WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 09:31 PM

Bonfire Night was quite often a pretty sectarian business until a few decades ago, most especially so in Lewes in Sussex, with effigies of the Pope being burned, and plenty of anti-catholic songs. But things have moved on - last year David Cameron and Vladimir Putin went up in flames, and this year it was Donald Trump's turn.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 05:37 AM

RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?............. because they were unable to find another to make it 25....... I'll get my coat!!

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 04:22 AM

I don't think they would eat the pie, unless it was given to the oiks.

But birds flying around the dinner table can't be hygienic.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 02:16 AM

Incidentally, putting live birds into a pie so they can fly out when it's opened, and subsequently eating whatever is in the pie is a genius way of getting salmonella. Probably accounts for many cases of multiple sudden deaths after dinners.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Dec 16 - 02:04 AM

"Blackbirds" are a very specific bird in UK English, Turdus merula; in Irish londubh (sometimes ceirseach for the female).

There's a Wiki about this rhyme.

As for the four-and-twenty, how numbers are expressed varies from time to time and place to place; in Irish forty is expressed as dá scór (two score) in certain contexts; in French eighty is quatre vignt (four twenties).

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 04:12 AM

ever wondered what a pig in a poke was?
as was said earlier, a poke is a pocket. A pig in a poke was a cat in a sack, sometimes sold (sight unseen) because it was squeeling a bit like a piglet. in modern parlance a con. So that is a poke - a well accepted explanation.

The rhyme is well accepted by scholars to be a political satire. The references to Henry VIII might well have survived since religious adherence, particularly Catholicism, was so strong, and there would be so much enmity towards him. A bit like a Catholic colleague I remember who was so adamant that he wouldn't celebrate Bonfire night on religious grounds.
Just like the Trumpifiers today, people mixed with their kind and it perpetuates the common (local for that coterie) viewpoint. Trump love/revulsion may last for 400 years too.
The fallout on global warming will!!!!!!



Hotly debated? I'll get my coat......

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Murpholly
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 03:50 AM

I was always given to understand that this was related to France and that the King was burning 24 protestants (France being Catholic), the singing being the screams as they burned. The King was counting out the money received from land and monies forfeited whilst oher protestants were fleeing abroad.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Patricia
Date: 30 Nov 16 - 12:34 AM

Has anyone considered the thought that ravens (black birds) were the carry pigeons of early time. Could they have carried urgent messages to a castle that maybe the attacking forces shot down with arrows to stop news getting through and they maybe cooked them in a pie?

I do believe that all nursery rhymes did have a local topical meaning or underground message when they were first created. A sort of 'free press'.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:47 PM

Heston's done the pie! Only just found this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD3SUbN7Vhw

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:40 PM

In this episode of Heston's Feasts, Heston Blumenthal creates his own cockentrice...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MhqvgABY28

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 May 10 - 08:14 PM

A much more credible version goes after this fashion:-

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of Rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,
When the pie was opened a shrivelled blackbird spat,
"Come on lads, a joke's a joke, what rotten sod did that?"

From the collected nursery rhymes of one Richard Digance, Troubadour.

Don T.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 May 10 - 06:05 PM

What does the Ohio Department of Natural Resources have to do with anything?

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 14 May 10 - 10:18 AM

Mo you're mostly correct - but the funnel was to let out steam from the meat or contents - most pies that don't need a funnel have scored pastry so the steam can escape

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Mo the caller
Date: 14 May 10 - 07:24 AM

I think the pie funnels are called pie birds because of the rhyme and not v.v.
Does anyone still use them?
I thought they were for holding up the middle of the crust if the filling shrank on cooking, to give the pie a rounded top.
In our family we used inverted an eggcup. As well as the standard white pottery funnels they used to sell colourful ones that looked like blackbirds with yellow beaks.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 13 May 10 - 01:58 PM

ODNR - 1951, #486, p. 395 Opie relates
Parody: In A King's Story: The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor
Duke of Windsor H.R.H. Edward, G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1951

HRH tells that the information he brought back from his American tour in 1919 which most
pleased Bearge V was the doggerel picked up in a Canadian border town,
'Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, Went across the border to get a drink of Rye.
When the Rye was opened the Yanks began to siing "God bless America, but God save the King!"

Also ODNR -
Aunt Louisa's Sing a Song of Sicpence, 1866, further verse,
They sent for the King's doctor, who sewed it on again,
He sewed it on so neatly, the seam was never seen;
and the jackdaw for his naughtiness deservedly was slain."

Also ODNR
"If any particular explanation is required of the rhyme
the straightforward one that it is a description of a familiar entertainment
is the most probable. In an Italian cookery book
Epulario, quale tratta del modo de cucinare ogni carne....(1549)
there is a recipe 'to make pies so that the birds
may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up'. This dish
I further referred to (1723) by John Nott, cook to the
Duke of Bolton, as a practice of former days, the purpose of the birds
being to put out the candlesand so cause a 'diverting Hurley-Burley
amongst the Guests in the Dark'.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: MMario
Date: 13 May 10 - 09:58 AM

Not sure what species of "blackbird" would have been used for the pie; but grackles are tasty. My grandfather used to drop bags of them off; Mom would skin them and bake them. Usually served 2 or 3 per person.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 May 10 - 10:05 PM

From The Poetical Decameron, Or, Ten Conversations on English Poets and Poetry, Vol. 2, by John Payne Collier (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co., 1820), page 71:

MORTON. First letting us a little more into the secret about that book you call Epulario.

BOURNE. Here it is, at your service, and you will find it nothing more than an old cookery book, affording a little amusement on account of the strangeness of some of the dishes: for instance the following, "To make Pies so that the Birds may be aliue in them and flie out when it is cut vp."

ELLIOT. That is certainly of the utmost value, being, no doubt, the origin of that famous old ballad, the delight alike of babies and bibliographers;

"Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie;
When the pie was open'd the birds began to sing,
Was not that a dainty dish to set before the king?"

Read it by all means.

BOURNE. I will, a part of it; not to gratify your love of ridicule, but because it affords a happy note of illustration to Shakespeare's expression, "a custard coffin," in his "Taming of the Shrew." "Make (says the translator of Epulario, for it is from the Italian), the coffin of a great Pie or pasty, in the bottome whereof make a hole as big as your fist, or bigger if you will; let the sides of the coffin be somewhat higher then ordinary Pies, which done put it full of flower and bake it, and being baked open the hole in the bottome and take out the flower."

MORTON. And put the living birds in its place, that, I take it, is the great secret.

BOURNE. You have guessed it exactly, and we need read no more of it.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 May 10 - 08:30 PM

A couple of thoughts come to mind, stirred up by this old thread:

The Queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey;
The King was in the chamber maid
And she was in the money!

And then there's my mother's award-winning recipe for Black Bird Pie:

One of Dahlov Ipcar's famous recipes was published in The Sensuous Carrot, edited by Clarissa Watson back in 1972, p. 143. The recipes were solicited from well known artists and there were some interesting contributions. Mother's was certainly a unique contribution - Blackbird Pie.

Suggested Menu

Dinner for six:

Blackbird Pie

Four and twenty black birds dressed
One dozen oysters
One half teaspoon nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste, rye bread crumbs by the pocket full
Four tablespoons of cream or chicken stock
Two tablespoons butter creamed with two tablespoons flour

Brown the birds in butter. Line large deep pie pan with pastry. Arrange birds and oysters, add cream or chicken stock, sprinkle with nutmeg, rye crumbs, etc. Dot with butter and flour mixture. Cover with crust and bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees or until crust is lightly browned. Crust may be decorated with pastry leaves and brushed with beaten egg yolk before baking.

She suggested serving mugs of nut-brown ale all around as the beverage of choice.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 12 May 10 - 07:54 PM

From an article "Culinary Curiosities" in The Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review (London: No. 123, Saturday, Sept. 22, 1821), page 596:

Another favourite dish at the tables of our forefathers was a pye of stupendous magnitude, out of which, on its being opened, a flock of living birds flew forth, to the no small surprise and amusement of the guests.

Four-and-twenty blackbirds bak'd in a pye;
When the pye was open'd the birds began to sing—
Oh! what a dainty dish—'tis fit for any king.

This was a common joke at an old English feast. These animated pies were often introduced 'to set on,' as Hamlet says, 'a quantity of barren spectators to laugh,'—there is an instance of a dwarf undergoing such an incrustation.—About the year 1630, King Charles and his Queen were entertained by the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, at Burleigh on the Hill, on which occasion, Jeffrey Hudson, the Dwarf, was served up in a cold pye.—See Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, vol. ii, p. 14.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 12 May 10 - 07:46 PM

Hiya Katlaughing ,apart from the birds issue , it must be remembered that we English / British ? used to count in a similar manner . The Germans and Dutch still do !!!! fier und zwantig ,and vier en twintig respectively. There might be a spelling mistake in there - but the priciple remains.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,wow people are dumb
Date: 12 May 10 - 02:15 PM

Pie Birds or Pie Funnels as they are called in England are "steam vents" that have been placed in the center of fruit and meat pies (while cooking) since Victorian Times.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 04:06 AM

Nice to see such ancient threads revivified! As to why 4 & 20, the answer may be implied in a common medieval/renaissance riddle form which crops up when Lear's Fool is trying, unsuccessfully becoz he knows it, to cheer up the poor old King [King Lear I v] -

"Fool: ... The reason why the seven stars are no moe than seven is a pretty reason.
Lear: Because they are not eight.
Fool: Yes indeed. Thou wouldst make a good Fool."

[7 also a mystic much-quoted-in-folklore #, like 24; & thus, similarly, liable to be arbitrarily cited]

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,cavourite
Date: 21 Aug 09 - 02:19 AM

Not sure about the Walt Kelly/Pogo reference, but a variation of that came in Mad Magazine in the early 60's. Also not sure about the exactness of the first verse, but the second verse I'm certain is accurate:

Sing a song of nonsense, pocket full of pie
4 and 20 blackbirds, backed until they cry
When the stove was opened, the birds began to swing
Wasn't that a swingin' dish to set before the king?

The King was in his counting house, counterfeiting money
The Queen was in the parlor, looking at the funnies
The maid was in the garden, hanging by her toes
Along came the North Wind, and that's the way she froze.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 21 Dec 01 - 09:39 AM

I can see how you could tae a firm hold on a blackbird with one hand (hold the wings folded so it can't move about, and avoid the beak), lift the piecrust with the other hand, and pop the bird in the pie, whipping your hand out and closing the top in one swift movement. If you were quick, you could get another one or two in in the same manner, but how could you insert, say, number 17 without numbers 3, 8 and 11 escaping? Could a dozen synchronised sous-chefs simultaneously slip them in, while the boss pops on the top? (Sorry about the aliteration!)

Steve

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Guessed
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 10:53 AM

so what order of monks/friars/brothers/**tick as app** populated Glastonbury Abbey?
AND why can't we have an innocent meaning to a song with hidden cues?
The song was one of the few media available for comment. Riddles, plays (involves a lot of people & effort), books (bit expensive then), songs and tunes, and maybe dance but the only political dancing I heard of was Irish crossroad dancing and that was a gesture of defiance not satire.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 09:57 AM

My copy of Mrs. Beeton's Household Management (1908 edition) has a recipe for Rook and Bacon pie in it. Yumm. She says rooks have a good flavour but are prone to drying out, hence are not suitable for roasting... so I guess very much like pigeon. Anyway, I'll give it a try and let you know.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Bo
Date: 20 Dec 01 - 06:27 AM

Re: Blackbirds

I think modern people find the idea of songbird pie far more novel than our medieval and rennaisance ancenstors. Remember that in a hunting culture 'game' of all kinds was the highest food, mostly the right of the nobility esp. the King.

Today event those that like the occaisional goose are seen as rebels, much less swan :).
Somewhere I read an account of Henry VIII having a huge selection of birds, pheasants, sonbirds, geese swans etc.. As I recall variety was much more in evidence than freshness and the whole thing sounded rather gross.

I can reccomend a movie called Vatel, for anyone who would like to see a rennaisance steward in action.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Jon W.
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 01:34 PM

Anyone remember the "Snake Surprise" from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? But that was just fiction, wasn't it? Wasn't it?

As for falcons nesting in the rafters, why not? Where else would you keep them?

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:43 PM

Franciscans also wear grey - hence the Greyfriars as in Greyfriars' Bobby, and locations around the City of London.

Litter box cake... sounds yummy! I once served a blue jelly in a goldfish bowl, complete with jelly fish shapes and a duck.

LTS

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Nicole
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 05:23 PM

In regards to the comments about live birds flying out, I recall reading in one medieval chronicle describing a dinner in which "doves" (probably pigeons) were released from inside a dinner item, and all the "falcons" (probably also hawks and other hunting birds) nesting in the rafters swooped down and killed the doves -- for entertainment.

Ewwww. What a godawful mess.

I'm not sure if it's true: as valuable as hunting birds were, I have my doubts that they would be allowed to nest freely in the rafters.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,SharonA on vacation, checkin' in
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 02:38 PM

Jim Dixon, you would've appreciated the faux food at a recent party at the office where I work: one guy brought in a litter-box cake (in a rectangular pan, complete with scoop for serving). It was a crumbly cake with melted Tootsie Rolls for "turds". The cake was a great hit! I'm trying to get the recipe from him but he's left the company; if anyone wants it, PM me and I'll pass it on when I have it.

SharonA

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 12:00 PM

"Weren't the Franciscan order monasteries important in England at the time of Henry VIII's expropriation of church properties? And weren't Franciscan monks known as 'blackbirds?'"

Wrong religious order. Benedictine monks with black habits would have been called Blackbirds. Franciscans wear brown, and they aren't monks, they are friars. Both were important in England in pre-reformation days.

I doubt if that's got much to do with the origin of the song though.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 09:29 AM

Somewhere I once read that the diet of the modern western world is unusual in that we get most of our calcium from dairy products. In third-world countries today, and in our own countries formerly, people get/got most of their calcium by eating the bones of fish and small animals; that is, animals small enough that their bones, when cooked, could be easily chewed and swallowed along with the meat. I suppose blackbirds would be in that category.

The only instance that I can think of where this is done today is with very small fish, such as smelt or "sardines." Their bones are so small you hardly notice you're eating them.

I suppose the reason such things have disappeared from our diet is that cleaning them is so laborious, in proportion to the amount of meat. While I can imagine eating a blackbird bones and all, I suppose they did remove the feathers. Or did they?

From the above discussion, I infer that two kinds of blackbird pie existed: The pie from which live blackbirds flew out for the amusement of guests, and the more common kind, where blackbirds were actually cooked and eaten.

I like the idea of an entertaining faux-food centerpiece, and I hope the custom will be revived. The nearest equivalent today is probably the ice sculptures that chefs sometimes make, and the gingerbread houses that sometimes appear at Christmas time.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 07:02 PM

Morticia's eldest once decorated the tree with sprouts, an endearing little tale that we've never let the darling little Goth forget.....!

LTS

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Diana
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 06:58 PM

Ah, yes---and if I placed little flowers made of poppies at random intervals I'd have a "Flanders Field of Brussels Sprouts"...think how impressed, amazed, and probably STRUCK DUMB my family & friends will be at Christmas dinner!

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 06:50 PM

Made a Spam jelly once - mashed it up, stuffed it into a jelly mould and decorated it with beetroot coloured mashed potatoes..... ah, fun with food.

LTS

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 10:06 AM

Stick the brussels sprouts in the marshmallow fluff, with a few peas strewn on the "ground" (chocolate cake underneath) and you've got Sherwood Forest, surely? LOL

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 08:45 AM

And 26 would be right out!

I'm thinking of the various sculptural uses that could be made of less-than-yummy foodstuffs to make them at least visually welcome at the table. For instance, what creative statements might be made using mushy peas, marshmallow fluff, or my own childhood culinary nemesis, brussels sprouts? Any suggestions?

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 17 Dec 01 - 06:35 AM

Why 24? WEll 25 would be just silly!
RtS ( five days left...)

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 07:28 PM

No big deal Liz.....I was at a party once where they had a castle shaped pate......Which turned out to be not liver, but made from ground White castle burgers instead. I don't know what the equivalent over there might be.......maybe something made from a fish and chips shack that was particularly distinctive in it's taste and very well known......and made much fun of.

Spaw

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 06:17 PM

Well they didn't have the Discovery Channel did they.....?

Our favourite was the entrails. We would just pull them out of a basket and dump them on the table, like so much offal..... got lots of shrieks that did!

I did once gild a rabbit shaped pate..... that was fun...

LTS

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 03:55 PM

Yes, exactly---I also couldn't helpicturing the er, physical reaction of 2 dozen blackbirds when they were finally "sprung" from their pastry prison---not pretty!

And the half pig/half chicken thing is called a cockatrice! More humourous food---those wacky, fun-loving mediaevals!

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 03:27 PM

Iona and Peter Opie (Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes, 1951) list all the principal "allegorical" explanations, commenting:

"Other stories, giving the rhyme allegorical significance, are not so easy to disprove.  Theories upon which too much ink has been expended are [list, including all those mentioned in this thread].  If any particular explanation is required of the rhyme the straightforward one that it is a description of a familiar entertainment is the most probable."

They generally knew what they were talking about.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 03:27 PM

I have this disgusting vision of 24 angry birds crapping all over the table and guests and half pig/half chicken thing. Enough to make me a vegetarian.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 03:13 PM

Rolfyboy6
I think you got it smack on target.
I knew the Jack Horner explanation but never realised it was the same politco-satirical reference in "blackbirds".
aren't quails' eggs a delicay, and the quails come to that.

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,sledge
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 10:57 AM

Its probably an early example of the interferance of the European Union in daily life, before they waded in you could have as many blackbirds, or any other bird, as you liked in your pie. Then one day an early eurocrat squinting over his Velum and inkpot decided that four and twenty was a nice round number and hence the regulation blackbird euro-pie was born. Early enforcemnt of this regulation was doubtlessly left to the Spanish inquisition as they scared the crap out of most people anyway, except in France where they said good idea lets do it, then promptly did their own thing anyway, just like today.

Sledge

:)

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: GUEST,Desdemona
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 10:27 AM

In the Middle Ages, "grete Pyes" were very common on the dinner table. Existing recipes from the 14th century (notably those of the Goodman of Paris, an elderly bridegroom who wrote what was essentially a "how to" guide for his young wife, loaded with excellent late mediaeval household tips!)call for "coneyes"--rabbits or hares, beef, salt fish, suet, and "smale berdes" of various types, amongst other ingredients like currants, raisins, onions, etc. so birds like sparrows and blackbirds would certainly have been finding their way into pies.

Between courses the cooks would often parade a sort of edible sculpture called a "subletie", often made of marzipan or spun sugar, in the shape of a mythical beast, a castle, a church, or allegorical figures such as Death (really, it's recorded that at the funeral of Blanche, duchess of Lancaster in the 14th century, there was a spun sugar figure of the grim reaper paraded around the room for the edification anf amusement of the assembled mourners). Sometimes a false second crust in an elaborate, fanciful shape could be placed upon a great pie and then removed---possibly in a situation like this, live uncooked birds might have been released?

Food as entertainment---I love the middle ages!

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 09:33 AM

Weren't the Franciscan order monasteries important in England at the time of Henry VIII's expropriation of church properties? And weren't Franciscan monks known as 'blackbirds?'

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: SeanM
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 04:16 AM

I'm with LTS and Rowena on this one.

Somewhere in storage I've a Renaissance period cookbook with the recipe for "Blackbird Pie". It's exactly as Liz thought - baked with dried beans or another non-volatile weight inside, then filled chock full o'pissed off birds before serving. The methods seem to vary - the "bake the shell separate" makes MUCH more sense to me than the cookbook's "cut an opening, insert birds, replace opening" method. Then again, I'd imagine said birds would have their own opinions on the entire matter.

As to the rest of the 'disguised' foods...

At the renfaire I work at, they used to (many moons ago in better financial times) host a "period foods" cooking contest. The one that will always stick in my mind was the Golden Apples of Meat. Basically, meat ground and formed into an apple shape, coated with a pastry shell to further fill it into the correct shape, then painted with something before baking to give it the correct color for a pale green apple. They looked FANTASTIC. Honestly, even from close range, they looked VERY real.

Them wacky English...

*G*

M

Subject: RE: WHY 4 & 20 Blackbirds baked in a pie?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Dec 01 - 01:42 AM

Shop came with High School. Boys in the university prep. program couldn't take it. Neither boys nor girls in univ. prep. got to take typing (too few machines). As a result I am four-fingered. It was sadly regretted by me when I got into higher college courses because I had to pay a typist to do longer papers.