Tarts

[ladyofastolat]

Prompted by a question on Sporcle: (Yup, still addicted.)

What's the difference between a pie and a tart? My Dad (Scottish) says that it doesn't matter how big it is or whether it has a lid or not; if it's sweet it's a tart and if it's savoury it's a pie. He has mince tarts at Christmas. My Mum (English) says that it doesn't matter how big it is or what the filling is; if it has a pastry lid it's a pie, and if it's open it's a tart. She sometimes has mince pies at Christmas and sometimes has mince tarts, depending on whether they're lidless or not. I've ended up bilingual in the tart department, and call covered savoury things pies and open sweet things tarts (unless they're Bakewell puddings) but it all falls apart in the middle.

And how do flans fit in?

EDIT: Having already established that there are regional variations, I'm not trying to find the One True Definition, but I'm interested in hearing opinions.

EDIT 2: More thoughts. Lots of pubs serve "pies" that are bowls of stew with some pastry floating on top. Is this really a pie?

Secondly, some places offer "tarlets." How small does a tart have to be before it's a tartlet? Should there be an international standard measure?

Thirdly, if a tart is a lidless pie, I see Tolkien-related puns ahead. I need to make some more pie banners this year, to include "Sell me pies, sell me sweet little pies," and to advertise the price list (pie-rates, though it's a shame the Bar Of The Thousand Pies isn't in Penzance) so I think some sort of lidless pie will be added to the list.

EDIT 3: Nothing to do with pies at all, but another word meaning question. What sort of a person has a stronghold? The news is talking about "the rebels' stronghold" in Libya. I think only rebels and villains have strongholds; Good King Fluffy and his happy men wouldn't have one. Only Dark Lords have fastnesses and only villains have lairs, but everyone can have a base or an HQ. "I retire to my base, you retreat to your stronghold, he skulks in his lair."

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think I'm with your mum, but I expect there are exceptions.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

re. icon: Does Buck Tucker Man eat tarts? It sounds almost an inappropriate as the quiche I was served at a Wychwood Warriors feast.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I'm often surprised at how genteel he tries to make his bush camps. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't touch a quiche (he's probably a 'real man' and we all know they don't eat them), but I think if some outback sheila offered him a tray of freshly-baked tarts, he'd gladly eat a couple before trading the rest to an elderly aboriginal man in return for witchetty grubs...

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I'm with your mum too - but I think that 'tarts' are sweet and open, and 'flans' are savoury and open, and pies, whether sweet or savoury, always have a lid.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Interesting. phoebesmum is of the opinion that flans are always sweet. I think I have two very different images in my head when I hear the word "flan": something quiche-like, and something sweet and fruity in a sponge base.

Though I did once play some silly console game about international cooking, in which the representative dish of England was called "flan," and looked something rather like creme caramel.

[sally_maria]

Creme caramel being called "flan" is a Spanish thing, I think - or possibly even a Latin American one.

I'm another one for whom flan is always a fruit thing... quiche is quiche and something different again.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Spanish, I think.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'm of the open/closed school, though on reflection it's strange that something called tart should have to be sweet. And a tarte tatin is different again.

I recently read that what they used to call pies in Elizabethan times (pretty much their main version of fast food) were more like what we'd call pasties or turnovers, which makes me wonder whether the "classic" container-with-filling+lie model is actually but a small province of the empire of piedom.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

container-with-filling+lie model

Er, that should be 'lid', of course!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Is a turnover just a sweet pasty, or are they different? *muses* I'm assuming a pasty is defined by being made by a single piece of pastry folded around its filling, and sealed with a single seam. Is this correct, I wonder? (Googling spoils the game, so I'm not doing it.)

Having made loads of Pie Banners, I feel I should find this Emperor of Piedom and offer him my services. I wonder if he has hideous wars with the neighouring Sultan of Stew.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I believe the international community is trying to keep them apart by establishing a buffet zone.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It's traditional to respond "*groan*" at puns like this, but a more truthful response would be "LOL!" What a lovely image this is. I'm imagining buffet tables set up in the Debatable Land, with fierce border reivers pausing in their reiving to delicately nibble tuna vol-au-vents.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think a turnover lacks the thick crimped seam of a pasty, and is made of flaky pastry.

I've seen apple and black currant flavour pasties in some pasty shops, and I've also had a beef pasty made with an apple filling at one end: the idea being you are supposed to eat from the savory end to the sweet end, so the pasty is an entire meal including the pud.

Rather in the spirit of this entire post, I have just made some scones in muffin cases. I'm not entirely sure that the results are Right.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if bakers in Cornwall have a permanent +5 to their Pasty Bluff Roll, which means that they can make pretty much anything they like and declare it to be a pasty, or if they're bound by narrow Cornish expectations of Cornish Pastyness, which means that they're less free to be daring.

Muffins are a whole new complicated kettle of fish, (though perhaps not literally.) As are scones, though only in the matter of pronunciation. (I say Scoan. Many people seem to take extraordinary offence at this.)

Food is Complicated.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Of course they're now legally bound by narrow definitions of Cornish Pastyness. This covers where the crimp is (side rather than top, which is controversial) and the type of meat (which very controversially can include minced beef instead of steak).

I pronounce scone as 'scoan' too. Not sure why. My mum does too, but my dad uses the more popular 'sconn'.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I though that the Elizabethan (and earlier) term 'pie' tended to refer to what we now call 'raised' pies (of which the only common example is the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie), and could contain either sweet or savoury or a mixture (as today with turkey and cranberry or pork and apple raised pies).

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You may well be right: I'm not even sure now where I read that thing about the pasties, though I think it was fairly reputable.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I'm struggling to remember what pies looked like when I spent a month living in the 1570s. However, my food-related memories of that month don't go beyond potage, potage, potage, potage and potage with occasioanal treats such as potage surprise, but that was just potage with potage on top (to misquote Laurence Anholt.)

[themis1.livejournal.com]

Also with your mother. I think the difference with flans is to do with the type of topping, I was thinking egg but then I realised this would get me into confusion with quiches ... sigh!

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I'm with your mum, mostly, except that I think of pies (meat or apple etc, pastry lid) as being large, to feed several, and tarts (open, always sweet) as small, individual. Flans, open, always sweet, sometimes made with sponge rather than pastry, large. Quiche, open, always savoury (eggy filling), usually large, small defined specifically as mini-quiche and a modern innovation.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Interestingly we've now had one vote for flans being emphatically sweet, and one for flans being definitely savoury. I have two different images of flans: an egg/cheese/ham thing that was always called "a flan" in the 70s, but turned into a quiche in the 80s; or something made with a spongey case and filled with fruit and probably jelly.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Um, is it very wrong of me to ask about the position of Lemon Meringue Pie in this conversation?

I'm of the 'lid = pie, open = tart/flan' persuasion.

I suppose a meringue topping counts as a lid.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I shall have to ask my Dad how lemon meringue pies fit into his definition. I don't think I've ever heard him say "lemon meringue tart." But, then, he doesn't like sugar, so it's not an object that he is likely to talk about much.

[sally_maria]

Well, basically I agree that pies have lids, whether apple pies or steak and kidney.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I can imagine a savoury tart, because all the savoury things I know have lids. (As I said in my other comment, quiches are something quite different in my brain, whether that's logical or not.)

So the distinguishing feature is the presence or absence of a lid, but on the other hand, all tarts are also sweet.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I couldn't think of any savoury tarts, either, but I googled "savoury tarts", limiting results to pages from the UK, and found loads of recipes (e.g. Delia's (http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/galleries/savoury-tarts-upper-crust-eating), here.) It's all very confusing. :-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

When I was growing up we used to have 'apple pies' which had lids but not bottoms - basically, a pile of apple in a dish and a pastry lid on the top.

I'm not sure that 'tart' is a word that I use, except in the context of jam. And I don't think I say 'flan' either.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

One pie that wouldn't work if it had a lid is the Tiswas-style custard pie.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

And mud pies, too. Mud pies don't have pastry lids, except perhaps in very upper class households.

[chainmailmaiden]

Looking in my copy of The Book of Old Tarts I am informed that the distinguishing feature of a tart is that it must have a pastry base, whether or not it has a pasty lid is irrelevant according to the author and just to confuse things she also sees no point in trying to distinguish between tarts, pies, quiches and cheesecakes... She doesn't mention size, but to me a family sized thing is a tart and individual sized ones are tartlets.

The book really is very good, I highly recommend it, despite the fact it has no pictures which I do always find useful in a recipe book. There are recipes for both sweet and savoury tarts dating back to Roman times. A lot of what she describes as savoury tarts I'd generally call a quiche as they contain a filling bound together by egg, but I do wonder if calling them tarts might make them more acceptable to those prejudiced against quiches because of their 80s connotations.

[louis-soul.livejournal.com]

Tart:small,two of three bites,very sweet.
Tart-let: tiny, one bite, very sweet.

Pie: large, sweet/savoury-anything thrown together.

Stronghold: area of people who are psychologically manipulated/forced/overwhelmed,sympathize with a group. Owners of strong hold usually have a strong psychological presence, either of fear or good works toward the people, hence a belief in leaders said power.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

"They start off as maids of honour, but they end up as tarts."