Review of Life of Pies by Martin Tarbuck

After releasing his book 'Life of Pies' it was inevitable that Martin Tarbuck would become a bit of a legend amongst the pie community. He has dedicated a large amount of his free time to travelling around Britain to review pies in the hope of finding where the best are available. The book covers a period of two years of pie eating and he estimates he ate over 400.

The book reviews 314 of the most interesting ones. Martin has used a narrative to pull all 314 pie reviews together into a travelogue type affair. He did this after advice from his agent (he had originally planned a 'Good Pies Guide' reference type book). I would say this idea does work, as you don't have to read it all, you can just delve into it as you wish because he has an index of pies in each region. However, I thought that given our shared passion for pies that I really should read the whole book cover to cover. It is available to buy now on Amazon.

Life of Pies - as close as it comes to literature pie-fection!

I can straight away say that this is an awesome reference and I thoroughly recommend it for anyone who is passionate about pies. I am sure I will use it in my future pie reviewing. Likewise I am pleased to see Martin used our recommendation of Paul's Pies (see page 276 of the book)!

It is remarkable how similar Martin is to us, in that he travels around reviewing pies. Like us he does things in a fairly light-hearted way whilst still taking the pie quest pretty seriously. Unlike us, Martin is from Wigan and it is clear this has influenced his idea of the ultimate pie, which is different to our idea of the ultimate pie. What seems to float his boat is a Meat and Potato pie which can be brought hot straight from the shop. This has influenced his scoring criteria which scores how nice the 'Place' is that the pie was brought from. He does, like us, also stray into mass produced pies from the supermarket and inevitably it is difficult to compare this to the craft version in a bakery. But what is quite amazing is Martin has done hundreds of pie reviews despite doing it all on his own!

It reminded me of 92 pies by Tom Dickinson which we also reviewed. It is difficult to string together repetitive events into one narrative and also to keep the events interesting. We know only too well it is difficult to not make a pie review boring after having written so many! From this perspective he does incredibly well and comes across as affable and self-depreciating. His sense of humour is always there which verges on bizarre. Sometimes I had no idea what he was on about but this was more than balanced out by the times where he genuinely made me laugh out loud. Comments like 'the gravy was so rich it has its own off-shore bank account' were brilliant.

My further observations about this book are as follows;

1. Be prepared for a relaxed attitude to what gets a review, he admits that they aren't pies, but pasties score pretty well. He even says that he is 'starting to miss pasties' at one point after eating only pies for a while (how could he...). Other local pastry delicacies also feature.
2. I was pleased to learn all sorts of new pie terminology, such as growler, plate pie and stand pie.
3. Apparently pork pies can be eaten hot, particularly in Yorkshire (I am now trying to get to grips with this idea, with little success).
4. You will come to realise that Martin really hates to pay for parking (but also hates retail parks).
5. The book makes it seem that you can't get a good hot pie in a bakery down South. Whilst I don't think this is completely true I did feel a bit of jealously as to the amount of great pie bakeries and butchers that Martin could find on his door step! There is a certainly a cultural difference in this regard.
6. I really need to make more trips up North, especially to Barrow-in-Furness.
7. I often ended up really wanting to eat a pie whilst reading this book!

Martin Tarbuck - Pie Legend

You may remember that Pierateer RAS went to the book launch event and met the great man himself. Here are his thoughts on the book:

Even after the hundreds of pie reviews we've done over the past five years, it's quite incredible to see such a range of pies (and yes, a few other pastry products that sneaked in there!) being reviewed by one guy! It's a great credit to Martin that he has spent so much time, effort and money on producing a book that we would be proud of! The range of pies is quite amazing and, while some of the anecdotes and stories in the travel-log style do slightly go off on a tangent, the pies really do hold this book together.

The list of recommendations will make any true pie fan's life a whole lot easier, and I for one will enjoy turning back to this book as a pie reference again and again. It's true what Pierateer SJL says that the style of the book is quite a unique but very entertaining look at the life of a pie eating road tripper - something perhaps only we Pierateers can really truly relate to on this scale - and there does appear to be a bit of a northern, Meat and Potato pie bias to the book, however Martin's effort put into this book will reward those who purchase it time and time again over the years. Martin - you're a pie rating legend!


So how did Pierateer SJL rate the book?

Condition - 6.0 out of 7 - The cover has a picture of the UK made of pies, shear genius.
Colour - 5.0 out of 7 - The book has two sections of colour pictures to supplement the black and white pictures included throughout. It is enough to make you drool!
Cheapness - 5.8 out of 7 -  Available for just £9.99 on Amazon, if you think of all the money you may waste on mediocre pies without the book then it starts to seem like a steal...
Capacity - 5.5 out of 7 - 314 pie reviews packed into one book.
Chewiness - 5.5 out of 7 - Plenty of pie statistics to chew on.
Content - 5.5 out of 7 - Interesting throughout, perhaps felt a bit long at times but then there were 314 pies to cover.
Consistency - 6.0 out of 7 - A consistent writing style and it worked well, certainly deserving of 'Pierate Recommended' status! Did I mention that it is for sale on Amazon???


Life of Pies (Martin Tarbuck)
5.61/7

SJL

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Review of 92 Pies by Tom Dickinson

This book is the story of Tom Dickinson's mission to visit all 92 Football League grounds in one season and to eat a pie at every ground. It really was a mammoth undertaking and quite impressive given that he wasn't getting paid to do it. This story holds a special place in the history of Pierate. We chose to review a Potts Pie for our first ever pie review because it was the pie which Tom said was the best of the 92. We have also started our own football pie league. Here is the long overdue Pierate review of the book itself.

Tom carried out his quest after finishing university, putting off getting a job for one more year by travelling the country to all 92 matches. This was during the 2008/2009 season. I felt some kindred spirit with Tom, we both finished uni at the same time. In 2008, whilst he was planning '92 Pies' we were planning a pie review website called 'Pierate'. The rest, as they say, is history.

To seem like I am being nice I will start with the positive comments. Firstly, I want to make clear that I really enjoyed reading this book. It was often funny enough to make me laugh out loud. I think Tom's sense of humour really struck a chord with me. It was very well written considering Tom is not a professional writer. The observations he made at the various matches gave quite an insight into many football clubs I haven't been to and it left me with a longing to visit more grounds myself. The book was divided up into 92 chapters, largely just talking about each match with little discussion of what was happening in between. This made it very digestible and quite easy to dip in and out of. Somehow Tom managed to make each chapter interesting, despite the fact that it could easily have been very repetitive. I know how difficult it can be to make our pie reviews interesting given the repetitive nature of the beast. Tom managed this by clever observation of what was going on around him in a way which reminded me of the most illustrious of travel writers, such as Bill Bryson, except that Tom seemed to drink a lot more alcohol on his trips (a worryingly large amount in fact!).

However, my main criticism with the book is that, considering it is called '92 pies', it DOESN'T REALLY TALK ABOUT PIES. I admit, I might be slightly abnormal in my manic obsession with pie, but it left me a bit disappointed. The book is after all called 92 PIES. In general he talks about the journey to the match, the match day experience and the match itself but quite often he doesn't even mention the pie AT ALL. He stated his mission was to buy a pie at each ground, but did he actually do it? I couldn't be sure. Actually, I was quite sure that he didn't have a pie at each ground because disgracefully he found that Charlton DIDN'T EVEN SELL PIES. Tom had to make do with a slice instead. Remind me never to visit Charlton Athletic.

I was left wondering if Tom even liked pies very much. Quite often he complained about having to eat yet another pie. He makes it seem like he ate a horrendous amount of pie. At most he had two in a day (there were a couple of times he did two games in one day) and he had a couple of stints of 7 consecutive football matches in 7 days. Well, let me tell you Tom that real pie lovers don't even complain if they have to have pie for every meal for a week! Actually, I did complain a bit....  But seriously, it isn't that many pies, I don't see what all the fuss was about. He stated that by the end he would be happy never to see another Pukka Pie again. It was like eating pie was a huge ordeal for him which I cannot even begin to understand. Considering this I ended up doubting whether I could trust Tom's recommendations on pies but, nevertheless, I will summarise his thoughts for you here. The rankings are taken from the back of the book and this is the only time he really scores the pies apart from one pie at Colchester which he says is '7 out of 10'.

Top 5
1. Morecambe
2. Darlington
3. Norwich
4. Wigan
5. Hartlepool

Worst Pie: Walsall

He also had good comments for the pies at Bournemouth, Macclesfield, Accrington, Cardiff, Preston, West Ham. He also had great comments about Brown's Pie Shop in Lincoln City centre (he did also eat another pie in the stadium). He obviously ate a lot of mass produced branded pies too saying that the Shire Chicken Balti pie was fast becoming his pie of choice (which we have also reviewed) and had negative views on Wrights pies. I am not quite sure what was so bad about the Walsall pie, when we visited the season after Tom, we found they also sold Shire pies, perhaps they changed their line up in light of his criticism? He didn't even talk about the Walsall pie in the book! The highlight on the pie front was that he was given a tour of the Greenhalghs bakery in Bolton before his final match.

Despite having criticised Tom's knowledge and lack of comment on pies he does admit that it was never meant to be about the pies. He took on the challenge after a dare from a mate. He wanted to rediscover his love of football and understand what makes the football league so special. It was just because the media latched onto the pie side of things that it became known as a challenge about pies. Really it is a book about football, pure and simple. As a lower league fan myself I found his comments and experiences interesting.

One last comment though is that considering Tom was trying to find what makes the football league special he did describe a lot of games as pretty terrible. I appreciate that sometimes you do have to sit through a lot of turgid matches. However, if you are a life long fan you will sit through it and you are rewarded by those magic moments which come along every now and then. The highs just can't be beat. I hope Tom did appreciate that, there was a lot of complaining from him about the lower leagues, in fact I think he said more games were rotten than he said were good. But for a neutral it just is never going to be as exciting. He did still seem to come away having enjoyed the experience overall.

Finally, I would just like to say thanks to Tom Dickinson, not only for the great book, but also for the publicity he managed to get for the humble pie. We try our best to raise the Pie-rofile but Tom was doing this before we even began, thanks Tom. I hear Morecambe do an Irn-Bru pie now, meet you there for a pie next season if you can face them again?

Condition - 5.0 out of 7 - Well presented and appealing.
Colour - 4.0 out of 7 - Some good colours on there, but a bit too much white.
Cheapness - 5.0 out of 7 -  Think it was about £10.
Capacity - 5.5 out of 7 - It was actually a suprisingly long read.
Chewiness - 5.5 out of 7 - Plenty of football observation to mull over.
Content - 5.5 out of 7 - Interesting throughout, perhaps felt a bit long at times but then it were 92 matches to cover.
Consistency - 6.0 out of 7 - A consistent writing style and it worked well, our first 'Pierate Recommended' which isn't actually a pie.


92 Pies (Tom Dickinson)
5.21/7

SJL

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