Pierate and UK Piefest flyers

What is UK Piefest?

Set up by the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association – who also run the British Pie Awards we attended back in March 2017 – in the self-proclaimed “Capital of Pies” Melton Mowbray, this is one big celebration of pie love! You can taste award winning pies from British Pie Awards winners – and more importantly bag some to take home! – as well as attending talks and demonstrations on how to make the perfect pie from experts like 2013 Great British Bake Off winner Frances Quinn! There will even be a Questions and Answers session with some of the expert pie makers there, as well as cheese, beer, cakes, chocolate, cider and entertainment!

Oh, and we’ll be there too, giving a talk on “How to Rate a Pie!”

When is UK Piefest?

Melton Mowbray will host UK Piefest

UK Piefest is in its second year and is held in the summer, this year on Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th July from 10am-4pm (so not long to wait!)

Where is UK Piefest being held?

Well when you think pork pies, you think Melton Mowbray! So it makes absolute sense that the town is the host of UK Piefest! With a number of local producers selling their wares at the event, you need to follow the smell of freshly cooked pies and get down to Melton Mowbray Cattle Market, Scalford Road, Melton Mowbray, LE13 1JY

Frances' Rainbow Picnic Pie - Screenshot from BBC

Who will be there?

Well apart from all the wonderful pie sellers – many of whom are past British Pie Awards winners – the star baker and demo pie maker is none other than Great British Bake Off 2013 winner Frances Quinn, who you may recall did a stunning Rainbow Picnic Pie in the final!

However why we’re quite so excited about UK Piefest is that we have been invited as guest speakers this year, to share our wisdom and ex-pie-rience on “How to Rate a Pie!” Yep, if you don’t know your 7 Cs of pie rating or haven’t heard enough pie eating anecdotes to last a lifetime, join us at 11:30am on Saturday 29th July! (Sadly we can’t make it on the Sunday too.) As well as explaining the 7 Cs of pie rating – what to look for in a top pie – there will be some pie anecdotes including how we ended up being on hit BBC One show “Rip Off Britain”.

Pierateer Rob, who appeared on BBC One's "Rip Off Britain" will be speaking at UK Piefest

What else can I do at UK Piefest?

Well, the pies the limit! At the very least for your £4 entry fee (or £3 if you buy online in advance) you’ll get tasting samples of some of the best pies known to man, the op-pie-tunity to buy some to take home and more pie based tips, info and trivia than you can fill in a fully encased pie crust!

When did it all start?

This will be the second UK Piefest, with the first last year being such a success story that they couldn’t resist hosting again! In fact, this year it’s being promoted as “The UK’s Greatest Pie Festival”! You can find out more about the history of pies and the pie festival on their website www.ukpiefest.co.uk

How can I find out more about UK Piefest?

Well the best place to look is their website www.ukpiefest.co.uk or give their twitter a follow on @ukpiefest but of course we will be there on Saturday 29th July and give you the low down on both this blog and our twitter @pierateers – so we hope you’ll feel you can join in the ex-pie-rience even if you can’t make it this year! But even better would be to get down to Melton Mowbray for this great celebration of all things pie! We certainly can’t wait to get our hands on even more top pies while we’re there!!

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If you have any questions you want answered by Pierateer Rob at UK Piefest, why not leave a comment or drop us a question @pierateers? We’d love to hear from you and answer your questions if we can! Also do let us know if you’re coming too, as we’d love to meet you there!

RAS

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Pork Farms - Pork Pie Reviews

I often wonder when I buy a Melton Mowbray whether it actually makes for a better pork pie than a 'standard' pork pie. We have already investigated what makes a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie different but does this actually make it any better?! There are a number of criteria that must be met in order to call a pork pie a Melton Mowbray such as a minimum percentage of pork. However, there is no guarantee that the pork is going to be any good...

An offer on Pork Farms pork pies in Morrisons provided an excellent chance to do a head to head comparison. Packs of both 4 'standard' and 4 Melton Mowbray mini pork pies were only £1. At the same price would the Melton Mowbray be any better? I started by checking out the vital statistics for these pies.

'Standard' Pork Pies: pastry 55%, pork filling 31%, jelly 13%, milk. The pork filling was only 67% pork, plus pork fat. The rest was flour and starch. Jelly is pork gelatine

Melton Mowbray Pork Pie: pastry 53%, pork filling 36%, jelly 10% Pork filling is 95% pork. Jelly is pork gelatine.

So it seems that the Melton Mowbray has much more pork content, it has to meet the minimum Melton Mowbray standard of 30% pork. The standard pie does not meet this requirement given that only 67% of the 'pork filling' is actually pork meat! But it's not all about who is telling porkies regarding their meat content, it is about how good they taste so it is time for a head to head comparison!

Melton Mowbray (L) alongside the 'standard' pork pie (R)

	Melton Mowbray Pork Pie	'Standard' Pork Pie
Condition	2.80 - Quite mis-shapen despite coming out of a machine. Some boil out.	2.90 - Looked very much the same as the Melton Mowbray but without the boil out.
Colour	3.90 - A decent dark brown colour which is expected from a Melton.	3.90 - These are very much the same as the Melton Mowbrays in appearance, perhaps they are made in the same factory.
Cheapness	4.00 - This price is pretty good but there wasn't a lot to these pies and they are normally more expensive than this.	4.00 - Same as the Melton Mowbrays.
Capacity	3.20 - As you would expect from a pie so small, there isn't much filling. They had quite big airgaps, perhaps by making the pie lighter this increases the percentage of meat?	4.00 - Also a small pie, but smaller air gaps.
Chewiness	3.40 - The pork was in discernible pieces and was fairly firm. Let down by some really chewy pieces. Some of the pastry had a nice bit of crunch but most of it was too soft.	3.40 - The filling was just a mush, there was no texture as such. Despite the meat being in such small pieces I did find one chewy bit. The pastry for this pie was very much the same.
Content	3.30 - An okay peppery taste but it lacked jelly and was dry.	3.50 - The filling just tasted like sausage roll. Cooked (not cured) pork meat which is the same as a Melton Mowbray. It was too salty but wasn't dry.
Consistency	3.00 - Overall this pie just didn't work for me, it was soft and a bit soggy in places and dry in others.	3.10 - A bit too soft and mushy, this pie was not as good as other mini pork pies we have had, but at least it avoided the dryness and some of the chewiness of the Melton Mowbray.
Total	3.37 out of 7	3.54 out of 7

The first thing this investigation showed was that there was actually quite a lot of difference between the two types of pork pie. However, the normal pork pie managed to beat the Melton Mowbray on this occassion. I think this was because at this price it is difficult to do a good Melton Mowbray, to get the higher meat percentage the quality of the meat will suffer. To maintain the meat percentage in the Melton Mowbray they were less able to bulk the pie up with fat and starch, this meant the pie was more dry.

In this case the Melton Mowbray was not as good, but there certainly are good ones out there! Just have a look at our article on Melton Mowbrays. My conclusion is it is not worth buying a cheap Melton Mowbray, in that case you are better off with a normal pork pie. But if you are paying more then they are worthwhile. I have also concluded that Pork Farms make some pretty bad pork pies. They make Melton Mowbrays for some supermarkets (such as ASDA) and I have found that these tend to be lower quality.

SJL

P.S. Here's a fact for all you pork pie geeks out there. Pork Farms are the only producer of Melton Mowbray Pork Pies who are not a member of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association. It's like they want all the benefits of being in the club without having to contribute to the club. Reminds me of the Tory party's view on the European Union.

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Sainsbury's - Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Review

During British Pie Week I enjoyed a couple of great Melton Mowbray pork pies as part of my pie for every meal challenge. It wasn't until after the event that I realised they were both made by Walker & Son. One was made for Dickinson & Morris and has previously been reviewed. The other was made for Sainsburys. The Sainsburys Melton Mowbray Pork Pie was eaten for lunch on Day Two of the challenge. See the video below for my thoughts.


You can see that I was fairly impressed by this effort. It was clearly different to the Dickinson & Morris version, despite being made by the same company. Eating both pies in quick succession meant I was quite certain that the Sainsburys version was inferior to the Dickinson & Morris. But the Sainsburys version was still very good but at only 10p cheaper I wouldn't choose this over the Dickinson & Morris. The one plus side is that it had slightly less calories than the D&M at 502 kcal compared to 542 kcal, but still not exactly a diet option! You might wonder how Melton Mowbray can Make so many pork pies, this is because they don't actually have to be made in Melton Mowbray but a large area around the town. See our article 'What is a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie' for more info.

Sainsbury's Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

Condition - 5.2 out of 7 - Looked good, but slightly less wholesome than the D&M. Still a classic Melton Mowbray appearance.
Colour - 4.9 out of 7 - A deep brown colour, but I prefer deeper.
Cheapness - 4.0 out of 7 - At £1.20 for an individual 140g Melton Mowbray pie this was decent value.
Capacity - 4.8 out of 7 - Stands tall amongst pork pies of this size and so had a good pastry to filling ratio. A small amount of air gap around the edge.
Chewiness - 4.5 out of 7 - There were some small fatty pieces. The pastry was nice and crunchy as a Melton Mowbray should be.
Content - 5.4 out of 7 - Strangely for a Melton Mowbray the meat was slightly pink on the outside (it should be grey). However it tasted nice and had enough seasoning, but I would have liked more. There was some jelly apparent around the edge. It was less granula than the Dickinson & Morris.
Consistency - 4.5 out of 7 - The filling was not as consistently good as the pastry.

Individual Melton Mowbray Pork Pie (Walker & Son for Sainsburys)
4.76/7

SJL

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While sadly there were no pie stalls at the Aegon Classic tennis tournament in Birmingham, that didn’t stop this Pierateer taking along a pork pie to eat while he was there! Would the Sainsbury’s pork pie be a classic though? Well the tennis on Tuesday served up some classic matches, with British wins for Heather Watson and Johanna Konta and a number of big upsets including by 16-year old Donna Vekic, though sadly the pie failed to live up to its seeding. However on the grass courts of Birmingham this Pierateer did enjoy a pie, even if it wasn't the pie-light of the afternoon.



And with the Aegon Classic becoming a Premier WTA event next year, here's hoping they may also invest in a top pie stall to!

Sainsbury’s Melton Mowbray Snack Pork Pie
Score: 4.2/7

RAS


As an added bonus, Pierateer RAS entered a photo competition at the Aegon Classic Tennis and won a signed T-shirt! The winning photo of Laura Robson and the humble pork pie was as follows – thanks everyone at the Aegon Classic Tennis!



You'll LOVE this! SERVING up my British Doubles CLASSIC @AegonClassic - Laura & the humble pork pie! #AegonClassic

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