You go eating a few of them and suddenly you're a fat b*stard. Talk about nutrition fascism. Lines like the Limeburner in St. Paul's, or the ubiquitous Square Pie and Pieminister might seem to blame, but their gourmet pastry seduction is really nothing new.

2000 B.C. The modest pie first rears its deliciously crumbly, meat-encasing head, in a sand-flecked kitchen somewhere in ancient Egypt. The discovery is met with stifled awe.

600 B.C. As their culture stumbles into disrepair, the golden pastry treasure is passed into the hands of the Greeks.

100 B.C. The Roman legions take on the meat-crammed crust with glee, adding ceramic pie-pots to their gifts of straight roads, aqueducts and honeyed door-mice.

1100 A.D. The pie beings to take hold of the British imagination and stomach in equal measure, fast becoming a staple and later inspiring Titus Andronicus' culinary revenge.

1853 A.D. Mrs. King's Pork Pies opens. Under new ownership, her unfathomably succulent pies served in Broadway Market remain some of the finest.