Tesco's Crispy Bake Pork Pies

Another wet start to the pre-pie walk, our weather wizard took us west to Hempton, just south-west of Fakenham. The walk took in two churches, none with scratch dials, and by the time we’d reached the first, the weather had cleared up. We had lunch in the second, then Giada had a swim in a nearby pond. We then only had about two and a quarter miles to go to the Bell in Hempton for a pleasant pint. Returning to the cars for mini poppadoms & potato squares to dip into a mixed olive & tomato and a Jalapeño Houmous. Next a new pie: Tesco's new Medium Crispy Bake Pork Pies – these appeared to be hand made, not being of a uniform shape. Slicing revealed a nice pink filling with a small amount of jelly, but it’s the munching that counts. Sadly these pies disappointed, the crust was OK, the little jelly nice, but the filling lacking any intensity of flavour and having no aroma. The pies scored a spot on 4.7, but opinions were very mixed, individual scores ranging from 2 to 7.5, resulting in a massive standard deviation of 1.81353 – the highest we’ve recorded. So a normalised 4.5 for Tesco Crispy Bake Pork Pies.

E. C. Longworth & Son

Your Pie Master (and his mawther) ventured into Suffolk in the hope of finding a foreign porky delicacy! Finding that the once famous Ronnie Cook butchers of Lowestoft had given up several years ago, a visit to near by E. C. Longworth & Son Family Butchers of 147, High Street, yielded pork pies that the butcher enthused about. When questioned, he admitted that he didn’t make them but imported them from Gt. Yarmouth – so a new pie for us. Seven pie munchers and a conscientious objector set off in the pouring rain from Sea Palling towards Eccles on Sea and then inland to Hempstead church for lunch. Giada made the most of the large puddles on the approach to the church... St. Andrew’s provided another scratch dial – the first for a few weeks.

      Giada in a puddle                             Hempstead scratch dial

Returning to Eccles on Sea, we then walked along the beach back to Sea Palling taking in the Old Hall Inn for a pre pie pint. Returning to the cars we got straight into the pork pies, their being no canapés. The pies had a very bright coloured crust and had no jelly and a firm meat filling that failed to impress, the predominant taste was salt. We all seemed to agree, with a 0.56696 standard deviation, that these pies were below average coming in with a score of 6.71429. Then the Belgian biscuit selection had another outing to conclude proceedings. So that’s a normalised 6.5 for E. C. Longworth.

Independent “Ten Best Pork Pies”

The Independent published their “Ten Best Pork Pies” today, you can view it online by clicking here. They review Dickinson and Morris, Marks & Spencer - who we do not rate, but they put them above Bray's, who we do rate. Also further down the table are Mrs. King's who we rate as number 1 and Walkers fluted pie also makes it onto the list. Their number one pie was from Walter Smith's, this was reported to be one of the world's leading delicacies on the 4th September, last year.

Heath Farm Foods

Off to Geldeston on the second pie outing of the month, for a walk up along the river to Beccles and a stop at the church for lunch. No dials on this, nor on the Roman Catholic church we subsequently visited. We returned to Geldeston on the other side of the river meeting a great number of ramblers doing the walk the wrong way round. We crossed the river at Geldeston locks and stopped at the pub to sample the beer from Lowestoft’s Green Jack brewery. A very pleasant stop after six and a half miles - just the ticket to get the pie palette in top condition. A short stagger to the cars in the overflow car park to first sample a Chorizo, potato & sweet pepper Tortilla prior to sampling pies from Heath Farm Foods, previously scoring 7.5 in Thetford on the 10th September 2006 and 8 on the 18th March 2007. A very acceptable pie with little jelly scored an impressive 8.05555 with a reasonably high standard deviation of 0.72648, so Heath Farm retain a normalised 8 rating. We finished off with chunky toffee shortbread bites, also from Heath Farm.

Who ate all the pies ?

M & M Rutland

We start the month of August with pies from one of the counties favorite butchers, M & M Rutland of Melton Constable. We were in the locality at Hindolveston about two miles south. From here, Ricky led us on a very pleasant pie appetizing walk, the highlight for the girls being the Alpacas in a field by one of the footpaths. No church on this walk, so we had lunch at the kiddies playground in Briston, then afterwards, some played on equipment provided. A short walk round the corner to the Green Man for a pint of IPA and the last few laps of the Grand Prix. Returning to the cars, pie grazing had to be put on hold while the Pie Master had to ferry walkers up the road to a hut selling local produce. After this diversion, King Canape produced a Ricotta & Pancetta flan and Thai spiced chicken in a thinly sliced mooli with a sweet soy dip! Next, the pies kindly supplied by Paul, from M & M Rutland, these were made in-house and without the onion marmalade as sampled at Geldeston on the 29th of April last year. The pies were very fresh being still hot when collected on Saturday. The piecrust was very crumbly when cut and tasted good. The filling too was good, spoilt by being a little over salted. These scored a very respectable 7.68182 with a high standard deviation of 0.92932. Then the biscuit course of Finest Shortbread and a Belgian selection. Then finally to complete this healthy hike in the countryside Liqueur chocolate cherries from Manola. So a normalized 7.5 for M & M Rutland this time.

M & M Rutland Pies

Andrew Northrop

Pies from Cambridgeshire this week! The Pie Master visited Cambridge to photograph the water tower in the University Botanical Gardens and it’s internal pump, before it is demolished next month to make way for more green houses. While in Cambridge I took the opportunity to visit the establishment of Andrew Northrop to purchase pies. These were not made in-house, but sourced from a cottage industry in Peterborough, I was informed. The warm up for these was a six and a half mile yomp in the baking sun, that’s what Ricky had lined up for us. So as not to lose pie munchers to heat stroke, we headed for the coast (with everyone else) but too hot for Giada. A very pleasant walk from Gorleston-on-Sea where a helicopter was based, had us filling in a child’s survey in the woods, as we walked to Lound. Not visiting Lound church, we went on to St. Margaret’s church Hopton, passing a Mawkin family on a farm. St. Margaret’s church was closed for renovation work and being built in 1865 was too new for a scratch dial. We had lunch here before a short walk to the pub for a refreshing pint from Tipples Brewery. A walk along the beach included a brief stop while Manola, José and Don went for a swim... Returning to the car we sampled Panamanian King Prawns, prior to sampling the pies:These were small hand raised pies with a nice gloss finish. The meat filling was tasty but lacked a certain something, impressing some and disappointing others resulting in a very high standard deviation of 1.59948 with an average of 7.15, so not a bad pie on the whole. So that’s a normalised score of 7 for Andrew Northrop Family Butchers. Finally, Ricky did us proud by organising an air display over the sea while we were munching! Well-done Ricky!

Photographs © Pie Master and Jorge

Picnic Fayre Feast

After the apology of a pie last week, Manola offered to source a pie from Picnic Fayre, Wells-next-the-Sea. Manola came up trumps with not a single pie but four! To work up a healthy appetite for this feast we set out on a 6.25 mile walk around Narborough, first visiting All Saints church and failing to spot a scratch dial that was apparently on a tower buttress. We headed northwest to Pentney to the church of Mary Magdalene for our lunch stop, again no scratch dials were found. A final 2.25 miles back to the car without a drink - the Ship Inn, our planned stop, was now a Chinese restaurant. We'd had a pleasant walk, crossing and following the Nar on several occasions, now as we approached the cars, our walk master spared us crossing the A47 by going under the road bridge over the river. This was a very low bridge requiring all to duck down, however as we went under the bridge it got lower - getting us walking on all fours at the end! Thankfully, we had not consumed our cup of tea and feast: First Smoked Salmon Tsar Slices with Soy & Honey dip and Wasabi. The two medium pies (apparently made in Norwich) were next consumed, these had no jelly and a soft meat filling, sausage meat like and well seasoned, tasty but maybe not what you would expect in a pork pie. These scored a very respectable 7.375 with a standard deviation of 0.744. Next, we sampled the Gloucester Old Spotís, we sampled these on the 11th May at Salthouse, today they didnít have such a high gloss pastry and not quite so crisp. They did have a very small amount of jelly, I personally preferred these to the medium pies but they came in with a score of 7.125 with a higher standard deviation of 0.79057. Finally, we finished with authentic Turkish Delight ñ not as sweet as the UK version and with hazel nut. So thatís a normalised 7.5 for Picnic Fayre medium pies and 7 for their Gloucester Old Spot.