How To Make A Chicken Pye

This recipe originates from Lady Craven's receipt book, penned between 1702 and 1704 in England—a time when 'receipt' was the common term for what we now call a recipe. The book captures the fusion of late Stuart culinary grandeur and household practicality. Cookbook manuscripts like this one were treasured possessions, filled with both inherited and borrowed recipes, reflecting the social webs and food fashions of the English elite at the dawn of the 18th century. This lavish chicken pie, with its layers of spice, oysters, artichoke hearts, and marrow, reflects both continental influences and the luxury ingredients available to Lady Craven's household.

In the early 18th century, a cook would use large wooden boards and heavy rolling pins to make and shape the hot water crust pastry. The pie would be baked in a brick or stone hearth oven, often inside a copper or iron pie plate or directly on a stone. Meat would be trussed with linen or twine and seasoned in large wooden or pewter bowls. Bone marrow would be scooped with small spoons or marrow-scoops. Cooking the caudle sauce would require a copper pan and a whisk or bundle of birch twigs. Knives, pestles and mortars, and hand-cranked egg beaters might also be found in the well-stocked kitchen.