EATING FOR BRITAIN: PIES, THE NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

Imagine, if you will, the picture. A man whose life’s mission has been to convert human matter to pie form from the inside out by eating as many of them as he possibly can in one life time is invited to be a judge at the Great British Pie Awards.

It should be the greatest event of his life, a dream fulfilled, and he arrives in Melton Mowbray, arguably the spiritual home of the pie, having warmed up nicely with a little gentle pie and ice cream eating the day before in beautiful Harrogate, full of expectation, but empty of stomach in anticipation of being presented with tray after tray of meaty goodness.

How then could a day that held such golden promise turn into a marathon of horror matched only by the thought of watching six back-to-back episodes of The Gilmore Girls? A day that not only almost brought me to the point of breaking the UK projectile vomiting record, or indeed setting one if no one has yet had the good sense to measure such things, but almost put me off pies for life.

Let’s start at the very beginning.

Monday was a good day. I had travelled up to Rotherham the night before, which meant I could start at a civilised time for my trip to Harrogate where I had arranged to meet Yorkshire food P.R guru, Jennifer Middleton and my chum, Mr Jay Rayner. Our task was to aid and abet the good folk of Yorkshire Fodder in deciding which pies and ice cream would be the ones they would stock.

Yorkshire Fodder will be a rather impressive new food shop and café run by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and our fellow judges, Heather and Ian had spent the last few months visiting over 300 producers in the relevant counties looking for potential lines for the shop. To drum up a little publicity, Jennifer had invited Jay to come along to draw interest from the press and me to come along and Hoover up the crumbs from his celebrity table.

It was all good fun as we tasted our way through thirty pies and as many ice cream before all heading off for a slap up lunch at Betty’s of Harrogate where I treated myself to a Fat Rascal, their own uniquely Yorkshire take on the humble scone. A gentle drive back to Rotherham and an early night had me all set up for the main event, The Great British Pie Awards to be held the next day in Melton Mowbray.

My place on the panel of some thirty judges had been arranged by Ian Hartland of Mrs King’s Pork Pies, so when I arrived, at the Parish Church, which was being used as HQ for the event, I understood that this association and the fact that this key category would probably be assigned to one of the celebrity judges, meant I would not be judging pies of a porcine nature. I did trust however, that a few animals would have given their last bleat, moo or oink for my benefit and settled myself in with a cup of tea to await the call to pontificate.

One of the organisers handed me the briefing notes along with a list of all of my fellow judges. I glimpsed through and then looked again and again and again. Enough times in fact to convince myself that what I was seeing was not some horrible mistake. The page simply read

JUDGE: SIMON MAJUMDAR
CATEGORY NUMBER: 7
CATEGORY TYPE: VEGETARIAN SAVOURY PIES

WTF!

Oh yes, you read correctly, someone’s idea of a clever joke was to put Rotherham’s most carnivorous son in charge of tasting pies made with the fruits of the earth. My fellow judge, Tony Spencer, a retired master baker, did not seem at all perturbed and was waving his baker’s knife around with an expectant air as, after a quick blessing of the pies from the local vicar, we were ushered into our side room, away from the glamour of the meat pies, to taste a procession of pies, each more grim than the last.

The simple truth is, that fruit aside, things unslaughtered have no place in a pie unless they are there as a willing sidekick to flesh. The scoring system was weighted towards the technicalities of the pastry and baking (something they must revisit for next year) which meant some shocking abominations had to be marked quite well because the casing that hid their vile interiors had been well made.

A case in point is the second to last picture which is for, and I am not kidding here, a “wholemeal pastry sweet & sour vegetable pie” quite easily one of the nastiest things I have ever eaten and remember, EAT MY GLOBE fans, I have eaten stuff that came out of a cod’s dick.

In the end, for myself and Tony, it was not a case of choosing the best pie, it was a case of choosing the least lousy. Our two fellow losers, I mean judges of vegetarian pies, had better luck and managed to find some entries that were not bad at all and after some deliberations we came up with a clear winner, a pie from Pieminster called “Heidi”

After judging had finished, we assembled again in the church to await the final results. As we waited, I took the opportunity to look at the other categories and the table of champions, which presented some superb looking specimens, none of which, of course I had been given chance to sample

Sheila Dillon from Radio 4’s The Food Programme read out the list of winners and I was delighted to hear that Adam Hartland of Mrs King’s had come in first place for his Steak & Kidney Pie. The Grand Champion was, believe it or not a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie made for Sainsbury’s by Walker’s Charnwood Bakery and they were generous enough donated their £1000 winner’s cheque to the parish church’s restoration fund.

Me? After all those really rather horrible pies, I was in need of a stiff drink and joined Ian Hartland and many of the other pie makers in the local pub for as many pints of beer as it took to take the taste of that sweet & sour pie out of my mouth (about five for the record) and then snored loudly in the back of the car as we were driven back to his house where he had not only offered to put me up for the night, but also persuaded his lovely wife Nicola to make supper.

She, being a saint amongst women had made something delicious and meaty. It was just what I needed. Slow cooked beef with vegetables taking their rightful place, topped with soft scones with a shiny glaze. As if to make a symbolic statement about my thoughts on the notion of pies containing only vegetables, I filled my plate with a load of cobbler.

What could be more appropriate?

MMM, PIE: THERE IS A GOD

Years ago, when I was a Theology student (no sniggering at the back) we were asked to submit an essay on the existence of God. Cribbing from the standard texts, I came up with an answer that was a solid B- and indeed would have passed muster had I not been in my more, relatively, rebellious days and decided to add two hitherto unknown proofs of my own

1) Felicity Kendall’s bottom – those under 35 years old will struggle to recall, when seeing the execrable TV Show Rosemary & Thyme, that the slightly haggard face we see now was once the subject of every wank fantasy in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Her bottom alone probably caused the first stirrings for many a young man and which of us would not have committed unspeakable acts to replace Tom Good as he, er, plowed his furrow?

2) Pie – Even then some twenty-five years ago, pie was very important to me. The “flat” pie from our local chippie filled with creamy chicken & mushroom, the steak & kidney pie with flaky puff pastry from The Belvedere pub which came with proper chips cooked in dripping and, best of all, the pies made by my mother and Welsh grandmother. As I said in my essay “ if you do not enjoy a good pie, then you are probably dead, or deserve to be and God probably hates you.”

End result a large red F on my essay and a request to visit a camp but rather severe tutor cleric to discuss my suitability for the Batchelor of Divinity course.

I have been thinking about pie a lot recently. Primarily because, as I travel around the globe, it is one of the things I miss most of all.

With the exception of the Australians, no one else on earth comes close to making a decent pie. In the US, when you say pie, they think you mean something with fruit in it. In other countries, they just look at you blankly.

Which is why, with pie in mind, I ordered one at MARKET the other night. But, damn them, they had sold the last one to some chinless oik with his collar turned up who would probably not have known a good pie if it came up to him, slapped his ruddy face and said “ I am a pie and a damn good one”

I thought a lot about that pie yesterday and, by lunchtime had decided to make one of my own. So there.

I am a perfectly decent cook. Nothing remarkable, but enthusiastic. So, a bit of a google (which actually did involve looking at You Tube to remind myself just how cute Felicity Kendall was. The answer, damn cute) came up with a recipe for Chicken & Ham Pie with leeks and onions.

All straight forward. I boned eight chicken thighs (retaining the skin to make chicken crackling, I am not an savage) chopped the flesh up and coated in flour seasoned with nutmeg. I then layered my pot with chopped leeks, onions, strips of ham and the chicken, seasoning all the way before adding a little stock and topping off with a bit of puff pastry.

After cooking for an hour, I let it rest and then funnelled in some cream through the steam holes.

I have to say the end result was pretty good and with a bit of sweet potato mash assuaged my pie needs for a little while at least.

I have been thinking that we need to make a British version of “American Pie” The father, played by James Bolam, I think, would walk in to find his teenage son with his engorgement in a chicken & ham pie. He would, of course, be holding, in his hands, a picture of Felicity Kendal in The Good Life.