Tarts With Tops On: Or, How to Make the Perfect Pie

by Tamasin Day-Lewis

Pies are the business. You can dress them up or dress them down. Make them classic or modern, savoury or sweet, shroud them in butter crisp pastry or top them with creamy potato. Eat them hot, warm or cold, with a scoop of cream, a slug of vanilla custard, a dollop of creme fraiche. You can fold the fruit in, tuck the crust under, build up the layers. No food comforts and nurtures like a proper home-made pie. Tamasin's selection includes classic savoury pies like Chicken Pie, Egg and Bacon Pie, the Cornish Pasty, an Italian Easter Pie with eggs and artichokes, la Torta di Zucchini, a Galician Pork and Sausage Pie, Koulibiac, the traditional Russian Salmon Pie, and a delicate Feta, Rice and Yoghurt Pie. Sweet pies include a section on apple pies, a Sugar-topped Cherry Pie, Raspberry Ripple Ice-cream Pie, Shaker Lemon Pie, Peach Pie, Southern Pecan Pie, Key Lime Pie, Mississippi Mud Pie and Blueberry Pie.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2003

About the author

From an illustrious family, Tamasin has also made a name for herself, in her own niche: cooking.

Tamasin is the daughter of Cecil Day-Lewis, poet laureate, and her brother is the acclaimed actor, Daniel Day-Lewis. She has established a career as a respected food writer - combining sophistication, literary skill and culinary class.

As well as writing a weekly food column for The Daily Telegraph, Tamasin's cookbooks have covered a range of comforting, rural recipes, from the preparation of seasonal dishes and picnics to the art of pie-baking and 'proper', slow cooking. She is a food purist and is known for her valiant promotion of all things organic and regional. She champions local products versus the supermarket giants.

Tamasin's books are refreshingly different for several reasons. She writes "for people who appreciate good food, for people of all skills." She collects recipes on her travels and sees her recipes as "a link with people" and her style is totally unique. Half novel, half practical, her pages are filled with fascinating background information on ingredients, memories, historical anecdotes, and all in impressively poetic language. Her book West Ireland Summers was a collection of favourite recipes taken from and inspired by her childhood in County Mayo. The rural theme continues in Tamasin's two series' for Good Food Channel, in which she cooks at her family home in the country.

Reviews

[Dray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a savory pie cookbook, alas, many are meat. Classic entries that make the mouth water. Worth reading.

[LemontreeLime · Rating 4 out of 5]

i forgot to review this one. AMAZING.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am so excited about reading this book!

[Roxy · Rating 4 out of 5]

All round great little book for basic home baking recipes for pies and tarts.

[Bee☕ · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES. This is a keeper!