Roys Hand made pork pies

The last pork pie to be tasted in August were small hand made pork pies from Roys, purchased by Josie, from the deli counter in their Hoveton branch. To work up a good appetite – and boy did we need one, we set off on a clockwise circular walk from the West End Caravan club site in West Caister. We were accompanied by Giada, who took every opportunity to get wet regardless of the state of the water, and Mickey, plus masses of butterflies, mainly Tortoiseshell.

   

Tortoiseshell                                                   Peacock    

The lunch stop was at the church of St. Peter & St. Paul, Mautby, round tower with thatched roof, but no scratch dial. Just under a mile to the Kings Head, Filby only to find it was closed due to licensing problems. We returned to the cars for another feast to accompany our cup of tea... First up were two huge bags of tortillas to dunk into Butter bean & roasted Garlic, and Lemmon & coriander Houmous. After tackling that, we had to squeeze in a portion of pork pie! These looked the part, but opinions varied widely - scores ranging from 2 to 8, giving in a massive standard deviation, even greater than last weeks! The pies were judged to be better than last week’s coming in with an average of the scores of 5.44444 and a standard deviation of 2.11312. So a normalised 5.5 for Roys. But we hadn’t finished; shortcake from Clarkes Quality Meats to finish off with – it was very good. So a pint on the way home, at the Filby Fox and Hounds was called for to wash it all down!

   

Gregory's Family Butcher of St. James Street, Bacup

Snow did not deter 8 of us from turning out for a walk from Saxlingham Nethergate on Easter Egg day. Our leader in his bright AA Man’s overalls told us it’d be sunny by dinnertime. We didn’t believe him and we had a muddy walk to the church at Shotesham. As we walked up the path to the porch, the sun came out! A miracle – Ricky has obviously been sent to lead us! After consuming our sandwiches and searching unsuccessfully for a scratch dial, we headed to the Globe where they served a fantastic pint of Adnams straight from the barrel. We returned to the cars parked on Liz’s instruction at the village hall, where dining facilities were available to sample a pie from up North. Ricky’s son Mark had sourced pies from Gregory's Family Butcher of St. James Street, Bacup. These were oval in shape and pale in colour being made with short crust pastry, the filling was firm and pink with a very pleasant meaty taste that scored a very respectable 7.125 with a standard deviation of 0.64087. So Gregory’s scores a normalised 7. After the pie, we were all presented with small chocolate “Mabels” by Josie. The return journey passed through Stoke Holey Cross where we saw the 1937 brick water tower.

1937 brick water tower at Stoke Holey Cross

Brays

No dogs and no scratch dials, despite visiting three churches on our pre-pie appetiser walk around Aldborough on the last Sunday of the month. We did find a wonderful welcoming pub: The Crown in Aldborough, it served a good pint of Wherry and had very comfortable seats – so comfortable Josie nodded off! Returning to the car for this month’s second sampling of Brays pork pies – Ricky had spotted a Deli in Norwich selling pork pies so purchased a brace. Sampling the pies this time, the onion marmalade didn’t feature so prominently, allowing the full flavour of the Saddleback to be enjoyed, scoring an 8.11111, so a normalised 8 with a standard deviation of 0.6. Following the canapés and pork pie tasting, we were treated to a lovely Ginger Birthday cake cooked by the Führer herself (we won’t ask what oven she used) to celebrate the Pie Masters forthcoming birthday – Thank you Margaret!

Thornton’s Chocolate Birthday cake

Sunday 25th November we walked from Honningham and as it was Josie’s birthday, she bought beers at the Ugly Bug – the Ugly Bug Ale was quite a hit. On returning to Honningham, we had Canapés and Cava followed by Thornton’s Chocolate Birthday cake rather than a pie (at Josie’s request) much to the disappointment of Paul Pac-Soo.

Pickerings

Sunday 28th October’s walk started wet and we started by searching the church at Chedgrave for scratch dials, of which we found two. Meanwhile Don Warman assumes we’ve started the walk and heads off down the footpath by the side of the church. We realise we’ve lost Don and return to the cars and search around but can’t find him. Don returns to the cars and doesn’t find us… We continue our walk to Hardley for the lunch stop. On returning to the cars, there is no sign of Don so we head to the pub to find him (that’s our excuse) after a pleasant drink we return to the cars to find Don with a big bag of cans! At last we can start the serious business of judging this weeks pie from Pickerings. A very pleasant pie that scored well on all counts and for the first time everyone gave the same score - an 8, even Josie tasting it at home after the walk gave it an 8. We had a Pickerings pie last October, on the 15th, where it scored a normalised 7.5 at Alby. A short Pork Pie News this month, so I’ve space to congratulate Dr. Manola of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for winning the Nobel Peace Prize – well done!

Pâté en Croûte Cocktail and Carters of Acle

The penultimate September walk from Little Barningham was quite uneventful, but the highlight was at the end when we had two pies to sample! The first offering was provided by Gilly Hudson and was a French “pork pie” – actually a “Pâté en Croûte Cocktail”. This had a soft pastry with a pâté filling. Although tasty, this was judged, rather harshly, as a pork pie, unsurprisingly it only scored a 4.75 with a high standard deviation of 1.6046807. Josie hoping to repeat her good pie selection of earlier this month produced three small pies from Carters Family Butchers of Acle. These pies were badly let down by an exceptionally lardy pastry, the meat filling itself was quite acceptable, though not a great pie with only a score of 5.571429 and a standard deviation of 0.8380817. So that’s a normalised 5 for the Pâté en Croûte Cocktail from France and a 5.5 for Carters of Acle.

Arthur Howell

Josie produced the goods on the second outing of the month: A large pie from Arthur Howell Butchers of Wells-next-the-Sea. After an eventful walk around the Raynhams, where we stumbled upon Raynham Hall’s, Grade II listed, water tower & Giada decided to go swimming in a ditch she couldn’t get out of on her own, the Pie tasting commenced: The pie had a very good appearance but the proof of the pie is in the tasting and it did not disappoint, scoring 8.2 with a standard deviation of 0.4472136 - so that's a normalised 8 for Arthur Howell of Wells-next-the-Sea.

R T Harvey Ltd

Today we had another gamey pork pie from R T Harvey Ltd. Our pre-pie walk started at the church in Ormesby St. Michael, that boasted a scratch dial. From here we walked via Ormesby St. Margaret, where the church there also had a scratch dial, to the King's Head for Birthday beers. Returning to Ormesby St. Michael, we had canapés and champagne (supplied by Josie), pork pie, judged to score a normalised 7.5 (the same score as it received on the 17th of December at Gunton) followed by birthday cake! Meanwhile Don had gone into the church yard to let off a few celebratory fireworks!!! Is it any wonder I can't recall too much detail about the pie!

Scratch dial at Ormesby St. Michael                        Scratch dial at Ormesby St. Margaret

Emery's

Josie provided the pies on the first Sunday of December, these were from Emery's the butcher in Market Street, North Walsham. The pies were consumed after a walk spanning both sides of the A146, Lowestoft Road. The footpath by the side of the Gull Inn had going through a farm had been purposely blocked and the signage moved - this was later reported to the footpath officer. I don't recall much about the small hand raised pies, other than they scored a very respectable normalised 8. Following the walk, we took a drive past the small, 20,000 gallon, disused 1952 water tower that former Bystander, Bernard O'Brian, had hoped to purchase from Anglian Water. We met a group of walkers coming in the opposite direction and I had a mardle with one of them about this and other local towers to the disbelief of his fellow walkers!

Fryer's

Fryer's on Norwich Market produced pies with terrible pastry, but the meat interior was very pleasant. It scored a normalised 5 at South Pickenham, despite Margaret & Josie only awarding 2 points each.