Europeans consumed a pie shaped like a Muslim’s head as symbolic cannibalism.

Evidence

Although the Turk’s Head pie was probably inspired by medieval literature, it was not until the development of the French tourtes (the European torte and American tart) in the sixteenth century, made possible by the invention of short crust pastry, that the Turk’s Head pie became a popular food. The dish signals how Europeans envisioned Muslims. In the consumption of this food, a performance of symbolic cannibalism takes place. “No fourteenth-century English cook is known to have prepared for consumption the flesh of a real Turk, yet [we have] the Turk’s Head, a sweet-and-sour meat pie shaped and decorated to resemble the outlandish features of a stereotyped Saracen.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 336

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the ‘fear without object’ thesis — the image (Turk’s Head pie) existed and circulated with zero actual contact, since no English cook ever prepared a real Turk.
• SHARE: A food historian or medievalist friend would love this: a sweet-and-sour meat pie shaped as a stereotyped Saracen head, with the documented quote that no real Turk was ever cooked.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the ‘On Sacrifice’ article’s theme of ritualized consumption of the dehumanized enemy.