/ kalebeul / 2004 / 01 / 15 / spurious history the origins of shepherds pie /

Spurious history: the origins of shepherd’s pie

Skip to: comments (12); categories; related posts; previous/next post

I haven’t yet found evidence of Pere Botero’s cauldron in accounts of the 1251/1320 Shepherds’ Crusade, but at least this meme will encourage children who suspect that - denuded of the genitive apostrophe-s - shepherd’s pie is exactly what it purports to be: minced shepherd with boots and gravy, topped first with potato mash and then with a layer of grated cheese, baked until brown, and forced down one’s throat by a dietary zealot. Think I’m kidding you? Here’s old rent-a-quote Radulph from Caen in Amin Maalouf’s The Crusades through Arab eyes:

In Ma’arra our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled.

Boring gits will now point out that Radulph was writing about the year 1098, not 1251, and that there is moreover no record of unethical culinary relationships involving pastoralists during that campaign. Fair enough, but then you also need to acknowledge that shepherd-eating is an enduring theme in European folklore. I’m not talking so much about stuff like George Borrow’s rejection of such stories in The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain as about the adoption by the Fourth Lateran Council of transubstantiation, the principal shepherd-eating myth in European culture. This doctrine was made official in 1215, and after 36 years French shepherds may have decided they’d had enough.

Trevor @ 15 January 2004 4:46 PM

Tags: George Borrow

Hate this blog? Reduce posts with our books4beer scheme

All commission on sales via this site of The Crusades through Arab eyes or other books by Amin Maalouf will be spent in a wifi-free pub. More books here.

Previous/next post

«« More mad shepherds ««
»» Trannies »»

Comments

The Prandial Post
8:59 PM on 15 January 2004 By hook or by crook
If you hadn’t sussed already, Trevor-the-Baldie’s blog is a remarkable mix of spurious trivia and really really odd historical facts, as well as a mix of English, Spanish, Catalan and Dutch (it’s ok, each has its own RSS feed). Today’s gem: Shepherd’s …
Michel
1:49 PM on 11 February 2004
Yes, but where was it made originally?!

I’ve always thought it’s origin was England?
Trevor
5:24 PM on 11 February 2004
Anywhere where you could find sheep, veg, a pan and a fire, I guess. Maybe the British were just best at marketing their brand. Anyone know names for it in other languages?
Marion
6:30 PM on 25 May 2004
The Canadian French for this is pâté chinois - Chinese Pie, literally translated. One of the francophone ladies at the office told me it was named this because it was a common dish fed to the Chinese labourers who built the railway across our country, beef and spuds being two things we Canadians have lots of.
Trevor
9:33 AM on 26 May 2004
Dutch Chinese taart is, on the other hand, a pork and rice dish of, I presume, Javan origin.
J Paul
6:44 PM on 17 August 2004
Have you read the History House thing on the Children’s Crusade?
Trevor
7:01 PM on 17 August 2004
No, hadn’t seen that, but it’s a great site. Yet more proof that Texas is the centre of global learning.
Joe
10:21 PM on 3 October 2004
WHy is it called Shepherd’s pie?
Greg
3:20 AM on 26 October 2004
I want to know information about the dish shepherd’s pie from ireland. i.e. why is it made in ireland, climate type for cooking, why the ingredients are found in ireland, etc.
kalebeul » Dogs’ bollocks
11:01 PM on 10 April 2005
[...] ting bull’s testicles is going out of fashion in Spain, the castration fetish crowd (shepherd, anyone?) are popularising meatballs elsewhere. Bu [...]
Andrew
11:58 AM on 11 April 2006
Called hâchis parmentier in metropolitan French. Named after Parmentier who first brought the potatoe back from France and planted it in the Elyseen fields (Champs Elysees).
kalebeul » How to make head cheese (queso de cerdo)
9:10 PM on 2 November 2006
[...] In Argentina. In Kilburn (thanks Dave). (First mention in Corde is in Ventura de Peña y Valle, Tratado general de carnes (1832). That marrano means pig as well as a renegade converted Jew is probably explicable in non-cannibal terms, although with these Frankish types you never know.) « Ciutadans mainly took votes off PSC « [...]