Parma Pie

Pies and tortes (pies with edible crust) are found in recipe collections from across Europe. The foodstuffs enclosed in pastry could be manifold, from meat, cheese, and vegetables to fruits and nuts. These pies often reflected local preferences, but some managed to rise to international stardom, as was the case with the “Parma Pie,” a truly luxurious dish that was, no doubt, the crowning of many a medieval banquet. It was an unusually tall pie filled with layers upon layers of meat and fowl. On fast days these layers would consist of fish and eel, fruits, nuts, herbs, and spices. Below is the meat-day version of a “Parma Pie” contained in the Viandier of Taillevent:

Tourtes parmeriennes [Parmesan (Parma) Pies]

Take mutton, veal or pork and chop it up sufficiently small; then boil poultry and quarter it—and the other meat must be cooked before being chopped up; then get fine powder and sprinkle it on the meat very sensibly, and fry your meat in bacon grease. Then get large open pastry shells—which should have higher sides than usual and should be of the size of small plates—and shape them with crenelations (square, saw-toothed indentations at the top); they should be of a strong dough in order to hold the meat. If you wish, you can mix pine-nut paste and currants among the meat, with granulated sugar on top; into each pasty put three or four chicken quarters in which to plant the banners of France and of the lords who will be present, and glaze them with moistened saffron to give them a better appearance. For anyone who does not want to go to such expense for poultry, all he has to do is make flat pieces of pork or mutton, either roasted or boiled. When the pies are filled with their meat, the meat on top should be glazed with a little beaten egg, both yolks and whites, so that this meat will hold together solidly enough to set the banners in it. And you should have gold-leaf or silver-leaf or tin-leaf to glaze the pies before setting the banners in them.
- Viandier of Taillevent, 1395