Making Meat Pies:Learning Intention:To use short crust and puff pastry and create a culturally significant dish.
This Week's Task:Complete the first entry in your Worldly proportions weekly reflection.
This includes the pluses, minuses and interesting points of England, the English cuisine and meat pies. |
Success Criteria:I have successfully created a traditional meat pie.
I can successfully defrost the pastry and keep it moist. I can use water to help the pastry stick together. I can glaze with milk to help the pastry brown. How do I make short crust pastry? |
What is England known for?
British customs and traditions are famous all over the world. Our British Life and Culture website will tell you some of the fascinating facts and information about our beautiful country, in a way that is easy to read and to understand. When people think of Britain they often think of people drinking tea, eating fish and chips and wearing bowler hats, but there is more to Britain than just those things.English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, largely due to the importation of ingredients and ideas from places such as North America, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result ofpost-war immigration.
In the Early Modern Period the food of England was historically characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. It is possible the effects of this can still be seen in traditional cuisine.
Traditional meals have ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, boiled vegetables and broths, and freshwater and saltwater fish. The 14th-century English cookbook, the Forme of Cury, contains recipes for these, and dates from the royal court of Richard II. In the second half of the 18th century Rev. Gilbert White, in The Natural History of Selborne made note of the increased consumption of vegetables by ordinary country people in the south of England, to which, he noted, potatoes had only been added during the reign of George III: "Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer also has his garden, which is half his support; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon."
Other meals, such as fish and chips, which were once urban street food eaten from newspaper with salt and malt vinegar, and pies and sausages with mashed potatoes, onions, and gravy, are now matched in popularity by curriesfrom the Indian subcontinent, and stir-fries based on Chinese and Thai cuisine. French cuisine and Italian cuisine are also now widely adapted. Britain was also quick to adopt the innovation of fast food from the United States, and continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world while at the same time rediscovering its roots in sustainablerural agriculture.
In the Early Modern Period the food of England was historically characterised by its simplicity of approach and a reliance on the high quality of natural produce. It is possible the effects of this can still be seen in traditional cuisine.
Traditional meals have ancient origins, such as bread and cheese, roasted and stewed meats, meat and game pies, boiled vegetables and broths, and freshwater and saltwater fish. The 14th-century English cookbook, the Forme of Cury, contains recipes for these, and dates from the royal court of Richard II. In the second half of the 18th century Rev. Gilbert White, in The Natural History of Selborne made note of the increased consumption of vegetables by ordinary country people in the south of England, to which, he noted, potatoes had only been added during the reign of George III: "Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer also has his garden, which is half his support; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon."
Other meals, such as fish and chips, which were once urban street food eaten from newspaper with salt and malt vinegar, and pies and sausages with mashed potatoes, onions, and gravy, are now matched in popularity by curriesfrom the Indian subcontinent, and stir-fries based on Chinese and Thai cuisine. French cuisine and Italian cuisine are also now widely adapted. Britain was also quick to adopt the innovation of fast food from the United States, and continues to absorb culinary ideas from all over the world while at the same time rediscovering its roots in sustainablerural agriculture.