Andrew Northrop

Pies from Cambridgeshire this week! The Pie Master visited Cambridge to photograph the water tower in the University Botanical Gardens and it’s internal pump, before it is demolished next month to make way for more green houses. While in Cambridge I took the opportunity to visit the establishment of Andrew Northrop to purchase pies. These were not made in-house, but sourced from a cottage industry in Peterborough, I was informed. The warm up for these was a six and a half mile yomp in the baking sun, that’s what Ricky had lined up for us. So as not to lose pie munchers to heat stroke, we headed for the coast (with everyone else) but too hot for Giada. A very pleasant walk from Gorleston-on-Sea where a helicopter was based, had us filling in a child’s survey in the woods, as we walked to Lound. Not visiting Lound church, we went on to St. Margaret’s church Hopton, passing a Mawkin family on a farm. St. Margaret’s church was closed for renovation work and being built in 1865 was too new for a scratch dial. We had lunch here before a short walk to the pub for a refreshing pint from Tipples Brewery. A walk along the beach included a brief stop while Manola, José and Don went for a swim... Returning to the car we sampled Panamanian King Prawns, prior to sampling the pies:These were small hand raised pies with a nice gloss finish. The meat filling was tasty but lacked a certain something, impressing some and disappointing others resulting in a very high standard deviation of 1.59948 with an average of 7.15, so not a bad pie on the whole. So that’s a normalised score of 7 for Andrew Northrop Family Butchers. Finally, Ricky did us proud by organising an air display over the sea while we were munching! Well-done Ricky!

Photographs © Pie Master and Jorge

Picnic Fayre Feast

After the apology of a pie last week, Manola offered to source a pie from Picnic Fayre, Wells-next-the-Sea. Manola came up trumps with not a single pie but four! To work up a healthy appetite for this feast we set out on a 6.25 mile walk around Narborough, first visiting All Saints church and failing to spot a scratch dial that was apparently on a tower buttress. We headed northwest to Pentney to the church of Mary Magdalene for our lunch stop, again no scratch dials were found. A final 2.25 miles back to the car without a drink - the Ship Inn, our planned stop, was now a Chinese restaurant. We'd had a pleasant walk, crossing and following the Nar on several occasions, now as we approached the cars, our walk master spared us crossing the A47 by going under the road bridge over the river. This was a very low bridge requiring all to duck down, however as we went under the bridge it got lower - getting us walking on all fours at the end! Thankfully, we had not consumed our cup of tea and feast: First Smoked Salmon Tsar Slices with Soy & Honey dip and Wasabi. The two medium pies (apparently made in Norwich) were next consumed, these had no jelly and a soft meat filling, sausage meat like and well seasoned, tasty but maybe not what you would expect in a pork pie. These scored a very respectable 7.375 with a standard deviation of 0.744. Next, we sampled the Gloucester Old Spotís, we sampled these on the 11th May at Salthouse, today they didnít have such a high gloss pastry and not quite so crisp. They did have a very small amount of jelly, I personally preferred these to the medium pies but they came in with a score of 7.125 with a higher standard deviation of 0.79057. Finally, we finished with authentic Turkish Delight ñ not as sweet as the UK version and with hazel nut. So thatís a normalised 7.5 for Picnic Fayre medium pies and 7 for their Gloucester Old Spot.

Picnic Melton Mowbray Lattice Pork Pies

A risky strategy was employed for the second Sunday of July: I left getting pies until Saturday afternoon - hoping to pick up something interesting at either St. Faith's Fair or the fair at Thorpe St. Andrew. There were no pies and a last minute dash to Wm Morrison had to be made to ensure we were not left pieless for the second week in a row. To make matters worse, our pie appetite was probably not as keen as usual, having an earlier than usual walk around Hevingham, passing Clarkes Quality Meats who's small pies we sampled on 4th May this year. After only five and a half miles and no pre-pie pint, we sampled a mushroom Risotto cake, prior to sampling the Picnic Melton Mowbray Lattice Pork Pies. The piecrust was very lardy especially the base and the pinky meat filling salt and uninspiring. He low score of spot on 6 was definitely due to a poor pie rather than from lack of pre pie warm-up. The standard deviation was a surprisingly high 0.84984, so thatís a 6 for Wm Morris Picnic Melton Mowbray Lattice Pork Pies.

Houghton Hall

No pies today... The Pie Master was at Houghton Hall looking at the water tower...

Houghton Hall water tower (1732) - oldest surviving purpose built water tower in Britain

The Walk Master AKA Vidor the Batterer, was dismantling his longboat after sailing through Norwich on Saturday as part of the Lord Mayor's procession, so he too was also unavailable. The British Water Tower Appreciation Society had negotiated with the Houghton Hall to open up the tower for our visit. The tower initially had a 12,000 gallon lead lined wooden tank, this was replaced during WWII with a 24,000 gallon pressed steel Braithwaite tank. This was still in use up to the late 1990's! Click on the BWTAS logo for more water tower delights.

Mabel

It is with deep regret that the Pork Pie News has to report that Mabel, after 7 wonderful years, has passed on to the "warren in the sky". Although Mabel was not one for Pork Pies herself, she was much loved by many pie muchers.

Mabel 2001 - 2008

Crantock’s West Country pies

A less challenging walk for our pie grazing warm up this week - a pleasant walk through Waveney Forest and then along the edge of Redwings horse Sanctuary to our lunch stop at St. Edmund's church, Fritton after only two miles! This yielded another scratch dial for the collection. The next 2 mile leg had the attraction of beer at the end. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very indifferent pint served by an indifferent bar man at the Bell at St. Olaves. The final two-mile leg had the prize of a pork pie – supplied by our original Pie Master, Charles. These were star shaped, West Country pies from Crantock’s on Norwich Market. The pastry was not the traditional hot-water crust, more of a flaky pastry, and a little over cooked. The filling was good though, tasty but not heavily spiced. The lack of jelly did not prevent the pie getting a very respectable score, coming in at 8.333 but may have accounted for the high standard deviation of 0.8165. So that’s a normalised score of 8.5 for Crantock’s West Country pies.

Crantock’s West Country pies (Click picture to open in new window)

Archers Two Pounder

A 2lb monster pie from Archers was our penultimate pie of the month, this was still warm when purchased on Friday and with the high meat to crust ratio, I had high hopes of this pie. We headed to Ludham to sample this pie, first visiting Ludham church then walking away from the water tower, a stroll along a lane with baby ducks by a pond, very pleasant. However, Ricky has a surprise for us – he’d pulled another extreme walk out of the bag! We were to walk along the riverbank to St. Benet’s Abbey – the footpath was on the other side of the river! Our route was two and a half miles through waste-high grass and stinging nettles on very rough ground in a gale force wind. After almost a mile of this, an alternative route that went along the side of a field was followed. It had been hard going, so much so that Giada had to go swimming several times to cool off. From St. Benet’s Abbey we followed footpaths to the King’s Arms for a well-earned pre pie pint. A short drive to Ludham village hall to sample the pie, but first instead of Canapés, Charles presented a Pancetta & Gruyère Flamé and a Polenta Cake. Then this weeks huge pie, similar in appearance to Mrs. King’s. This pie had a very tasty and crisp pie crust, but unfortunately lacked jelly and flavour, needing more seasoning, so this pie came in with a respectable, but not prize winning 7.1666 with quite a high standard deviation of 0.71774. So that’s a normalised score of 7 for Archers, a repeat of their scores from Reedham on 21/10/07 and West Harling Heath on 17/2/08 for their smaller pies. Just in case we were still hungry, Ricky brought out some Shortbread!

The mighty two pounder from Archers

The coplete feast: Pancetta & Gruyère Flamé, Polenta Cake, Pie and Shortbread