The Forfar Bridie: Angus's Horseshoe Pie

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The bridie's association with Forfar is well established, but its origins and name are not documented. Stories about its invention are local tradition. The oldest recipe used here is the one printed by the folklorist F. Marian McNeill in the 1963 edition of The Scots Kitchen. The wider history of pasties, and the competing explanations of the name, come from Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, ed. Tom Jaine, 2014), which draws on Theodora FitzGibbon's Traditional Scottish Cookery (1980) and on Catherine Brown's contribution to Laura Mason's Traditional Foods of Britain (1999).

What is a bridie?

established A Forfar bridie is made by rolling out pastry into an oval, placing a filling of minced or diced beef, beef suet, onion, salt and pepper on one half, folding it over and crimping the edge into a horseshoe or half-moon. It is baked until golden. Traditionally it contains no potato, carrot or swede, which distinguishes it from the Cornish pasty.

The oldest recorded recipe

established The folklorist F. Marian McNeill, in The Scots Kitchen (first published 1929; second edition 1963), gives the recipe "as made by Mr Jolly, a baker in the Back Wynd (now Queen Street), Forfar, in the mid-nineteenth century". It is plainer than most modern bridies. The best steak is beaten with a rolling pin, cut into narrow strips and then into inch lengths, and seasoned with salt and pepper. Finely minced suet is sprinkled over it, and onion is optional. The pastry is a stiff dough of flour, water and salt rolled thin into ovals, folded over the meat, crimped with finger and thumb, nipped with a small hole on top and baked in a quick oven for about half an hour.

established McNeill notes that this fatless crust "was primarily a receptacle for the meat", and that by her day rough puff or short paste was commonly used instead. That matches an old pattern. The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, 2014) notes that medieval pastry for both pasties and pies was made and baked in a way that left it too tough to eat; it was a container, not a treat.

established The Companion's own description of the bridie is close to Jolly's. Rump steak, cut into small strips or pieces, is in its words "the correct meat". Traditional recipes add suet and chopped onion, and the casing is shortcrust. An Old Forfarian she quotes recalled a richer, later crust: two pounds of lard to a peck (eight pounds) of flour.

Holes in the top

established Bakers in Forfar prick the top of a bridie with one hole if it contains no onion, and two holes if it does. The custom is not just modern lore: McNeill's Old Forfarian, recalling the bridies of the years before the Second World War, said a hole was made to let off steam, and "if you got a bridie with two holes, it had onions in it". Why the custom began is not recorded.

Saturday bridies

established The same Old Forfarian described the "siccy", or sixpenny, bridie: a sixth of a pound of stewing steak and kidney, diced by hand. On Saturdays the lads of Angus queued in the back court of Jolly's bakery and ordered three at a time; one young man from Padanaram, a village near Forfar, set a local record by eating eight. McNeill also notes that bridies appear in Sentimental Tommy (1896) by J. M. Barrie, who was born in Kirriemuir, a few miles from Forfar.

The name

shared Several explanations exist. One holds that the bridie was a "bride's pie", eaten at weddings, its horseshoe shape bringing luck. Another holds that it was named after Margaret Bridie of Glamis, said to have sold her pies at Forfar's Buttery Bank market. Neither explanation can be confirmed from records.

shared The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, 2014) states plainly that the "bridie" part of the name is of unknown origin. It labels the Glamis story, which it gives as "Maggie Bridie", a legend. It reports that the food historian Catherine Brown, writing in Laura Mason's Traditional Foods of Britain (1999), proposes that the shape was a lucky symbol eaten at the "bride's meal", the wedding feast. That is a scholar's hypothesis, not a record. It does fit a wider English tradition: the Companion notes the elaborate "bride pies" of seventeenth-century England.

A pasty, not a pie

established The Companion explains the difference between the two words. "Pasty" came into English through Old French from Latin pasta, dough. In the Middle Ages, pasties were made without a mould and held a single filling, while a pie held a mixture and became the name for the deeper, raised form. Pasties were often large, holding joints or whole birds; venison pasty was a status dish for centuries. Small turnovers came later: by the sixteenth century a pea-pod-shaped "peascod" pasty, filled with chopped kidney, was being made, sometimes in moulds. The bridie, a single filling of beef folded inside a sheet of pastry, sits squarely in the pasty line.

The bridie's cousins

established The Companion sets the bridie among other British pasties. The Cornish pasty, the best known, is a pointed oval with a crimped seam along the top; cubed beef with root vegetables is now standard, though fillings once varied widely. The Lancashire "foot" was an oval of shortcrust with one end rolled thinner, so it took the shape of the sole and heel of a shoe. The Bedfordshire clanger held meat at one end and a sweet filling at the other. The Somerset "priddy oggy", with pork and cheese pastry, appears to date only from the late 1960s. Against these, the bridie's horseshoe shape, its suet and its refusal of potato make it distinct. FitzGibbon, quoted in the Companion, noted that J. M. Barrie, born in Kirriemuir in what was then Forfarshire, mentions bridies in Sentimental Tommy.

Forfar bakers

established Forfar's bakers have long been known for their bridies, and the town is a destination for bridie lovers. The bridie is now sold by bakers throughout Scotland, but many say the best still come from Forfar.

• The Forfar bridie contains no potato.
• A bridie with two holes contains onion, by custom.
• Its horseshoe shape may have been thought lucky.
• Its name may come from a "bride's pie".
• Forfar remains famous for its bridies.
• The oldest recorded Forfar recipe uses steak beaten with a rolling pin and cut by hand, not mince.
• Its original crust was a fatless dough of flour, water and salt.
• One Saturday a young man from Padanaram ate eight bridies at Jolly's bakery, a local record.
• The word "pasty" comes from Latin pasta, dough.
• The Oxford Companion to Food says a bridie looks like a Cornish pasty put on its side.
• Medieval pasty crust was usually too tough to eat; it was a container.

• Disputed: Where the name "bridie" comes from. One theory is a "bride's pie" eaten at weddings, its horseshoe shape bringing luck. The Oxford Companion to Food says the origin is unknown. Catherine Brown's proposal that the shape was a lucky symbol at the "bride's meal" is a hypothesis, not a record.
• Myth: Margaret or "Maggie" Bridie of Glamis invented the bridie. The story says she sold her pies at Forfar's Buttery Bank market. The Companion calls it a legend, and it cannot be confirmed from records.
• Myth: The bridie is a Scottish Cornish pasty. It looks like one, but it is distinct: horseshoe-shaped, made with suet, and traditionally containing no potato or other vegetables besides onion.
• Myth: A traditional bridie must be made with minced beef. Both mince and diced meat are used today, and the oldest recorded recipe uses hand-cut steak.