Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, Hand finished pork pie

The last outing in August was an all male (Giada excluded) around Coltishall, visiting the very interesting & well-documented Belaugh Church and the Red Lion in Coltishall. We returned to our cars at Coltishall railway station, where we consumed Mediterranean delights followed by a Sainsbury's Taste the Difference, Hand finished pork pie (I believe this to be a different offering to that presented on the 22nd of last month (score 7)). This pie had a rather hard pastry, but a good pie, reflected in the score of 8.1 but with a standard deviation of 0.821583836. So, that's it folks – Charles’ Mrs. King's (since 1853) still keeps her first place, and his P & S pie takes Pie of the month – a true Pie Master!

Shelton

On Sunday 19th we didn’t have enough pie enthusiasts to form a quaruem, so I present the following Pie Interlude: The Water tower at Shelton, near Shrewsbury is known locally as the “Pork Pie”.

Photograph ©2006 Andy Crouch BA ARPS

P and S Butchers of Holt

Charles supplied the second offering of the month: Two large pies from P & S Butchers of Holt, located in Bull Street – formally Tower Street due to there being a 56ft high, 15,000 gallon, brick water tower at the end of it on Shirehall Plain (1885-1957). Only four of us, the Führer being awol (plus Coffee and Giada) walked around Winterton-on-Sea on the hot Sunday, where we took refreshment at the Fisherman’s Return before returning to the cars, to sample Canapés, Pork & Pickle balls, the Pies and some sampled Liz’s Lemon Cake!!! The pie (we only sampled the one) had a good external appearance and a nice pink pork filling – just as I think a pork pie should be. There was a small amount of jelly and little air space within the pastry. The pastry was pleasant and light and the filling flavoursome benefiting from the addition of mustard to bring out its full potential. This wonderful pie scored a stonking 8.75 with a standard deviation of only 0.288675135 - so that's a normalised 9 for P & S Butchers of Holt.

Waitrose Lattice pork pie

We opened the batting on Sunday the 5th with a Waitrose Lattice pork pie after a shaded walk round West Runton, on a very hot day. This pie was tasted “naked” – I forgot to bring the mustard! The pie’s appearance was good, having a pleasing pink meaty filling. The proof is in the eating though… a very lardy pastry let this pie down and I’m sure the addition of mustard would have levitated its score… however this pie scored 6.857142857 and with “normalisation” scored a 7 on the pie board – I don’t think the mustard would have pushed it up above a 7.5. For the statisticians the score had a standard deviation of 0.748013242.