The Armour Archive

Does the term coffins refer to metal pans with depressions to bake in or to the pastry cover for pastries?

I've always heard coffins referred to as pie-like vessels (made of dough) that food was cooked in. After the food was done, the "pie" would be discarded.

What Dansknecht said -- I've always heard "coffins" were "crusts." Closefitting containers.

I'm not sure that they were baked in metal pans, FWIW; go to http://larsdatter.com/bakers.htm and watch the video there. (That's one of the Tudor cooks at the Hampton Court Palace kitchen.) There are other links on that page to people baking pies, with no metal pans, depressed or otherwise.

The Middle English Dictionary indicates that it's a pastry crust or casing.

jester wrote:Does the term coffins refer to metal pans with depressions to bake in or to the pastry cover for pastries?

Neither. It might be helpful to thing of coffins as a sort of "canning in pie dough" concept. Coffin refers to the entire pastry container, not just a lid.

When you read the Book of Carving the idea is that the crust seals your pie and can be stored without refrigeration for an extended amount of time. The proper way to serve such a pie is to cut off the top of the crust, and then the sides then you cut of the filling into small chunks and serve them stacked in a bowl.

Am I looking in the wrong Book of Carving? At http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24790/24 ... e_keruynge all I can find on this subject is:

Open hot Meat-Pies at the top; cold in the middle. All bake metes that ben hote, open them a-boue the coffyn; & all that ben colde, open theym in the mydwaye.

Coffins in a pie context are as mentioned above, paste cases, you can edible or inedible cases.

Coffins, from the OF, Cofre, etc, ie box, chest, etc.

Interesting. When this question came to me I did a search and saw Murdock's comment about coffins as a sort of 'medieval tupperware'. I really hadn't thought about the crust as being a disposable container for cooking or storing food.

Karen Larsdatter wrote:Am I looking in the wrong Book of Carving? At http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24790/24 ... e_keruynge all I can find on this subject is:

Open hot Meat-Pies at the top; cold in the middle. All bake metes that ben hote, open them a-boue the coffyn; & all that ben colde, open theym in the mydwaye.

Yup - Wynkyn de Worde's Book of Kervyng. That sounds like the relavent section.

There are finds of ceramic pie pans - none metal that I know of. Supposedly, the pastry coffins were made of low-grade materials - barely edible, but great at sealing in the cooked food without letting in bacteria.

Actually the coffins that I've done weren't edible in the least. Granted, they were somewhat large, but by the time I got the walls thick enough that the stew inside wouldn't leak out, they were kinda thick!

GREAT presentation, though.

The late 15th century is when the coffin changed from a storage device to something that was eaten and enjoyed.

The quote referenced above "The proper way to serve such a pie is to cut off the top of the crust, and then the sides then you cut of the filling into small chunks and serve them stacked in a bowl." is for a hot pie.

For a cold pie, the top is cut off and then it is sliced and you are supposed to be served (and presumably eat) the sides and bottom of the crust.

Kim

AZPapillion wrote:The late 15th century is when the coffin changed from a storage device to something that was eaten and enjoyed.

The quote referenced above "The proper way to serve such a pie is to cut off the top of the crust, and then the sides then you cut of the filling into small chunks and serve them stacked in a bowl." is for a hot pie.

For a cold pie, the top is cut off and then it is sliced and you are supposed to be served (and presumably eat) the sides and bottom of the crust.

Kim

I'm having a hard time finding the proper wording for a response with a positive review of the edibility of your recent pastry products, Kim...

Uhhh...

"Kim bake good pies. Lots big pies. Me eat much crust."

Yeah... that works...

In the recipes themselves the wording often uses make a trap, make a coffin or make paste whilst others say, make a coffin/trap of good paste....now modern cookbooks are written assuming you DON'T cook but the medieval ones are written by cooks for other cooks so , and here's where I go off into a theory of mine, trap, coffin, paste could refer to inedible used as a disposable cassarole dish or short term canning and good, fine or fair trap/coffin/paste is an edible....There is one that says make a fayre paste of best flour of pandemayne sugar and saffron. If you are using expensive ingredients like those you are gonna make damn sure the people know how much cash you've spent on treating them and the only way of doing that is to eat it.
Thickness of the paste will effect how it is used too. Dense flour and water will make a good 'can' the same ingredients driven thinne as a foyle then boiled in stock are pasta, add more water it's glue.

Like I said just a theory and research experiments continue............................. mmmmmmmmm pie