Nursery Rhyme Pies with surprises inside

Illustration by William Wallace Denslow.

Little Jack Horner

Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating his Christmas pie
He put in his thumb
And pulled out a plum
And said, "What a good boy am I!"

It's a familiar nursery rhyme that has been said to be about stealing land during the reign of Henry VIII. Whether true or not, the story goes that the Abbot of Glastonbury, one of the last abbeys to be confiscated by Henry VII in the 1530s, decided to bribe the king with a Christmas pie that contained the deeds to twelve of his properties (other than the Abbey itself) rather than the ingredients of a regular Christmas Pie.

The classic Christmas pies were large, well suited to hiding deeds, and the sort of thing that an abbot would be expected to send to the king. In Henry's day, they were filled with mincemeat containing thirteen ingredients (one for Christ, and twelve for the apostles). They had mutton, representing the shepherds in the Nativity story, and a rectangular box shape like that of the manger  Thus, the Abbot's pie had symbolic meanings, as well as being a gift he hoped that the king would accept.

The abbot delegated delivery of the pie to his steward, Thomas Horner (who became Jack in the nursery thyme, because the name "Jack" was often associated with someone up to no good). Thomas took the pie to the king, but before he got there (so the story goes), pulled out the deed to Mells Manor. Because he was Protestant, Thomas got to keep the manor. The King had the abbot hung anyway, took the rest of the abbey and properties, and everyone continued on. The Horner family owned Mells Manor into the twentieth century; no word about whether they kept up a tradition of Christmas pies.

Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked in a Pie

Another familiar nursery rhyme had blackbirds instead of plums in the pie:

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing
Now wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before a king!

The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.

In this case, the pie was an entremet, an entertainment served between courses by wealthy hosts. Birds, pigs, and frogs, even people, could be trapped inside a big pie shell, and let out by breaking the crust, to amaze the guests. One interpretation of this nursery rhyme also ties it to Henry VIII.  Henry VIII was the king in the counting house, and the singing birds were people who turned others in to save their own hides, or to get rewards (a pocket full of rye) from the king. The queen was Catherine of Aragon (note that she was eating bread and honey, not pie), and the maid in the garden was Anne Boleyn.

Both of the rhymes demonstrate one of the essential qualities of pie crust. Properly made with wheat, it is a structurally sound container. An engineering school's experiments with building the perfect gingerbread house led to the conclusion that "Dough with a tough, springy consistency and decreased moisture content is ideal, and can be achieved by using flour with high protein content, such as bread flour. Higher-protein flours contain more glutenin and gliadin proteins, which create the springy gluten network that gives dough its elastic properties." From the Middle Ages into the present, pie crusts have been used as free-standing structures in which food was cooked, or  as containers holding entertainments of live creatures.

A German cookbook from 1553 described how to make the crust. It advised the cook to take flour, mix it with eggs, melt some fat in boiling water (which could have been butter or lard, or other meat fats), pour that over the flour, and  "work it well." (i.e., knead it to develop the gluten). The cook shaped the dough into whatever three-dimensional shape was needed. Then they shaped a lid and fastened it to the box with water,  crimping the edges together with their fingers. After filling the crust (or "coffin," from a French word meaning basket), the cook baked it.

Sometimes the crust was inedible, but just as often, it could be eaten as part of the meal. If the nobility didn't eat the crust, they often passed it on to poor people, who relished the pastry soaked with the juices of the meats and spices that had filled the pie.  Alternatively, baking food in the relatively dry and impenetrable crust could preserve food, if the top layer of crust was sealed with fat of some sort.

Blackbirds in a pie (Creative Commons, 8-5-2018)

Gingerbread

                                                       Photo, KinderKids.

"Run, run, as fast as you can
You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man."

The gingerbread man’s one desire was to travel. Alas, he didn’t travel far, but he saw more of the world than the average cookie.

       Large gingerbread people, London market, November 2011. [Photo, TW Carns]

Gingerbread has a distinguished history since the Greek and Roman days as a medicinal, as a shaped bread served at fairs and sold as street foods from the Middle Ages on, and as decorations, especially at Christmas. Shakespeare refers to it in  "Love's Labor's Lost," when Costard, Moth, and Holofernes are trading bawdy insults at the beginning of the play: "And I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread: Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit . . ."

 

      Gingerbread molds from the early 1600s. The gingerbread would be mixed, molded into these, and when dry would be taken out and painted. [Photo, Historic Food blog]

                             Drawing by Adrian Ludwig Richter (1803–1884), on Wikipedia Commons.

       Building houses is another use, most famously in “Hansel and Gretel,” but many other places today, from full size houses in Texas, to gingerbread villages with dozens of buildings, populated by tiny people with muffs and skates.

Gingerbread Village created by Joe Hickel, Captain Cook Hotel, Anchorage, 2013-2014. [Photo, TW Carns]


    The Greeks offered small cakes at different religious festivals, including those made of flour and honey (boun) in the spring. Funeral cakes, kollyva, are still made today in places. They were shaped from boiled wheat with honey and possibly spices, and could be tossed into the grave, or left as memorials later. Some were made in the shape of a person. Offerings to Demeter and Persephone included  wheaten cakes, also sometimes shaped like people -early versions of gingerbread men. Virgil refers to cakes that the Sibyl gave Aeneas to throw to Cerberus who guarded the entrance to Hades, made of wheat, honey, and sedative drugs (probably not ginger).

      They also fed Athena's sacred snake, with honey cakes (which may have attracted mice that the snake could then eat). If the snake refused them it was taken as a bad omen. One story had the Greeks leaving Athens because the snake turned up its nose at the cake of the month, which meant that Athena had left the city. They boarded their boats, and waited in the harbor, and were saved from the Persian invasion at the Battle of Salamis.

     Romans followed in the Greek footsteps, offering spice cakes to the gods. They brought ginger from India, probably overland, and used it for digestion as well as for a seasoning. Marco Polo claimed to have discovered gingerbread in China, but Egyptians ate it in the days of the pharaohs.

     Gingerbread next shows up in 995 CE brought to England by monks, Others attribute its origin to the crusaders, suggesting that it came from the Middle East.

      It often was medicinal, as we now like to think of chocolate. Very early recipes don't show it as a dough, but as a mixture of bread crumbs with sweeteners and spices -- hence the name, gingerbread. Sacred foods and tasty medicines have often evolved into foods that are served as desserts or for special occasions. One writer hypothesizes that it was because they were served at the end of heavy feasts to settle the stomach, and gradually came to be appreciated for their virtues of taste, not just as medicinal. Chaucer's Sir Thopas has "royal spicery/ Of gingerbread that was full fine,/ Cumin and licorice, I opine,/And sugar so dainty."

     Here is a medieval recipe, honey mixed with bread crumbs, ginger, and other spices, using modern measures:

"1 lb. Honey - I prefer organic, or something made with a flavored flower blossom, etc., but feel free to use your favorite. Just remember that the final product is affected by the flavor of the honey you choose.
Bread Crumbs - up to a pound, maybe more, maybe less. These must be UNSEASONED bread crumbs, though either white or wheat, or a combination, is fine. Be sure that they are finely ground and not soft in any way.
ginger (optional!) - up to 1 Tbs.
cinnamon - up to 1 Tbs.
ground white pepper - up to ½ tsp.
pinch saffron, if desired, but not important here
few drops red food coloring (optional)

Bring the honey to a boil and skim off any scum. Keeping the pan over very low heat, add the spices, adjusting the quantities to suit your taste. Add the food coloring "if you will have it red." Then begin to slowly beat in the bread crumbs. Add just enough bread to achieve a thick, stiff, well-blended mass. Remove from the heat and turn the mixture onto a lightly greased (cooking spray works fine) square or rectangular baking sheet or shallow pan, ½ to 1 inch thick. Take a rolling pin & spread the gingerbread evenly out into the pan. Turn the pan over onto wax paper or parchment paper, & tap gently until the gingerbread  falls from the pan. Turn the gingerbread over once again, then cut into small squares to serve. (A diamond shape is also very nice.) Decorate with small leaves (real or candy) attached to each piece with a clove." 

Photo source: http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/76/Lebkuechner_Landauer.jpg

     For centuries, it was enormously popular because it could be made into shapes. The gingerbread man's ancestors were complex molds, shaped like kings and queens. "The first gingerbread man is credited to Queen Elizabeth I, who knocked the socks off visiting dignitaries by presenting them with one baked in their own likeness. Gingerbread tied with ribbon was popular at fairs and, when exchanged, became a token of love."

     One of the most interesting methods for making gingerbread was the process used during the 19th century in England and the U.S. for fermenting a treacle and flour sponge for months. One recipe by George Read (1834) for commercial production calls for alum and potash to be mixed with the treacle and flour sponge. Frederick Vine said that it was best to start the mix in the spring, and let it ferment through the summer into September before baking the gingerbread with it. He allowed as to how a one to three month fermentation would work as well.

     In Sanskrit, ginger root was known as srigavera, which translates to "root shaped like a horn." There is evidence that it was used in China and India 7,000 years ago, making it one of the earliest known spices. One author suggests that cultivated ginger, like a number of other domesticated foods, does not grow in the wild. It can only be "propagated by splitting the root, never from seed."

A scene from Joe Hickel's Christmas Village at the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage (12-2-2015)