Pork Pie Virgin Cured!

We sampled pies this week, but only just! The weather was poor – cold and more snow forecast. The munchers were joined this week by pork pie enthusiast, Manola, for a rather shorter than usual, 4½ mile, local walk. The Walk Master had incorporated a pub lunch, which he booked for 1:00 pm, rather than eat sandwiches in the snow. We parked at Eaton Park and headed west to the University of East Anglia and walked around the north edge of the lake. Here we debated the aesthetic of the accommodation, I personally like it. We continued past the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and crossed the River Yare. We then continued south, walking along by the river on our left, and then crossing it again by the start of the UEA lake. On our journey we met many lovely dogs, including a young, mad black Labrador who had broken his lead and enthusiastically greeted us, as we approached a wooded area. Much of the footpath was on boarded walkways now as we headed further south, following the river. Our path took us under the A11 and passing the old mill house on the opposite bank, I noticed a dinosaur skeleton in the garden! Then onto the old road bridge with a plaque showing the flood level on the 28th August 1912, 5 or 6 feet above today's level. We now turned north and walked down the road to arrive at the Cellar House, spot on one O'clock. Josie ordered Cod and hand cut chips, while the rest of us had the roast. The food was tasty, with the vegetables nicely cooked. Unfortunately we only had one plate of vegetables to share amongst five of us, and service was somewhat lacking.After the meal we were joined by a dapper Don, who had walked from the city centre in his new chinos, to join us in the pub. We walked back to the cars first along Bluebell Road and then on footpaths to Eaton Park. We walked through the park, passing by the model boat lake with a little dog walking on the 2” thick ice. On reaching the cars, the Walk Master invited us back to his, for a cup of drink. Here we were joined by Jeff - a self-confessed pork pie virgin, that we cured of his affliction! We were not originally going to have pies, as we'd only just had a meal a short while ago and we had cakes. But Manola said: "a walk is not a walk without a pork pie". We had pies: an 8oz and two 4oz pies from G. Morris & Sons that had been purchased earlier in the week, to be consumed after the NIAS AGM, but never made it there. The pies were not scored, but the consensus was that the 8oz pie was superior to the 4oz. Josie then presented cakes that she had brought to celebrate her birthday last month. So definitely more calories consumed than burnt off this week!

G. Morris & Sons

This week with the Führer and the Walk Master away in France, José stepped into the breach to lead the ten pie munchers on a 6½ mile walk from Shropham to Great Hockham and back, before sampling medium pies from G. Morris & Sons. Parking by the parish church of Shropham, we followed Low Road a short distance before heading south by footpath, to complete one side of this rectangular walk. While walking on quiet roads, we passed by a house where Maisie, a rather skinny Pointer, came out to greet us. We then returned to footpaths to continue the journey west passing horses and woods. A quiet road then led us north to the village of Great Hockham. We left the village centre to visit the locked church of the Holy Trinity, with no scratch dial. Here we had our sandwiches at 4.2 miles and afterwards returned to the village and the Eagle public house. We were refreshed with pints of Old Speckled Hen and Adnams. After a good rest, we roused our leader and headed east back to Shropham, initially by road, purchasing herbs and Chilli products, and then finally via footpaths. Towards the end of the walk, José pretended he was lost - but he didn't fool us! We were soon out of the dead-end that he had taken us to and back on the devised route. A short walk north along Church Road reunited us with the cars. We then explored the church of St. Peter, again locked, finding a scratch dial on a buttress - a new one for the collection. After the girls had rested, tea was taken in the churchyard along with prawns and chilli sauce purchased on route. The two medium pies were sliced releasing very little aroma. The pies lacked jelly and while enjoyable, nothing special. Mustard did enhance them and they achieved a respectable score of 6.95 with a standard deviation of 0.59861. Oaties replaced the traditional Shortbreads to conclude proceedings. G. Morris & Sons scoring a normalised score of 7 this time, compared with their previous score of 6.5 on their last outing on September the 6^th 2009.

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.

Pork Pie Year 2009 Review

2009 was another great pie year, though petering out in the final month, however we sampled 45 different pork pies (counting the two Christmas “novelty” pies)! Trailing the 49 of last year, though of the 43 bona fide pork pies, an incredible 29 were sampled for the very first time. Now we have all the scores in, I can announce our top 5 pies of 2009:

1. Clarkes Quality Meats, huge pork pie sampled on 26^th July
2. Bray's Cottage, "Naked Pie", sampled on 11^th October
3. “Butlers Choice” R.A. Cawdron & Son, Stalham, sampled on 5^th April
4. Pickerings large pies, sampled on 1^st February
5. G. Morris & Sons - Mega pie, sampled on 26^th April

Our all time top 5 pies are:

1. Mrs. King’s Melton Mowbray pie sampled on 26^th November 2006
2. M & M Rutland sampled on 29^th April 2007
3. Gloucester Old Spot from Picnic Fare Deli sampled on 11^th May 2008
4. Clarkes Quality Meats, huge pork pie sampled on 26^th July
5. Graves of Briston, sampled on 9^th March 2008

That’s it for 2009, an excellent pie year, with lots of good pie munching. All it leaves me to do, is wish you a good pie munching New Year. Don’t forget your new year’s resolution to regularly visit the Pork Pie News - we have welcomed 3,758 visitors from 58 nations!

Pie Master

G. Morris & Sons

With the Walk Master unable to walk and King Canape in Strasbourg, I was concerned that there would not be a quorum for pie judging, so this week we returned to an old staple, pies from G. Morris & Sons. In the event, ten turned up for our over the border expedition. We headed to Carlton Colville in Suffolk and parked at the Community Centre. From here we headed south, first by pavement then by footpath to Holy Trinity church, Gisleham. Here we found two scratch dials. Now heading east along a road, we were afforded views of the new (1959) Pakefield water tower. After travelling towards it for half a mile, we headed south again for half a mile along footpaths, passing White House Farm, then followed some debate as to which way we should be going. We continued south down the side of a field of stubble, with many junior frogs – leaping as our footsteps disturbed them. Now we had a good view of Kessingland’s redundant water tower. We then turned left and headed away from the roar of the A12, west to Black Street and a conveniently located seat and shelter for lunch. Replete, we continued westwards along a track towards Rushmere, then after a short length of road we headed north by footpath. Don had now got his secateurs out and proceeded to attack virtually every bramble bush along the route, consequently falling way behind the group. We arrived at St. Michael’s church, Rushmere, some way from the village and on the edge of Carlton Colville. The church was locked but had one scratch dial. Continuing along roads to the Community Centre, we passed a garden where windfall fruit was being offered free to any one that wanted it. Stocking up on fruit we made our way back to the cars, harvesting a good number of aluminium cans. No canapés this week straight into the pies... The pies when cut, revealed a pink filling with little jelly and the aroma was of the pastry. The pie was lightly spiced and lacked flavour, mustard helping a little. The crust was good though, the pie scoring 6.3125, down from the 7.1 they scored the last time we had them on the 24^th May. The standard deviation was very high at 1.81142, so a normalised score of 6.5 for G. Morris this time. Hobnobs replaced the usual Shortbread finale.

H. V. Graves and G. Morris & Sons

Empire day saw conflict amongst the pie munchers – we were to have gone for a walk near to Gunton Park on the forth Sunday of last month, but it had slipped the Walk Master’s memory so we were to do it this week. A provisional route was agreed at the pub on Friday, but the Walk Master, who was not present on Friday, had arranged with the Führer to walk at Sheringham. When the munchers assembled, the Führer dug her jackboot heals in and refused to goose-step anywhere other than Sheringham Park, despite the fact we could not walk at Gunton next month. Walking at Sheringham would not give sufficient time to look round the sawmill before it closed.The munchers split, three of us headed for the car park on the Weavers’ Way at Felmingham. We started by walking waking eastwards along the Weavers’ Way for two thirds of a mile. Then walking by the edge of North Walsham Wood and Lord Anson’s Wood, we spotted the top of Mundesley water tower in the far distance and the two water towers at North Walsham. Heading south along footpaths with a canopy of trees providing us with welcome shade from the baking sun, we arrived at the church of St. Michael, Swanton Abbott. Here we consumed lunch and observed the previously recorded scratch dial and two possible dials. We headed north, back along the footpath over Swanton Hill and then at the Common we headed northwest via a well-defined footpath across a field. Zigzagging along footpaths and quiet roads, avoiding a potential soaking from an automated irrigation machine traversing a field across the footpath, we rejoined the Weavers’ Way. A third of a mile walk in an easterly direction, noting a proliferation of various butterflies, reunited us with the car. As it had just turned 15:00 and we had only done 5.6 miles, we strolled up to Felmingham and the church of St. Andrew. The body of the church had been rebuilt in the 1740’s - so yielded no scratch dial, but an interesting item attached to the wall. We then headed to Gunton Park, here a 180 year old water powered Sawmill, restored by Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society back in 1980’s, was in operation and was open to the public. Meanwhile The Führer, Walk Master, King Canape & Co. had been goose-stepping around Sheringham Park admiring the Rhododendrons. King Canape traumatised by the breakaway group not being able to sample pork pies, popped into the village shop in Weybourne to purchase spiced pork pies from H. V. Graves of Briston. The Sheringham party called us from the pub stop and advised they’d bring the tea to Gunton Park. After inspecting the sawmill, the pies were tasted: First we had Salmon rounds to ready the palate for pies. We sampled the pies from H. V. Graves, these were very different and difficult to judge as a pork pie. The coarse textured filling providing a pleasant experience that resulted in a surprisingly low score of 7.3 with a standard deviation of 0.44721. A Large pie from G. Morris & Sons was then consumed: slicing revealed a pale filling and low on aroma with little evidence of jelly. The filling was OK, though not one of their best, a dab of mustard enhancing the experience. The pastry was sweet and lifting this otherwise average pie, resulting in a score of 7.1 with a standard deviation of 0.65192. Ricky’s Shortbread completed the grazing. So scores “normalised” to 7.5 and 7 H. V. for Graves and G. Morris pies respectively.

    H. V. Graves (spiced)                             G. Morris & Sons (large)

G. Morris & Sons' Mega pie

A Mega pie from G. Morris & Sons this week, weighing in at a mighty 1 lb 12oz – we’ve already had their pies this year, on the 11th January, but not on this scale! We headed to the pie tasting ground of Castle Acre with the intention of avoiding the rain, but we were to be wrong footed, three times on this outing. The Walk Master & Weather Wizard had planned a walk in the west to avoid the rain that was predicted to come from the east, on Saturday evening, but the weather front was now coming in from the west. However, we set off from the remains of the castle in good weather, along the Nar Valley Way in a northeasterly direction. Passing fields of happy outdoor reared pie filling, we arrived in West Lexham. Here we headed to the church of St. Nicholas where after a fruitless search for a scratch dial, we had lunch – the boys in the porch and girls sitting outside in the sun. After lunch we retraced our footsteps south, then has a game of Poohsticks as we crossed the River Nar. A second crossing of the Nar provided a return match of Poohsticks before we eventually arrived at Newton-by-Castle-Acre. We were once again wrong footed: choosing to visit the church before the boozer. St. Mary and All Saints church was interesting but dial-less, we then headed to the George and Dragon just before 15:00, where were refused service as they were about to close! Soberly we made our way back towards the cars, passing the porky pie filling again, when we picked up the Nar Valley Way. Our third mistake was when we elected to head into Castle Acre for a pint of Directors in the Albert Victor, before sampling our pie. We left the pub and the wet weather had arrived! We moved the cars under the shelter of some nearby trees for the tasting... Tea by Liz and Smoked Salmon crescents prepared us for the mega pie. Slicing revealed the marbled pink interior with no jelly and not releasing much aroma. However the munching was good - the pastry tasty and crisp, the filling satisfying and even more so with a dab of mustard, giving the pie a healthy score of spot on 8.5, with a small standard deviation of 0.53452. Ricky’s posh Scottish Shortbread was then consumed. So G. Morris’ mega pie, not quite beating the first pie of the month.

The 1 lb 15 oz Mega pie from G. Morris & Sons

G. Morris & Sons

Pies from G. Morris and Sons were today’s porkie delight, to be sampled in Foxley Wood, once our woodland promenade had been completed: Heading off in a south westerly direction through the wood, eventually turning west along Common Lane towards Bawdeswell. Five red deer were spotted in the distance, along with the top of the 60,000-gallon Bintree water tower. We stopped at the new (built 1953-55) All Saints church for lunch. The old church had been destroyed by a Mosquito bomber during the war. Next stop was for a pint of Adnams in The Old Workhouse, the only surviving pub in Bawdeswell. After a pleasant pint we had to leave this cosy pub and continue our walk on to the locked St. Thomas church in Foxley, where a dubious scratch dial was found by the priest’s door. Returning to the cars for Salmon roulades and Premium Orkney crab terrine on nairn’s rough oatcakes. The pies bursting with aroma when sliced, revealed a pleasant pink filling, complete with a little jelly. The outstanding feature of this pie was the very crisp and tasty crust. The filling had a good meaty texture and lightly spiced, so not delivering a big punch, the application of a little mustard complemented this pie and it romped home with a very healthy score of 7.9375 with a standard deviation of 0.62321. Shortcake completed the grazing. So a normalized score of 8 for G. Morris pies.

G. Morris and Sons

The start of Songkran started off with warm sunshine – T-shirt weather and appropriately with the forecast of rain showers later. Vidor the batterer, just back from fighting the Pjork Scratchings @ the battle of Rackheath Village Hall, led us North to Tunstead... Visiting St. Swithin's church in Ashmanhaugh, revealed a smart scratch dial with Arabic numerals. The pre pie pub had now become “The Olive Branch” restaurant bar and sold no real ales! We made do with various offerings and toasted Ricky’s choices of pub “Up yours!” consuming our beverages in the warm sunshine. We headed back to the cars to sample pies from G. Morris & Sons, an old staple, not having time to source an interesting pie. Previously they had scored 7.5 and 8, today they were bland, lacking seasoning and scored a disappointing 6.14286 with a reasonably high standard deviation of 0.69, so a normalised 6 for G. Morris & Sons. Thor was not happy with the pie offering either – the sky turned black and he pelted us with 1/4” hailstones!!!

G. Morris and Sons, Fat Cat public house

While I was in search of non-existent Water Towers in sunny Jersey, Don did us proud and produced two different pork pies! He also did an excellent job of recording the scores. After a walk around Bacton wood, the pie munchers gave their verdict at Briggate on a pie from G. Morris & Sons on the Heartseas: This scored 7.916666 with a standard deviation of only 0.37638. The second pie from the Fat Cat public house did slightly better scoring spot on 8 with a slightly higher standard deviation of 0.44721. So that’s a normalised 8 for both the pies. (A G. Morris & Sons pie was last sampled on 21st January this year, scoring a 7.5 and we sampled a Fat Cat pie on the 20th May when it scored an 8).

G. Morris and Sons

Pies from the Pie Master's local butcher, G. Morris & Sons were sampled at Bunwell, where they scored a normalised 7.5.