Natchitoches meat pie Natchitoches meat pie The Natchitoches meat pie is a regional dish from northern Louisiana, United States. It is one of the official state foods of Louisiana. Ingredients include ground beef, ground pork, onions, peppers, garlic, oil, and a pie shell. Natchitoches meat pies are often fried in peanut oil because of that oil's high smoking temperature. A number of restaurants in the historic district in Natchitoches serve meat pies, and frozen pies are available from grocers in northern Louisiana. It has a savory meat filling in a crescent-shaped, flaky wheat pastry turnover. It is similar to a Spanish picadillo beef
Pie bird tools. The nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence" makes reference to "Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie..." but it is uncertain whether pie vents were designed to look like birds because of this song. Pie bird A pie bird, pie vent, pie whistle, pie funnel, or pie chimney is a hollow ceramic device, originating in Europe, shaped like a funnel, chimney, or upstretched bird with open beak used for supporting or venting a pie. Funnel-style steam vents have been placed in the center of fruit and meat pies during cooking since Victorian times; bird shapes came later.