Helter skelter, in a summer swelter

[venta]

Yesterday, an email arrived to a mailing list I'm on, saying the following:

Today, I had the pleasure of introducing a German colleague to his first ever pie :).

I read that a couple of times, and was very confused. Subsequent emails clarified:

1. You don't really get pies in Germany. Certainly not savoury pies.
2. Said German colleague has been living in the UK a few years, and has regarded pies as suspicious, peculiar, scary British things to be avoided.
3. You really don't really get pies in Germany.

Yes, yes, I know that things like steak-and-kidney pie are regarded as Proper British Food, but I hadn't realised the extent to which the rest of the world doesn't really do pie. The Wikipedia page for pie describes meat pies as "popular in the UK, Australia and New Zealand".

Now. Really. In this age of multiculturalism, where the hell is the rest of the world? Why haven't they caught on? Admittedly, subsequent pages (eg for the Scotch pie) mention popularity in Canada, and they have that pot pie thing going on in America, but even so...

Where is the rest of Europe in the pie stakes? Never mind your galettes and your tartes, savoury pie is something they really should know about. More to the point, why aren't we going out there and setting up pie stalls for their education? They keep sending us their peculiar comestibles in fancy markets, we should reciprocate. "Getting an English" on the way home from the Bierkeller could be the new fashionable thing in Bavaria by summer.

Incidentally, the occasional European market in the Broadway, in Ealing, has a stall whose sign reads:

German Bratwurst

After Party

There are many readings of that which are just Not Right.

Comments

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Indeed; when I worked in Nice, my French colleagues were suspicious of pies, whereas I missed them mightily.

[venta.livejournal.com]

What a fantastic icon. Why do I mess about putting little pastry leaves on the top of pies when I could be putting symbols like that on them?

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! The Germans don't really 'get' savoury pastry. They will happily eat latticey things with apple, cherries et al in them, but savoury? Fuggedaboudit! I once got a currywurst decorously wrapped in a square of puff pastry in Göttingen, but this was a novelty.

This also opens up the fish and chip debate. The crimes committed in the name of fish and chips in the rest of the world? Preposterous! Scandalous!

Let's buy up a load of Fray Bentos and Harry Ramsdens and hot the Weihnachtsmarkt circuit now!

[venta.livejournal.com]

In fairness, there are some fairly heinous things perpetrated in the name of fish and chips in the UK as well. I'm in with your Weinachtsmarkt plan, so long as we can declare an international embargo on mushy peas.

[(Anonymous)]

Bear in mind that the concept of deep fried fish is supposed to have arrived with Portugese Jews fleeing religious persecution. Possibly at around the time of the Hugenots leaving France. Not really a British tradition therefore.

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

Wait, what? No pie? That's just wrong.

BTW, whilst on recent trip to Spain I did notice pasties in the little supermarket around the corner. Some of them were wrong (contaning things like tuna, for example), but at least there was a stab at the genre.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I'm not a purist where pasties are concerned. I've tested out some of the West Cornwall Pasty Company's more deranged ideas while touring the railway network of our fair isle. But tuna ? Definitely beyond the pale.

WCPC's "Boxing Day Pasty" (turkey, cranberry, sausage, veg) sampled last week ought to have been a work of genius, but was sadly poorly executed. Tomato and mozarella remains an unexpected (if frequently lethally hot) favourite.

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

i dunno. i had assumed that pork-pies were german. then i moved to england and found out that pork-pies (the molten mayberry ones) are english. still haven't been brave enough to eat any of 'em :-)

unrelatedly, i'm really looking forward to my remy martin xmas pudding from waitrose wot i'm importing to the colonies.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You, a seasoned traveller of forn parts, afraid to eat a pork pie?

I concede, I don't think pork pies are really the peak of UK pie-related achievement. They're not bad, though! Decent ones are really quite nice!

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

McVities Chocolate Hobnobs are the best food to impress foreigners with.

But yes, American Pies are all tarts or similar and sweet and argh! That's not a pie! We had this discussion at my American friend's Thanksgiving party recently...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Bah. I sniff at their non-pie-eating habits.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Ah, the much-discussed nature of the pie ... the cause of the celebrated Pie-Off series, with a series of ever more abstruse categories - "Best true savoury pie", "Best faux sweet pie", "Award for structural integrity", and so on ...

[hirez.livejournal.com]

'Traditional' Cornish pasties from Wisconsin are an experience.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

The book I am reading, Montaillou, documents that the medieval Occitan [i.e. south French] shepherd Pierre Maury was in the habit of making “enormous pies” variously for his friends or in one case to bribe the men sent to confiscate his employer's sheep.

It's not stated what went into the pies but frankly it's not hard to guess!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Concerning the French and Fray Bentos pies

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I wonder if potato-topped pies (shepherd's, cottage, fishermans's) are known more widely than proper pastry ones?

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

There are many things like the Greek/Cypriot little pasties or Jamaican Patties, but I absolutely agree that true English pastry is missing elsewhere, whether Suet,Salt crust, Shortcrust or flaky. It is one of our contribution to world cuisine!

[mrlloyd.livejournal.com]

Even less so I'd reckon. After all we've only been able to put potato on top of things since the 17th century. We've been able to make pies for millenia.

Ancient Egyptians might have managed pies, tucking in in the shadow of the pyramids - Babylonians might have enjoyed them as they lay about in the hanging gardens...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Able to make pies for milennia, perhaps. But if Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie#History) is to be believed, pies-as-we-know-it have only been around for hundreds of years.

You're right about the pyramids, though.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I can confirm that they do not have pies in Norway.

And I quote: "We generally don't make pies at all no, we have 1 type of cheese pie, or at least it's close enough you might call it a pie."

I shall be remedying this parlous state of affairs as soon as I may.

[lnr]

In terms of Europeans and pastry: the greeks seem to only do filo, but they use it in savoury things (spinach and filo parcels) as well as sweet (baklava).

Today I am making mince pies. Which are not savoury, but will have to do :)

Dutch

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

In the Netherlands there's stuff that's, I guess, quite similar. The one that comes to mind right away, for me, is the saucijzenbroodje (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage_roll) (which wikipedia calls 'Sausage Roll', but isn't that a sub-class of pie?)

Also, there's many things like savory pies which are not really pies but eaten as a quick snack (together with your French fries and available at the same establishment). They're referred to as 'Frituursnacks' ("Deep fried snacks") and, if I get the English stance to pies correctly, these serve a similar function (although, possible quite less healthily).

Re: Dutch

[venta.livejournal.com]

A sausage roll could hang out with pies, maybe go to the pub with pies, but would never really be accepted as one of them. It is pastry + savoury filling, so has the same basic ingredients, but is morally quite a different beast :)

I think of a pie as something I'd expect to eat as part of a meal, with mashed potato (or chips), vegetables and gravy. On a plate, at a table. I don't think of pies in a snack context, but I think that might vary from person to person (particularly if you go to football matches, where pies are a common snack food).

If someone offered me a pie as a snack I wouldn't say no, though :)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I love (some of) America and (some) Americans so much that I married one, but every now and again they refer to pizzas as pies. That's a pretty advanced state of wrongness as far as I am concerned.

[venta.livejournal.com]

cf. whoopie pies

Perfectly nice confectionery, but pies they ain't.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

No mention yet of the acme of the styles
1) Short crust pastry - Game Pie
2) Suet - Steak (& kidney) - aka "Boiled Baby's head"

Pork pies are a very fine thing, but I actually prefer pork & pickle for a small pie; the pastry is also far less calorific for the same amount of meat.

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

As a person who has lived in England (lots of pies), Vanuatu (lots of pies because of British, Aussie and Kiwi influence) and New Zealand (lots of pies), it never really occurred to me that pies were not universal. Now you mention it and I come to think of it, I'm horrified by the pielessness I now recognise as the global norm.

One important thing to note is that Aussies and Kiwis cannot ever fathom anyone eating a cold pie. A pie, they say, must be blisteringly hot. I have come to recognise this as great wisdom myself.

I don't appear to have any food-related icons, sorry.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

I like pie. I don't like casseroles with a puff pastry lid though.

That is all.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha. Sir refers to the evil sub-species known as the "stew hat". To be disparaged at all opportunities.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

I had a spinatstreudel from LPG Biomarkt today, so there are certainly pies in Berlin.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Was it a True Pie? I'm not familiar with the exact item, but "streudel" sounds supiciously pasty-like to me.