DCHP-3

cipaille

< Quebec French
DCHP-2 (Aug 2012)
n. — Food

a traditional meat pie from Quebec with meat, pastry and potatoes as main ingredients.

Type: 1. Origin — The name cipaille is a borrowing from the Quebec French terms cipaille, cipâtes or six-pâtes. The meal is a melange of stew and meat pie (see the video link "cipâte (cipaille) recipe" for a Quebec recipe). In English, a similar meal by the name of sea pie appears to be an English phonetic rendering of the French pronunciation of cipaille. Gottfred (1994-2002) considers both the French and English versions as deriving from a mid-18th century English recipe for "Cheshire Pork Pie for Sea" and dates the earliest North American recipes to 1796. In that case, cipaille must be considered a re-borrowing of an English word, sea pie, rendered into French as cipaille, back into English.
See also Gage-5, s.v. "cipaille", which is marked "Cdn.", and COD-2, which is marked "Cdn".

Quotations

1851
Heard Bankes, after the three men had had their dinner of sea-pie on Sunday, say to the Captain, "you will be the first that I shall settle when I shall come on deck."
1869
[...] pleasant to know that they have a grand bakery down in the hold, whence the sweet smell of pure bread may be discerned even as we stand watching the operations of the "master baker" from above; to learn that to-day is sea-pie day, and that every boy will have his separate "two-decker" of meat, onion, and potatoes [...]
1895
SEA PIE
2 lbs. beef steak - 2 onions - 2 carrots - 1/2 lb. quantity of suet pastry.
Cut the meat into neat pieces and slice the vegetables, put them in layers in a saucepan, sprinkle with pepper and salt and pour over enough water to cover. Cook slowly one hour, then divide the pastry into eight or ten portions, roll them into little dumplings, put them into the saucepan and cook half-an-hour longer. Dish up with the dumplings round the dish and the meat and vegetables in the centre.
1912
SEA PIE Chop very finely two ounces suet and rub it into four ounces of flour, a pinch of salt and one teaspoonful of baking-powder; add enough cold water to make a stiff paste. Cut into slices one pound of steak, put it on a plate, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over with vinegar.
1943
He is the navy's oldest sea cook - he enlisted in 1905 - and he has his own recipes. So the students study the preparation of such salty dishes as sea pie, babies' heads, Chinese wedding cake, bangers and North Sea pheasants.
1972
Cipaille is a layered meat pie, originally made with game, but prepared on this occasion with more accessible meats: the hunting hasn't been too good lately on the grounds of The Country Club.
1980
The meal proceeded through such things as meatball ragout, Cipaille du Lac St. Jean, ham in beer, rhubarb ketchup and asorted salads.
1990
Cinnamon and cloves are used together to season ragout de boulettes, pate, tourtiere, tete fromagee, cretons, cipate or cipaille, game, and green tomato soup [...]
2000
Fixed-price menus include appetizers like bean soup with cream and cretons, main dishes like cipaille of game ($25), meatballs and pig-knuckle stew ($20), fish ($23), veal with cream sauce ($26), caribou sausage ($16), medallions of caribou ($26), or chicken with maple sauce ($20).
2005
Lavishly illustrated, this sumptuous guide is full of many examples of what makes Quebec unique: maple-sugar time, architecture and, of course, food (such as cipaille, a meat-and-pastry stew).
2015
It seems that cipaille, though, has not yet made the leap to international recognition. Today a cipaille is a moist, deep-dish meat and potato pie, also prevalent on Christmas tables - yet the word, oddly enough, is said to be derived from the English "sea pie."

References

Images

Image 1: A <i>cipaille</i>. Source: cdkitchen.com. Photo: brian143

Image 1: A cipaille. Source: cdkitchen.com. Photo: brian143