CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS
TWO HOLIDAY RECIPES:
HORS D’OEUVRES AND UMBLE PIE
Holidays demand some simple, and sometimes some unique, food to serve to family and guests.
THREE SIMPLE-TO-MAKEHORS D’OEUVRES
In reading the newspaper I came across the three following recipes I thought would be useful if I need to create some simple to prepare hors d’oeuvres1. Although my husband refers to them as horse’s dovers the French word means appetizers.
SMOKED SALMON ON ROASTED POTATO ROUNDS
Roast sliced potatoes sprinkled with salt and pepper at 375-degrees ntil golden. Cool. Top with smoked salmon, low-fat Greek yogurt, and fresh dill.
SALAD IN A GLASS
Pour a bit of your favorite salad dressing into a shot glass and add a leaf of Romaine lettuce, a slice of pear, and a thin slice of Gouda cheese.
ROASTED PORK TENDERLOIN AND ARUGULA BITES
Cut roasted tenderloin on bias; place a few leaves of fresh arugula in the center of each slice. Roll up and secure with a skewer (or tooth pick).
UMBLE PIE
Later, at a Westmoreland County (PA) Historical Society program on Christmas traditions in Southwestern Pennsylvania, I heard the term umble pie arose.
Huh? Isn’t it humble pie? We’ve all heard people being told to eat humble pie if they need to apologize for a misdeed.
No, it isn’t.
Umble pie is a term for a variety of pastries originally based on medieval meat tripe pies. The pie filling consisted of the liver, heart, and other offal, especially of the cow but often deer or boar.
The word is a derivation of the French word nomble, meaning deer innards.
Umbles were considered an inferior food, and in medieval times the pie was often served to lower class people.*
The umble pie recipe later evolved to a form which might contain fruit and sweetening, often without meat. **
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So what about humble pie?
Although “umbles” and the modern word “humble” are etymologically unrelated, each word has appeared both with and without the initial “h” after the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Since the sound “h” is often dropped in many dialects, and “umble” was a humble meal anyway, the phrase was rebracketed as “humble pie. While “umble” is now gone from the language, the phrase remains, carrying the fossilized word as an idiom.
Recent “humble pie” recipes often have only sweet fillings. Modern humble meat pie recipes often included pricier cuts of meat such as chopped steak.*
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ADDITIONAL READING:
Christmas. Whose Season Is It?
SOURCES
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_pie
**http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/1/messages/2689.html
1Spry, December 2011, pp 12
