Pork Pies and other Growlers

Just a 2017 reminder not to forget your ‘Christmas pie’. Stand pie, Gala pie or large pork the variety will not matter but I shall pass on a Melton Mowbray.
Yorkshire folk are not fetishists but we do love or at worst like our pork pies. Why not ask John Prescott!

In April 2010 pie fans, including superhero Pie Man, lined the cobbles outside the Old Bridge Inn, Ripponden, to sample  entries in the 18th annual Master Pork Pie Maker competition. then there was the internet sensation the Burger King Pie Man. . Get along to snarf a great pie from around the country and remember last years overall winner was Simon Haigh of Hinchcliffe’s in Netherton near Wakefield.

Growlers

• ‘When it comes to finding a great pie, you are never going to go too far wrong if you ask a Yorkshireman.

• According to the concise gentlemen of Oxford and the Yorkshire Post, a growler is a small iceberg or a four-wheeled cab. They do not know what they have missed. Anyone from these parts devoid of vegetarian tendencies would tell those who write our dictionaries that a real growler is a thing of beauty, rare personality and infinite variety. It is a pork pie’. read all the Yorkshire Post article.

• Growlers are apocryphally named as they cause and or stop the belly growling. A double whammy in the noise stakes but lets not go there.

• The stand pie is a bigger version and an essential part of Christmas with triangular wedges for all comers complete with home-made piccalilli.

• Gala pies seem to end up with an egg cooked into the middle of the meat but no matter how you slice it I always get a bit of white and no yoke.

• A good pie has a crisp fresh hot water crust, plenty of liquefied jelly and a solid clump of juicy pork and fat with a secret mix of spices.

• Condiments and accompaniments should be mushy peas and mint sauce but I am happy with brown sauce, pickled egg or a couple of pickled onions. Of course if you want to get ‘Pie Eyed’ the best accompaniment is a pint or three of Best or Bitter.

• I did my courting in the 1960’s at  Pie Herbert’s on Carlisle Road in Bradford but sadly it hasn’t lasted as long as my marriage.

• Wilson’s small traditional pork pies, known in Yorkshire as growlers, use only locally sourced meat, have won numerous national awards and range in size from2″- 9″  in diameter.

• • Wear your pork pie hat this Christmas
  • Skipton butcher Farmhouse Fare in High Street reigned victorious in a ‘War of the Roses’ battle to find the best pork pie in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Meat Trader December 2010 Great Northern Pork Pie Competition.
  • Delia Smith reckons the most famous English pork pies come from Melton Mowbray and traditionally, a very small amount of anchovy essence was used to add subtle additional flavour. Seems a bit fishy to me!
  • There’s nothing like a homemade (in Yorkshire) ‘raised pork pie’ and Rick Stein shows us how to do it properly.
    
  • I can just about forgive Jones Pies   for adding Yorkshire Blue Cheese or Yorkshire Relish to there special pork pies but not for using Bury Black Pudding!  Still they are sponsoring Huddersfield Town in the Premiership and judging by the 2017 results we know ‘who ate all the pies’.
  • Visit Wilson’s Butcher’s and see the Pork Pie Wedding Cake.

• Telling Porkies comes from Cockney rhyming slang  Pork Pie a lie but it is no lie that Yorkshire pies are great – who ate them all?
• Telling Porkies Pork pie or Porkie pie, often shortened to porkie, is the Cockney rhyming slang term for lie.

The other results for 2010 from the Pork Pie Appreciation Society site were

• 2nd WILSON’S OF CROSSGATES, LEEDS.
• 3rd BENTLEY’S OF PUDSEY, LEEDS.
• 4th PETER MIDDLEMISS, OTLEY.
• PETER MELLOR OF NEWARK.
• ANGELA DANSKIN,OF INGLETON
• KEITH DYSON OF ALMONDBURY
• BROSTER’S OF LINDLEY, HUDDERSFIELD
• WILSON’S OF CROSSGATES, LEEDS
• BOLSTER MOOR FARM SHOP, GOLCAR, HUDDERSFIELD
• SIMON HAIGH OF HINCHLIFFES’ FARM SHOP, NETHERTON, HUDDERSFIELD
• LINDA’S FARM SHOP OF NEWARK, NOTTS
• Where were Weegmans my own favourite from Otley?

Love food
Photo source hardillb’s on flickr under creative commons license