Crumb Pie
Mince any cold meat very finely, season it to taste, and put it into a pie dish; have some finely grated bread crumbs, with a little salt, pepper, and nutmeg; and pour into the dish any gravy that is at hand. Cover over with a thick layer of bread crumbs and put small pieces of butter over top. Place in the oven till a fine brown. Send to the table hot.--Mrs. W.
A leftover dish rather than a formal pie: minced cold meat under a buttered crumb crust, browned in the oven. The only variable that decides whether it succeeds is moisture.
- Gravy is not optionalGravy matters -- Cold cooked meat has already given up its juices, and "any gravy that is at hand" is what keeps the filling from baking into sand; the phrasing suggests it was used when available rather than treated as indispensable. Allow roughly half a cup of gravy or well-seasoned stock per pound of minced meat, enough to make the mixture visibly moist but not soupy.
- Oven and timeNo temperature is given. A hot oven, 400-425F, for 20-25 minutes browns the crumb top before the interior dries out; the filling is already cooked and needs only to be heated through to 165F.
- "Mince very finely"Chopping by hand, or a hand mincer, gives better texture than a food processor, which turns cold roast into paste. The recipe asks for fine mincing, so keep the pieces small but distinct rather than pasty.
- CrumbsGrated bread crumbs here are dry crumbs grated from stale bread, drier than fresh crumbs; the recipe calls them finely grated. Dry crumbs from a day-old loaf, pulsed briefly, give the right texture; toss them with the butter rather than dotting it on if you want an even brown.
- Pie dishA shallow dish is better than a deep one. A 9-inch pie plate or a similar gratin dish gives the crumb-to-meat ratio the recipe assumes; in a deep casserole the top browns long before the centre is hot.
- SeasoningNutmeg with minced meat appears often in nineteenth-century cookery and reads as savoury, not sweet, in this quantity: a scant quarter teaspoon for a pieful. Season the mixture assertively, since meat that has already been cooked and cooled has lost some seasoning with its juices.
- YieldAbout a pound of cold meat and a cup of crumbs fills a 9-inch dish and serves four as a main course with a vegetable.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by named Virginia housewives, belongs to the tradition of the community cookbook, where a dish like this arrives credited only to "Mrs. W." Crumb pie is a thrift recipe of a kind commonly found in Victorian household books on both sides of the Atlantic: the Sunday roast reappearing on Monday or Tuesday under a different name, with crumbs standing in for the pastry that would have cost flour, fat and an hour's work. The habit of grating stale bread for crumbs and keeping them in a jar is said to have been widespread in kitchens without sliced bread or a bin to throw it into, and the same crumbs served for coating cutlets, thickening puddings and topping dishes like this one. Its presence in a book aimed at postbellum Southern households, where economy was a pressing rather than a theoretical virtue, is not accidental.