Pork Pie Year 2006 Review

Now we have all the scores in, I can announce our top 5 pies of 2006:

1. Mrs. King’s Melton Mowbray pie sampled on 26th November
2. Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray pie sampled on 3rd September
3. Hempnall Butchers sampled on 27th August
4. Cley Deli pork pie sampled on 26th November
5. Jarrold’s Deli pie sampled on 29th October

A great pie munching year!

Pie Master

R T Harvey Ltd

Organic pies were the order of the day from Harvey's in Grove Road. These were consumed in Gunton and were Delicious, however their dark meat filling was like a coarse paté and tasted more like a game pie than a pork pie. The pastry was good too, but not being the the ideal pork pie it scored a respectable 7.5 with a high standard deviation of 1.26491.

Bystanders Christmas meal

Sunday 10th was the Bystanders Christmas meal at the Barford Cock, so no Pork Pie tasting again this week.

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!

Mrs. King's (since 1853) and Cley Deli

Hardingham was the location of Sunday's pie festival: Charles, the former Pie Master, had sourced a huge Melton Mowbray pork pie from the Borough Market, London made by Mrs Elizabeth King Ltd, a member of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association. This fantastic pie scored a whopping 9.5, with a low standard deviation of 0.31623, propelling it straight to the top of the league table. A hard act to follow, but Manola did us proud with a pork pie from the Picnic Fayre Deli at Cley next the Sea. The pie filling was almost Paté like and very tasty. This pie scored highly with a score of 8.5 also with a low standard deviation of 0.31623, quite an achievement, following on from Mrs. King's.

Tavern Tasty Meats

Ricky visited the Farmers Market in Wymondham to source this weeks pork pie: A pie from "Tavern Tasty Meats". After an appetising walk around Glandford the pie munching panel awarded this pie 8.5 out of 10 with a standard deviation of 0.83666.

Wm Morrison individual pork pies

We went down market on the second Sunday of the month with individual pork pies from Wm Morrison. These mini pork pies were consumed after a walk round the beautiful Ludham water tower. Despite a walk with such stunning views to work up an appetite, they only managed a normalised score of 4.5. The 1980 beautiful Ludham water tower, identical to the 1977 Raveningham tower, however this tower was the first in the country to have the 250,000 gallon bowl constructed at ground level around the shaft, then the 600 tonne bowl was jacked-up and jointed to the shaft. This technique was pioneered in Örebro, Sweden in 1956.

Marks and Spencer Hand Finished Melton Mowbray

Bungay was the venue to sample Marks & Spencer's Large (440g) Hand Finished Melton Mowbray pie. Despite it having a lardy pastry it was judged to be a good pie with a peppery meat filling, giving it a normalised score of 7.5. Once the pie was judged, Don Warman, produced sparklers so that we could celebrate the failure of Gunpowder Plot:

Jarrold’s deli

We went to Great Ellingham to sample an old favourite from Jarrold's deli and it did not disappoint; it had very good pastry contributing to a very good score of 8.5 with a standard deviation of 0.5.

Pickerings

We had a pie from Pickerings to sample after our pre-pie walk around Alby and a pint in the Horse Shoes Inn. The pie scored a normalised 7.5.

Marks and Spencer individual pork pies

We sampled M&S individual pork pies – a wonderful pie in the mid 1980’s at Reedham. The pies looked good and had a good amount of jelly managing a respectable normalised score of 7.

Heath Farm Foods

We took a large pork pie from Heath Farm Foods to Thetford Forrest to sample. This had a very smooth meat filling, tasty with good pastry resulting in a very respectable normalised score of 7.5, a good score following two stonking pies from the previous muchings.

Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray Pie

Wood Norton near Guist was the venue to sample a Dickinson & Morris Melton Mowbray Pie purchased from Sainsbury's. This pie with its coarse textured filling had bags of flavour with lots of pepper, propelling it to the top of the league table with a normalised score of 9 - displacing the pie from Hempnall Butchers sampled just two weeks ago.

Hempnall Butchers

Liz provided a large pie from Hempnall Butchers to put before the pie munching panel after they had worked up an appetite after walking around Blythburgh and Wenhaston, visiting St. Peters’s church and admiring the c. 1480 painting of painting of the Last Judgement. At the end of our walk we admierd newer paintings, visiting British Water Tower Appreciation Society's exhibition of water tower inspired art in the village hall. The pie had a nice crust, a very tasty meat filling with plenty of jelly giving this pie a very good normalised score of 8.5, not only giving it the title of "Pie of the month" but also taking it to the top of the league table.

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.

Cumpstey’s

A very tasty medium pork pie from Cumpstey’s in Acle was sampled at Holkham producing a very respectable normalised 8 out of 10.

Tesco

Tesco provided one of their own brand pies for sampling at Halvergate. We wished they hadn't as it had no taste, though the pastry was crisp, helping it to a poor normalised score of 4.5.

Aldi's Crestwood

We went to Sheringham today to sample Crestwood pies from Aldi, a cheap pie with tasty pastry but the meat filling had no taste, resulting in a poor normalised score of 5.

Crusty Pie Company

Today at Caister-on-Sea, we sampled a large pie from the Crusty Pie Company, bought at the Royal Norfolk Show. This was a nice pie all round and scored a normalised 8 out of 10.

Pie tasting in Bramerton

Pie tasting by the river at Bramerton as we listened to John Taylor MBE (1921 - 2006) presenting his "Radio Times" show. We were joined by a large Spanish contingent for this pie tasting, though we have no records of the pies being consumed.