Laurels Farm Butchers

More Suffolk pies this week, two medium pies from Laurels Farm Butchers in Eye. We were sampling them in their home county: the pie munchers headed down to Reydon to walk by the coast. Parking in the shade, in the car park of St. Margaret’s church, we had a little quiet road walking, as we made our way east. as we made our way east. We passed several interesting buildings, including the twin turrets at the entrance to a rest home for the aged in Covert Road. We then took footpaths to the coast at Southwold, emerging through the barren landscape, just north of the pier. Lunch again this week was taken above the very choppy waves, on the pier, after visiting the “Under the Pier show”. Continuing our walk south, along the sea front, we paused by Gunn Hill while José and José Luis went swimming and the Walk Master had a paddle. We followed the coast along The Denes to the river, where we headed inland by the River Blyth to the Harbour Inn for pints of excellent Adnams. We then headed north over Busscreek Marshes and then up Shepherd’s Lane, passing St. Felix school. Crossing the Halesworth Road, we continued north by a footpath to return to St. Margaret’s church, where we examined it unsuccessfully for scratch dials. Then the raison d’etre for this Sunday’s outing: King Prawns with a marie rose sauce were today’s canapé, preceding the pork pies from Laurels Farm Butchers. The Pie Master, eager to sample these good-looking pies, did the pie photography without Svinjski Sudal! King Canape realising this oversight alerted the Pie Master who then re-photographed the, now sliced, pies with our mascot. These excellent pies delivered on all counts: nice aroma, well jellied, crisp tasty pastry with a flavoursome meaty filling, further enhanced with a dab of mustard. Not surprisingly, these pies found favour with all eleven pie munchers, resulting in a score of 8.45455 with a standard deviation of 0.87905. The traditional shortbread returned this week, completing the munching. So Laurels Farm Butchers score a normalised 8.5 on their first outing with the pie munchers.

Roll mouse over picture to see uncut pie

Millers of Dorset

A new pie this week: Millers of Dorset, established 1937 – where do we keep finding them? Somerfield this week, reduced to a pound a pie, down from £1.49! Before we could munch said bargains, the pre-pie yomp had to be completed. 14 of us set off northwards from the church car park at West Somerton and bearing right reached Winterton Ness and Bishy-barney-bee beach! They were crawling all over the sand. Strolling south-east down the coast with many beautiful dogs enjoying the sand and sea, we paused to eat our sandwiches in the dunes, while some elected to go for a swim first and caught site of a seal swimming near to land. Bishy-barney-bees were not the only uninvited guests to our picnic - hundreds of hoverflies had joined them too. Retreating from the beach at Winterton-on-Sea, we sort sanctuary at the Fishermans Return and pints of Wherry and Winter's Revenge. Following footpaths east, we came upon a garden where a lady was taking a bath – a work of art that was one of many, including a tin can sculpture that Don appreciated. Returning to the church of St. Mary, we crossed grass fields with scores of rabbits, all hossing to shelter, when they spotted us. The church was closed due to ongoing refurbishment. The scratch dial, previously photographed was still there, beneath a window. Tea and nairn’s mini oatcakes with Tapenade and supreme taramasalata started this week’s feast. The rather dull looking pies were then cut, releasing no aroma. The pies had a smooth pale pink filling that looked like luncheon meat with no jelly. The tasting proved worse than the aesthetic, the pastry being lardy and the filling worse than tasteless – mustard could not rescue this pie. Surprisingly, some munchers did not find it so bad and it scraped in with a score of 3.95833 with a standard deviation of 0.63246. Thankfully there were better flavours to consume: Chocolate and Cherries, Maple syrup & pecan galettes and shortbread! So a normalised score of 4 for Millers of Dorset.

Massingham Brothers of Hoveton

The return to an old favourite this week: Massingham Brothers of Hoveton, this time in the form of small pies. The chosen munching location was Happisburgh cricket ground, after completing the Walk Master’s challenge. We set off west only to be brought to a halt after a couple of hundred yards, as Margaret had received a call regarding her poorly 102-year-old mum. Determining that no immediate action was necessary, the party of 12 munchers set off again... We now entered a field of barley, with Bishy-barney-bees running all over the footpath. The 1957, 175,000-gallon Happisburgh water tower loomed on our southern horizon. The footpath continued through fields of wheat and barley, passing a field of potatoes that had purple flowers. The footpath took us to Ridley, where we headed to St. Peter’s church, where we found a scratch dial on a buttress. Ridley was having an open day with a flower festival in the church and gardens open to the public. We therefore had to eat our sandwiches sitting on the church wall at 2 ¾ miles. Then Don disappeared into one of the gardens... when it was time to move off, Josie went looking for Don, having to pay to get into one of the gardens where she found Don eating a meal! He had to “doggy bag” his chicken & rabbit pie and eat it as we walked along... We headed north along the edge of a field of treasure hunters with metal detecting equipment, then east along a quiet road to the Lighthouse Inn for liquid refreshment, at four miles. The pub served a very refreshing pint of Harviestoun’s “Natural Blonde” that we consumed in the garden. Refreshed, we headed for Walcott and then along the beach. Here Manola, José and Don decided to take a swim, Manola and José had come prepared for the event, bringing a towel – Don used his hat! Further along the beach, back at Happisburgh, the Walk Master’s challenge ratcheted up a notch: the slope up the cliff to the caravan park had gone, so scaling the cliff was proposed. Charles’ National Service commando training came to the fore and he made short work of the challenge. Further munchers followed, but the Führer led a breakaway group on a detour, further along the beach to some metal stairs. Regrouped, we visited the church of St. Mary the Virgin with swifts nesting in the porch. No dials here and we headed off back to the cars for another feast. The first course consisting of spinach bourekia, an M&S meze selection, organic houmous and Highland oatcakes. Then followed a soupçon of pork pie – due to unpunctual pie procurement, just three small pies were available at Massingham Brothers. Cutting the pies revealed a nice pink meat filling and the merest hint of jelly. No aroma was present and munching the pies was dominated by the crust, this was not particulay good. The meat filling was tasty though. Opinions differed resulting in a high standard deviation of 0.84477 with the score being somewhat lower than before, at 7.68182. The small pie portion was probably a good thing as organic dark chocolate, ginger & pear flavoured biscuits and milk chocolate florentines supplemented the shortbread! So a normalised score of 7.5 for Massingham Brothers of Hoveton’s small pies.