How a pocket-sized snack changed the English language

来源: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170322-how-a-pocket-sized-snack-changed-the-english-language


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[1] Tiny pies have been a favorite food in Britain since the Middle Ages – and have changed the English language with idioms, nursery rhyme verses, even a mention by Shakespeare.

【Points】:
1.nusery rhyme [ˈnɚsəri raɪm] 童谣,歌谣
2.nusery 苗圃; 婴儿室; 温床
3.change sth with sth 用...改变了...

【段落】:
引言部分,总的介绍了馅饼对于英国人的重要性:一直是英国人最受欢迎的食品,并且通过俚语,童谣儿歌,甚至连莎士比亚都提及过,通过这些还改变了英语语言。

[2] Every March, St Mary’s church in the Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray becomes a cathedral of pies: it fills with tables bearing more than 800 pastries.

【Points】:
1.cathedral [kəˈθidrəl] n.总教堂,大教堂;
adj.权威的; 教堂的;

2.bear 忍受; 承担; 支撑; 生育

3.be filled with 充满,装满

【段落】 :
例子:St Mary’s church——数量取胜

[3] Some recipes are particularly offbeat. While the quirkiest entry in this year's Speciality Meat category was a cricket pie, one celebrated past winner was Phil Warmsley's squirrel pie in 2014. Warmsley told me that it has medieval origins, but still sells out at Market Harborough’s twice-monthly farmers’ market. “They're also a great way to deal with a pest,” he laughs.

【Points】:
1.recipe [ˈresəpi] 食谱; 处方; 秘诀
2.offbeat [ˌɔfˈbit] 不寻常的,非传统的,不落俗套的
Eg:an offbeat approach to interviewing
别开生面的采访
She adores old, offbeat antiques.
她非常喜欢那些稀奇古怪的老古董。
3.quirky ['kwɜkɪ] 诡诈的,离奇
Eg:It is full of quirky yet weirdly believable turns - and wacky , revealing dialogue.
这部影片充满了离奇但又可信的转折以及独特而又发人深省的对话.
4.category 类型,部门,种类,类别,类目
5.cricket [ˈkrɪkɪt] 蟋蟀
6.celebrated 做adj.是 著名的,有名的
7.medieval [ˌmidiˈivəl] 中古的,中世纪的
8.pest [pɛst] 讨厌的人或事; 有害动植物; 瘟疫
9.sell out 卖光 ; 脱销; 演出(或比赛)满座; 背叛
Eg: I hear she's going to sell out and move to the city.
我听说她打算变卖家当,搬到这座城市。
He toured for nearly two years and played 500 sell-out shows.
他巡回演出了近两年,500场演出场场爆满。

【段落】 :
猎奇——肉类派之奇葩:从蟋蟀派到松鼠派

[4] It’s not just the squirrel pie: several hundred years ago, there were many types of pies already a beloved part of British cuisine. Records from the 11th Century show East Anglia paying levies to the Crown with herring pies – a practice that continued for 800 years – with towns required to send an annual tribute of “100 herrings baked in 24 pasties”.

【Points】:
1.beloved 被热爱的;为…所爱的
2.cuisine [kwɪˈzin] 烹饪; 菜肴
3.show 显示
Eg:Since the rally started six weeks ago, the FTSE-World indices show cyclical sectors doing best.
自反弹于6周前开始以来,富时世界指数(FTSE-World)显示,周期性行业表现最好。
4.levy [ˈlɛvi] 征兵,征税
5.herring [ˈhɛrɪŋ] 鲱鱼
6.tribute [ˈtrɪbjut] 致敬; 悼念;体现

【段落】:
几百年前的“鲱鱼馅饼”

[5] Records of Henry VI’s 1429 coronation speak of a suitably regal pie of ‘Partryche and Pecock’, while the 1465 feast for the new Archbishop of York saw guests scoff 5,500 venison pasties. The great artistic chronicler of English life, William Hogarth, puts a street pie seller centre-stage in his 1750 painting The March to Finchley.

【Points】:
1.coronation [ˌkɔrəˈneɪʃn] 加冕礼
2.speak of 谈到,讲到; 显示出…; 记录,讲述
3.regal [ˈriɡəl] 君主的,皇家的,豪华的
4.Archbishop 大主教; 主教长
5.feast [fist] 盛会; 宴会; 宗教节日; 使人欢快的事物(或活动)
6.scoff [skɔf] 嘲笑,嘲弄; 掠夺,攫取; 狼吞虎咽
Eg:1.The pancakes were so good that I scoffed the lot.
那些薄饼太好吃了,我狼吞虎咽地都吃下去了。
2.You may scoff but I honestly feel I'm being cruel only to be kind
你可能不以为然,但我真的认为我狠下心来只是出于一片好意。
3.At first I scoffed at the notion
刚开始我对那种想法嗤之以鼻
7.venison [ˈvɛnɪsən, -zən] 鹿肉
8.chronicler ['krɒnɪklə(r)]年代记编(记录)者
9.centre-stage 中心舞台,核心内容
Eg:1.Utilities and energy took centre-stage.
公用事业公司以及能源企业占据了舞台中心
2.Liquidity risk was low on the agenda in previous years; this year it is centre-stage, he says.
他表示,前几年,流动性风险是议程中的一个次要问题,今年它却成了核心内容。

while the 1465 feast for the new Archbishop of York saw guests scoff 5,500 venison pasties.

【段落】
pie的悠久历史

[6] Even in their early days, pies served different purposes for the rich and poor: as show-off delicacies for the former and portable food for the latter. So while wealthy feasts might include pies containing anything from game birds to mussels, the less well-off used simpler pies as a way to have food while doing outdoor work or travelling – the crust both carried and preserved the tasty filling.

【Points】:
1.show-off 炫耀; 卖弄
Eg : 1.They have a tendency to show off, to dramatize almost every situation.
他们爱炫耀,几乎对每种情况都添油加醋。
2. The player was given hardly any opportunities to show off his talents.
那位选手几乎没有得到什么机会展示自己的天赋。
2.delicacy [ˈdɛlɪkəsi] 精致; 精美的食物; 周到
Eg : 1. It's a situation that calls for a blend of delicacy and force.
应付这种局面需要刚柔并济。
2. The flesh of this kind of fish has exceptional delicacy.
这种鱼的肉异常鲜美.
3.portable [ˈpɔrtəbl] 手提的; 轻便的
4.game birds 猎鸟,猎禽
Eg : 1. Game birds are hunted for sport.
猎鸟是为了乐趣.
game pie 野味馅饼
game reserve 猎物保护区
5.mussels ['mʌslz] 贻贝,蚌类
6.well-off 顺利的,有利的; 走运的; 富有的; 繁荣昌盛的
Eg : 1. My grandparents were quite well off.
我的祖父母很富有。
2. Most of these people aren't very well off.
这些人大都不算太富裕。
7.crust [krʌst] 面包皮; 外壳; 硬外皮; 地壳

【句子解析】 :
So while wealthy feasts might include pies containing anything from game birds to mussels, the less well-off used simpler pies as a way to have food while doing outdoor work or travelling.
两个“while”分别引导了让步状语从句,和时间状语从句。所以第一个“while”表示“尽管”。 尽管豪华大餐中的馅饼囊括的东西多到从鸟类到贝类,但是相对朴素的简餐馅饼可以作为户外工作或者旅行的食物。

【段落】:
馅饼之于穷人和富人的不同意义

[7] Take, for example, the Bedfordshire Clanger: a British classic which cleverly combines main course and dessert, with savoury ingredients like pork at one end and sweet ingredients like pear at the other. The name comes from a local slang word, ‘clang’, which means to eat voraciously. However, cramming two courses into a pie makes a clanger rather unwieldy – and all too easy to drop, inspiring the English phrase 'dropping a clanger' for a careless mistake.

【Points】:

1.cleverly adv. 聪明地; 机敏地; 巧妙地
Eg :1.She would cleverly pick up on what I said.
她会非常聪慧地领悟我所说的话。
2. He cleverly sowed doubts into the minds of his rivals.
他巧妙地令对手心生疑窦。
2.savoury [ˈseɪvəri] adj. 可口的; 咸味的,辣味的; 令人愉快的
1.The savoury smell greeted them as they went through the door.
他们进门时一阵香味扑鼻而来。
2. Italian cooking is best known for savoury dishes.
意大利菜以辛辣菜系最为出名。
3.ingredient [ɪnˈgridiənt] n. 组成部分(烹调的)原料; (构成)要素; 因素
4.slang [slæŋ] n. 俚语; 黑话
5.clang [klæŋ] 叮当声
6.voraciously [və'reɪʃəslɪ] adv. 贪婪地
Eg: 1. He read voraciously.
他如饥似渴地阅读。
2. The bears feed voraciously in summer and store energy as fat.
熊在夏季吃很多东西,以脂肪形式储存能量.
7.cram [k'ræmɪŋ] 塞入,填塞; 塞满
Eg: 1. Cram then if you want.
随你去抽筋吧.
2. The room's full; we can't cram any more people in.
屋里满满的, 再也挤不进去人了.

8.clanger [ˈklæŋɚ] n. 失言,失礼
Eg :1.Mentioning her ex-husband was a bit of a clanger.
提及她的前夫是有点令人难堪的失言。

9.unwieldy [ʌnˈwildi] adj. 笨拙的; 笨重的; 不便利的
Eg: 1.They came panting up to his door with their unwieldy baggage.
他们提着笨重的行李气喘吁吁地来到他门口。
2. This machine is too unwieldy to move.
这台机器太笨重了,很难搬动.
10.dropping a clanger : 在无意中说出的话,或做出的事让人感觉不舒服
Eg:1. I dropped a clanger by asking Tom how his dog was when it's been dead three months.
我哪壶不开提那壶,问汤姆他的狗好吗,而它已经死了三个月了。
2."These two guys are gay" "Thanks for letting me know, it doesn't bother me but I wouldn't want to drop a clanger"
3. I dropped a real clanger when I mentioned the party. He hadn't been invited.
我无意中失言提起了聚会的事情,而他并没有被邀请.

【段落】drop a clanger 的由来和现今的用法

[8] Pies have been adding rich flavour to the English language for centuries. Even Shakespeare got in on the act, writing in his 1613 play Henry VIII that “No man’s pie is freed from his ambitious finger”, giving English the phrase 'a finger in every pie'.

【Points】:
1.flavour [ˈflevɚ] n. 风味,情趣;滋味; 香味

2.got in on the act 参与其中,插手
Eg: 1.First it was politicians, now a novelist has decided to get in on the act.
开始是政客们,现在是一个小说家也决定染指其中。
2. She has made a lot of money from her business and now her family want to get in on the act too.
她在生意上赚了大钱,现在她家里的人也要插手了。

a finger in every pie 形容什么事情都参与
1. He had a finger in every pie at school, from dramatics to football.
在学校里,从演剧到踢足球,什么活动他都参加。
2. John is sure to know about it; he has a finger in every pie.
这事约翰一定知道,凡事他都插一手。

【段落】 a finger in every pie 的由来和现今的用法

Pie

[9] Meanwhile, the description of a drunken state as ‘pie-eyed’ likely takes its cue from someone who, thanks to having over-imbibed, has eyes as wide and blank as the top of a pie. ‘As easy as pie’ – first recorded as 'like eating pie' in the horse-racing newspaper Sporting Life in 1886 – springs from pies’ historical role as convenience food.

【Points】:
pie-eyed 喝醉了的,睁大眼睛的
2.takes its cue from 根据...的提示,从...得到线索
Eg:1.Take your cue from me.
你们看我的暗示行事。
2.Studies show that when deciding if someone is attractive, we take our cue from others.
研究发现,当判断某人是否具有吸引力时,我们总是习惯受到其他人想法的左右,从而“被提示”与“被影响”。
3.The actor did not take his cue from the music and came onto the stage late.
那位演员没有按音乐的提示,上台迟了。
2.imbibe [ɪmˈbaɪb] 喝; 吸取; 吸气
3.blank 空白,茫然,空虚
Eg:1.There was a blank look on his face.
     他脸上没有表情。
4. as easy as pie 极其容易
Eg:1.Learning to drive these latest automatic cars is as easy as pie.
学会驾驶这些最新的自动汽车是极容易的事。
2. Finding recipes in America is as easy as pie.
在美国寻找食谱可谓易如反掌。
3. That job was as easy as pie.
那工作容易极了
springs from 从...来
1.Literature and art can only spring from the life of the people.
只有人民的生活才是文学艺术的唯一源泉.
2. Where on earth did you spring from?
你是打哪儿冒出来的?

【段落】
“pied-eyed”和“as easy as pie”的用法

[10] ‘Eating humble pie’, meanwhile, comes from medieval deer hunting, when meat from a successful hunt was shared out on the basis of social status. While the finest cuts of venison went to the rich and powerful, the lower orders made do with the ‘nombles’: a Norman French word for deer offal. Anglicisation saw ‘nombles’ pie become ‘humble’ pie.

【Points】:
humble [ˈhʌmbəl] 谦逊的; 简陋的; 低下的
eat humble pie 忍气吞声;忍辱含垢;赔罪,赔礼,道歉
Eg:1. A man among men is he who knows when to eat humble pie and when to hold his head high.
大丈夫能屈能伸。
2. To eat humble pie is not a pleasant experience.
忍气吞声并不是一种愉快的经验。
shared out 共享,分享,分红,分配
Eg:1. I drain the pasta, then I share it out between two plates
我将意大利面滤干,然后平分到两个盘子里。
2. The workers expected to share out a year-end bonus.
工人们期望年终分红。
on the basis of 根据; 依据; 以…为基础; 按照
Eg:1.I can't explain such a statement by him on the basis of logic. He must have blown his top.
我从逻辑推理方面解释不了他讲的这番话,他想必是神经错乱了。
2.Statement should be made on the basis of fact.
说话要有根据。
cut of 部分
Eg:1. The lawyers, of course, take their cut of the little guy's winnings.
律师们自然从那个小家伙赢得的钱中分到了他们的一份。
2. The Church was to receive a cut of the profits on every record sold.
每卖出一张唱片就会有一部分利润捐给教会。
venison [ˈvɛnɪsən, -zən] 鹿肉,猎兽,野味
nomble ['nʌmblz](尤指鹿等供食用的动物的)内脏,下水
offal [ˈɔ:fl] 废弃物;垃圾;碎屑;残渣

【Sentence】:
‘Eating humble pie’, meanwhile, comes from medieval deer hunting, when meat from a successful hunt was shared out on the basis of social status.
“一次成功的狩猎” “被分配”“按照社会地位”
与此同时,‘Eating humble pie’这个词来源于中世纪的鹿的狩猎,当时人们是按照社会地位来分配成功狩猎回来的肉食。

While the finest cuts of venison went to the rich and powerful, the lower orders made do with the ‘nombles’.
“the lower orders made do with the ‘nombles’”中的谓语是“make do with”“made”对应前半句的“went”,“make do with”的意思是将就着用,凑合着用。
这一句翻译成,在最好的那一部分野味是给富有和有权势的人享用时,社会底层则被命令凑合着吃动物下水。

【段落】
“eat humble pie”的来源和用法

[11] As well as changing the English language, pies have become a cultural treasure in their own right.

【Points】:
1. as well as 也,又; 既…又…; 除…之外(也); 此外
2. in their own right 自身具有的能力或品质
Eg : Some go on to be investors and mentors in their own right.
其中一些人,进而也成为有着自己风格的投资者和导师。

[12] In 2008, the European Union gave Melton Mowbray's pork pies ‘protected geographical indication’ (PGI) – the same elite status as Champagne. The Melton Carnegie Museum explains how the pies from this Norman market town developed such fame: pigs in particular had a taste for the whey left over from making the equally-renowned local Stilton cheese, leading to many local farmers keeping – and eating – the animals. This resulted in the chopped pork which was put into the pie, cooked and then eaten cold. These became popular horseback meals for the area’s large fox-hunting fraternity from the 17th Century onwards, as well as for local farm workers.

【Points】:
elite [eˈlit] 精华; 精锐,精英; 上层集团; (统称)掌权人物
in particular 尤其, 特别
Eg : 1.She likes fruit and tomatoes in particular.
她喜欢水果,尤其是西红柿.
2.Unemployment has hit unskilled workers in particular.
失业尤其冲击到了无特别技能的工人.
2. have a taste for 有......的爱好 (在文中的意思是有...的味道)
Eg : 1 It appear to me that he have a taste for music.
我觉得他似乎对音乐有爱好。
2 I have a taste for English literature.
我对英国文学有兴趣
whey [ wei ] 乳清; 苍白的脸,脸色苍白的人
equally-renowned 同样著名的
resulted in 导致,造成
Eg : 1.The quarrel resulted in his mother leaving the house.
争吵导致了他母亲离家出走。
2. The accident resulted in the death of two people.
这场意外事故造成两人死亡.。
5. chopped [tʃɒpt] 剁碎的
1. Place all the chopped vegetables into a casserole dish.
把所有切好的蔬菜放入砂锅。
2.Combine the beans, chopped mint and olive oil in a large bowl.
将菜豆、切碎的薄荷和橄榄油放在大碗里搅拌。
6. fraternity [frəˈtɜrnəti] 兄弟会; 大学生联谊会; 友爱
7. onwards adv. 向前,在先
Eg : 1.The most important thing now is to move onwards.
现在至关重要的是要继续向前推进。
2. I can see things just going onwards and upwards for us now.
我认为从现在起我们的境况只会越来越好。

【段落】
Trasure of tradition1:诺曼小镇馅饼的发展——“PGI”,以及历史地位。

[13] Another treasure of a tradition can be found in Yorkshire's Denby Dale, which is the world capital of giant pies. The village baked its first mammoth creation in 1788 to mark George III's recovery from a bout of madness, though sadly there is no written record of its size or ingredients. Since then, nine ‘megapies’ have been created. The 1815 Victory Pie celebrated the defeat of Napoleon with a pie containing two sheep and 20 fowls, while the Millennium Pie of 2000 was 12m long and weighed 10 tonnes.

【Points】:
mammoth [ˈmæməθ] 猛犸象,庞大的巨大的
a bout of 一场;一阵;(疾病的)发作;一回合
Eg :1.He was recovering from a severe bout of flu
他患了严重的流感,尚未痊愈。
2.I was suffering with a bout of nerves. 
我感到一阵紧张。
celebrate with 用...来庆祝
Eg :1.The two families will then celebrate with a bottle of Armenian cognac.
双方要开一瓶亚美尼亚的白兰地来庆祝.
2. Thanksgiving Day is usually a family day. People always celebrate with big dinners and reunions.
感恩节通常是一个家庭节日, 通常以大型参会和团聚来庆祝.
fowls 禽肉; 既不是这; 非驴非马

【段落】
Another treasure of a tradition:Denby Dale这个地区的巨型馅饼,之后的9个“巨型馅饼”,2000年的千禧年饼。

[14] Pies have provided a way for the British elite to show off with more than just size. The 16th and 17th Centuries saw the rise of so-called Surprised Pyes, created to impress guests at aristocratic banquets by concealing unexpected things under an additional removable pastry lid added after cooking.

【Points】:
1. aristocratic [əˌrɪstəˈkrætɪk] 贵族的,贵族气派的; 赞成贵族政治的,爱挑剔的
2. banquets [ˈbæŋkwɪt] 宴会,盛宴
additional 额外的,附加的; 另外的,追加的; 补充; 外加

【段落】
Surprised Pies的出现和它的优势

[15] One gigantic 16th-Century royal pie concealed a gaggle of musicians who began playing when the pie was cut, while another trick saw people burst out of a pie to recite poetry. Concealing live birds was also popular – hence the ‘four and twenty blackbirds’ in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence.

【Points】:
1.gigantic [dʒaɪˈɡæntɪk] 庞大的; 硕大无比; 排山倒海

gaggle [ˈɡæɡəl] 散乱的一群,缺乏组织的团体
1. They all burst out laughing, sounding like a gaggle of geese.
她们全都放声大笑, 像一群鸭子一样嘎嘎地叫着.
2. A gaggle of journalists sit in a hotel foyer waiting impatiently.
一群乱哄哄的记者坐在酒店大堂里焦急地等待着。

【段落】
进一步例证人们利用“Surprised Pies”都搞了哪些惊喜活动。

[16] The Regional Pie category at the Awards acknowledges how pies are edible markers of not only one’s social status, but of different British regions. This year's winner was a Norfolk Plough Pudding, made with sausage meat, bacon, sage, onion and brown sugar. It’s traditionally baked in that part of East Anglia for the first Monday after Epiphany, when spring ploughing is meant to begin.

【Points】:
plough [plaʊ] 耕作,耕地 〈英俚〉(主考人评定)不及格
sage [sedʒ]圣人; 智者; 贤人; 鼠尾草(可用作调料)
epiphany [ɪ'pɪfəni] 对事物真谛的顿悟; 显灵; “主显节,洗礼节”
Eg : 1. As I studied these terms, I had an epiphany.
在研究这些词语时, 我突然灵光一现.
2. Here is the inscape, the epiphany, the moment of truth.
这是本质, 是对真谛的顿悟, 是真理的时刻.
【段落】
“Norfolk Plough Pudding”——地域类馅饼的地域风俗

[17] But it was Cornwall’s eye-catching Stargazy Pie that might be the most distinctive. Cooked with sardines gazing up from the crust, this distinctive pie has roots in a 17th-Century tale from the fishing village of Mousehole. The story goes that a fisherman named Tom Bawcock braved December storms to land a huge haul of fish that saved the village from starvation. To celebrate, his catch was baked into a giant celebratory pie – with fish heads left poking out as proof that the fish famine was over. Today, Stargazy Pie is traditionally baked with seven kinds of fish, boiled potatoes, boiled eggs and white sauce. The fish serve a practical purpose, not just a symbolic one: oil from the heads enriches the pastry and moistens the pie.

【Points】:
eye-catching 引人瞩目的,显著地
Eg: In big cities you can see many eye-catching advertisements.
在大城市,你会看到许多引人注目的广告。
distinctive [dɪˈstɪŋktɪv] 有特色的,与众不同的; 区别的,鉴别性的
. Eg : Cooking with the lid on gives the food that distinctive smoky flavour.
盖上盖子做会让这种食物有一种熏制般的独特风味。
3. sardines [sɑ:ˈdi:nz] 沙丁鱼
4. gazing up 凝视着
5. haul [hɔl] 拖; 大批赃物; 一网的捕获量; 拖运货物的距离
6. poke [poʊk] 戳出; 拨弄
Eg : 1. We never thought she would poke her nose into this.
想不到她会插上一手.
2. Don't poke fun at me.
别拿我凑趣儿.
7. famine [ˈfæmɪn] 饥荒; 饥饿; 极度缺乏
8. moisten [ˈmɔɪsən] (使)变得潮湿,变得湿润

【段落】:
最著名的“Stargazy Pie”和它的传说

[18] If that sounds somewhat quirky and fun, you’re not mistaken. And in the 21st Century, that may be one of the best reasons to continue the pie tradition. As Reverend Kevin Ashby puts it after his blessing of the pies, a tradition of the British Pie Awards: “We must have pies. Stress can’t exist in the presence of a pie!”

【Points】:
quirky ['kwɜkɪ] 诡诈的,离奇的
Eg : We've developed a reputation for being quite quirky and original.
我们因为风格奇特又独具创意而名声在外。
reverend ['revərənd] 可尊敬的,教士的,对牧师或神父的尊称

presence [ˈprɛzəns] 出席; 仪表; 风度; 鬼魂,神灵

【段落】
The best reason to continue the pie tradition——“We must have pies. Stress can’t exist in the presence of a pie!”

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来源: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170322-how-a-pocket-sized-snack-changed-the-english-language


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[1] Tiny pies have been a favorite food in Britain since the Middle Ages – and have changed the English language with idioms, nursery rhyme verses, even a mention by Shakespeare.

[2] Every March, St Mary’s church in the Leicestershire town of Melton Mowbray becomes a cathedral of pies: it fills with tables bearing more than 800 pastries.

[3] Some recipes are particularly offbeat. While the quirkiest entry in this year's Speciality Meat category was a cricket pie, one celebrated past winner was Phil Warmsley's squirrel pie in 2014. Warmsley told me that it has medieval origins, but still sells out at Market Harborough’s twice-monthly farmers’ market. “They're also a great way to deal with a pest,” he laughs.

[4] It’s not just the squirrel pie: several hundred years ago, there were many types of pies already a beloved part of British cuisine. Records from the 11th Century show East Anglia paying levies to the Crown with herring pies – a practice that continued for 800 years – with towns required to send an annual tribute of “100 herrings baked in 24 pasties”.

[5] Records of Henry VI’s 1429 coronation speak of a suitably regal pie of ‘Partryche and Pecock’, while the 1465 feast for the new Archbishop of York saw guests scoff 5,500 venison pasties. The great artistic chronicler of English life, William Hogarth, puts a street pie seller centre-stage in his 1750 painting The March to Finchley.

[6] Even in their early days, pies served different purposes for the rich and poor: as show-off delicacies for the former and portable food for the latter. So while wealthy feasts might include pies containing anything from game birds to mussels, the less well-off used simpler pies as a way to have food while doing outdoor work or travelling – the crust both carried and preserved the tasty filling.

[7] Take, for example, the Bedfordshire Clanger: a British classic which cleverly combines main course and dessert, with savoury ingredients like pork at one end and sweet ingredients like pear at the other. The name comes from a local slang word, ‘clang’, which means to eat voraciously. However, cramming two courses into a pie makes a clanger rather unwieldy – and all too easy to drop, inspiring the English phrase 'dropping a clanger' for a careless mistake.

[8] Pies have been adding rich flavour to the English language for centuries. Even Shakespeare got in on the act, writing in his 1613 play Henry VIII that “No man’s pie is freed from his ambitious finger”, giving English the phrase 'a finger in every pie'.

Pie

[9] Meanwhile, the description of a drunken state as ‘pie-eyed’ likely takes its cue from someone who, thanks to having over-imbibed, has eyes as wide and blank as the top of a pie. ‘As easy as pie’ – first recorded as 'like eating pie' in the horse-racing newspaper Sporting Life in 1886 – springs from pies’ historical role as convenience food.

[10] ‘Eating humble pie’, meanwhile, comes from medieval deer hunting, when meat from a successful hunt was shared out on the basis of social status. While the finest cuts of venison went to the rich and powerful, the lower orders made do with the ‘nombles’: a Norman French word for deer offal. Anglicisation saw ‘nombles’ pie become ‘humble’ pie.

[11] As well as changing the English language, pies have become a cultural treasure in their own right.

[12] In 2008, the European Union gave Melton Mowbray's pork pies ‘protected geographical indication’ (PGI) – the same elite status as Champagne. The Melton Carnegie Museum explains how the pies from this Norman market town developed such fame: pigs in particular had a taste for the whey left over from making the equally-renowned local Stilton cheese, leading to many local farmers keeping – and eating – the animals. This resulted in the chopped pork which was put into the pie, cooked and then eaten cold. These became popular horseback meals for the area’s large fox-hunting fraternity from the 17th Century onwards, as well as for local farm workers.

[13] Another treasure of a tradition can be found in Yorkshire's Denby Dale, which is the world capital of giant pies. The village baked its first mammoth creation in 1788 to mark George III's recovery from a bout of madness, though sadly there is no written record of its size or ingredients. Since then, nine ‘megapies’ have been created. The 1815 Victory Pie celebrated the defeat of Napoleon with a pie containing two sheep and 20 fowls, while the Millennium Pie of 2000 was 12m long and weighed 10 tonnes.

[14] Pies have provided a way for the British elite to show off with more than just size. The 16th and 17th Centuries saw the rise of so-called Surprised Pyes, created to impress guests at aristocratic banquets by concealing unexpected things under an additional removable pastry lid added after cooking.

[15] One gigantic 16th-Century royal pie concealed a gaggle of musicians who began playing when the pie was cut, while another trick saw people burst out of a pie to recite poetry. Concealing live birds was also popular – hence the ‘four and twenty blackbirds’ in the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence.

[16] The Regional Pie category at the Awards acknowledges how pies are edible markers of not only one’s social status, but of different British regions. This year's winner was a Norfolk Plough Pudding, made with sausage meat, bacon, sage, onion and brown sugar. It’s traditionally baked in that part of East Anglia for the first Monday after Epiphany, when spring ploughing is meant to begin.

[16] But it was Cornwall’s eye-catching Stargazy Pie that might be the most distinctive. Cooked with sardines gazing up from the crust, this distinctive pie has roots in a 17th-Century tale from the fishing village of Mousehole. The story goes that a fisherman named Tom Bawcock braved December storms to land a huge haul of fish that saved the village from starvation. To celebrate, his catch was baked into a giant celebratory pie – with fish heads left poking out as proof that the fish famine was over. Today, Stargazy Pie is traditionally baked with seven kinds of fish, boiled potatoes, boiled eggs and white sauce. The fish serve a practical purpose, not just a symbolic one: oil from the heads enriches the pastry and moistens the pie.

[17] If that sounds somewhat quirky and fun, you’re not mistaken. And in the 21st Century, that may be one of the best reasons to continue the pie tradition. As Reverend Kevin Ashby puts it after his blessing of the pies, a tradition of the British Pie Awards: “We must have pies. Stress can’t exist in the presence of a pie!”

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