Is my recipe a pie or a casserole? A casserole is a cooking vessel with a lid or a category of food. A pie is a sweet or savory baked dish with a pastry dough lining or covering. Like Shepherd's or Cottage Pie, my "pie" recipe is also a savory casserole. A mashed cooked tuber vegetable acts as a lid or crust. The mash seals in the juices just like a traditional pie crust.
According to my trusty dictionary app, casserole and pie have poetic language origins and are perfectly interchangeable. The word casserole is of 18th Century French origin. It is a diminutive of casse, ‘spoon-like container’. The word pie originates in Middle English. It is a reference to various combinations of ingredients compared to objects randomly collected by a magpie (pie) - a long tailed bird with a raucous voice. Thus, a collection of food ingredients cooked in a container can be a casserole or pie. So, I declare, one spoonful from a container of my Tex-Mex Turkey Mole Pie will make your tastebuds scream with raucous delight!
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