The chicken pot pie has a long history. It originated from Greece. Greeks took cooked meat and placed them in open pastry shells that were called “Artocreas”. It was the Romans who added the top crust making Chicken Pot Pie into an actual pie. In the 16th Century, Britons revived the ancient custom of meat pies. The fad soon swept the country. The pot pies were decorated with flowers, fanciful designs and heraldic devices and were usually affirmations of the chef's skills in the royal households of France and England. Britons during that era were especially fond of birds, and English cooks made pot pies using "chicken peepers," which consisted of tiny chicks stuffed with gooseberries. One cookbook included a sort of telescopic pie in which five birds were stuffed one inside the other, then wrapped in dough. One English food writer featured a recipe that began "to make pies that the birds may be alive and fly out when it is cut up. . . ." The recipes for chicken pot pie that date back as early as 1796, however those were called “chicken pies”. You won’t find a “pot pie” recipe present until 1839. Now when was the first “chicken pot pie” recipe made? That happened in 1877 - almost 100 years after they made the Chicken Pie recipe. This fondness for meat pies soon spread to the New World. In the 19th Century, Americans became enamored of a pie that featured robins. The settlers who came to America took their pot pie recipes with them when they moved westward. By the present century, chicken pot pies and meat variations have become as American as corn on the cob. We have been working with local chefs to create the best wayto honor the heritage hens and celebrate the end of the program. The Local Omnivore Inc will make deliciousheritage chicken pot pies for the adopt a heritage chicken supporters...and there are only few things more satisfying on a cold winter's night than a heaping portion of chicken, vegetables and crust in a luscious sauce. Agnes
See Also
Pie Baking