Editing Shepherd's pie (section)

===Cottage pie===

The term was in use by 1791. [[James Woodforde|Parson Woodforde]] mentions "Cottage-Pye" in his diary entry for 29 August 1791 and several times thereafter. He records that the meat was [[veal]] but does not say what the topping was.<ref>Woodforde (Vol III), p. 295; and (Vol V), pp. 335, 347, 371, 378, 389, 393 and 410</ref> The dish was known in its present form, though not under the same name, in the early 19th century: in 1806 [[Maria Rundell]] published a recipe for "Sanders", consisting of the same ingredients as cottage or shepherd's pie: minced beef or mutton, with onion and gravy, topped with mashed potato and baked as individual servings.<ref>Rundell, p. 39</ref>{{refn|In 1845 [[Eliza Acton]] published her recipe for "Saunders", similar to Rundell's, but with a layer of mashed potato underneath the minced meat as well as one on top. Like Rundell, she uses pre-cooked meat but adds, "A very superior kind of saunders is made by substituting fresh meat for roasted; but this requires to be baked an hour or something more".<ref>Acton, p. 195</ref>|group=n}} Sanders or Saunders could also have a filling of sliced meat.<ref>Hughes, p. 49</ref>{{refn|The name "Saunders" is still used in at least one cookery book for a similar dish made with [[corned beef]].<ref>Crook, p. 84</ref>|group=n}} According to [[Jane Grigson]] in ''English Food'', mincing originally meant chopping something with a knife. "But with the first mincing-machines, prison, school and seaside boarding house cooks acquired a new weapon to depress their victims, with watery mince, shepherd's pie with rubbery granules of left-over meat."<ref>Grigson (1992), p. 141</ref>

In 20th-century and later use the term cottage pie has widely, but not exclusively, been used for a dish of chopped or minced beef with a mashed potato topping.<ref name=saberi/>{{refn|[[Jane Grigson]] noted that to make the dish go further some recipes put in a bottom layer of potato before adding the meat and top layer.<ref>Grigson (1984), p. 70</ref>|group=n}} The beef may be fresh or previously cooked;<ref name=saberi/> the latter was at one time more usual. Well into the 20th century the absence of refrigeration made it expedient in many domestic kitchens to store cooked meat rather than raw. In the 1940s the chef [[Louis Diat]] recalled of his childhood days, "when housewives bought their Sunday meat they selected pieces large enough to make into leftover dishes for several days".<ref>Diat, p. 83</ref> Modern recipes for cottage pie typically use fresh beef.<ref name=saberi/>