Tudor baking treats but watch out for the fly pies

THE Great British Bake Off has featured baking challenges from the Tudor period this week but closer to home Stratford-upon-Avon's very own historic cooks have been busy baking pies that even Shakespeare would recognise.

Sharon Lippett, lead period interpreter at Mary Arden’s Farm, Wilmcote, was busy in the kitchen at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust property this week, creating wonderful, mouthwatering delicacies fit for a king or queen including March payne and tarts of pippins.

Sharon, who has been cooking at The Trust for 11 years, reckons she’s got the “best job in the world” and gets to work with some ingenious recipes from hundreds of years ago.

“If you were wealthy you would have pies filled with sugar, almonds, meat, fish and rose water. If you were poor you’d probably tuck into a coffin pie. It had meat inside a water raised crust which acted like a casserole dish. The meat was perfectly edible but the crust was usually given to the dog because it probably had flies or mice crawling over it,” said Sharon.

A March payne is actually a marzipan inspired pie while a tart of pippins is what we now call apple pie.

So would William Shakespeare have recognised any of the food on offer at Mary Ardens?

“Oh yes,” said Sharon. “The Tudors loved sausages and meatballs which we still eat today and they even had their own version of sweet and sour sauce.”