Transform simple forcemeat into something amazing with this 18th century recipe for lumber pie.
Home-made forcemeat balls are layered in a dish with bone marrow, lemon peel, asparagus tips and a selection of sweetmeats, and baked under a lid of puff pastry. Once cooked through, a rich warm sauce of egg yolks, butter, wine and sugar is poured into the pie.
Like name, like nature, lumber pie is a heavy, hearty dish!
18th century recipe for a hearty “lumber pye”, from The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies
A Lumber Pye
Half roast a leg of veal. Take a pd & half of it clear the from skin, a pd & half of fresh marrow. Minse them very small. 3 large naple biskets, a pd of brown sugar, some pounded cloves & mace, 4 or 5 spoonfulls of rose water or orange flower water, 2 eggs broke in to it & work this into a paste with your hands. Make it into balls, then lay them in layers in your dish with a layer of whole marrow betwen a layer, a little shread lemon peel that has been boyled tender, & betwen another layer put the tops of asparagus, betwen another layer put all sorts of sweet meats & last of all put a layer of balls. Cover it with puff paste. When it is baked, pour a caudle made of a pint of white wine, the yolks of 4 eggs & a bit of butter. Sweeten it with sugar. Pour this hot & serve it up.
If you’re thinking of giving this dish a go and would like to see what you’re aiming for, there’s a fantastic photo on Ivan Day’s Historic Food website!
The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies 
The receipes have been fascinating. Are there any plans to print modern English interpretations/directions? For those of us not as culinarily skilled but would like to try them.
Hi Nina, thanks so much for your message. You can find a small selection of the recipes with modern English instructions in the Cooking Up History section of this blog (https://lostcookbook.wordpress.com/cooking-up-history/) – click on one of the ‘sessions’ links to find both original recipes from the Cookbook and our modern interpretations of them. All of the recipes have been tried and tested in the Archives Centre’s kitchen by our Cooking Up History volunteer group. We hope you enjoy trying some of them out at home!
There is a quite detailed article on Lumber, Lombard or Lumber Pies on my blog – http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/some-regency-biscuits.html
best regards
Ivan Day
Thanks very much for this Ivan – it is interesting to learn about green puddings being used as a pie filling, and we love wonderful shapes for the pastry cases. Thanks for sharing this!