The Hearty Dish Keith Richards Eats Before Every Rolling Stones Gig

Keith Richards is known for several things: being a guitarist in The Rolling Stones, his previously debaucherous lifestyle that became rock 'n' roll lore, way more than 40 guitar licks, and an incomparable love for shepherd's pie. Just like Van Halen with their brown M&Ms (they needed to be removed from candy bowls), Richards needs to see and eat an untouched shepherd's pie before he performs on stage. But unlike Van Halen's safety check, Richards' penchant for comfort food is rooted in a taste of home, thanks to his mother and grandfather.

Shepherd's pie is a savory English casserole dish of minced meat (classically lamb) sauteed with onions, peas, and carrots, topped with a layer of mashed potatoes, and baked in the oven until a beautiful crust forms on top. (Shepherd's pie with ground beef is technically cottage pie, but the two really aren't that different.)

You can make a personal shepherd's pie in 30 minutes, just add one more step before baking it to make a true Keith Richards shepherd's pie. Richards' late bodyguard, Big Joe Seabrook, gave him the idea. As Richards wrote in his memoir, "Life": "Before you spread the spuds on the top, you chop up some more onions, because the onions you've used to cook with the meat have been reduced, and he was damn right" (via BBC). He later, he told the BBC, "It's, I thought, the crowning glory of the shepherd's pie."

The beloved crust that forms on top of the mashed potatoes is something of which Richards is incredibly fond, laying down the law that he be the first one to break it backstage. Richards' former partner, Anita Pallenberg, recalled in "Keith Richards: The Biography" that "Once a member of the crew ate his shepherd's pie and Keith threatened to cut him up and put his legs in a shepherd's pie" (via LouderSound). Another time, someone dug into his pie first, and Richards refused to go on stage until someone made him a new one.

In 1989, The Rolling Stones were on tour when the drummer for their supporting act, Stereophonics, took a bite of the backstage shepherd's pie before Richards could. Luckily, Mick Jagger, the hero that he is, realized what Stuart Cable did and had the pie re-crusted before Richards saw.

Richards' shepherd's pie requirement and crust rule are now well-known in the music world. "Nobody touches the shepherd's pie till I've been in there. Don't bust my crust, baby," Richards wrote  in "Life" (via LouderSound). If you got to break into a fresh shepherd's pie every night, you'd probably have the same rule, too.