Pies-R-Squared ... THE website for pie lovers

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If you thought pies were peculiarly British, think again. While British pies are best, other nations do try to copy. But they don’t have a lot of success … and the chances are, they never will.

Millions of British holiday-makers who have been to Spain can testify that pie-ella is nothing like a good old-fashioned British pie.

The Spaniards can try to match our national dish in an effort to attract more visitors, but they lag way behind. They don’t even wrap them in pastry.

However, they are constantly trying … they even make a spectacle of collecting the ingredients. This photograph (left) was sent in by an angry visitor to Madrid, who wrote: “I asked for a pie in the supermarket, and they ushered me through a back door into a large arena.  I found colourfully dressed Spanish piemakers in pursuit of the essential element of a Spanish beefsteak pie in the national ritual of Kill-your-own Pie Week.”

The Mill Inn at Mungrisdale in Cumbria, has a growing reputation for pie promotion. First it staged a Pie Fest, and more than 300 pies, 11 varieties, were scoffed during the event. It was won by a bloke revelling in the name of David Pigg, who ate three times faster than anybody else. Congrats to him and to landlord Jim Hodge, who uses only home-made pies. A newspaper report says Jim makes pies ranging from venison and cranberry to fillet steak and onions “in the kitchen.”  Good choice of room, Jim.  He says: “The secret to the best pies is not only the ingredients, which have to be fresh and of the best quality, but also the pastry, which must be home-made and as short as possible to give the perfect texture.”  Good point, well made. What a pity he then went on to talk some bollocks about Celts being very passionate and therefore best at making pies. Sounds like he’s been at the bar too long. Anyway, now Jim's daughter Amanda has got in on the act. She's the chef at the pub, and has won the English Beef and Lamb Executive national steak pie championship for 2005. She beat five others in the final, timed perfectly as the Mill Inn is starting to sell pies through farm shops and other outlets. http://www.the-millinn.co.uk/

 Tesco ran a survey that showed that the biggest pie eaters are in the North of England. Shops in places like Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool and Manchester sold more than the only Southern entry, Bristol. Quel surprise! But remember, the pies sold in most supermarkets are cellophane wrapped, so the people who buy them can’t be trusted to answer survey questions truthfully.

But, hold the front page. Another survey says that more and more Britons are eating pies, and the favourite is … chicken and mushroom. Now we don’t want to be accused of bias or discrimination, but chicken and mushroom!!!!

This new report also claims that the Midlands is the top pie eating region, one in three eating a pie at least once a week, compared with one in five Londoners. Saturday is the most popular pie day and a third of men prefer chips with theirs, while women opt for mash.

This survey was done for Kwik Save, and a spokesman said: “It’s fantastic to see that the great British pie is holding its own and standing form as a national favourite at meal times.” Well said … but surely, you aren’t going to claim you sell the “great” British pie at Kwik Save are you?

A baker from England has challenged the Jocks a second time for the World Scotch Pie title. The quaintly-named Graeme Trotter, who has shops all over the North East, was runner up last year and spent 11 months perfecting his challenger. Scotch pies are pretty ropey as it is, but if he’s been pissing about with the meat for 11 months we reckon they’ll be nigh on inedible. Graeme won the quiche section. That’s the respect we get from our Northern neighbours!

 Found in Northumberland … the pound pie. It costs £1, and weighs …. a kilo. Honest. It’s advertised by Firstfreeze of Blyth, who call it the “Mowbray Pork Pie”. Yummy. They also advertise four cheese pasties for 50p, 1 kilo lasagne Bolognaise for £1, three nine-inch ham and pineapple pizzas for £1 and Italian ice cream at 50p. Sounds like Fortnum & Mason have a rival in the North East. Just wait until they open a branch in Bond Street. We had planned to test it so we could tell you what their stuff’s like, but our insurers wouldn’t allow us to try any of it.

Posh nosh mag Olive recently carried a big feature on pies, and didn't do a bad job on it, either.

It featured Stanforths of Skipton in North Yorkshire, of whom we have heard many good reports from other sources. This is the shop where the pies are numbered in the window, and you go in and say: "Can I have number 69 please," nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

We've not been able to test them ourselves, because they are always closed when we are in Skipton. But we would welcome reports.

INTERNATIONAL DESK: in the interests of research, Pies-R-Squared recently sent two members of staff to Australia, where the residents pride themselves on the quality of their pies. They also pride themselves on their beer, and most people who have ever seen, let alone tasted, a pint of Fosters will know how misguided this is.

Well, the pies are not much better than the beer. We tried a steak and mushroom from a shopping centre bakers, and the filling was very runny and devoid of steak, while the pastry was piss poor. Next to be tested was a supermarket pork pie ... pastry not too bad, but filling a bit too biased on the side of gelatine rather than pork. We've had worse, but we can't remember where or when.

We were beginning to be a bit disappointed when we decided to try a steak offering from Jesters ("We are serious about pies"). Our verdict: You must be bloody joking.

We were about to give up when we went to a country town, settled on a side-street cafe for lunch and tried their shepherd's pie and their Morroccan beef offering. Now that was a lot better and, in fact, came to the rescue of the Oz pie reputation.

Our overall verdict is that Oz is not as good at pies as it thinks it is. But the same applies to their cricket and rugby teams, eh?

RECENT NEWS ITEM:

We recently discovered another pie-based website http://www.pie-man.com/ which is nowhere near as good as this one, but offers t-shirts with pie designs. Mind, they are a bit dear, but worth a look if you want to advertise your religion.