What is the origin of shepherds pie?

Question

What is the origin of shepherds pie?

Answer 1

shepherds pie was a dish prepared out of necessity.

the sheepherder would be out from sunrise to sunset and wifey couldn't depend on him to be close by for noon meal so she prepared a dish combining meat, vegetables and potatoes that could be carried easily and eaten cold.

Answer 2

Cottage pie and shepherd's pie are traditional methods for using leftover roasted meat, either beef or mutton, using mashed potato as a quick pie crust. In early recipes, the pie dish was lined with mashed potato as well as having a mashed potato crust on top.

The use of previously uncooked meat is a recent adaptation, suited to the techniques of commercial food processing companies.

Early cookery writers did not use the terms "cottage pie" and "shepherd's pie" and the terms did not appear in recipe books until the late part of the 19th century. From that time, the terms have been used interchangeably, although there is a popular tendency for "shepherd's pie" to be used when the meat is mutton or lamb.

The term "cottage pie" is known to have been in use by 1791 but it is not known to what type of dish it then referred.