I’ve had to lay off the pies for a week or two for one reason or another before pushing on to the conclusion of Life of Pies in the early Autumn so I’ve been using my temporarily pastry free brain to get my records up to date.
Being a boring maths geek as well as a pie obsessive I couldn’t help knock together a chart or two showing my progress to date, in this case one showing the geographical dispersion of the 300 plus pies consumed……
Now I know what you’re thinking but I’ve never hidden it. I live in Wigan and Wiganers get called “pie eaters” often as an insult wherever they go so it’s your fault not mine that Wigan is in fact a geographical territory of it’s own right for the purpose of this piece of research.
Is it fair that Wigan should get nearly as much representation in this book as a whole country? (Wales, 4,45%) Probably not, but it’s my book! So there!
It’s also only fair to say that this venture is totally self funded and also that I have a full time job and family. Furthermore it started off with me gallivanting purely around the North West seeking out pie shops before the shit got real. So again, I apologise for the North West bias. If I could afford to drive to Inverness or Hastings every week I would have done but when you’ve only got a spare couple of hours on a Saturday morning St Helens or Morecambe sometimes has to suffice.
I have however spent the last year and a half trying to get a fair representation of each and every part of this fair isle from Clarks in Cardiff to Shropshire Fidget pies to Cockney pie and mash to Bedfordshire Clangers to Welsh Oggies to Cornish pasties – and yes some of those aren’t even pies but it’s what people eat around those parts so I’ve gone with it.
I’ve had the hot pork pies they love in the West of Yorkshire and the steak and potato pies the weight of breezeblocks they prefer in the South of the White Rose county. I’ve had steak and kidney and Melton Mowbray pies in the Midlands and whatever I could lay my hands on in the South. Further afield I had to get creative such as procuring a box of mind blowing steak and peppercorn pies from Yorkes of Dundee via mail order. (Pictured above and enjoyed immensely by me and my mates)
Don’t get me started on Scotland as the pies up there probably warrant a book all of their own they’re so fantastic. As it stands I’ll be having a very early start some time in the next few weeks and trying to lob as many in the boot of my car as possible Supermarket Sweep style.
I also have to visit Newcastle, Northumberland and the North East and repeat the same exercise and only then will I feel that I have truly covered the nation and seen what it has got to offer. Both their percentages in the above will undoubtedly increase as I adopt my usual “aim to buy five but come back with ten” cackhanded strategy.
Of course there are literally thousands of people making pies all over the country from bakers to butchers to candlestick makers (probably) in shops, pubs, factories and in their own kitchens but the madness has to end somewhere and with 101,000 words and 1,200 pie pics already clocked up I will be drawing matters to a close by the end of October and working on publishing the tome.
I’ve yet to work out the mileage covered but it will be bloody scary I imagine, half of them driven on auto pilot bleary eyed on a Saturday morning, just me and the early morning sun and caravaneers veering all over the motorway.
Anyway, I’m off to do another pie chart showing the dispersion of pie flavour. Expect a large meat and potato bias with a significant steak and pork pie presence in this one……enough this is making me hungry!!
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