Back in 2015, when I was getting ready to open our shop in Ichigaya, I went back to the UK to visit family and friends and to research all things pie. My first stop was London where I checked out some modern pie shops and visited many of the famous traditional pie and mash cafes. I have to admit, the cafe interiors, with their marble table tops, wooden benches and old English features and equipment were more appealing to me than the pies themselves. After London my next stop was in Bolton, a town in the north near Manchester (my university city). Bolton is a mecca for pie making and my mission was to visit pie making equipment manufacturers and order pie tins and other essentials for pie making. My journey took me through the centre of England and allowed me to stay the night with an old friend from university who I had not seen for more than 25 years. When I checked the route for the drive north I was happy to see that I passed near a small town called Melton Mowbray in the county of Leicestershire, the home of the great British pork pie. The day I was there was one of those rare days in the English summer when the temperature reached the mid-30s. Listening to the radio while driving, all the talk was that it was too hot. The English really do love to complain about the weather! If it rains, it is too wet, if it doesn’t rain, it is too dry. But I absolutely loved being in England on such a scorching hot English summer’s day.
Melton Mowbray is a classic rural British market town, the third oldest in Britain, with a large market filling the town centre twice a week and a large livestock auction site just outside town. I headed to the livestock auction first and spent an hour watching the auctions for sheep, cattle, chickens and even pets. Next to the livestock area was a large market area where I found a great sausage sandwich (with brown sauce of course!) and some classic cakes to keep me going. After lunch, I wandered around an antiques and flea market and found a great houseplant holder in the shape of a swan. I had already chosen the name Swan & Lion for my business, so I just had to buy that. And I still use it today in the shop.
Then it was into town for my real mission, to visit Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, the birthplace of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie and now home to the most famous pork pie bakery in the town, Dickinson & Morris.
Over the years running Swan & Lion I have been asked by customers where the flavours of our pies originate from, which specific towns, cities or regions of the UK. But unfortunately there is not really a good answer to give. Steak and kidney pies, for instance, do not have a regional origin. And despite a lot of research into the origins of pies and fillings, I cannot find information to help me answer this question. But the pork pie does have that regional identity, with its origins from Melton Mowbray. Pork pies are now produced all over the UK but it is the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie that is most famous. The unique characteristic of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie is that the pastry case is made by hand, or “hand-raised”, rather than made in a pie mold. It is therefore baked freestanding which results in its characteristic bulging sides rather than the straight sides found in pies baked in molds. Melton Mowbray pork Pies are also filled with raw uncured meat resulting in their grey coloured filling.
The way they are made by hand is by using a wooden mold, known as a “dolly”, around which the pastry is formed.
Mary Dickinson (Grandmother of John Dickinson, founder of Dickinson & Morris), a noted pork pie maker, is credited with using the first wooden dolly to raise the pastry case: she is considered as the originator of the hand raised Melton Mowbray pork pie. John Dickinson opened his bakery in 1851.
In this month’s Swan & Lion Newsletter we have a recipe for a hand-raised pie. I used a wooden dolly but also show you how you can use a standard jam jar. Check it out here: https://www.swanandlion.com/chicken-smoked-bacon-pie/
Pork Pie – Short History:
Pork pies have been around in the UK for centuries. The first recipe that resembles a pork pie was published in the medieval manuscript “The Forme of Cury” in 1390 – ground pork in a basic hot water pastry shell. These early pork pies were rectangle in shape, often contained fruits and were known as “coffins” due to their shape. It wasn’t until the mid 18th century that pork pies more similar to the ones we know today started coming into fashion and they were particularly popular in and around Melton Mowbray. And the reason is cheese. The region was becoming one of the UK’s primary cheese making areas, which lead to an abundant supply of whey, a by-product rich in protein and a free source of animal feed. And this was perfect for pigs, which could be raised by poorer people who could feed them with whey and other food scraps. And the pork pie provided an ideal way to preserve that pork meat by using salt and reducing its exposure to oxygen by encasing it in pastry.
Pork pies became a handy portable snack for the local farm workers and this was spotted by the more wealthy of English society when they visited the area for their favourite pastime, foxhunting. And they wanted their slice of pie too. Gradually, pies became more associated with high society and their picnics, high teas and hunting parties.
The Melton Mowbray Pork Pie now has a European Union Protected Geographical Indication status, granted in 2009. This means it has to be made within a certain geographical location to be called a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. .
Pork Pie Hats
I cannot write about pork pies without mentioning pork pie hats. Popular amongst Jamaican ‘Rude boys’ in the 60s they were ‘adopted’ in the UK by Ska loving Mods and Skinheads in the late 70s.
And something to dance to by The Specials, the band that got me on the dance floor for the first time in my teens.