Everyone loves pie, right? But don’t limit yourself to just the sweet variety. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried rich, savory tourtière  (pronounced “toor-tee-AIR”), also known as “pork pie,” a traditional French-Canadian meat pie usually served around the Christmas holidays. It’s filled with cooked ground pork and warm spices all wrapped in a flaky, buttery crust.

Meat pies have been around in one form or another since at least 1600 B.C. It’s thought that the original tourtière was a dish called “patina,” which was a meat pastry served around 400 A.D. in Europe. Centuries later, when the first French settlers came to Canada, they brought meat pie recipes with them, including tourtière.

The name comes from the word tourte, which has two translations: pie and passenger pigeon. Perhaps the name is in part a reference to the pigeons that were plentiful and easily trapped by Canadian settlers, who then made the meat into pies.

Regardless, the tourtière that we know today was first written about in the 1840 French-Canadian cookbook, La Cuisiniere Canadienne. Historians believe that this was the first French cookbook published in Canada, and it described the tourtière as “a meat pie made with pork, veal, mutton, chicken and potatoes, each cooked in their own spices before being chopped into tiny pieces and baked in a double-crusted pie.”

From there, the tourtière became a cultural phenomenon, with regions of Canada each boasting their own versions of the pie. There are many variations—as one French baker says, “there are as many recipes for tourtière as there are cooks in Quebec.” Families have their own “secret ingredients,” and cooking methods. For instance, the Montreal tourtière features pork only, while the Manitoban version can have a variety of meats, including wild game. In Acadia, tourtière can have beef, chicken, and rabbit.

Make Your Own Pork Pie Tourtière

You can make your own flaky pie crust or use a shortcut and purchase crust for a deep-dish double-crust pie. But if you are making your own pork pie, a tourtière crust should be rich and buttery, which is why the traditional recipe calls for both butter and lard — butter to add richness and lard because historically, butter was hard to come by in large quantities.

We want to know: How do you serve and eat your tourtière? Any condiments? Tell us in the comments below.

Amber Kanuckel is a freelance writer from rural Ohio who loves all things outdoors. She specializes in home, garden, environmental, and green living topics.

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