One of the most delicious aromas that ever greeted my nine-year-old nose was the amazing smell that came out of the school canteen pie warmer at eleven o'clock on frozen winter mornings.
The peppery spices in the bubbling meat filling and the butter in the delicious, flaky pastry mixed together like alchemy and formed a bewitching airborne brew that wound its way out of the canteen and along the freezing enclosed concrete passageway outside Grades Two, Three and Four at St John Bosco's School and under the blue classroom door and into my nose and I would just about pass out with hunger and Miss Burns would look at me and ask a question and I would answer 'Meat Pie'.
What brought about all this was that Terry Oglesby posted an item mentioning that he enjoyed crumbling crackers into soup (specifically, the very last of the bean-and-sausage soup he made last weekend, which sounded great), noting that it was difficult for him to eat soup without crackers, and that now his kids do it as well, even though it was outside the bounds of proper etiquette.
I don't agree at all that it is outside the bounds of etiquette. I'm sure Queen Elizabeth has croutons in her lobster bisque every day. She probably gives tidbits to the corgis.
I commented on Terry's post that I sometimes add a slice of cheese to hot tomato soup and mentioned in passing, because it was sort of irrelevant and sort of not, that in South Australia they eat meat pies submerged in pea soup.
To this comment, Chef Tony replied that he had noticed the phenomenon in Wales and that Wales, Australia and Natchitoches in Louisiana all made meat pies, though the ones in Wales are called pasties; adding that while the Wales/Australia connection was understandable, how did Natchitoches get them?
So I did a little research. First, the Australian meat pie is round or oval, and has a pastry bottom, wall and top. The Welsh pastie is one piece of pastry folded semi-circular and has a filling of vegetables and meat or vegetables alone. (We have those here as well.) The Natchitoches meat pie is similarly shaped like a pastie but is deep fried. This puts it closer to the empanada and then, in the ever-widening circle of related pastries, to the samosa, the gyoza, the pierogi, the pastizzi and the won ton. Certainly, it pre-dates the Australian meat pie. Wait, it pre-dates European settlement of Australia full stop. One reference places the Natchitoches pie back, at least, to the 1700s; while I understand Natchitoches itself dates from 1714 and was part of French Louisiana. Hmmmm - French rissole: 'a small, pastry-enclosed croquette of a minced meat or fish, usually fried in deep fat.' Is France the origin of the Natchitoches pie?
Having cleared that up I got hungry and started pining for a big, round, juicy, spicy meat pie with an injection of tangy tomato sauce. Hence the childhood meat pie memories. There's nothing better on a cold day and the aroma is to die for. Or to daydream for, as I did in Grade Three.
By the way, if you live in Natchitoches, or anywhere in the US for that matter, here's good news: the Australian meat pie is coming your way.
The peppery spices in the bubbling meat filling and the butter in the delicious, flaky pastry mixed together like alchemy and formed a bewitching airborne brew that wound its way out of the canteen and along the freezing enclosed concrete passageway outside Grades Two, Three and Four at St John Bosco's School and under the blue classroom door and into my nose and I would just about pass out with hunger and Miss Burns would look at me and ask a question and I would answer 'Meat Pie'.
What brought about all this was that Terry Oglesby posted an item mentioning that he enjoyed crumbling crackers into soup (specifically, the very last of the bean-and-sausage soup he made last weekend, which sounded great), noting that it was difficult for him to eat soup without crackers, and that now his kids do it as well, even though it was outside the bounds of proper etiquette.
I don't agree at all that it is outside the bounds of etiquette. I'm sure Queen Elizabeth has croutons in her lobster bisque every day. She probably gives tidbits to the corgis.
I commented on Terry's post that I sometimes add a slice of cheese to hot tomato soup and mentioned in passing, because it was sort of irrelevant and sort of not, that in South Australia they eat meat pies submerged in pea soup.
To this comment, Chef Tony replied that he had noticed the phenomenon in Wales and that Wales, Australia and Natchitoches in Louisiana all made meat pies, though the ones in Wales are called pasties; adding that while the Wales/Australia connection was understandable, how did Natchitoches get them?
So I did a little research. First, the Australian meat pie is round or oval, and has a pastry bottom, wall and top. The Welsh pastie is one piece of pastry folded semi-circular and has a filling of vegetables and meat or vegetables alone. (We have those here as well.) The Natchitoches meat pie is similarly shaped like a pastie but is deep fried. This puts it closer to the empanada and then, in the ever-widening circle of related pastries, to the samosa, the gyoza, the pierogi, the pastizzi and the won ton. Certainly, it pre-dates the Australian meat pie. Wait, it pre-dates European settlement of Australia full stop. One reference places the Natchitoches pie back, at least, to the 1700s; while I understand Natchitoches itself dates from 1714 and was part of French Louisiana. Hmmmm - French rissole: 'a small, pastry-enclosed croquette of a minced meat or fish, usually fried in deep fat.' Is France the origin of the Natchitoches pie?
Having cleared that up I got hungry and started pining for a big, round, juicy, spicy meat pie with an injection of tangy tomato sauce. Hence the childhood meat pie memories. There's nothing better on a cold day and the aroma is to die for. Or to daydream for, as I did in Grade Three.
By the way, if you live in Natchitoches, or anywhere in the US for that matter, here's good news: the Australian meat pie is coming your way.
It's all about the perogis. I grew up about an hour south of Cleveland where there is a large Ukranian and Polish population. You can get a rather impressive selections of fillings, but my favorite is cheddar and mashed potato, with a big blop of sour cream on top.
ReplyDeleteI love them so much, I taught myself how to make them when I lived in Hawaii and couldn't find any Ukranians to make them for me.
I think pies would have that special nostalgic place in the hearts of many, many Australians! Probably the proudest moment of my 2-3 years of vegetarian cooking has been creating a soy protein-based substitute.
ReplyDeleteAnd, soy or beef, it has to be drowned in tomato sauce!
Vili's pasties in San Francisco would make my life one step closer to complete.
ReplyDeleteI *really* want one now.
Mmm, Julie - cheddar and potato perogis!
ReplyDeleteYes Cindy, there has to be sauce no matter what's in the pie.
Let me know when they appear, Sarah.
I have fond school memories like you of getting a pie and also a cup of tomato soup from the canteen. I seem to remember that we had to buy tokens to exchange for the goodies.
ReplyDeleteNeil, we also had fish and chip day on Fridays - there was a fish shop on the corner. Orders went in at 9.30 and grade sixers used to go down at midday and come back with boxes and boxes of steaming fishy parecsl all wrapped up in newspaper.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to tell you this for a while - this summer I went to Louisiana to visit a friend and she lives near Natchitoches. I had a meat pie! I had to. It was rich but delicious.
ReplyDelete