The Wartime Comfort Food Is Still Frugal, Delicious, And Perfect For Winter

Much of culinary history, from peasant cuisine to the modern struggle meal, is people making do with what little they have, responding to limitations with invention. Few dishes exemplify this better than homity pie, a frugal yet delicious comfort food with its roots in wartime, perfect for the cold winter months.

Most accounts of homity place its origins in the privations of World War II when the German blockade of Britain cut off the supply of imported foodstuffs, forcing the British Government to institute a strict system of rationing. But while these restrictions applied to staples such as meat, butter, eggs, and milk, rationing did not cover fruit and vegetables, meaning recipes such as homity pie remained viable.

Simple, rustic, but undeniably hearty, homity pie traditionally features potatoes, leeks, onion, garlic, and perhaps some mushrooms or peas. Once cooked, these ingredients are combined with milk or cream and used to fill an open-faced pie of shortcrust pastry, before being topped with cheese –- which would have been the most prized ingredient during rationing –- and baked until gooey and golden-brown.

While it may have been created in wartime, homity pie underwent a revival in the 1960s thanks to Cranks, a chain of vegetarian restaurants widely credited with popularizing vegetarianism in Britain. Cranks own recipe for homity pie is traditional and uncomplicated, but it is the kind of dish that welcomes modification.

As we are, at the time of writing, thankfully not subject to rationing, you are free to experiment with ingredients that are now more easily available. If you feel like taking inspiration from French cooking, you may wish to get more adventurous with your choice of cheese by including the nutty earthiness of Gruyere (as we use in our potatoes au gratin), or you could give a nod to quiche Lorraine with the inclusion of some bacon. If you prefer to keep homity pie emphatically British however, some modern recipes recommend the inclusion of the classic (albeit famously divisive) yeasty flavor-booster Marmite.