Natchitoches meat pie

The Natchitoches meat pie is a regional dish from northern Louisiana, United States. It is one of the official state foods of Louisiana.

Ingredients include ground beef, ground pork, onions, peppers, garlic, oil, and a pie shell. Natchitoches meat pies are often fried in peanut oil because of the oil's high smoking temperature. A number of restaurants in the historic district in Natchitoches serve meat pies, and frozen pies are available from grocers in northern Louisiana.

It has a savory meat filling in a crescent-shaped, flaky wheat pastry turnover. It is similar to a Spanish picadillo beef empanada. Varieties are throughout the colonies of the Spanish Empire. The Natchitoches meat pie is nearly identical to the traditional ground beef empanada of Argentina.

In 1717, Spain began a colony at Los Adaes,15 miles west of Natchitoches. It was abandoned after French attack in The Chicken War of June 1719. In 1721, Marqués de San Miguel de Aguayo lead a military expedition to retake eastern Texas for Spain. He built a new presidio, Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Los Adaes, a Catholic mission and a pueblo to protect the frontier of New Spain from French intrusion. Among the colonists were two Franciscan padres, 100 cavalry soldiers, 31 families and almost certainly, the skill to make meat pies. Los Adaes was the first capital of Texas, from 1729 until 1770. Los Adaes was largely evacuated in 1773; however, direct...
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