M and M Rutland Butchers

Gelderston was the location to try these fine pork pies that Paul had purchased from M & M Rutland Butchers, in an attempt to provide the best pork pie. Not only had he chosen to source his pies from a quality butcher, he had an accomplice in Liz - he'd bought them frozen & Liz had cooked them just hours before they were sampled for optimum freshness... it paid off, for these pies with a little onion marmalade came in with a stonking score of 9.28571 with a standard deviation of 0.56695. This gives M & M Rutland a normalised score of 9.5, the same as Mrs. King but she had a lower standard deviation and higher native score, so appropriately, retains her crown.

Brays

Organic Saddleback pork pies from Brays were sampled at Binham today. These were quite gamey, but hit the spot scoring a high 8.16666, just beating last weeks pie from Sillfield Farm. The standard deviation was a low 0.25. A normalised score of 8 then for Brays.

Sillfield Farm

Great Yarmouth was the venue to savor another great pork pie delicacy that Charles sourced from Borough Market. This large pie was from Sillfield Farm in the Lake District, who specialise in amongst other animals free range rare breed pigs. This probably accounts for the pies filling having a nice meaty texture scoring a tasty 8.23636 with a standard deviation of 0.74468, so a normalised score of 8 for Sillfield Farm.

Born in 2005, no two piglets were alike, the mother is a black and white Saddleback.

Heath Farm Foods

A pleasant walk around the wilds of Wymondham worked up an appetite for a medium pork pie from Heath Farm, following a pint of Canary in the Railway Tavern. It was raining, so that probably accounted for the fact that I did not record any details about the pie other than it scored 7.85714 with a standard deviation of 0.69007. So that's a normalised score of 8 for Heath Farm medium pies.

Samphire

After some fresh sea air, we sampled a couple of pies from "Samphire" at Blickling Hall that Liz had kindly purchased, after our walk at Blakeney. These had a nice light crust with a crumbly meat filling scoring 7.875 with a standard deviation of 0.51755, so a normalised score of 8 for Samphire.

R T Harvey Ltd

Today we had another gamey pork pie from R T Harvey Ltd. Our pre-pie walk started at the church in Ormesby St. Michael, that boasted a scratch dial. From here we walked via Ormesby St. Margaret, where the church there also had a scratch dial, to the King's Head for Birthday beers. Returning to Ormesby St. Michael, we had canapés and champagne (supplied by Josie), pork pie, judged to score a normalised 7.5 (the same score as it received on the 17th of December at Gunton) followed by birthday cake! Meanwhile Don had gone into the church yard to let off a few celebratory fireworks!!! Is it any wonder I can't recall too much detail about the pie!

Scratch dial at Ormesby St. Michael                        Scratch dial at Ormesby St. Margaret

G. F. White

Today we walked from Salle, home of an elegant 12 legged, 100,000 gallon water tower, to work up our appetite for our pies from G. F. White, traditional family butchers of Aylsham. I'd sampled one of their superb sausage rolls the day before, so was sure these would not disappoint... They looked good, but the pastry was very hard and the meat filling didn't have the wow of their sausage rolls, so only a normalised 6.5 for G. F. White.