A
pork pie is a traditional British
meat pieA meat pie is a savoury pie with a filling of meat and other savoury ingredients. Principally popular in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, meat pies differ from a pasty in the sense that a pasty is typically a more portable, on-the-go item, as opposed to a more conventional pie.-History:The...
. It consists of roughly chopped
porkPork is the culinary name for meat from the domestic pig , which is eaten in many countries. It is one of the most commonly consumed meats worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BC....
and
pork jellyPork jelly is a broth made from a mixture of leftover pig organs and other ingredients. Pork jelly is a popular appetizer and, nowadays, is often prepared in a more modern version using lean meat, with or without leftover pig organs...
sealed in a
hot water crust pastryHot water crust is a type of pastry used for savoury pies, such as pork pies, game pies and, more rarely, steak and kidney pies. Hot water crust is traditionally used for making hand-raised pies....
. It is normally eaten cold as a snack or as part of a meal.
Types
There are two main types of
pork pie generally available in commercial outlets:
Common pie
The common pie uses
cured meatCuring refers to various food preservation and flavoring processes, especially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking...
. Often produced in moulds or form, it gives the outside of the pie a very regular shape and the inside filling a pink colour. It is easier, simpler and cheaper to produce in volume, and hence the more common choice for commercial manufacturers.
Melton Mowbray pork pie
The Melton Mowbray pork pie is named after a
townMelton Mowbray is a town in the Melton borough of Leicestershire, England. It is to the northeast of Leicester, and southeast of Nottingham...
in
LeicestershireLeicestershire is a landlocked county in the English Midlands. It takes its name from the heavily populated City of Leicester, traditionally its administrative centre, although the City of Leicester unitary authority is today administered separately from the rest of Leicestershire...
. Melton pies became popular among
fox huntersFox hunting is an activity involving the tracking, chase, and sometimes killing of a fox, traditionally a red fox, by trained foxhounds or other scent hounds, and a group of followers led by a master of foxhounds, who follow the hounds on foot or on horseback.Fox hunting originated in its current...
in the area during the late nineteenth century. Only pies made within a designated zone around Melton, and using
uncuredCuring refers to various food preservation and flavoring processes, especially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking...
pork, are allowed to carry the Melton Mowbray name on their packaging.
The uncured meat of a Melton pie is grey in colour when cooked; the meat is chopped, rather than minced. The pie is made with a hand-formed crust – this style of production gives the pie a slightly irregular shape after baking. As the pies are baked free–standing, the sides bow out, they are not vertical like mould-baked pies.
In light of the premium price of the Melton Mowbray pie, the
Melton Mowbray Pork Pie AssociationThe Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association is a group of pork pie manufacturers in the Melton Mowbray area of England, UK. The association was set up in 1998 with the aim of helping to protect the Melton Mowbray pork pie recipe.-Product protection under the EU:...
applied for protection under the European "
Protected designation of originProtected Geographical Status is a legal framework defined in European Union law to protect the names of regional foods. Protected Designation of Origin , Protected Geographical Indication and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed are distinct regimes of geographical indications within the framework...
" laws as a result of the increasing production of Melton Mowbray-style pies by large commercial companies in factories far from Melton Mowbray, and recipes that deviated from the original uncured pork form. Protection was granted on 4 April 2008.
Artisan pork pies
Melton Mowbray is considered the traditional source of commercial and
artisanAn artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...
made pork pies, and the geographic range of British pork pies tends to centre on the
English MidlandsThe Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
. Nevertheless, other regions of England also have small artisan, premium pork pie makers; notably Norfolk and Lincolnshire.
YorkshireYorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
is also claimed as a good place to find "Artisan pork pies", also known as
Growlers. An annual competition is held in
RippondenRipponden is a village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, in West Yorkshire, England, near Halifax, on the River Ryburn. It is the site of a Roman settlement, and there is a Roman Road over nearby Blackstone Edge, a rocky ridge of Millstone Grit...
, Yorkshire, to find the best pork pie.
Variations
Pork pies have declined in popularity and availability in Britain since the middle of the 20th century, concurrent with the rise in consumption of foreign snack foods. Varieties have extended further in recent years, which might be a reaction by commercial manufacturers to consumer health concerns, as pork pies tend to be very high in both calories and fat content.
A common variation on the common pork pie is the
gala pie; a pie in which the pork is mixed with chicken and with a hard boiled egg in the centre. Gala pies are often baked in long, loaf-type tins, with multiple eggs arranged along the centre. The so called "long egg" in Gala pies is actually made of several eggs. The yolks are separated from the whites and the yolks are then poured into a long tube-shaped mould in which they are cooked. The hard yolk is removed from the mould then put inside a larger tube-shaped mould and the egg whites are poured round the outside of the hard yolk. The whole thing is then cooked again to harden the whites around the yolk. This is then removed from the mould thus producing one very long hard-boiled egg.
A picnic pie is commonly available as smaller (3–5 in) varieties and ideal for
picnicIn contemporary usage, a picnic can be defined simply as a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors , ideally taking place in a beautiful landscape such as a park, beside a lake or with an interesting view and possibly at a public event such as before an open air theatre performance,...
s, usually with additional ingredients added to the pork and jelly filling mixture. Fillings added to the pork include
appleThe apple is the pomaceous fruit of the apple tree, species Malus domestica in the rose family . It is one of the most widely cultivated tree fruits, and the most widely known of the many members of genus Malus that are used by humans. Apple grow on small, deciduous trees that blossom in the spring...
s,
picklePickling is a process of preserving food. Pickle or pickling may refer to:-Food:* Pickled cucumber* Pickled onion* Pickled herring* Indian pickle includes oil-based food preservation* Branston and similar sweet pickle relishes...
s or
baconBacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...
.
In some cases the solid pastry top is replaced by a
pastry latticeThe criss-crossing pattern of strips in this pastry is reminiscent of latticework.The idea of latticed pastry is used as a lid to many different tarts or pies....
, allowing the meat filling to be seen. Occasionally the top crust is dispensed with altogether in favour of a layer of
cranberriesCranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...
sealed into place with
aspicAspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads....
jelly.
Names and references
Pork pie or
Porkie pie, often shortened to
porkie, is the
Cockney rhyming slangRhyming slang is a form of phrase construction in the English language and is especially prevalent in dialectal British English from the East End of London; hence the alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang...
term for
lie. This was alluded to in a
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
broadcast during the
1997 UK general electionThe United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
, entitled '
John MajorSir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
's Pork Pie Factory'.
In
YorkshireYorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
(and also in Jersey), a pork pie is sometimes referred to as a "growler". Larger sized pork pies are also known as "stand pies", especially in
West YorkshireWest Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
(and more so,
HalifaxHalifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
).
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