I’m assuming we’re all on the same page here? We all love pies, right? So, we’re all having pies this evening? Wait, what, you didn’t know it was British Pie Week?? *sob* After all these years together… sometimes I… I… feel that I don’t know you at all.
You do know that, if you don’t have pies at least ONCE this week then it will go on your Afterword permanent record, and Moosie will put a mark against your name in his Big Sinister Spreadsheet, and your vote won’t count in the 2nd Brexit Referendum.
Chez Our House, we’ve taken the precaution of having pies from the ridiculously-delicious-and-incredibly-cheap Aldi Something Special range: me, the Steak & Merlot, and TheLovelyJulie a Chicken, White Wine and Pancetta.
And you?
Sweet potato, red onion and goats cheese for me, please.
Very admirable, making a pie; whenever I’m clearing out the fridge like that I just chuck it all in the bin.
Frey Bentos pie in a tin.
That will be the closest i can get to a British pie too. Steak and mushroom for me, but all we seem to get in the stores round here are steak and kidney. I’ve never like kidney, especially since i was handed a (cooked) plate full that smelt of piss.
Not a fan of Aussie pies then, Harold? I recoil from the ones filled with slurry, I must admit, but there are some pretty good ones.
They’re mostly ok, but as this was about british pie week i figured 4and20 was out.
The various Harry’s cafe de wheels are regular haunts of mine and also good stuff.
I had my first pie-float in adelaide a few years back and very classy it was too (pie in a mass of mushy peas).
That spreadsheet is very, very big and extremely sinister. The Russians briefly hacked it and then immediately phoned up to apologise and beg my forgiveness.
A very fine emporium now exists in Hull simply called Pie. If i win big on Euromillions I am having them drill a pipeline the half-mile from their shop too my house, which I would pretty soon be to large to leave.
Love a pie, me. Thanks for the Aldi tips – I’m a regular customer.
Those Aldi pies are cook-from-frozen, and you brush the lids with milk. Superb.
TLJ and I are coming up to Hull sometime over the next month or two, and I was going to ask whether you had any appetite (SWIDT?) for a micro-mingle; if so, you may have just nominated a venue.
I’m only a third strike away from being barred from that Pie place. I’ll spare you the details, i need my dignity. Suffice it to say that pastry is a cruel mistress.
Watch this space (well not literally this one, of course)
Where in Hull is the emporium of the Pie? We are visiting Hull at Easter, there seems to be little culture available despite recent publicity, so once we have dined on haddock and chips, a good pie might be just what is needed.
“there seems to be little culture available despite recent publicity”
Quite right, here is a completely blank list for that week with nothing on it.
https://www.hull2017.co.uk/?all-events=all&all-dates=next&dateFrom=&dateTo=&all-venues=all&post_type=vc_events_creator&event=y
The emporium is simply called Pie. Only retronauts favour calling it The Pie, walking in there and demanding authentic 60s spam and sawdust fillings.
Do they play a lot of Sutherland Brothers Band on the PA?
Over in that there Hull on the 21 22 April for the opening of the Skins exhibition at the Feren’s, do they do veggie pies?
Pie do veggie pies .
Not that you would want meat after the Skin exhibish.
I hear that a certain Afterworder enjoyed a Fray Bentos pie just recently. 🙂
Guilty as charged, I hadn’t had one for about 30 years and suddenly had an intense hankering for one. Was delicious but only about a teaspoon meat in it and the rest was gravy and pastry, very yummy gravy mind you. Because of that I got my helper to work another shift last week and make me steak and kidney stew, all nicely packed up in the freezer now but I won’t be having it in a pie so I think my permanent record will be ruined and there will be an x on the spreadsheet next to my name, I will join you all in a pie in spirit though (will probably be another 30 years till I actually eat one again.)
Surely, the best way forward would be to add your own steak & kidley to Fray Bentossussuss’s pastry? Then you wouldn’t have to wait another 30 years.
Here to help.
Thank you, that is a very good plan. I might do that as a treat. I normally avoid pastry as the fat content doesn’t agree with me, but Fray Bentos is very light and airy and not like a stolid wedge.
So do you regard it as a night of shame @Carolina?
BTW who was it who started that immortal thread ?
My Night of Shame with Fray Bentos – sounds like a steamy film featuring a Uruguayan hunk (or possibly a beefcake). I can’t remember the original thread at all. Btw it turns out there is actually a town in Uruguay called Fray Bentos – who knew – that started out making corned beef. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7682670.stm
Finding out about the town of Fray Bentos, many years ago, was one of the great moments of my life. I remember finding the name on a map and actually becoming quite misty-eyed.
Was a classic. I kept a copy for a while – so many bizarre indulgences.
It’s also National Apprenticeship Week. Not that the two are connected at all but… youth unemployment is clearly a serious matter, and if there was a way to kill four and twenty birds with one stone… I’m just saying…
Have a Rumbley’s!
How bout killing one bird with four and twenty stone morelike amirite?
Well it’s National Women’s Day today. So four and 20 birds baking a pie would be doubly appropriate
None more Afterword. Pies AND vinyl. It’s Pie and Vinyl, the south coast’s record store and cafe (as long as you like pies).
http://www.pieandvinyl.co.uk/
Pies are a big deal in Oz too. Can certainly recommend Outback Pies (Pies so beefy, we brand ’em).
http://www.outbackpieco.com.au
Aussie pies are a big deal in Thailand too, it seems. Who hasn’t hankered after a Lady Pie in Phuket*?
http://phuketdir.com/ladypie/
*SFW
Having heard a lot about the ladies of Phuket I was expecting a “lady pie” to be something rather NSFW. So I was surprised to discover that it is simply a pie served by a rather demure lady.
The old ones are definitely still the old ones.
On the topic of weeks dedicated to a theme, June 19 is the start of World Continence Week.
I’m not sure I can hang on til then.
https://www.continence.org.au/pages/world-continence-week.html
Better lay off the pies then.
Are you including the sub-genre of the football pie?
If so Walsall FC wins hands down with its Chicken Balti
Pie-love is a Big Tent, Sam, and I’m sure we’d all like to have you on the inside pieing out.
Talk us through that Chicken Balti Pie.
My Facebook friends (there are a few on here) will have seen photos of my recent pie tour of Sydney including a visit to the Vatican of pie stalls, the wonderful Harry’s Cafe de Wheels!
http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/gg482/Spoodledude/16472797_1577946998901237_135136017763296302_n.jpg
I worked in Sydney for a short while in 2000 and made a trip out to Woolloomooloo specifically to give Harry’s a go – wasn’t disappointed.
Great photo Harry and what an amazing name: Woolloomooloo.
The sort of place that is just screaming to have a song written about it:
“I’ve got a girl in Woolloomooloo”
Maybe Glen Miller wrote one?
F’tis already done. I have a version of this on an album by Bees on Horseback.
http://ozfolksongaday.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/woolloomoolloo-lair.html
@Kaisfatdad
Thanks @hubert_rawlinson. As ever you are a mine of fascinating arcane info.
Bees on Horseback and Flowers and Frolics: the names alone fascinate me.
That’s right the band was Flowers and Frolics ( cockney rhyming slang for bollocks,I’ve just read) Though I do think bees on horseback is a great name for a band. BOH was named after a musical act that rode a horse whilst wearing a beard of bees IIRC. Will have a look for the album. @Kaisfatdad
Bargepole can heartily recommend these
https://www.higgidy.co.uk/pies
How come I never meet a pieman? I’m simple enough.
Life no fair.
Is your name Simon?
Pukka steak and kidney and mushy peas: “healthy choice” lunch of champions.
I suppose this ought to be posted, really.
Pie Week? I had a British Pie Month in Torquay in 1982… Stayed with a British family who served pie for dinner every bloody day for the whole month. With baked beans and peas on the side. A couple of times they added chips to that – wohoo!
I haven’t eaten much pie since, for some reason. 🙂
Food could be pretty rubbish here then, but baked beans and peas . . . together?
That’s wrong.
*shudders*
That’s verging on the criminal.
Tastebud abuse, and not terribly good for the eyes either seeing that on a plate.
That Chicken Balti pie sounds like a winner though…
I’m not even sure about baked beans with a pie.
Baked beans in a pie, possibly. With…? Not sure.
When I was a kid Scoch pies (round numbers, like you saw in DC Thompson comics, filled with a hockey puck of spiced mutton gristle – no wonder I haven’t eaten meat for decades) were always best served with baked beans piled on top of them.
Isn’t that to drown the taste of everything else?
A pie is not a vehicle for beans. It has its own dignity.
“A pie is not a vehicle for beans. It has its own dignity”
New AW T-shirt there!
Would need a runny fried egg on top of the pie to make baked beans work.
I AM JOKING!
Baked beans with pie and mash is the mark of culinary incompetence.
I bet the peas were tinned too, with Locust’s Month Of Pies…
I had a fairly large Pork Pie for my tea.
With Onion Chutney for the first quarter of it, Horseradish Sauce with the second quarter, Chilli Jam with the third and Piccalilli with the last quarter.
Couple of pints of IPA to wash it down.
Shortcrust Steak Pie in the fridge for Thursday’s tea.
Having just Googled it, to refresh my memory, I really must get the required components and make myself an Adelaide Pie Floater some time.
The more I hear about Locust’s infamous “Holiday in England” the more I’m convinced that it was some kind of National Service.
Don’t tell anyone (especially not Donald Trump) but the Swedish Government was training teenage girls to become spies, and I was actually on a crash course to be able to pass for British. Being able to eat pies, baked beans and peas for a month was part of passing the exams, making sure that not even such culinary torture could break us down to reveal ourselves; begging for some pickled herring…
I was doing fine until they surprised me with something they claimed was a “prawn cocktail”. That thing was as deadly as a Molotov cocktail!
I made my Brexit and never looked back…
So Locust is really your spy codename. Hmmm…
Outstanding tracklement work there, that man.
Makes me proud to be peckish… er… British.
Pork pie Pic.
Come to Daddy
….
Are you clinically insane?
Baked beans with a (meat, ideally mince) pie is the food of the gods.
I’m starting to have serious doubts about you, pal.
Mince is not meat!
He thinks mince is meat!!
Who’s insane here?
Good point, well made.
Objection sustained.
I’m off to bed.
LUH -ARRRRR- DUH!
When you get there, I hope your AAARRR-DUH is welcomed and appreciated.
Being raised with, and perhaps to some extent by pies is key. People introduced to them in adulthood very rarely become enamoured.
And a pie doesn’t have to be all-round pastry. Just a lid is fine, sometimes. I am aware some consider this heretical.
*prepares kindling*
Sorry, but this is bugging me.
A friend of mine was served one of these concoctions in a Wetherspoons or somesuch and described it as “a bowl of stew with a Jus-Rol toupee”. It is certainly not a pie.
I reckon the only sort of pie that needs pastry underneath is lemon meringue pie. Most pies I’ve ever had have had just too much pastry and I normally leave most of it on my plate.
The millions of Aussie tradies who eat a meat pie for their lunch would be startled to discover the meat in their laps, I think.
And isn’t lemon meringue pie actually a tart?
As a vegetarian, I would argue that pies shouldn’t have meat in them either!
I think the lemon meringue pie is classed as a pie because the meringue is the ‘crust’. Same concept as those mince pies that Costco sells with a sponge crust in place of the traditional pastry.
Did one of those yougov polls, the only vegetarian choices were apple or mince pie. Shabby.
I’ll have your pastry! I’m conducting a longitudinal study on the effect of high calorie foods on someone with a cholesterol issue.
Oh good fuck no this must not stand. A stew in a hat is not a pie. A skillet of cow parts microwaved to the temperature on the Earth’s core and topped with a three-inch slab of some indistinguishable packaging material, which crumbles into a million shards should you attempt to cut it, is not a pie. These things are abominations.
A pompous gastroplace near us offers pie on its menu but what you get is a bowl of mince with a dainty triangular filo chapeau worn at a coquettish angle at one end. It’s no more a pie than a pig in a crown is a queen.
That I have a problem with, but one of – no, the finest – pie I have ever had was from a pub near York. Yes, the pie only had a lid, but what a lid. Pastry around 10mm thick, apparently occupying the middle ground between rough, short and flaky. But pastry cooked with the pie, so that the pie/crust interface was that wonderful gooey consistency. The filling so thick as to stand up unaided, but with enough thick liquid to lubricate its passage. Additional gravy alongside, veg. Bliss.
It may have it’s place but a dish of meat with a pastry hat = not a pie.
That is certainly true for the sort of ‘pie’ which only met its lid when it was plonked on as it left the kitchen. A ‘plate-pie’ where the pastry and contents have been cooked together is a very different thing.
I agree that it is a different thing altogether, but it still isn’t a pie.
Ah the joys of Torquay – you could have popped along to a certain hotel called Fawlty Towers for a respite from the terrible combination of pie. beans and peas.. They may have given you ratatouille (with Basil in it). Best not to ask for Waldorf Salad though.
I am off to a pub quiz shortly, one that I do most Tuesdays. The pub specialises in pies, using Pieminister ones.
Pie and knowledge, an almost unbeatable combination.
However, for the last few weeks I have not indulged in pie as I’m off on holiday in a couple of weeks and don’t want to carry any more pounds than I have to while hiking, canoeing, cycling and having fun.
I will resentfully watch the pie eaters with no little envy and a tiny slice of fury.
A Tiny Slice of Fury…. title of a huge Hollywood blockbuster about pie-eating quizzers.
Directed by…?
Starring…?
Playing what characters…?
What happens…?
Stop spluttering man, I’m getting showered in pastry crumbs!
Mmpf, forry.
Hmmm.
We didn’t exactly put in an Oscar-winning performance, I’m afraid.
Bloody fifth.
I’m pretty sure my personal efforts were somewhat hampered by the misery of being the only pieless person on the table.
Pieless in Gaza…
sorry
All this talk of pies.
I’m going to treat myself to a chicken and ham pie from The Ginger Pig – https://www.thegingerpig.co.uk – this weekend – bit pricey really, but with mash, broccoli and gravy – just perfect.
I haven’t been to this place in a fair while – http://www.windmillmayfair.co.uk – and their steak and kidney is/was delicious. Just don’t go there during the week, full of yahoos who should be working.
That first establishment seems to have been named in my honour. I’m quite touched.
Hollands meat pie for me…
Had one of those once. Virtually no meat in it – it was a gravy pie rather than a meat pie.
But then what can you expect from Lancastrians?
Probably gave you an empty one, seeing as you arn`t Lancastrian!
Fortunately I’m from the correct side of the Pennines where we know how to make a decent pie!
For those in proximity of West Yorkshire. Mrs G gave myself and my two 20 something sons a Christmas present of a pie making evening at Coddy’s Farm in Holmfirth (home of Last of the Summer Wine). You get to make a stand pork pie and four individual pies. There seemed to be a limit of about 20 people – sold out on the night we were there. A very well-organised evening and thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. The finished pies, made with ingredients from the farm, tasted great too. They do other evenings such as sausage-making and have a B&B and a farm shop. Thoroughly recommended and I have no connection with them other than having spent a great night with my sons making and consuming pies.
Crank up the Afterword chara, we’re all going to Holmfirth!
And it has to be said that Mrs G sounds like a truly wise and wonderful woman.
And if we time it right, there’s liable to be an interesting gig on at the Holmfirth Picturedrome. Lots of interesing bands play there. Just a pity it’s logistically impossible to get to and from for a gig on public transport from my side of West Yorkshire.
I’m celebrating British Pie Week by leaving a pie to cool on a windowsill. I fully expect to see wavy heat lines rising from it. Passers-by will emit hashed lines from their eyes when they spot it, and enormous exclamation marks will appear above their heads.
I hope it will have a pair of cow horns sticking out of it, too.
Bah! It’s been snaffled by Tom Tum!
I like pork pies. But what is a “stand pie”? It’s just a big pork pie isn’t it?
It’s the only time the HP sauce comes out. Got to take it slow, though. It’s possible to wolf it down quickly but the smart money’s on having half. Thing about a pork pie is that it expands in your tummy in a slow release-type way. If you go for the whole thing, eventually you feel ill and disgusted with yourself. Even more than usual.
Wtf is a butter pie, and does it have to be accompanied by a cup of tea?
The butter wouldn’t melt so he put it in the pie, alright?
Potato and onion pie. And a shitload a’ butter. A north west thing apparently …. austerity/poverty food, being vastly cheaper to make than a meat pie.
Sounds fabulous.
I’m having flashbacks to the Fleur De Lys pies we used to get at the chippy north of brum. Mince and onion was my fave as a kid.
http://i1060.photobucket.com/albums/t449/GCU_Grey_Area/aw-must-pie_zps9rc29c8n.jpg
Glad. That’s all.
Top work.
Now there’s a T-Shirt logo i’d wear with pride.
A week on, I’d just like to reiterate how good this is.
The Pie Don’t Die.
Hard to find a really good pie here stateside. Let’s be clear about this, to truly be a pie it must have a complete pastry surround, not just a thin flaky top bit. That isn’t a pie. They might tell you it’s a pie, but it really isn’t.
Pastry surround 5.1. None of that mono rubbish!
A Scottish friend once said to me’ What do you get if you walk into a bakery in Dundee and say ‘twa plain pees an’a ‘yin yin yin n’ aww’?
I don’t know, what do you get?
Two meat pies and an Onion one as well!’
I think that in Dundee, a pie is pronounced peh. Video is Saint Andrew highlighting the Dundonian accent….. and it has the onion pie thing in it. In fact, that’s what the song is called!
Ha HAAAAA!
Delightful.
So what are we to make of this then?
https://twitter.com/jonbir90/status/839613753498943488
Banoffee is not even a pie. This is like saying that your favourite beer is shandy. Industrial-grade ponciness.
PS. Cottage pie is not a pie either. No pastry=no nice.
I think that’s what he meant by London, you are absolutely pathetic, Moose.
You’re not the first person to point out that I am absolutely pathetic.
Is someone from The Guardian shadowing this board? They’ve nicked Moose’s shandy gag about Londoners in reference to the same Tweet https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/09/pie-barm-twitter-wigan-kebab
Hey, Guardian guys! Since you’re here, we’ve got a favour to ask! It involves your genitals and a sledgehammer!
How dare you assume their gender?!!!!
Tuh, and on World Kidney Day too.
I did a Hector (Hectre) mickey-take of the Spectre film poster, which was lifted from here. Someone went to the effort of adding in all the stuff I’d removed, and tweeting it with no attribution.
I think this is made up. I can’t imagine that pork pie is more popular than the Scotch Pie in Glasgow. I’m just not believing that. You’ll be telling me that they prefer Innocent Smoothies to Irn Bru next.
A pork pie is the healthy option compared to Innocent Smoothies, not least because it doesn’t come with a side order of soul-corroding smugness…
At least five different types of yummy smugness
One helping of hand-pulled matiness
100% self-satisfied cosiness
All mixed together and served FOR YOU!!
PLEASE KEEP ME COLD
Apparently it’s World Kidney Day today. During British Pie Week. Coincidence?
http://www.worldkidneyday.co.uk
Although usually more associated with Bridies rather than the pies, the next time you find yourself in Forfar there’s a butcher shop called Cameron’s (no relation) that sells the most delicious steak and gravy pie that you will ever have.
Just got it in under the wire for Pie Week…last night, on my way to see The Damned, a trip to Harry’s.