bottom [should] be very thick'.