Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Hap-pie National Pie Day to our American Friends!!

Yes, today 23rd January is America's National Pie Day and (as with a lot of things Stateside) the Brits love any excuse to jump on board with American food days and festivals! (Any excuse to eat pie really!!) But it must not be forgotten that while in America they dedicate just a day to pie, here in Britain we need a whole WEEK!!! Step up to the plate British Pie Week, which is now just a few weeks away, and here at Pierate - Pie Reviews we'll once again be the leading promoter of the pie in British Pie Week!

Hap-pie National Pie Day!!!

Our top rated American pie - steak and ale pie from Pleasant House Pub in Chicago



British Pie Week 2018 Logo

Featuring a pie design, knife, fork and the date, you may have spotted recently we launched a British Pie Week 2018 logo. We've kept it simple but effective and we are happy for any websites, companies or other sources to use the logo for free. Unlike the previous commercial logo, we're not looking to promote our brand or product, but simply want a logo that focuses on the pie and puts the pie back into the centre of British Pie Week!









For those that don't know, we at Pierate Pie Reviews are a few friends who love pies and want to see them recognised for what they are - the piefect heart warming meal or snack in a pastry parcel! It just so happens that we've rated well over 600 pies in the process! And we once again plan to be at the heart of British Pie Week 2018 - which is this year from Monday 5th to Sunday 11th March - and you can follow our adventures on Twitter and this blog throughout the week, as we once again do our daily Pie Week Diary.

For more information about British Pie Week, join the thousands of readers of our "British Pie Week - Everything you should know!" article from a year ago!

But if you are Stateside yourself or just want to drool over some top American pies, here's some of our favourite pies we've eaten in America! (And don't worry, they were encased in pastry!!)


"Chicago Get These Royally Good Pies" - Our Pierate Highly Recommended Steak and Ale Pie Review from Pleasant House Pub in Chicago, who serve Royal Pies!


"Who Are Hoosier Mama Pie Company?" - Our Pierate Highly Recommended Chicken Pot Pie and Apple Pie Reviews from Hoosier Mama Pie Company in Chicago


"New York Pie Review: Apple Pie from Pies n Thighs" - Our Pierate Highly Recommended Apple Pie Review from Pies n Thighs in New York


RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

With British Pie Week just a few weeks away and Pierate - Pie Reviews becoming the leading promoter of the pie in British Pie Week, we thought that the week long celebration of pie needed a new logo!

British Pie Week 2018 Logo

With the pastry company behind British Pie Week seemingly not promoting the week long event any more, there is no designated British Pie Week logo for 2018, so we at Pierate Pie Reviews have stepped in and can officially announce the new logo to the world!

Featuring a pie design, knife, fork and the date, we've kept the logo simple but effective and we are happy for any websites, companies or other sources to use the logo for free. Unlike the previous commercial logo, we're not looking to promote our brand or product, but simply want a logo that focuses on the pie and puts the pie back into the centre of British Pie Week!

For those that don't know, we at Pierate Pie Reviews are a few friends who love pies and want to see them recognised for what they are - the piefect heart warming meal or snack in a pastry parcel! It just so happens that we've rated well over 600 pies in the process! And we once again plan to be at the heart of British Pie Week 2018 - which is this year from Monday 5th to Sunday 11th March - and you can follow our adventures on Twitter and this blog throughout the week, as we once again do our daily Pie Week Diary.

For more information about British Pie Week, join the thousands of readers of our "British Pie Week - Everything you should know!" article from a year ago!

British Pie Week 2018 is from 5th to 11th March!

If you’re a pie maker or pie seller we hope you'll find the new logo helpful - you're free to use it! Also if you have any special promotions for British Pie Week, get in touch with us and we can celebrate your British Pie Week offers! Either send us an email to pierateship@yahoo.co.uk or tweet us @pierateers to let us promote your pie week plans!

Whatever you’re going to be up to this British Pie Week - and it's never too early to start planning - we hope you have pie and enjoy it! For more ideas, why not check out our #PiePledge video below?



RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

With just a few weeks to go until British Pie Week 2018, we're getting ready to unveil the British Pie Week 2018 logo here at Pierate HQ! Designed to be simple and quite generic, we hope that others will decide to use it in the lead up to and during British Pie Week itself. So stay tuned to the Pierate website tomorrow for the unveiling of the 2018 logo and in the coming weeks for our build up to the most exciting week in pie - British Pie Week!

Pierate is a pie review website charting a course to find the ultimate pie. For all the pies we have reviewed have a look at our Pie Rankings or find pies of a particular flavour under Pies: Categorised. Make sure you Follow @pierateers and let us know your thoughts!

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Judges at the British Pie Awards, including Pierateer Sam

Back for an incredible 10th year - and in British Pie Week no less - the British Pie Awards returns as a highlight of the year in pie. Held in the heart of Pork Pie country, pie makers, pie enthusiasts and - most importantly - the pies themselves head to Melton Mowbray every year for the judging of up to 1,000 pies in just one day and to crown their supreme champion. Back this year in the beautiful St Mary’s Church, located in the heart of Melton Mowbray, the judging will take place on Wednesday 7th March and the Award's Lunch on Friday 9th March.

The British Pie Awards will return to St Mary's Church in 2018!

This year will see the Pierateers return to help judge the over 800 pies sent in from across Britain and beyond. With over 600 pies rated on our pie blog we've had no shortage of pie judging both at and outside the Awards and we'll once again be providing our judging expertise and insightful media analysis of the day with yet another "British Pie Awards - Live!" blog.

So following on from our "British Pie Awards 2017 - Live!" article last year, on Wednesday 7th March we'll be joining around 100 judges and over 800 pies for a pie-filled day of photos, interviews and behind the scenes info!

With last year's judges including Food and Drink TV producer Andy Clarke, Channel 4's Felicity Spector and pie judging regular Xanthe Clay from the Daily Telegraph, in addition to friend of the blog Nik Speller, author Martin Tarbuck - who you may recall has written pie review book "Life of Pies" - and fellow football pie pundit Jonny Smith, we look forward to finding out who we will share a judging table with this year!

And while the British Pie Awards use a significantly different set of criteria to us, rather than the 7 Cs of pie rating that we have used to rate over 600 pies on Pierate, there are very few pie experts they could call on with more ex-pie-rience than us when it comes to judging the pie-fect pie!

Pierateer Rob on Rip Off Britain

Last year was another exciting year for Pierate at the British Pie Awards, with over 4,000 of you viewing our live blogging from the pie event of the year, our post-event review and preview articles.

This year Pierateer Sam will be joining Pierateer Rob in attendance, who you may recognise from TV shows "The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice" and "Rip Off Britain: Food".

So what have we got to look forward to at the British Pie Awards 2018?

Well... first of all you need to know how long it is until British Pie Awards 2018, which is happening on Wednesday 7th March at 11am:

---

Celebrating the pies that fuel our public services in 2018

The amazing Speciality Class "Bridal Pies" at British Pie Awards 2015

We're looking forward to once again seeing what pie producers come up with in the Speciality Class, following an amazing selection of entries in the 2015 Speciality Class of Bridal Pies, some royally good pies in the "Pies Fit for the Queen" Speciality Class in 2016 and some regional specialities in 2017.

For the 2018 Awards, the Speciality Class will celebrate pies produced in the public sector for vital services including schools, hospitals and the armed forces. Given that they are not sold commercially these pies, whilst in the running to win their class, are not eligible for consideration as Supreme Champion. Although judged to the same standards, and under the same rules as other classes, the pie makers in this category have more freedom to choose fillings, pastry type and presentation. Entrants can celebrate the pies that they are particularly proud to serve in the public sector, but are not available to the general public. We look forward to seeing them!

All that remains to be said is you won't be surprised to hear we will once again be covering the event and providing regular tweet updates from Melton Mowbray as we once again get involved in the greatest pie show on Earth, so check back on Wednesday 7th March for more pies than you can possibly imagine!

RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Rating the beef and onion football pie at Stevenage FC by Pukka Pies

Beef and Onion Pukka Pie Review at Stevenage FC

Following a trip to London for Christmas drinks recently, it seemed an obvious op-pie-tunity to tick off another football ground in the area in the search for football’s best pies. This time we visited the Lamex Stadium, home to League Two side Stevenage FC.

Heading through the turnstiles, I immediately walked past the food shack for the away end, which was already tens of people long. However I wasn’t going to risk missing out on pie by waiting til half time, going for some chips and one of the many pies on offer. You’ll see from the photo I was purchasing from the imaginatively named “Tea Bar 4” from a heavily taped up menu board (one wonders what was previously offered under the red tape?!) but the pies had remained at £2.50, which is very reasonable for a football pie these days.

The food menu at "Tea Bar 4" at Stevenage Football Club

The pie itself was a standard Pukka Pies Beef and Onion pie, but presented well in a white plastic tray with plastic fork. While I have to admit it was additional to my needs, as a pick-up-your-pie-in-your-hands-and-eat-it kinda guy, I did appreciate that the option was there for the, perhaps slightly more civilised among us, to eat from a tray using a fork! (Still, nothing will compete with Kate, the #AwayDayPieGirl, and her personalised metal football pie fork!)

Beef and Onion Pukka Pie Review at Stevenage FC

I said it before but I’ll say it again - pie, tray and fork for just £2.50 puts a lot of clubs to shame (many Premier League clubs charge well over £3 for just a pie of the same brand!) But the big question was how the pie rated!

The lid was golden and flaky, as I’d expect from a well-cooked Pukka Pie, though Sam and I have certainly been to enough football games to know all is not always well when it comes to just a golden topped pie lid! Digging into the content, the beef and onion flavour was nice – not too liquid a gravy and a nice meaty mince flavour, however the capacity of the filling wasn’t great and to my disappointment I did notice what I had feared…

Crisp base of the Beef and Onion Pukka Pie at Stevenage FC

Mince had started to solidify on the bottom crust of the pie, much like the meat encrusting on your saucepan base if you forget to keep stirring your bolognaise properly! A classic sign of over-bake on the base of a pie, which was confirmed when I turned the base over and saw the over baked base. No soggy bottom in sight here but the other end of the pie base spectrum with an overly crisp base that was rather too solid to easily bite through. It had formed an almost biscuity layer, much like the Pukka rated at Wycombe’s ground recently.

While I enjoyed the rest of the pie, that base was severely over baked and screamed of sitting in a hot locker for too long. Alas this is a regular criticism of football pies, sometimes exasperated in smaller grounds where there is only one main kitchen pumping out pies for the whole ground. Not the worst pie I’ve had at a football ground, but that still doesn’t help it get a great position in the PIEremiership table – our football pie league.

Pukka Pies Beef and Onion Pie
Score: 3.68/7
[Colour 5, Capacity 4, Consistency 3.5, Condition 2.5, Chewiness 3, Cheapness 4.5, Content 3.25]

We've rated over 600 pies, including a number of football pies

In the match itself, an end-to-end battle led to an entertaining but goal shy 0-0 draw between Stevenage and Wycombe Wanderers. The two best chances went Wycombe’s way, with a near comical goal from the Wycombe keeper Scott Brown who took a free kick from the half way line that looped over the keeper, hit the underside of the crossbar and almost went in bar a goal-line clearance, and an Akinfenwa header which hit the post and went wide. (Note: The BBC article incorrectly assigns the comical free kick to our defender, but being at the game I can confirm it was our keeper who took the free kick – you can’t miss his kaleidoscope kit, believe me!!)

---

More about us and our football pie pedigree:

Sam and Rob being interviewed by BBC Sport's Azi Farni Watch the video on the BBC Sport website

Regulars to our pie blog will know we're the world's leading pie review blog - featuring over 600 pie reviews with multiple football pie media appearances! Two years ago we joined BBC Sport's Azi Farni at Morecambe FC, who make some of the best pies rated on Pierate (let alone football grounds) to discuss what makes the perfect football pie! Watch us featuring in the BBC Price of Football video here.

Check out our PIEremiership article and you'll find that Morecambe FC's Globe Arena is certainly the place to be for top football pies! Top of our football pie league and winners of the British Pie Awards twice, they make the pies in the kitchen on site by hand, rather than just buying them in! We recently interviewed previous Head Chef Graham Aimson on his new adventure, but hope the pies at Morecambe stay top of the league in his absence!

RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

The Real Pie Company Luxury Boozy Mince Pie Review

Real Pie Company Mince Pie Review

There are mince pies. And then there are small meals in the form of a mince pie! For these are certainly no miniature mouthfuls but a real giant on your plate - the Real Pie Company’s luxury boozy mince pies!

Delivered by post in a lovely festive box and all arriving in near perfect condition, I was impressed by the size and the favour of these luxury mince pies. As can be seen in the comparison photo below, these pies dwarf your typical supermarket mince pie and are clearly homemade products. While this does mean the condition is not quite as polished as a factory made standard mince pie, it is a lot more lovingly made and the pastry tasted delicious and buttery.

Real Pie Company v Tesco Mince Pies

One of my concerns with these larger mince pies was whether the filling:pastry ratio would work in such a big mince pie, but they certainly got this pretty much spot on. The pastry was quite thick and covered in sugar (a little too much sugar personally, but at least you can brush that off the top before eating!) but held in the content well. My main critique of these pies is that the pastry is incredibly crumbly, which meant you certainly lost a significant amount of pastry crumbs when eating. It also made cutting them in half (as some friends weren’t quite ready to tackle a whole one due to their size) quite a challenge!

There was sNOw stopping the delivery!

However the filling was moist and a nice balance of fruits, with a clear boozy edge to them. I also happily enjoyed eating the pastry on its own when hovering up the bits that had broken off. While a couple of the pies weren’t quite crammed to the crust as I expected from the Real Pie Company (as that is their motto), most of them were full to the brim and I certainly didn’t finish any of the ones I’d tried feeling I was short changed in any way! Certainly not something to eat straight after your Christmas Day roast, but a lovely mince pie and one that will get your visitors talking!

Real Pie Company Mince Pie Review

At £19.95 for 10 of these mince pies, they are certainly not the cheapest option out there, and that does hold back the score a bit, but factoring in the size I can’t say I’m feeling too out of pocket paying that for such large, unique mince pies. Yet again, the Real Pie Company have set a high bar for pie making and take number 4 spot in our top mince pies (though number 1 for giant mince pies!!)

The Real Pie Company Luxury Boozy Mince Pie
Score: 5.82/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6, Consistency 6.25, Condition 5.5, Chewiness 6.75, Cheapness 4, Content 6.25]

RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Dickinson and Morris Pork Pies make the headlines again - but would you have pork pie for Christmas breakfast?!

There is a legendary pie company in Melton Mowbray who run a special pork pie shop in the town called 'Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe'. This puts them in pride of place in the home of Melton Mowbray pork pies. This company goes by the name of Dickinson and Morris and has been baking pork pies since 1851. And this year they added the title of Supreme Champion at the British Pie Awards 2017 to add to their list of award winning products. They also rate highly on our world leading pie review blog, with their Individual Pork Pie rated at 6.15/7 (which is Pierate Highly Recommended!)

And today our leading Pork Pie was featured in a video as part of a BBC News article on the quirky Leicestershire tradition of having a pork pie for Christmas breakfast! It features friends of the blog Stephen Hallam (from Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe) and Matthew O'Callaghan (Organiser of the British Pie Awards).

Check out the pork pie video now on the BBC website!

Dickinson and Morris Pork Pies

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Pieminister Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie Review

Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie Review

Yes, you read that right! An ice cream pie! And not just that, it has the word “pie” in the title twice, so that’s got to be a good thing, right?!

Welcome to part two of my Christmas venture to try the new Christmas 2017 additions to the Pieminister menu. Having visited the relatively new Birmingham store on Waterloo Street last week to try their new “The Cracker” Turkey and Ham pie, I could hardly resist a pudding pie that had “pie” in the title twice, could I?! Turns out not, as before I knew it the Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie with Gingerbread biscuit and rum sauce landed on my table, beautifully decorated with a crisp golden star as a lid.

What particularly persuaded me to go for one was the fact I’d never had an ice cream pie before! Plenty of pies WITH ice cream, but not one with ice cream in it (although Pierateer TJP had tried to make a Neapolitan ice cream pie a few years back, to mixed success). With a more biscuit like pastry to this dessert pie, which was very different to the traditional flaky Pieminister pastry I have come to know and love on their savoury pies, it did take some getting used to! And the thought of having ice cream in the pie and some of the mince outside the pie was a slight quirk! However before I go on I must say I did very much enjoy the pie and my first ice cream pie adventure.


However for the pie-hard Pierate fans in the room, I am now going to have to get technical for a minute and comment about the make-up of the dessert laid in front of me. For if I am being true to our 8 year old definition of a true pie, the filling should be fully encased in pastry, which this dessert wasn’t. For one there was a star lid on a circular side/base pastry, so that immediately would mean there were gaps in full encasement. But also there was a second even more noticeable issue of the mince content of the pie spilling out of the pastry encasement onto the plate, as well as raising the height of the star lid.

Pieminister Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie Review

Therefore, as lovely as this mince pie ice cream pie tasted, it won’t get top marks on our website for lack of a full encasement, not that this would stop me or anyone else enjoying them while they are still on the menu! The capacity was decent, the ice cream very nice and the mince fruity and flavoursome. I certainly struggled to finish it following a pie for dinner too, but as a pie soldier I managed to eat it all in the end! Very filling and very nice.

The only other thing to comment on is the price, which at £5 is quite pricy for a mince pie with ice cream (even if, as mentioned, the mince and ice cream are not in the locations you’d normally expect!) While I’d happily eat another one, I’d be slightly put off by the price, considering a mince pie can be bought for about 25p each in most supermarkets!

Still, this was a beautiful and quirky creation, looks brilliant and certainly added to my festive enjoyment of Christmas at Pieminister!

Pieminister Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie
Score: 5.29/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 5, Consistency 6, Condition 5.5, Chewiness 5.5, Cheapness 3.5, Content 5.5]
RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Pieminister “The Cracker” (Turkey and Ham) Pie Review

Pieminister Cracker Turkey and Ham Pie

Like London buses, it had been a while since I’d rated a new Pieminister pie (to be fair, with 17 reviews already, it is becoming trickier each time to find a new one!!) and now two have come almost at once! For following hot on the heels of my review of their new(ish) pie shop in Birmingham City Centre, where I rated their “Kate and Sidney” pie as Pierate Highly Recommended, I was invited by them to try their new festive pie – “The Cracker”.

Alongside a number of their regular festive pies, which include “Deer Santa” (a venison pie), “Mistle Moo” (a Christmassy take on their steak pie) and the “Christingle” pie (the vegetarian option of roast parsnip, cheddar, leek and chestnut), “The Cracker” is their new pie for Christmas 2017 and it did the classics well. It was a British Turkey and Ham pie, with cranberries, parsnips and sherry.


With a slightly mixed bag from Turkey pies I’d had in the past, and a reputation as a meat for being a bit dry on occasion, I eagerly awaited how the turkey and ham pie from Pieminister would rate. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the moistness of the pie in general (from a nice sauce) and a quite well packed content with succulent meat pieces, considering the ingredients are 13% turkey and 5% ham. Unfortunately one of the pieces of turkey was rather large and chewy, but other than that it was very nice meat.

Pieminister Cracker Turkey and Ham Pie - Cross Section

The other thing was that I was expecting more of a noticeable hit with cranberries, especially as some turkey pies with cranberry in have been noticeably heavy with the sweet cranberry (one was very red in colour too!) but the cranberry flavour didn’t really present itself. On a personal note I wasn’t too bothered, as I don’t really like the overly sweet cranberry flavour and the parsnips provided enough of a different flavour anyway. However we do always note in our reviews if a flavour is labelled on the pie contents but not really noticeable.

The pastry colour was once again lovely and golden, particularly on top, and while the base pastry this time round seemed a little overdone than usual, I still very much enjoyed the pie and even the base pastry was still all eaten (unlike a few over baked pies I’ve had before – particularly at football grounds!!)

Overall the pie, chips and gravy meal cost £8.50, which as I said before is a little pricey for a meal of pie, mash/chips and gravy, but being a new city centre store and comparing this to other pie meals in pubs and shops in Birmingham city centre, I don’t think this is too unreasonable a price. And I’d certainly happily buy another one this Christmas season! I’ll soon review the Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie I also had on my festive visit to Pieminister!

Pieminister “The Cracker” British Turkey and Ham pie, with cranberries, parsnips and sherry
Score: 5.75/7
[Colour 6, Capacity 6.25, Consistency 6, Condition 6, Chewiness 5, Cheapness 5.5, Content 5.5]
RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

Pieminister's Mince Pie Ice Cream Pie

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas on www.pierate.co.uk as we've been cracking out the tinsel and tucking into some Christmas Pies (not that the later of those will be of any sur-pies to you!) However it has been noted that a lot of our Christmas pie reviews - primarily Turkey Pies and Mince Pies - are from yonder year and particularly from December 2013, which was when we filmed our now infamous Christmas Pie Video! So while we go about eating and rating some more Christmas pies in the coming few weeks to make up for lost time, why not enjoy our '12 pies of Christmas' video based loosely on the old classic, 'The 12 Days of Christmas', as well as our Top 5 Turkey and Mince Pies thus far!

Prior to our December 2017 pie eating, here our top 5 turkey and top 5 mince pie reviews of years gone by:

Rank	Pie Producer	Pie Flavour	Score	By
1	Sweeney and Todd [RG1 7RD]	Turkey [Christmas]	6.21	RAS
2	Canteen [W1U 8EW]	Turkey, Leek and Cranberry	6.14	RAS
3	Pound Farm Shop	Turkey, Bacon and Leek	5.86	SJL
4	Sacks of Potatoes Pub [B4 7ER]	Turkey and Sausage	5.75	RAS
5	Higgidy	Lincolnshire Turkey, Bacon and Stuffing [Special Guest]	5.36	RAS

Click for all Turkey Pie Reviews.

Rank	Pie Producer	Pie Flavour	Score	By
1	Robinsons Bakery [M35 9PW]	Mince	6.18	RAS
2	Mr Kipling	Mince	6.07	RAS
3	Marks and Spencer	Gluten Free Mince (GF)	6.00	ALE
4	Lidl / Snowy Lodge	Mince	5.79	RAS
5	Duchy Originals	Organic Mince	5.65	TJP

Click for all Mince Pie Reviews.

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions

It's not even the January football window yet and already we've had potentially the biggest shock transfer of the season. But no, it's not a multi-million pound star striker moving teams, or even a rising starlet making a big money move. In fact, it's football's loss because the biggest name in football pies has just made a shock transfer to 'try' his hand at rugby catering, as Mr Graham Aimson has moved from our number 1 football pie maker Morecambe FC!

Sam and Rob being interviewed by BBC Sport's Azi Farni Watch the video on the BBC Sport website

For those of you who aren't aware, two years ago we joined BBC Sport's Azi Farni at Morecambe FC, who make some of the best pies rated on Pierate (let alone football grounds) to discuss what makes the perfect football pie! Watch us featuring in the BBC Price of Football video here.

This had followed a previous visit to Morecambe to try out the pies at the League Two club, where we got our hands on the 'Steak & Ale', 'Chicken, Ham & Leak', 'Lamb & Mint' and 'Meat & Potato' pies, as well as the British Pie Awards winning Apple pie for dessert!

In fact the Steak and Ale pie wasn't just our favourite pie at Morecambe FC but it tops our Pieremiership Table, which ranks football’s best half time pies.

We've rated over 600 pies, including a number of football pies

So it is with some sadness that we heard this week that Graham Aimson, the man behind the pies as head chef at Morecambe Football Club, has moved down the road to cater at a local Rugby Club. We therefore caught up with him to find out more about his big transfer:

Graham Aimson with a tray of his football pies

1) We hear you've just moved role! What's the new job?

Head chef of Kendal rugby union club.

2) What are you most looking forward to there?

The challenge of building a reputation for another new stadium and hopefully exceeding what I achieved at Morecambe FC, the bonus that we have a restaurant and servers to operate as well as a banqueting suite, all bringing new and exciting challenges.

3) Will you be doing the same pies there or going to 'try' something new? (We can do rugby puns too!!)

Yes, we will be doing pies here but all pies will be developed for Kendal Rugby Club. I am trying to improve on my previous recipes to give Kendal RC there very own pies. I've been playing with pastry recipes and filling recipes. Although nothing out of the ordinary, what we are doing in the kitchen should hopefully be better than before!

4) Football and pies are well associated. Are you aware of many pies in rugby?

At this moment I've not heard of any special pies in rugby as yet, however, I'm hopeful that soon once words gets around, there will be some good competition just like in football!

5) What will you miss most about working at Morecambe? (Other than us Pierateers visiting for Morecambe v Wycombe games!!)

Obviously the Pierateers visiting is one of the highlights of the year that I will now miss. I will miss working with the great people I met working there, including a couple of footballers. The pie successes there were down to the whole kitchen team, and sadly at this moment we are not together. I deeply miss the brigade more than anything but hope we will be all together in the future once again as an award winning team! It is the team that made the pies what they were!




We certainly echo that it is a real team effort to make so many great pies for every Morecambe game and therefore wish Graham well in his new venture, while his old colleagues at Morecambe FC hold the fort. We're intrigued to know what the future will be for Morecambe FC's pies, as the only major English club we're aware of that make their own pies on the premises. We'll have to try and get along again soon to check the pies are still up to the same high standard!

What's also intriguing is that the British Pie Awards category for football pies is actually a "sports pie" category, so being a Rugby head chef now we could well see Graham try and win the award for two different pies in two different sports!

For now though, we'll leave you with a brief little video filmed on the day BBC Sport visited Graham and the team to find out more about his football pies, including their rather quirky new flavour at the time:



RAS

Add Your Opinion 0 Opinions