The pie, to quote one Victorian writer, is a great human discovery which has universal estimation among all civilized eaters'. "Pie" explores the development of this most esteemed article of food, from the ancient pie, its crust inedible and used for preserving the contents, to its elevation as the highest expression of culinary art. The pie symbolizes family, celebration and ritual, and appears in literature from Chaucer to Jane Austen and in art from Monet to Hogarth. It is the most adaptable of foods, portable, nutritious and tasty, and its contents vary throughout the world, from fish to meat, from sweet to savoury, to the mysterious and sinister Old Maid' or Scrap' pie. A pie can be an economical investment for all miscellaneous savings', as Dickens called it, or a momentous and expensive work of art; it can even contain nothing but live birds, frogs or dancing girls. A celebration of the pie as well as a hugely informative history, with a selection of recipes from throughout the life of the pie, "Pie" will satisfy the appetite of anyone interested in the history of food and cookery.
Pie can hardly be called a "global history" in good conscience. Heavily focused on the English pie and some French influences, Pie covers the various aspects that are involved in pie's role in societies, mainly from the middle ages onward.
Although such a small book can hardly contain all variations of pie, I don't think Ms Clarkson was right in dismissing the rest of the world. The countries she discusses are mainly the UK, France, the United States, Canada, and Australia. This inexplicable emphasis on English-speaking countries, I think, might simply be the result of Ms Clarkson's source material, which according the the bibliography in the back, was exclusively English as well. Although she provides a recipe for apple strudel in the back, arguing that strudel is a pie as well, she does not mention the significance of strudel in Austrian culture; nor is any mention spared for possible East-European, Asian, African, or South-American pies.
Pie can only be considered a global history if one's world is comprised by the West. As far as Western culinary history goes, it is a nice readable little booklet with plenty of pictures and old-English recipes.
