Book of Days Tales

Today is the birthday (1633) of Samuel Pepys, an administrator of the navy of England, member of parliament, and president of the Royal Society, who is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man.

Pepys frequently notes what he ate at meals, and it is quite evident that venison was his favorite meat, and that venison pies or pasties appealed to him greatly. He does, however, quite often note that the venison at a dinner was not up to his standards. In this case the dinner was all right, but the venison pasty was, in fact, beef:

I went home and took my wife and went to my Cosen Tho. Pepys’s and found them just sat down to dinner, which was very good; only the venison pasty was palpable beef, which was not handsome.

Venison pies and pasties are frequently mentioned in 17^th century dinner menus and they were obviously popular. They were large enough to serve a whole table and were often elaborately decorated. If they were to be given as gifts, the pastry was construction grade and might not even be particularly edible. Served for a normal dinner, the pastry was more likely to be a standard mix of flour, butter, and eggs. It was common to cook the venison for many hours, and to pound it into a paste with wine and spices before filling the pie. Here is a recipe for a stew of venison from The English and French Cook of 1674. With a little imagination you could convert the stew to a pie filling and, using either slack paste or shortcrust pastry, make a finished pie. I’ll leave that part to you.

Potage of Venison.

Take a Haunch of Venison, and cut it into six pieces, and place them in the bottom of a Pan or Pot, then put in no more Water than will cover it, let it boil, then scum it, after that add to it a good quantity of whole Pepper; when it is half boiled, put in four whole Onions, Cloves, and large Mace, some sliced Ginger, Nutmeg, three or four faggots of sweet Herbs, let it boil till the Venison be very tender, and a good part of the broth be wasted; after this pour out the broth from the meat into a Pipkin, keep your Venison hot in the same Pot by adding other hot broth unto it; then take a couple of red-Beet roots, having very well parboil’d them before, cut them into square pieces as big as a shilling, and put them into the broth which is in your Pipkin, and let them boil till they are very tender, add unto the boiling four Anchovies minced, then dish up your Venison on Sippets of French-bread, then pour on your broth, so much as will near-upon fill the Dish, then take your roots by themselves, and toss them in a little drawn Butter, and lay them all over the Venison; if the Beets be good, it will make the broth red enough, which you must have visible round about the Dish sides, but if it prove pale, put to it some Saunders: This is a very savory Potage.