Penito Deli

The final pie tasting, of yet another new pie, was at Corpusty after our walk to Thurning, taking in views of the 100,000 gallon water tower at Salle, Ginger Mabels (rabbits) and hares. Thurning church provided another scratch dial for the collection, which is in excess of 100 dials! A surprisingly good pint of IPA was taken at the pub in Corpusty prior to the short walk to the cars. Charles provided a pie from Penito Deli (next-door to Digby's in the arcade). This was a traditional hand raised pork pie with good pastry and a dark pink filling. “Tastes like a pork pie should taste like” was the Führer’s quote. The other pie munchers agreed with a score of 8.16666 and a low standard deviation of 0.2582. So a normalised score of 8 for Penito concludes this months porky review.

Black turkey seen on walk

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

Wm Morrison Vale of Mowbray

Only four of us (and Giada) braved the wind and rain on Sunday 16th. Thanks to Ricky’s planning, we managed to dodge most of the rain by walking around North Walsham, home of the 1933, 75,000 gallon & 1953, 175,000 gallon water towers. No pub or church porch to eat our sandwich’s in, for us hardy walkers this week. Today’s pie was another new pie for us: Wm Morrison Vale of Mowbray – I didn’t have high hopes for this and so it turned out. The pie crust was OK but the filling, pink and almost tasteless, scoring a measly 4.875 and with a low standard deviation of 0.25 confirms that we all found this pie to be poor. A normalised 5 then for Wm Morrison Vale of Mowbray.

North Walsham 1953 and 1955 water towers

Graves of Briston and Marks and Spencer individual pork pies

Ricky continued his series of extreme walks that he started on the 3rd of February - with his walk through the “dangerous” woods of Blickling Hall, in a gale! This week he had us he walking through fields of angry horses that tried to bite, charge at us and even one tried a back kick! He had prepared us for the experience by organising a stop at the Bull in Little Walsingham for a fortifying drink. A very welcoming and dog friendly pub that served a good beer. The rewards of this walk were two pies for us to sample: First, M&S individual pork pies – a wonderful pie in the mid 1980’s – but have since gone down hill. We last sampled these on the 17th September 2006 in Reedham, where they scored a normalised 7. Today they scored only 6.375 with a standard deviation of 0.64403 so a normalised 6.5. Paul had provided a bonus pie from Graves in Briston, a first for all of us. This pie had a pale crust and a jelly filled steam hole. The filling was very pale, almost white and a little crumbly. The taste – heaven, with or without mustard. This pie scored a handsome 8.95833 with a standard deviation of 0.68948, so that’s a normalised 9 for Graves.

Frank Spurgeon

Mothering Sunday saw us hossing out to Lyng a little later than usual to search for scratch dials, of which there were none, and to work up an appetite for the pork pie tasting. We saw the first new lambs of the year and visited the church with the widest column less nave in East Anglia, possibly the UK, at Elsing. Returning to the cars parked in the Lyng Leisure Centre’s car park for our ‘Rave’ – music from Keith Skues on the wireless and Tea, Canapés and Pork Pies from Frank Spurgeon were consumed before we could be evicted. The pies only have had one previous tasting, 8 months ago at Irstead. The pies had good appearance and a fine textured filling with a little jelly. A good pie scoring 8.1 with quite a high standard deviation of 0.73786, so again Frank Spurgeon scores a normalised 8. Previously when we tasted these pies on the 5th June they scored 8.14286 with a much lower standard deviation of 0.24398.