Cornish Pasty in England.

[Yorkshire_Pudding]

@puzzlegal

I measure apples for pie by volume. As i cut them, I toss the cut pieces into the empty pie plate. When the pie plate in comfortably overflowing, I stop cutting up apples.

With you all the way. If I’ve started a big-ass cooking apple in a pie and run out out of space, I’ll chop the rest and freeze it for apple sauce.

“Cooking apple” you say, Yorkie? What’s your cooking apple of choice?" Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s a Bramley. THE apple with which to cook.

" “THE” apple. Really?"

Sorry. Of course. Bit vague there, wasn’t I? That should be THE apple.

[Chronos]

Of course baking apples are different from eating apples. I don’t know Bramleys-- I usually use Granny Smiths, in mine. But I’ll keep an eye out for it next time I’m making a pie.

Which will probably be a while, now… I’m back close to family again, which means any pie event I attend will also likely be attended by my uncle, and I know enough not to try to compete against him.

[Celyn]

@Chronos

…
Of course, I ended up with much more apples than would fit in a pie, a dilemma I resolved by making two apple pies.

So it all worked out VERY well in the end.

[MrAtoz]

@Yorkshire_Pudding

I used to hear “regulo” - meaning Gas Mark - from older relatives and on old radio shows from the 50s. Were things really changing from F to C that long ago? I think we were still pretty entrenched in Fahrenheit then.

Thank you! I used to hear things like “set the oven on regulo 2” on old episodes of Are You Being Served?, and I had no idea what it meant!

It didn’t help that I heard it as “reggy-low,” and so I had no luck trying to search for it!

[Leo_Bloom]

@Yorkshire_Pudding

It was The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Merritt Farmer (the “Mother of Level Measurements”). So maybe not “clueless”, but the story - as I found it in Bee Wilson’s “Consider the Fork” - goes that she had no flair, no feel (and no truck with the idea that such things mattered) and she knew what suddenly being cast adrift in a kitchen with no experience felt like. So she was utterly rigorous about the idea that a series of volumes and measurements, followed to the letter, would turn out right. And her idea sold ridiculously well. Historically, American cooks had used the same jumble of weights and measures as everyone else, and she sought to simplify this for the bewildered…but didn’t really get it. But of course, the bewildered who were her audience didn’t get it either, so didn’t criticise!

This is fascinating and is an important cultural mark.

Can you provide some good references on this as a historical matter, or a spiffy cite to start?

[puzzlegal]

@Yorkshire_Pudding

…“Cooking apple” you say, Yorkie? What’s your cooking apple of choice?" Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s a Bramley. THE apple with which to cook.

" “THE” apple. Really?"

Sorry. Of course. Bit vague there, wasn’t I? That should be THE apple.

I obtained some of those a few years back. Very nice cooking apple. I still like Jonathans, which hold their shape fairly well in a pie (when they are fresh) and have a delightful flavor after they have been baked.

I have also made nice pastries with Caville Blanc, a french cooking apple. It is nicely sour and holds it’s shape INCREDIBLY well. It’s also a very hard apple, so it’s easy to cut it into beautiful thin regular slices.

[puzzlegal]

@Yorkshire_Pudding

It was The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Merritt Farmer (the “Mother of Level Measurements”). So maybe not “clueless”, but the story - as I found it in Bee Wilson’s “Consider the Fork” - goes that she had no flair, no feel (and no truck with the idea that such things mattered) and she knew what suddenly being cast adrift in a kitchen with no experience felt like. So she was utterly rigorous about the idea that a series of volumes and measurements, followed to the letter, would turn out right. And her idea sold ridiculously well. Historically, American cooks had used the same jumble of weights and measures as everyone else, and she sought to simplify this for the bewildered…but didn’t really get it. But of course, the bewildered who were her audience didn’t get it either, so didn’t criticise!

I have also heard that the Shakers, who cooked collectively, wrote recipes so that random members could step in and cook the same food. They measured everything based on the standard cups and bowls in their kitchens. Or so I read somewhere.

[puzzlegal]

Also some theory about pioneers in covered wagons having access to standard-size (to them) cups and spoons, but not to accurate scales.

[Leo_Bloom]

@Filbert

That’s not a pasty, it’s a Bedfordshire Clanger. Might still be a myth that it was often sweet and savoury in the past, but I like to get my mistakes accurate.
…

@Teuton

You’re quite right, although I’m sure I’ve heard it said about pasties before.

Interesting that the wiki page for the Clanger also mentions the suggestion that the pastry was just to hold the filling and wasn’t eaten.

OK, it’s not a faggot, but I’ve always wanted to know what a savory duck is.

Or do they only use caul, like faggots, crepinettes, etc.?

[Chronos]

It’s hard to imagine the Shakers being the origin of a nationwide cultural practice.

[Teuton]

@Leo_Bloom

OK, it’s not a faggot, but I’ve always wanted to know what a savory duck is.

Or do they only use caul, like faggots, crepinettes, etc.?

I’ve got no idea what you’re asking

[Leo_Bloom]

@Teuton

I’ve got no idea what you’re asking

I said. Have no idea what a savory duck is, which implies in these types of posts the question “what is a savory duck.”

I then asked a second question as a follow up.

[Chronos]

And that second question makes no sense.

[Isamu]

First thing I get when Back in melb. Stab it with a dead horse squeezer and bob’s your mother’s brother.

[Leo_Bloom]

@Chronos

And that second question makes no sense.

Why, oh Chronos, now that you have weighed in?

You are clear now, I presume about the antecedent in the second sentence?

I await your reply. If you don’t understand all or any of the nouns in that second sentence, that is not my fault as a sensible question poser, particularly in this thread where some of the said nouns and their constituent parts are under discussion.

IOW, a decent clear and cromulent query.

[Chronos]

The only pronoun in the second sentence is “they”, for which the implied antecedent is obviously “the people who make savory duck”. That’s not the confusing part. The confusing part is what caul, faggots, and crepinettes have to do with each other, a confusion which isn’t helped by the fact that most people have no idea what caul and crepinettes are, and a lot of people have the wrong idea about what faggots are.

[Kimstu]

I looked up some words!

Faggots (and “savoury ducks”)

Crepinettes (and “caul fat”)

Still no clue on “dead horse squeezer”, though.

[Teuton]

@Leo_Bloom

I said. Have no idea what a savory duck is, which implies in these types of posts the question “what is a savory duck.”

I then asked a second question as a follow up.

I’ve got no idea what a savory duck is either. I also don’t know why you’d drop into a random thread and ask, and why you think it’s relevant.

[Celyn]

Ooh, I had no idea that faggots could be called “savoury ducks”. So I have learned something today.

Tangentially, I had NO idea that faggots were a food until I went to library school in Wales and they appeared on the menu. I expect ye olde traditional home-cooked faggots are different from, and better than, mass-produced ones. Not that the latter are nasty. They’re just sort of meatballs in gloopy sauce. The fact that faggots sold in shops are always named “Mr. Brain’s Faggots” does strike me as a bit off-putting, somehow.

[Celyn]

Duplicate post. Deleted.