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
Pie floater Pratchett 'The Last Continent' (Doubleday 1998) has extensive if scurrilous reference to the pie floater. Pie floater The pie floater (also known as a floater and a pea floater), is an Australian dish particularly common in Adelaide. Pea soup with meat has long been part of English culinary history, with mentions in the 19th century, including Yorkshire "pea and pie supper", "pea soup with eel", "suet dumplings or saveloys", (Dumplings in soup were known as "floaters"). It may have developed from those dishes, which are useful for feeding groups of people on a budget: for example at a sports match