Miscellany Mondays: Bill of Fare for a Picnic for 40 Persons
19th century recipes for that classic picnic dish: pigeon pie
As we head into Labor Day weekend, the end of the lazy days of summer for many of us, I’d thought I’d stick with the picnic theme and bring together two recent History Buzz posts: “It’s Picnic Time” and “Pigeon: it’s what’s for dinner.” (Click on the titles to read the posts.)
Picnic Time
If you read last week’s post on picnics, you might recall the “Bill of Fare for a Picnic for 40 Persons” from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1861.1
Bill of Fare for a Picnic for 40 Persons.
A joint of cold roast beef, a joint of cold boiled beef, 2 ribs of lamb, 2 shoulders of lamb, 4 roast fowls, 2 roast ducks, 1 ham, 1 tongue, 2 veal-and-ham pies, 2 pigeon pies, 6 medium-sized lobsters, 1 piece of collared calf‘s head, 18 lettuces, 6 baskets of salad, 6 cucumbers.
In her book, Mrs. Beeton not only gave recipes for preparing pigeon, she also gave advice on selecting and raising pigeons. Beeton wrote,
The “very favourite pigeon, without a doubt” was the Pouter Pigeon, which Beeton described as “most curious.”
He is a tall strong bird, as he had need to be to carry about this great inflated crop, frequently as large and as round as a middling-sized turnip. A perfect pouter, seen on a windy day, is certainly a ludicrous sight; his feathered legs have the appearance of white trousers; his tapering tail looks like a swallow-tailed coat; his head is entirely concealed by this immense windy protuberance; and, altogether, he reminds you of a little “swell” of a past century, staggering under a bale of linen. . . . The pouter is not a prolific breeder, a bad nurse and more likely to degenerate, if not repeatedly crossed and recrossed with fresh stock, than any other pigeon; nevertheless, it is a useful bird to keep if you are founding a new colony, as it is much attached to its home, and little apt to stray; consequently it is calculated to induce more restless birds to settle down and make themselves comfortable. If you wish to breed pouters, you cannot do worse than entrust them with the care of their own eggs.
Aside from the thoroughly untrustworthy Pouter Pigeon, Mrs. Beeton also listed the carrier, tumbler, runt, and nun pigeons with similar character descriptions.
Carrier pigeons were “Without doubt . . . entitled to rank first in the pigeon family.” Mrs. Beeton traced the lineage of the carrier pigeon to antiquity.
When Greece was in its glory, carrier pigeons were used to convey distant part the names of the victors at the Olympic games.2
Tumbler pigeons, had an acrobatic propensity when flying.
. . . when they are almost lost to the power of human vision, they exhibit those pantomimic-feats which give them their name, and which are marked by a tumbling over-and-over process, which suggests the idea of their having suddenly become giddy, being deprived of their self-control, or overtaken by some calamity.
The Runt Pigeon was the bully of the dovecote.
This is generally esteemed among the largest of the pigeon varieties and being possessed of proportionate strength , with a strong propensity to exercise it, they keep the dovecote in a state of almost continual commotion by domineering over the weaker inmates.
The Nun Pigeon resembled the Tumbler pigeon, but it had a superior appearance.
To be a perfect bird, it should have a small head and beak, and the larger the tuft at the back of his head, the handsomer the bird is esteemed, and proportionately valuable in the eyes of pigeon-fanciers.3
Now that you have your preferred breed of pigeon, it’s time to prepare for the picnic.
How to prepare pigeon pies for your picnic
From Mrs. Beeton, 1861, the author of the picnic menu for 40 persons
1007. Pigeon Pie
INGREDIENTS – 1½ lb of rump steak, 2 or 3 pigeons, 3 slices of ham, pepper and salt to taste, 3 oz. of butter, 4 eggs, puff crust.
MODE – Cut the steak into pieces about 3 inches square, and with it line the bottom of a pie-dish, seasoning it well with pepper and salt. Clean the pigeons, rub them with pepper and salt inside and out, and put into the body of each rather more than ½ oz. of butter; lay them on the steak, and a piece of ham on each pigeon. Add the yolks of 4 eggs, and half fill the dish with good stock; place a border of puff-paste round the edge of the dish, put on the cover, and ornament it in any way than may be preferred. Clean three of the feet, and place them in a hole made in the crust; this shows what kind of pie it is. Glaze the crust – that is to say, brush it over with the yolk of an egg, – and bake it in a well-heated over for about 1¼ hour. When liked, a seasoning of pounded mace may be added.
Time – 1¼ hour, or rather less. Average cost, 5s 3d. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons Seasonable at any time.
From Sharpe & Co’s Economy Cook Book. Edited by B. Bush, Tried and Found Good, Lawrence, Mass: Published Expressly for the Book Department of Sharp & Co., 1883
This recipe is recommended for chicken, duck, and rabbit. One can imagine pigeon would serve as well.4
BAKED CHICKEN PIE.
Cover the bottom and sides of a deep dish with a thick paste. Having cut up your chickens, and seasoned them to your taste with salt, pepper, mace and nutmeg, put them in, and lay on the top several pieces of butter rolled in flour. Fill up the dish about two-thirds with cold water. Then lay on the top crust, notching it handsomely. Cut a slit in the top, and stick into an ornament of paste made in the form of a tulip. Bake it in a moderate oven.
You may add also some yolks of eggs, boiled hard.
A duck pie may be made in the same manner. A rabbit pie as well.
From Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book, What To Do and What Not To Do in Cooking we have a recipe for chicken pie.5 This cookbook belonged to the wife of the third owner of the Blanchard house, Mrs. Henry S. Robinson. The Robinsons owned the Blanchard house (the History Center’s home) between 1907 and 1924.
Mrs. Robinson’s cookbook didn’t include pigeon pie specifically. It did, however, have a recipe for chicken pie.
Chicken Pie for Thanksgiving (Miss A.M. Towne)
Two chickens, three pints of cream, one pound of butter, flour enough to make a stiff crust. Cut the chicken at the joints, and cook in boiling water till tender.
Crust – Three pints of cream, one heaping teaspoonful of salt, and flour, to mix it hard enough to roll out easily.
Line a deep earthen dish having flaring sides with a thin layer of paste. Roll the remainder of the paste half an inch think. Cut three quarters of a pound of butter into small pieces, and put them on the dough quite close together. Sprinkle a little flour over the butter and roll the paste over and over. Roll out again half an inch think and roll up. Cut off the from the ends of the roll, turn the pieces over and roll out half and inch for thick rims. Wet the paste in the dish with milk, and lay the rims round the sides of the disk. Put on two, three, or four rims, showing one above the other, the inside rim the highest. Wet each rim to make it adhere. Fill the center with the parboiled chicken. Take out some of the large bones. Season the chicken liquor with salt and pepper, and pour over it over the chicken; use enough to nearly cover. Cut the remaining quarter of butter into pieces the size of a chestnut, and put them over the meat. Make a curving cut in the crust and turn is back, that the steam may escape. If baked in a stove oven, put on only two rims of crust and bake two hours.
Most of these recipes would be familiar to us today
A major difference that stands out to me is that in each case, all or some of the birds’ bones are left in the pie. In Mrs. Beeton’s picnic pie, the birds are left whole. In Sharpe & Co., the birds were cut up, but not deboned. And Mrs. Lincoln’s book, she advises to “take out some of the larger bones.”
In our deboned, pre-packaged, chicken breast world, I wonder how these savory pies would be received – at a picnic or at the dining room table. Especially with those little pigeon feet sticking up out of the top.
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~Elaine
Isabelle Beeton, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, London: S.O. Beeton, 1861, page 1000
Mrs. Beeton, page 490
Mrs. Beeton, page 491
Sharpe & Co’s Economy Cook Book. Edited by B. Bush, Tried and Found Good, Lawrence, Mass: Published Expressly for the Book Department of Sharp & Co., 1883
Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book, What To Do and What Not To Do in Cooking, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1898
The pouter is a ghastly sight. I wonder how people dealt with chicken or pigeon bones while on a picnic (while maintaining etiquette). Having a kitchen's worth of cutlery makes life easier. I work in downtown Lowell and random chicken bones on the sidewalk are an occurrence. Someone is a slob.
Ugh, the pouter pigeon looks like a billiard ball on legs. And all that heavy Victorian cooking... What I hate most is that it was almost certainly healthier than what we eat now. I recall seeing a very British chicken pie on the massive kitchen table of a Rectory in Yorkshire. The vicar and his wife were family friends, and she had made the pie. It was simply loads of (boneless) chicken packed in a heavy, tasty crust, and somehow it was not heavy, and very tasty. Maybe aspic was involved? All told, a very Victorian experience, although the Vicar's wife was very cheerfully modern, not a bit of the 19th century about her!