Sunday 2 November 2008

Marks & Spencer Melton Mowbray pies

The month started with us tasting, for the first time, Marks & Spencer Melton Mowbray medium pork pies. This is thanks to Jorge; who wrote to me asking why our score for M&S pies were so low, when the Independent's review had scored them so highly? I investigated, and found that we were not comparing like with like – the Independent were reviewing Melton Mowbray pies and we had been munching on cured pork pies. This was rectified this week after walking up an appetite following the Boldero’s walk, recently published in the EDP. From Gunthorpe Green, we headed east to Briningham passing Bellevue tower, a former mill that was once used as a water tower. As we approached this, Don spotted Baconsthorpe water tower in the distance. The church of St. Maurice was our lunch stop, we had previously photographed it’s scratch dial with a porch door hinge attached! We headed back in a westerly direction, the pace quickening when a group of walkers with two dogs got in Josie’s sights! We visited St. Mary’s church at Gunthorpe, prior to returning to the Green. The nairn’s mini oatcakes with Waitrose supreme houmous and their supreme red pepper & feta dip made a return appearance. To appreciate the pies fully, the tea service was restored, the award winning pies were then sampled: An OK appearance with a reasonable amount of jelly failed to set the taste buds alight. Peppery seasoning helped, the texture nothing special, the pastry leaving a lardy after taste did not impress. These pies were judged to have a score of 6.4375, with a rather high standard deviation of 0.9797. So a normalised sore of 6.5 for Marks & Spencer Melton Mowbray medium pork pies. The walk, without a pub, was completed in good time enabling all the munchers to get home for the delayed start of the Grand Prix and see Lewis Hamilton snatch the World championship in the last few seconds. I bet he had a celebratory pork pie!