Van Pelt of King's Lynn

After a hiatus of two weeks, quality pies for the munchers return. Van Pelt of King’s Lynn “Quality Pork Butchers Established 1935” once holders of a Royal warrant, were this weeks suppliers. To ensure that our palates were in prime pie tasting condition for this new pie for the munchers, the Walk Master had devised a route to take in a beer festival. We parked at Reedham railway station and caught the train to Berney Arms. From here we walked to the river and followed the Wherryman's Way towards Reedham. We took lunch at about three miles on the raised path where Don donned a plastic bag for a hat, why - no one knows, but he had a vague likeness of Father Christmas. Bellies filled, we resumed our trek to Reedham via the Wherryman's Way. Just before Reedham, we headed to the Humpty Dumpy brewery to purchase fine ales from the brewery shop. Heading back to the river and the Lord Nelson, only to find that the beer festival was being held in the village hall! Never mind, the Lord Nelson had an excellent range of beers for us to consume. However, their dispensing skills didn't match the excellent beer range. Eventually we had our much-anticipated beverages that we consumed by the river. The ladies were treated to a viewing of a group of men posing in their mankinis, standing on the top of their boat, as they passed by. We wandered off back to the cars, some following the Walk Master's route, utilising footpaths, while the breakaway group took a shorter route along the road. Back at the railway station, the first offering was carrot sticks and Waitrose supreme houmous. Then the irregular shaped pies with their domed tops and filling. Cutting was an effort as the crust was quite hard. Not a great deal of aroma but a very good looking filling with jelly. I thought this was a very good pie, though it was let down by having a quite salt aftertaste. The pie munchers judged this pie at 7.57692 out of ten - a good score as two returned a score of just 5! So a high standard deviation of 1.38212 was recorded. Ginger & Lemon Cookies supplemented the traditional shortbreads. After grazing, the pie munchers just stood around mardling for ages. Eventually we got into cars and raced back to the Pie Master's where cars and passengers were swapped about. So Van Pelt ends up with a normalised score of 7.5.

Dickinson & Morris

Pies return this week: the tried and tested Dickinson & Morris, Melton Mowbray pies last tasted on the 6^th April, last year. Reedham was to be the location to verify the pies past credentials. We parked in the car park of the recreation ground. From here, fourteen of us set off west and slightly northwards to Limpenhoe Common, along very minor roads. From here we headed south west along a track, squeezing past a farmer’s truck and trailer being used to unload livestock, to cross the railway line. Shortly after this, Josie spotted a small Grass Snake wriggling off ahead of her. On reaching the river we followed it’s northern bank on its meandering path east, pausing for lunch by Limpenhoe Drainage Mill at about 3½ miles. Sandwiches consumed, Elena distributed plums for dessert, then the mill was inspected internally, by those interested. Continuing along the river bank to the ferry, we found that our way was blocked, so a short diversion along Ferry Road to the Railway Station, and back to the Lord Nelson and the excellent first Reedham Riverside Beer Festival. Various beers provided liquid refreshment, before we made our way north and back to the cars. Smoked Salmon Crescents provided the first course before the pies were cut. Slicing the dull pie crust revealed a pinker than expected, coarse meat filling encased in a small amount of jelly. The filling, well peppered was pleasant, especially with the addition of mustard made up for the rather lardy crust. The munchers agreed giving the pies a spot on 7.5 with a standard deviation of 0.60302. Don then provided us with a portion of Bleu de Gex cheese to be sampled on Oatcakes. This was a powerful portion of cheese! Finally there was Shortbread for those that had room. Now it was time to have a go on the play equipment.

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.

Archers (Est. 1929)

A wonderful walk on Sunday the 17th, through West Harling Heath and around Riddlesworth with moderate aluminium can collecting, was the precursor to the second outing of Archers pork pies: We all agreed the pastry was really good but the meat filling was lacking in flavour, resulting in a score of a spot on 7 and a standard deviation of 0.70711, so that’s another normalised 7 for Archers. Previously it scored 7.1 with a fairly high standard deviation of 0.89443. This was on Trafalgar day 2006 at Reedham.

Trafalgar day - Archers (Est. 1929)

Trafalgar day saw us taking the train from Reedham Railway station to Berney Arms and walking back to the Railway Station. We called in for a pint at the Ship – unfortunately, the Lord Nelson wasn’t on the route. The good news was that we did have enough pie munchers to form a quorum and we had two medium pork pies from Archers the butchers (since 1929) recent winners of the best Norfolk Banger competition for the second time in a row. The pies had a good external appearance and released a lovely bouquet when cut. The piecrust was very good, perhaps due to the fact it was fresh – pies were still slightly warm when purchased on Saturday. The filling lacked oomph… and it wasn’t helped as the mustard had disappeared! I think mustard would have helped this pie achieve a higher score than the 7.1 on this occasion; the standard deviation was high at 0.89443. So quite an average normalised score of 7 for Archers

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.