Pickerings medium pies

Pies returned this week: medium pies from Pickerings, Norwich market stall (pitch 102 & 103) an old favourite, last sampled on Valentines Day. We were joined for our pre-pie perambulation, by Luna and her mum, Grace. We also had Bert & Harris accompanying us on what was to be an eventful walk from East Tuddenham Village Hall. We crossed the Norwich Road to take the footpath north that passes by All Saints church. Our next challenge was to cross the busy A47. Achieving this we continued north, the dogs enjoying being able to run free. Luna never straying far from mum, but Bert and Harris taking the opportunity to get through a hole in a fence and explore a wood at their leisure... When they eventually came back they were lead-bound for the remainder of the walk! Footpaths marked on maps failed to materialise, but after a couple of failed attempts, we found a route west. King Canape then had a bit of a funny turn – a slight dizzy spell, so had a sit down while it passed. After no time at all, the Canape King was on his feet and we continued west past noisy kennels, our three dogs not reacting. On reaching Heath Road, Charles, accompanied by the Pie Master & Liz, took the slightly shorter and easier going route to the pub via the road, while the rest of the party continued west by footpath and then south to Hockering parish church. On route, the threatening skies then unleashed a good dose of hail. The party taking the road made for the shelter of a conifer, but on reaching it, the intensity of the hailstorm increased to such an extent, most of the hail simply passed straight through our shelter. When the hail eased and we had Charles seated in the pub, we joined the remaining walkers at St. Michael’s church. Here we ate our sandwiches “on the hoof” - as the church was being renovated and surrounded by fencing. The remains of one scratch dial was visible, to add to our collection. We then made our way to join King Canape in the Victoria Inn. Here we consumed various beverages and Grace and Luna took advantage of the open fire. Suitably refreshed and warmed, it was time to head outside, Charles sensibly accepted the offer of being picked up and stayed in the pub. We made our way back to East Tuddenham, modifying the original route to utilise more quiet metalled roads, as the going was so wet. Don in his Wellingtons, made the most of the conditions; splashing his way through the puddles. We had seen numerous fungi on our walk, but as we neared the cars, Paul and I thought we’d struck lucky; spotting some fine looking mushrooms. On closer inspection they proved to be Yellow Stainers! The feasting began once Charles had been retrieved from the pub and started with his canapés of King prawns with Rosemarie sauce. Cutting the good looking pies released little aroma and revealed a nicely textured pink filling with a little jelly. The pies tasted good with a peppery after taste, scoring a spot on 8.5 with a standard deviation of 0.55902, slightly better than their last sampling.
But the munching was not over - for Grace had baked a huge carrot cake especially for us. The cake tasted good too, with several munchers giving it a score of 10 and suggesting we should have cake instead of pork pies!

Jarrold’s deli

With the terrible pies of last week, the Pie Master went to a known good supplier of quality pies: the Deli in Jarrold’s, last sampled at Holkham on February 10^th 2008, where they scored 8.5. To sample these, 9 munchers and two dogs headed to Foulsham. Parking in the street we walked east, past the church that had a “Savage” manhole cover, to Batesmoor. From here we headed back west along Mill Lane a little way before heading north over what was the old airfield, passing the site of the former 60,000 gallon, Foulsham water tower. The field edge provided us with blackberries that we consumed as we walked along. We were afforded a lengthy view of deer before we stopped at 3½ miles for lunch in a field corner. Here we watched a couple of raptors overhead as we ate. We headed back south to Foulsham via a permissive path along side Wood Norton Road, taking in views of Stanfield and Bintree water towers at the same time. Then along Sneck Lane, calling in at the Queen’s Head for pints of Adnams. We returned to the cars and took our tea to the Holy Innocents church we walked past at the start. We looked around this dial-less church before having tea in the churchyard. Straight into the good looking pies that released an appetising aroma when sliced, revealing a nicely textured pink filling surrounded by jelly. This was a really good pie, very tasty and the pastry good too, though it wasn’t as crisp as some. All agreed and it romped in with a score of 9.05556 and a low standard deviation of 0.30046, so a normalised score of 9 – the highest this year, for Jarrold’s Deli. Canapés followed: stuffed baby peppers – these were quite hot, so a wise decision to have these after the pies, followed by the Shortbread finale.

Hutsons Butchers of Southwold

More foreign southern delights this week – a large pie from over the border: Hutsons Butcher in Southwold, our first sampling of a pie from them. They have been in the business for over 300 years, making it the oldest shop in town. First we needed to get ourselves ready for pie consumption: Parking at Hardingham War Memorial Hall, we headed a little way north by road before turning down Policemans Loke, passing a picturesque wisteria draped cottage. We were heading towards St. George’s Mount but before that we came to Old Hall Farm, Hardingham, where they were weighing sheep. There was a beautiful, crazy, brown sheep dog with surplus energy in a pen beside the sheep. On reaching the mount and Hardingham church, the Walk Master decided the slight detour to the church was not necessary as it had been visited recently and we had its faint scratch dial photographed. We headed west along Church Road before picking up footpaths south to Hingham. Now the wind got up, crossing open fields spotting many hares. Arriving at Hingham, we had lunch in the lee of St. Andrew’s church after first purveying the shop windows of Harrods. After lunch we noted a large scratch dial high on a buttress and very high up on another, what looked like a later sundial base carved into the masonry. We then went to the "White Hart", visited seven weeks ago, for pints of a beer masquerading as Woodefords Wherry, we begged to differ, and Green King St. Edmunds. Unfortunately Boris and Charlie were not in residence this time, so we retired to the salubrious lounge where we watched a heavy shower come and go as we took our refreshments – what a Weather Wizard we have in our Walk Master! Extricating ourselves from the comfy chairs, we had two miles to go to the pie, heading north beside the pub we noted several interesting houses before we zigzagged our way back to the cars by footpath. Our first course was large prawns with lemon juice and Tabasco sauce. The large neat looking pie looked good and when cut released a small amount of aroma similar to pork brawn. The dark pink filling had jelly round the base. Munching was a very pleasant experience with crisp tasty pastry and a good tasty, meaty filling enhanced with the application of a little mustard. The pie came in with a score of 8.1875, helped by a score of 7 from the Führer. We all agreed this was a good pie, the standard deviation was surprisingly high a 0.84251 . Next the traditional Scottish Shortbreads and then a bag of "Munchers", purchased to appease the pie munchers when the Pie Master had procured a potentially poor pork pie three weeks ago, but then failed to bring them. Another good walk, a good pie with a normalised score of 8 for Hutsons Butchers, and we avoided the rain – not bad for a bank holiday weekend.

Roll mouse over picture to see uncut pie

Crestwood "Crispy Bake" Pork Pies

This week the Pie Master had forgotten to purchase pork pies! Late Saturday afternoon, Josie realised we had no pies to munch, so the Pie Master hopped on his bike and hossed down to the Local Aldi in the rain. We had sampled their Crestwood “crispy bake” pies back in 2006, on the 16^th July, when they scored a mere 5 out of ten, hopefully they’d improved. We headed over the border into the wilds of Suffolk for this week's sampling, passing a procession of Bubble cars coming in the opposite direction, along Herringfleet Road. Parking at Somerleyton railway station, we headed back up Station Road to then walk through Wadding Wood and then by footpath to Blundeston Road and the picturesque parish church of St. Mary, Somerleyton. Finding no scratch dials, we continued along Blundeston Road, accompanied at one point by a low flying Douglas DC-3 'Dakota', before we returned to footpaths. Then walking along a short stretch of road we passed a 1652 barn. Lunch was taken at 3¼ miles, in the church porch of St. Margaret, the parish church of Herringfleet, in front of it's Norman doorway. We found no scratch dials on this church, any having been covered by nasty rendering. Continuing along Herringfleet Road we came upon a pretty White flower, identified by Josie as “Star of Bethlehem” – the Führer thought it might have been Edelweiss – she would! Leaving the road we took a footpath towards the marshes finding two types of fungi, one unidentified and the other “Sulphur tufts”. Turning towards Herringfleet drainage mill, with Raveningham water tower in the distance, the Walk Master thought he spotted a lion running across the marshes, but it turned out to be a large dog! Arriving at the mill, we were just in time to see volunteers get the mill working. After pausing and having a mardle, we set off east. Walking along the bank, meeting lovely dogs, we arrived at the Duke's head for pints of Adnams and Wherry all in good condition. The short walk back to the railway station, through a boatyard, was made a little longer due to some deliberate misinformation from one of the boat owners. Returning to the cars, we first sampled “Healthy Selection” Houmous and Spicy red pepper Houmous with Black olive crackers. Then on to the pies... When they were sliced, they released virtually no aroma, but the filling looked good despite no jelly. Unfortunately these ‘Crispy Bake’ pies had a soft crust, though it was tasty, which is more than can be said for the filling. This was bland and had no texture, certainly needing the application of mustard. The pies did marginally better this outing scoring 5.375 with a standard deviation of 0.41726. Thankfully the Walk Master’s Scottish Shortbreads were up to their usual high standard. So a normalised 5.5 for Crestwood’s so called “crispy bake” pies.

G. Morris & Sons small pies

Nine pie munchers mustered in rather overcast conditions, then headed south west to Ashill to sample a trio of small pies from G. Morris & Sons. The weather turned decidedly wet during the journey. However, as we arrived at the community centre at twelve O'clock, the rain stopped as predicted on the weather forecast! After ascertaining that we would not get locked in, we set off westwards, on a non-crossing figure-of-eight walk. Our first stop was at the church of St. Mary, Houghton-on-the-hill, by a field of black cows and calves. Finding no scratch dial, we continued on to South Pickenham, taking in a short stretch of the Peddar’s Way and the Norfolk Coast Path, then crossing the clear waters of the River Wissey on the way. Here we took lunch at the church of All Saints, with it's north facing porch and no scratch dial. Four gents took up residence on the seat in the shade, looking like a scene from "Last of the Summer Wine",while the rest of us perched on the church wall in the sun. We left the church for a half mile walk along a quiet road, passing Pickenham Hall, where we no doubt became movie stars on the closed circuit surveillance system! From here we made our way back to Ashill, our route taking us past a field of young rapeseed plants whose leaves had collected large water droplets from the earlier rain. Three and a half scratch dials were found at St. Nicholas church, Ashill - well three definite dials and one possible. We had hoped to have a pint at the "White Hart" but it was undergoing refurbishment, so we pressed on back to the cars, pausing by the pond to see the ducklings. In fact there were ducks in many of the gardens too. Today's feast: peppers stuffed with goats cheese, again were the first course, but the peppers were much hotter than last week. The pies, baked in foil cups, were sliced, no aroma or jelly being present. The pies had a crisp crust with a smooth meat filling, the latter not having a great deal of flavour. The pie munchers had widely differing views on these pies, from a lowly score of 4 to high scores of 9's - resulting in the average score of 6.77778 with a very high standard deviation of 1.58333. Organic Scottish Shortbreads then followed. Finally, chocolate "Munchers" were provided for the pie munchers.
It was then decided that we should head on to the “White Hart” at Hingham for refreshment, with a stop at Saham Toney to check out the church. The church of St. George failed to yield further scratch dials, so we headed for Hingham. At the “White Hart” we enjoyed pints of Tolly Phoenix and Morland Original Bitter where we took over the salubrious lounge, after making friends with Boris and Charlie, two springer spaniels, in the bar.

G. F. White

Pies from G. F. Whites in Aylsham – “Butcher of the Year” in the Eastern Daily Press, Norfolk Food Awards 2008. We had tasted their pies on the 18^th February 2007, when they didn’t fair particularly well. After 6 miles of walking up an appetite around Worsted, we would find out if they had improved. Parking at the Weavers’ Way car park near Briggate Bridge, we headed east for about a mile, following the Weavers' Way along a former railway cutting, passing under the attractive iron bridge. Then going south, we crossed the disused lock on the Dilham canal. The “boys” Bert & Harris were walking with us and soon found a new friend: Max - a black Labrador who then decided to join us on our walk! After a little way, Max would not leave us and return home, so he was put on a lead and returned to the house from where he originated. We regrouped and the boys had now made another friend Bertie: a Border Terrier – thankfully this one was attached to his owner. Dilham church of St. Nicolas was visited at just over 2 miles – no scratch dials here as it was completely rebuilt in 1931. Now heading west, with Don trailing, attacking brambles with his secateurs, we sampled the last Blackberries of the season. Lunch was taken in the large porch of the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Worstead. This large church has two scratch dials, already in our collection, and after perusing the interior; we headed for the comfort of the New Inn. Here we where all made welcome and served pints of Adnams and Wherry. Even “Bisto” the pub dog came down to welcome us, but Bert and Harris were not that impressed. From Worsted, we headed north to once again join the Weavers’ Way path along the railway cutting that we followed east back to the cars. Prawns with mayonnaise were again the starter course, prior to the pies. The pies, unique in appearance with lose fitting tops, looked promising. Cutting revealed a pink filling with good texture. Aroma and jelly were both lacking, but the real disappointment was the munching. The crust was soft and bland and the filling not really tasting of anything. The pie did score 5.83333 with a standard deviation of 0.93095 so normalised to 6 – just below the 6.5 on the previous outing. Yummy Chocolate slab cake was slipped in before Shortbread that concluded our post walk munching.

Anyone For Pork Pie Ice Cream?

The Pie Master and Josie went to the Norfolk Dog Day, so it was going to be pieless... No one was selling Pork Pie flavour Ice Cream - a delicacy produced Morelli's ice cream parlour at London store Harrods. However we did meet Sarah Pettegree of Bray's Cottage, so we just had to sample one of her "Naked pork pies"! Elsewhere in Norfolk, pie munchers sans pies were working up an appetite for canapés...

The Walk Master reports: Starting from Cley village hall, ten of us made our way west across allotments then up Barn Drift before turning south west across The Hangs with clear panoramic views of the Salthouse Marshes and Cley Nature Reserve. Next westwards along the road, north across Salthouse Heath and down via woodland path and lane to Salthouse Church (St. Nicholas) for a sandwich break in the churchyard. At this stage we were feeling parched, so repaired to the Dun Cow on The Green, both were packed with people and cars respectively. After drinks onwards west over Sarbury and Walsey Hills before turning seawards along the east side of Cley Nature reserve then west along the shingle bank, hard going, and finally back towards Cley along the flood bank to visit the smoke house for various purchases. Tea, canapés and biscuits were enjoyed but the ubiquitous pork pies were nowhere to be seen, alas, as our generous provider had gone to the dogs! A tour of Cley church (St. Margaret) completed a balmy Sunday afternoon before the trek back.