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

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 :)

Re: Dutch

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Pies also generally get cooked in pie dishes (although pork pies are something of an exception, being 'built' freestanding on a plate/oven tray) - whereas pasties, slices, pastries & rolls would be constructed on the worktop & then popped onto a baking sheet to bake.

Re: Dutch

[venta.livejournal.com]

saucijzenbroodje

From my shaky grasp of Dutch, I'd expect that to be sausage with bread around it. Is that right, or is it more like pastry?

Re: Dutch

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

It's sausage meat (without the actual normal sausage-y container) in pastry dough.