If you’ve ever been corrected for calling everyone’s favorite beef-based meat pie “Shepherd’s Pie,” you’ve likely been told that true Shepherd’s Pie must be made with lamb. It’s a common refrain among internet foodies: if it’s beef, it’s Cottage Pie. But while this distinction is treated as an absolute rule today, the actual history of these dishes is murkier and less “meat-specific” than most people realize. Before you let a pedantic commenter spoil your dinner, let’s dive into the real food history behind these names and discover why the lamb versus beef debate is more of a modern myth than a historical fact.
No better place to test the prevailing winds than Reddit. Here is what some Reddit users had to say.
- Shepherds herd sheep not cows….There will be / already are an influx of people who will say “well we had it with beef growing up and always called it shepherds pie so it can’t be wrong” – but it is. — deleted account
- Yup, this is absolutely ripe on american recipe pages, they seem to be unable to understand what a shepherd is. — Debsrugs
- Beef = cottage pie — Namelessbob123
- If someone sells you a shepherds pie with minced beef , beware , they may be a crook — shabbapaul1970
Such absolute confidence! According to them, and many others, if you call the version made with beef “Shepherd’s pie,” you are an idiot. As is often the case, people have strong convictions for a proposition without a shred of historical evidence.
The Lamb vs. Beef Debate: Where Did the Rules Come From?
The often-debated rules about Shepherd’s Pie vs. Cottage pie center not on historical evidence but on a plausible assumption. Shepherds raise sheep. Lamb comes from sheep. Therefore, Shepherd’s pie can only be made with lamb. The problem is that while the name Cottage Pie, in historical terms, exists, its current vogue is an internet invention rather than a serious undertaking into food history. It is true that the reason most Americans call Cottage Pie by the name of Shepherd’s Pie is that this is what they have always called it. However, this debate gives us a glimpse into food naming conventions and the influence of food history on those names, or rather lack thereof.
Most agree that Shepherd’s Pie is a mixture of minced or ground meat, some vegetables, and a gravy topped with mashed potatoes. Some insist that Shepherd’s pie can only be made with lamb. There is no universal agreement on what defines Cottage Pie. Some say it’s Shepherd’s pie made with beef instead of lamb, and others say that using a topping of sliced potatoes makes it Cottage Pie, regardless of the meat.
Historical Origins of Cottage Pie and Shepherd’s Pie
The truth is a bit less tidy. Shepherd’s Pie is not mentioned in print until the 1840s. It is likely, judging by 19th-century cookbooks and other historical references, that Cottage Pie was always an alternative name for Shepherd’s Pie. It may also have been an original name for similar dishes. Cottage Pie recipes from the 1800s called for either minced lamb, mutton, or beef. For that matter, so did recipes for Shepherd’s Pie. You see, before internet foodies, and quasi-food historians, nobody cared whether Shepherd’s pie was made with beef and whether that would somehow anger the shepherd collective.
Sometimes, cookbooks from the 1800s have two recipes for both Cottage Pie and Shepherd’s Pie, and the difference is not the meat; it’s in how the potatoes are prepared. For cottage, the potatoes are sliced and layered on top. For shepherds, the potatoes are mashed. There is no difference in the meats and, indeed, most cooks didn’t seem to care at all what meat was used. Lamb was never called for. Mutton was common. Beef was usually listed as an alternative along with “any cold cooked meat you happen to have on hand.” Insisting that Shepherd’s Pie designates lamb is another historical anachronism, as this would have been quite a luxury.
I have been unable to find any historical evidence that the name of Cottage Pie was invented to identify Shepherd’s Pie made with beef. They are either the same dish or almost the same dish except with a different potato preparation on top. It is not clear whether Shepherd’s pie was the original name of the dish, although it appears earlier in print.
Common Food Naming Myths: Why “Shepherd” Doesn’t Always Mean Lamb
And, though I’ve searched and searched, I’ve never found any historical mention of Shepherd’s Pie having anything to do with actual shepherds. Until quite recently, historically speaking, Shepherd’s Pie was made with any meat, and if shepherds made it, they didn’t write about it, nor did anyone write about them making it, inventing it, etc.
Again, mutton was often mentioned in regard to Shepherd’s or Cottage Pie (meat of an adult sheep), but this can be understood as a reference to the meat commonly available and eaten during the 1800s.
This may seem as impossible as Toad in the Hole not containing a toad, but the name almost certainly was “invented” for an already existing dish that used whatever meat was available. It was almost certainly invented in a place where mutton or lamb was not commonly eaten. It may have been invented to name the version made with lamb, but after this, the name spread in reference to any meat used.
But here is the true food history lesson: Swapping one similar meat for another rarely results in a dish getting a name change. And that’s all Shepherd’s Pie is, a name. You could call the dish anything you wanted. Do you think shepherds called this dish Shepherd’s pie? Absolutely not.
There are many other confusing food names that go unquestioned, simply because we have plenty of historical explanations regarding how they were named. When there are gaps in the historical record, as with Shepherd’s Pie, folk etymologists tend to invent plausible-sounding answers. It is rarely as important as internet arguments seem to indicate.
London Broil is Not From London
London Broil is another example of a non-important naming convention. People routinely use this name to refer to something made with rump, top round, or even rib eye (usually round). I could rant for a while about how London Broil has always referred to flank steak. I could tell you how James Beard agrees with me.
You could argue that London Broil refers to marinated and quickly broiled or grilled meat (that’s what fajita is too) and that the cut of beef has nothing to do with it! I could then argue that, up until recentl,y London Broil always referred to flank steak. Yet, many British people don’t know the difference and are unaware of this history. This is a fairly recent thing compared to Shepherd’s Pie.
By the way, London Broil is not British. It’s not from London. It’s a North American thing. That is, the name came about in America, not the notion of marinating and grilling a piece of meat.
There are likely many more examples of this. Ingredients get swapped, but we don’t change the name of the dish. So what? The distinction between Shepherd’s Pie and whatever you want to call it when made with beef is a pedantic one. When you make Shepherd’s Pie, you aren’t becoming a food history expert, and you aren’t thinking about shepherds, no matter how much lamb you put into it.
Plum Pudding Contains No Plums
There are no internet arguments about how plum pudding should contain plums. Why? Because we understand the etymology of the term “plum” used in these puddings. They are boiled or steamed puddings made with dried fruits, usually raisins or currants, suet, and spices. Both Christmas Pudding and Spotted Dick are examples. The word plum refers to an older usage, meaning swelled or plumped up.
Another name for these kinds of puddings was “plum duff.” Duff was an older way of saying dough, while plum was even used as a verb to describe the duff rising, as in “The duff is plumming well.”
Plumb pudding is a less confusing term than spotted dick, yet, despite the frequent sexual jokes made about it, nobody seriously pretends that the name has anything to do with a male reproductive organ. The term “spotted” refers to the spots of dried fruits. The term “dick” is thought to be an older word for pudding created as a contraction of pudding or puddink.
In the first printed reference to Spotted Dick, in The Modern Housewife (1849), French chef Alexis Soyer (who had settled in Britain), gives an alternate name along with his recipe, Plum Bolster. This name makes perfect sense as well, as bolster refers to something stuffed so that it swells up.
There have been instances of the name Spotted Dick being changed to Spotted Richard in Britain. This occurred not because anyone was seriously offended, but simply because they got tired of the jokes or to spare females the embarrassment of ordering or purchasing the dish. In 2001, supermarket chain Tesco asked customers if they would prefer that Dick be changed to Richard after it noticed the sales of this pudding lagging compared to other traditional puddings. It seems the chain found that women were less likely to purchase it, perhaps out of embarrassment. It could also be that they were more likely than men to know that the store-bought versions were horrible.
No such efforts to change the name have ever succeeded, despite the fact that most people are unaware of the name’s history. The reason I bring this up is that most internet debates, such as the Shepherd’s pie debate, are brought about by one source, perhaps two, and then passed around the internet until they take on a life of their own. British folks are quite satisfied with the name of Spotted Dick, by and large. On the other hand, the more mundane name of a meat and potato dish does not inspire such passion, leaving more room for creative interpretations and debates.
By the way…
Does Grape Nuts cereal contain grapes?
Is head cheese actually cheese?
Are sweetbreads bread or sweet?
Is French Dressing French?
These are all “American”, but while we’re on the subject of British food,
Toad in a Hole?
Welsh Rarebit? It’s a “rare bit” of what?
Let’s talk about Welsh Rarebit. I’ve come across American and British folks alike who insist that Welsh Rarebit is supposed to be the correct name and those who call it Welsh Rabbit are idiots. It doesn’t have any rabbit in it. Well, those folks are wrong and the true historical name of the dish is Welsh Rabbit and changing it to Welsh Rarebit was a case of some creative folk etymology. How many people reading this believed this made-up name change?
We can all be wrong about these things, but here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what people call it when they put cheese and mustard on toast. The point is that anyone can pretend to be super concerned about what other people call a single dish, having no ongoing investment whatsoever in food history or anything similar. The more effort you put into investigating the origins of our favorite dishes, the more confused you will be. Being cock-sure is a luxury reserved for the ignorant.
