The Vintage British Dish That's A Carb-Lover's Dream

You can make as many jokes as you'd like about British food. Yes, they eat like the Blitz is still happening; yes, they conquered the world for spices and decided not to use any of them. These are all classic bits. But one thing you can't deny is that they do wonderful things with meat and pastry. From the Cornish pasty (Britain's beloved take on a hand pie) to the sausage roll, to say nothing of other kinds of meat pies, the Brits have it down to a science. But what happens if, for one reason or another, you can't use meat? Well, say hello to the Lancashire butter pie, a flaky, delectable atom bomb of carbohydrates.

Just based on the name, you might think that Lancashire butter pie is a dessert pie, along the lines of butter cookies or a gooey butter cake. But it's actually a savory pie, albeit one without meat. You see, Lancashire, a county in the northwest of England, was historically quite Catholic. That meant there were days, usually Fridays, when eating meat was forbidden. But these English Catholics, many of whom had labor-intensive jobs, had to enjoy a satiating meal somehow, and while they could always get a bounty of fish from the Irish Sea, it was always nice to have options. And so the Lancashire butter pie was born, made with onions, potatoes, and a whole lot of butter.

It should be noted that, while it's true that Lancashire Catholics did invent and eat butter pie, the modern recipe was formulated and popularized by the British Butter Board in the days after World War II. It's not quite a "ploughman's lunch" situation, where Britain's Milk Marketing Board created an ancient tradition more or less out of thin air, but there's a reason why it's called "butter pie" and not "potato and onion pie." (Apparently, it was called "Catholic pie" or "Friday pie" back in the day.) Still, you can't astroturf appetite: butter pies are eaten in Lancashire to this day. In Preston, the largest city in Lancashire, they're a popular halftime snack for fans of the city's football club. In fact, when the stadium's butter pie supplier shut down in 2007, supporters furiously lobbied to get them back — which they did, three years later.

The pies even got a shout-out from Paul McCartney. On "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," the lead single off his classic album "Ram," McCartney sang about enjoying "a cup of tea with butter pie." Oddly, McCartney professed to have no knowledge of butter pie when he wrote the lyric, despite growing up not far from Lancashire in Liverpool. With that said, McCartney, a longtime vegetarian, would probably appreciate something hearty without meat; no matter how tasty the lentil soup recipe he shared on an episode of "The Simpsons" might have been, he couldn't live off of that (or his other favorite, sugar sandwiches) alone.