Oakvale pork pies

Oakvale pies from Thorpe Family Butchers, Yarmouth Road - our eighth new pie in a row - was the object of the appetite creating walk on Sunday 16th. Ten of us plus Giada headed south to Weeting for the event. We walked through Thetford forest, finding strange plastic objects on the tracks (evidence of an alien visit?). Lunch was taken at the church of St. Mary’s, Weeting, our first visit but no scratch dials, onward to Weeting castle and then a short walk to our pre-pie pint at the Saxon. The “Rusty Bucket”, brewed over the boarder in Brandon went down well, while the storm clouds gathered. Two miles back to the cars revealed a venerable feast to accompany our cup of tea: First off, instead of Canapés, Charles presented a Pissaladiere! This is a puff pastry tart topped with sautéed onions, sliced green olives and anchovies fillets – yum! Next the main event, the hand raised pork pies had a glossy crisp pastry with a very small amount of jelly and obviously hitting the spot with a score of 8.2 with a standard deviation of 0.67495. We finished with a cheese course, Picón Bejes Tresviso, that José had brought back from his holiday with the Führer in Spain, a strong blue cheese. Giada was oblivious to all this food as she had been provided with large marrow bone by Don. We drove home through torrential rain, making us appreciate the talents of our Walk Master & Weather Wizard. So that’s a normalised 8 for Oakvale 6oz pies.

      Oakvale Pork Pies                            Pissaladiere and Cheese

Pie munchers                                       Bone muncher Click on images to enlarge

Hewitt's, Mattishall

Yet another new pie to sample on our second week of June! Our Walk Master & Weather Wizard took us to Sheringham Park to enjoy the Rhododendrons in bloom and the cool sea breeze this hot Sunday. Parking at Beeston Regis where a car boot sale was in progress and parking was at a premium, we headed south to Sheringwood eventually ending up in the park and walking paths we had not previously used. The assembled elected not to climb the viewing platform “Gazebo” and Ricky didn’t enforce a march to the top and an abseil down! I ventured half way up the platform to spot the Sheringham Park water tower after a tip off. Venturing through the Rhododendrons to the tower, I managed to photograph it with a wide-angle lens – another one for the collection. We returned to Sheringham along the beach for a relaxed pint at the Lobster before tackling the 3/4 of a mile route back to the pork pies. This week we were sampling small hand raised pork pies from Hewitt's of church plain, Mattishall. A crisp pastry enclosed a very tasty, not overly spiced, smoothish meat filling that pleased, resulting in a score of 8.7 and a standard deviation of 0.44721, so that’s a normalised 8.5 for Hewitt's smalls.

Icarus Hines

We headed to Swaffham for our first pie appetising walk of the month – a loop round the countryside north of Swaffham - not that extreme as we hadn’t been issued with jungle kit, so had no machetes to hack a path through the proposed route! A half-mile detour along the side of the A1065 had to be substituted. We arrived back at Swaffham at the church of St Peter & St Paul, unfortunately with no scratch dial and all locked up. We had a poor pint of Tom Wood’s at the Red Lion after visiting the Italian market then returned to the car to sample another new pie – the sixth new pie in a row. These were small hand raised pies from Icarus Hines of Sheringham. The meat filling was dark, slightly pink and had a fine texture. The pie was tasty with pleasant light crust, though Charles thought it a bit lardy, the filling was tasty with a definite presence of sage in the seasoning. The pies were well liked resulting in a score of 8.1 with a low standard deviation of 0.22361, so a normalised 8 for Icarus Hines small pies.

Abbotsford Pork Pie

The final pie of the month was yet another new pie to us – an Abbotsford Pork Pie. This was sourced from Netto on the site of the former water tower at Swaffham. Only four braved the rain for this weeks pie tasting, Margaret was visiting Berchtesgaden and Charles was in New York, we did have Giada & Mickey though. We parked at Roughton church then headed south, then west to cross the A140 where we walked to Metton church for lunch and to be serenaded by Mickey. We returned via the New Inn at Roughton, which now sold real ale, where we watched Lewis Hamilton drive the last few laps at Monaco, to win the Grand Prix. Then on to Roughton church where we sampled this weeks pie: The pie was large but lacked the usual gloss finish, inside there was a little air and a small amount of Jelly around the pink meat filling. The pie tasted good, though the pastry was a little soft, rather than soggy, scoring 7.5 and a standard deviation of 0.40825. So, a very respectable score of 7.5 for Abbotsford, especially considering the pie only cost 99p and was purchased on Tuesday (use by date was the 26th). The Walk Master & Weather Wizard spared us from any extreme activities this week and also managed to dodge most of the rain, we had some very light rain where as Norwich had heavy rain most of the day.

Sainsbury’s medium pork pies

Our fifth new pie in a row was the object of the appetite creating walk on Sunday 18th. Giada brought her boyfriend, Mickey, along – a trail hound with a voice & a half! The nine of us and two dogs set off from Mileham, and soon we were walking through fields of chest high oilseed rape. We initially thought this was yet another one of Ricky’s commando training exercises – advancing on heavy artillery, after last week’s encounter with small arms. The artillery turned out only to be bird scarers! The church at Tittleshall provided the lunch stop and two scratch dials for the collection.

Giada & Mickey rest in the cool porch of Tittleshall church

We now only had two miles to walk to this week’s pies. The Sainsbury’s medium pork pies "with cured seasoned pork filling" had a low profile, slicing easily. This revealed a smooth pink filling with no jelly and no taste! The pastry was crisp though to rescue this pie, scoring 5.777 with a very high standard deviation of 1.20185. So a normalised 6 for Sainsbury’s medium pies. We washed the poor pie from our palate with a beer at the Brisley Bell on the way home.

Picnic Fayre Deli, Gloucester Old Spot

Yet another new pie to sample on our second week of May! We headed to Salthouse to enjoy some sea breeze in the exceptionally hot weather. Then we discovered that we were on one of Ricky’s extreme walks, as we climbed Great Hulver Hill in the baking sun under fire! We were beside a clay pigeon shoot and the shot was raining down around us... It then occurred to me that Ricky may be putting us through his series of extreme walks on the orders of Colonel O' Shaunessey-Patel, to form a crack commando unit of the Bombay Irish Regiment? We took shelter and refreshments in the cool (18.8ºC) porch of St Mary, Kelling, before returning to Salthouse to sample local pies from just along the coast. These were Gloucester Old Spot from the Picnic Fayre Deli in Cley next the Sea. They looked fantastic with a high gloss finish and I was sure these would be cooked – unlike the Gloucester Old Spot pies from the Champion public house on the 8th July, last year. Manola had purchased a standard pork pie from here and it scored a healthy 8.5 on the 26th November 2006. Cutting into the pork pies revealed a crispy pastry and a dark pink mottled filling, but no jelly. The proof of a pie is in the munching and boy did these taste great, but not what you really expect from a pork pie. This and the lack of jelly ensured they didn’t displace Mrs. King from the leader board but came in with a high score 9.071429 with a quite high standard deviation of 0.7868, so a normalised 9 for Cley’s Deli Gloucester Old Spots.

Gloucester Old Spots. Photograph ©2008 Juan Luis

Clarkes Quality Meats & Country Kitchen

We headed south in three cars to Scole on the May Day weekend to sample another new pork pie... These were small pork pies from Clarkes Quality Meats & Country Kitchen, Low Lane, Hevingham – found on the Internet! To work up our appetite for this weeks offering, we had a very warm walk on both sides of the A140 enjoying the shade of the church in Scole for our lunch stop. Giada especially, after chasing after a Muntjac deer at break-neck speed over a considerable distance - she didn’t catch her new friend. We then took a refreshing pint of Young’s at the Horseshoes at Billingford before returning to the cars. After tea and canapés (spicy prawns, this week) had been served, the pork pies were carved into thirds. They had the external appearance of a traditional mince pie, not made of hot water pastry. The pastry had gone a little soft at the bottom, probably a result of keeping them in the fridge for two days. The pastry for some scored highly and for others it was a disappointment, reflected in the high standard deviation of the scores. The meat filling was pink and very tasty – no one electing to add mustard. These pies came in with a very respectable 8.15 with standard deviation of 0.94428, so a normalised 8 for Clarkes.