Who doesn’t love pie? The love of meat pies, or pasties, dates back to the Middle Ages – the OED notes that the earliest use of the word pasty dates from 1296, first used as a surname. Do you think Adam Pastey was so named because he made pasties or because he loved to eat them? Image from the 15th century chronicle of Ulrico de Richental The OED suggests that the word pasty came from the Anglo-Norman word paste . Paste derives from the Latin pasta [FEW 7,744a; DMBLS 2138b pasta] and is used for dough, as well as things that are pasty, like glue, mush for animals or medicinal pastes. [1] Amid these senses, the idea of ‘meat pie’ stood out like a sore thumb. We decided to have a closer look at the citations currently defined in the AND as ‘pie’: poucyns, musserons, estornelx, roitelx, pestiez en graunde pastez Man Lang ants 7.21 ( chicks, sparrows, starlings, wrens, baked in big pies ) Et qe nulle pestour qi fait payn tourt vend sa flour as keus pur p...
A blog that highlights and discusses interesting words in the Anglo-Norman language, presented by the editorial team of the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (www.anglo-norman.net).