Shepherd's pie when the potato was being introduced as an edible crop affordable for the poor (cf. "cottage", meaning a modest dwelling for rural workers). The term "shepherd's pie" did not appear until 1854, and was used synonymously with cottage pie, regardless of whether the meat was beef or mutton. In the United Kingdom, the term "shepherd's pie" is now commonly used when the meat is lamb. In early cookery books, the dish was a means of using leftover roasted meat of any kind, and the pie dish was lined on the sides and bottom with mashed potato, as well as having
Game pie 15th-century cookbook gives a bake mete recipe for a pear custard pie. Describing the franklin in the 14th-century classic "The Canterbury Tales", Chaucer said: ""Withoute bake mete was nevere his hous, Of fissh and flessh, and that so plentvous"". The best meat might be reserved for the wealthy, while their servants ate inferior pies made of the left-over "umbles" – liver, heart, tripes, and other offal, hence the term "eating humble pie". In medieval times, birds that might be found in a game pie included heron, crane, crow, swan, stork, cormorant, and bittern as well as smaller birds trapped by