I’ve discovered food comes with an accent. In Britain, at least. I had cockney meals that were jocular and sardonic, and posh meals that had all the refinement and the subtle perfection of a good British boy sitting straight up and say, “Shall we go to the library, mum?”
Pie is straddling these two linguistic/culinary worlds. It can express all the harsh barked syllables of cockney and the sweet skipping notes of posh. Every country, I suppose, needs a unifying food, and Britain’s is pie.
Do NOT assume this is the American version of pie, that lovely, gooey mass of baked buttery crust and fruit filling oozing out from under a slop of ice cream. Love that too, but it’s got nothing to do with British pies.
The British pie is stoutly savory. If I were to anthropomorphize it, it’d have to be a squat little old man, smoking a pipe by the fire in a tweed cap. It’d say things like, “jolly good, dearie, jolly good.”
It might look something like the rounded, red-cheeked baker at Borough Market who leaned over his case of pies with the authority of a man who knows what he’s meant to do with his life. I’m always a little jealous of those people who have such presence in their lives, who seem to fit there just right without all this frantic scurrying here and there looking for what they’re supposed to be doing (like, ahem, someone I know).
The baker swooped into his case, snatched pies, slid them into brown paper bags and handed them out to his regular clientele with a nod and a wink. Seriously. I felt like the timid schoolgirl – “hi, I’m a blogger from America” – shuffling my feet and ogling the goods. He looked at me with nothing less than horror when I asked if all the pies were heated.
“No, no no,” he admonished, “this one ‘ere, the steak n’ kidney, that’s warm. But the pork pies, all yer pies over here, these are cold. Sorta like yer version of a sandwich in America.”
Got it. Apparently pies are the British version of a working class sandwich, which coal miners and the like trucked to work with them and broke out at lunch, cold and ready to eat. However, there are also other, warm pies, the ones that contain that pocket of steaming love in the middle. These are pub pies, or in yuppie Britain, gastropub pies. You have them with a pint of beer while snug in that distinctly comfortable and protected nest of the pub. Yes, they were originally all about using leftover (sketchy) meat, but nowadays you can find organic locally sourced lamb pies and goat cheese veggie pies as well as the same old standbys, pertied up for modern foodies.
And they’re good. Dense as footballs, they seem somewhat impenetrable at first glance. The “ahhhh” moment comes when you make that first cut into one and a puff of aromatic steam wafts up at you. The pastry is flaky but firm, more like a pie crust on steroids than a croissant. The ideal bite : wedge of crust, which goes buttery and smooth in your mouth, with a spoonful of piping hot meat interior, followed by a swig of ale.
Straddling the pie on either side will always be its faithful pals, peas and mash. Yes, you read that right – peas. Eating them brought me back to dinners as a 6 year-old when my parents would say, “Sarah Ann Menkedick, you are NOT leaving the table until you finish those peas.”
I shoveled spoonful after spoonful in dutifully, feeling less like a suave international foodie than the chastised little girl at the dinner table. Alright, I’m done mom! Can I go play now? Once I’d gotten over the stressful nostalgic peas (which, being all organic and delicately cooked, not at all mushy, weren’t really all that bad) I could move on the mash, which is something the British can be rightly proud of. Strong, with a drizzle of dark gravy and a thickness and consistency that allows for use of a fork, they swoon, “We’ll get you through this winter, dahlin.”
So there’s the pie, the peas, the mash; all of which, to get it just right, should be drizzled with vinegar. This is the core of British cuisine. It’s hard to call something like a pie “cuisine” because it’s just so loving and inviting, an old buddy you sigh your troubles into in a soft wooden corner of the pub. But the pie manages to straddle all sorts of culinary boundaries, courting the posh, holding steady with the working class, inviting curious tourists, satisfying smirking hipsters. It’s warm belly is where British food starts and ends. Cheers.
Pies, Peas and Mash
I’ve discovered food comes with an accent. In Britain, at least. I had cockney meals that were jocular and sardonic, and posh meals that had all the refinement and the subtle perfection of a good British boy sitting straight up and say, “Shall we go to the library, mum?”
Pie is straddling these two linguistic/culinary worlds. It can express all the harsh barked syllables of cockney and the sweet skipping notes of posh. Every country, I suppose, needs a unifying food, and Britain’s is pie.
Do NOT assume this is the American version of pie, that lovely, gooey mass of baked buttery crust and fruit filling oozing out from under a slop of ice cream. Love that too, but it’s got nothing to do with British pies.
The British pie is stoutly savory. If I were to anthropomorphize it, it’d have to be a squat little old man, smoking a pipe by the fire in a tweed cap. It’d say things like, “jolly good, dearie, jolly good.”
It might look something like the rounded, red-cheeked baker at Borough Market who leaned over his case of pies with the authority of a man who knows what he’s meant to do with his life. I’m always a little jealous of those people who have such presence in their lives, who seem to fit there just right without all this frantic scurrying here and there looking for what they’re supposed to be doing (like, ahem, someone I know).
The baker swooped into his case, snatched pies, slid them into brown paper bags and handed them out to his regular clientele with a nod and a wink. Seriously. I felt like the timid schoolgirl – “hi, I’m a blogger from America” – shuffling my feet and ogling the goods. He looked at me with nothing less than horror when I asked if all the pies were heated.
“No, no no,” he admonished, “this one ‘ere, the steak n’ kidney, that’s warm. But the pork pies, all yer pies over here, these are cold. Sorta like yer version of a sandwich in America.”
Got it. Apparently pies are the British version of a working class sandwich, which coal miners and the like trucked to work with them and broke out at lunch, cold and ready to eat. However, there are also other, warm pies, the ones that contain that pocket of steaming love in the middle. These are pub pies, or in yuppie Britain, gastropub pies. You have them with a pint of beer while snug in that distinctly comfortable and protected nest of the pub. Yes, they were originally all about using leftover (sketchy) meat, but nowadays you can find organic locally sourced lamb pies and goat cheese veggie pies as well as the same old standbys, pertied up for modern foodies.
And they’re good. Dense as footballs, they seem somewhat impenetrable at first glance. The “ahhhh” moment comes when you make that first cut into one and a puff of aromatic steam wafts up at you. The pastry is flaky but firm, more like a pie crust on steroids than a croissant. The ideal bite : wedge of crust, which goes buttery and smooth in your mouth, with a spoonful of piping hot meat interior, followed by a swig of ale.
Straddling the pie on either side will always be its faithful pals, peas and mash. Yes, you read that right – peas. Eating them brought me back to dinners as a 6 year-old when my parents would say, “Sarah Ann Menkedick, you are NOT leaving the table until you finish those peas.”
I shoveled spoonful after spoonful in dutifully, feeling less like a suave international foodie than the chastised little girl at the dinner table. Alright, I’m done mom! Can I go play now? Once I’d gotten over the stressful nostalgic peas (which, being all organic and delicately cooked, not at all mushy, weren’t really all that bad) I could move on the mash, which is something the British can be rightly proud of. Strong, with a drizzle of dark gravy and a thickness and consistency that allows for use of a fork, they swoon, “We’ll get you through this winter, dahlin.”
So there’s the pie, the peas, the mash; all of which, to get it just right, should be drizzled with vinegar. This is the core of British cuisine. It’s hard to call something like a pie “cuisine” because it’s just so loving and inviting, an old buddy you sigh your troubles into in a soft wooden corner of the pub. But the pie manages to straddle all sorts of culinary boundaries, courting the posh, holding steady with the working class, inviting curious tourists, satisfying smirking hipsters. It’s warm belly is where British food starts and ends. Cheers.