Editing Pie (section)

===Medieval era===
In the Medieval era, pies were usually savoury meat pies made with "...beef, lamb, wild duck, magpie pigeon -- spiced with pepper, currants or dates".<ref name="Mayer" /> Medieval cooks had restricted access to ovens due to their costs of construction and need for abundant supplies of fuel. Since pies could be easily cooked over an open fire, this made pies easier for most cooks to make. At the same time, by partnering with a baker, a cook could focus on preparing the filling.

The earliest pie doughs were probably an inedible, stiff mixture of rye flour and water. The earliest pie recipes refer to ''coffyns'' (the word actually used for a [[basket]] or [[box]]), with straight sealed sides and a top; open-top pies were called ''traps''.{{sfn|Clarkson|2009|pp=18–19}} Until the mid-16th century this British pie dough known as "cofyn" was used as a baking dish.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stavely |first1=Keith |last2=Fitzgerald |first2=Kathleen |title=Northern Hospitality: Cooking by the Book in New England |date=2011 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |page=246}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news| last = Golden| first = John| title = Now for a British Challenge: Hand-Raised Meat Pies| work = The New York Times| access-date = 2024-11-30| date = 1979-02-28| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1979/02/28/archives/now-for-a-british-challenge-handraised-meat-pies-making-your-own.html}}</ref> These pies were meant to be eaten with the hands. The hardened coffyn pastry was not necessarily eaten, its function being to contain the filling for baking, and to extend its shelf-life.{{sfn|Clarkson|2009|pp=18–19}} The thick crust was so sturdy it had to be cracked open to get to the filling.<ref name="Gross" /> This may also be the reason why early recipes focus on the filling over the surrounding case, with this development leading to the use of reusable earthenware pie cases which reduced the use of expensive flour.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy |author=Odile Redon |publisher=University of Chicago Press:Chicago |year=1998 |isbn=0-226-70684-2 |display-authors=etal}}</ref> Ceramic pie dishes were not used until the 16th century. Medieval pie crusts were often baked first, to create a "pot" of baked dough with a removable top crust, hence the name ''pot pie''.<ref name="Pix" />

The first unequivocal reference to pie in a written source is in the 14th century (''Oxford English Dictionary'' sb ''pie'').<ref name="WCA" /> The eating of mince pies during festive periods is a tradition that dates back to the 13th century, as the returning Crusaders brought pie recipes containing "meats, fruits and spices".<ref name="Pix" />{{better source|date=November 2024}} Some pies contained cooked rabbits, frogs,<ref name="Pix" /> crows, and pigeons.<ref name="Gross" /> 

In 1390, the English cookbook ''A Forme of Cury'' had a recipe for "tartes of flesh", which included a ground-up mixture of "pork, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese" blended with "spices, saffron, and sugar".<ref name="Greenwood" />  The "cofyn" dough for the 14th-century apple pie recipe from ''[[The Forme of Cury]]'' was probably a simple mix of water and whatever flour was available in [[late middle ages]].<ref name=Pangrace>{{cite book |last1=Pangrace |first1=Meredith |title=Midwest Pie: Recipes That Shaped a Region |date=2023 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing}}</ref> The recipe included spices,  apples, raisins pears and figs.  The 14th-century French chef Taillevent instructed bakers to "crenelate" pie shells and "reinforce them so that they can support the meat"; one of his pies was high enough that it resembled a model of a castle, an illusion enhanced by miniature banners for the nobles at the event.<ref name="Perry" />

Pies in the 15th century included birds, as [[song bird]]s at the time were a delicacy and protected by Royal Law. At the coronation of eight-year-old English [[King Henry VI]] (1422–1461) in 1429, "Partrich" and "Pecok enhakill" were served, alleged by some modern writers to consist of cooked [[peacock]] mounted in its skin on a peacock-filled pie. The expressions "eat crow" and "four and 20 blackbirds" are sayings from the era when crow and blackbirds were eaten in pies.<ref name="Gross" />  Cooked birds were frequently placed by European royal cooks on top of a large pie to identify its contents, leading to its later adaptation in pre-Victorian times as a porcelain ornament to release of steam.<ref name="WCA" /> The apple pie was first referenced in writing in 1589, when the poet R. Green wrote "Thy breath is like the seeme of apple pies".<ref name="Mayer" />

Medieval England had an early form of sweet pies called [[tart]]s and fruit pies were unsweetened, because sugar was a rare and costly [[status symbol]].<ref name="Gross" /> In the Middle Ages, a pie could have several items as its filling, but a [[pastry]] would have only a single filling.<ref name="JIUpK" />