BRITISH PIE WEEK 2 - 8 March 2015

Who ate all the pies? I suspect it’s going to be all of us this week, with the news that British Pie Week has arrived!  If you've listened to Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2 this week then you might already be tasting the pies. 

What is your choice? - Steak and kidney? Pukka? Fray Bentos? Melton Mowbray pork pie? Or do you have a more upmarket taste for quail egg? Experimental preferences for haggis and redcurrant? Or a sweet tooth for apple or cherry with cream? Whatever your flavour, the British are a nation of pie fanatics and this week we have an excuse to revel in it. Last night we had home-made steak and kidney pie, with mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. The short-crust pastry was a delight and the meat was succulent and tasty!

British Pie Week runs until Sunday, March 8, though for one Kent couple every week is pie week: Caroline and Michael Wilding run the award-winning Dine Thyme artisan food business in Sutton Valence, near Maidstone. Their quail egg pie won a Taste of Kent Award in the Kent Food Product category last year. “We wanted to do something that was a little bit different to the norm so we try to do traditional with a twist,” explains Caroline. “Someone gave us quail eggs and we didn’t know what to do with them. The obvious would have been scotch eggs but we thought we’d try something different; so we added bacon and sausage to make a breakfast pie. It’s one of our top-sellers and it’s unique to us. Winning the Taste of Kent Award was a big surprise – it was the first time we’d entered a competition.”

So why do us Brits eat all the pies? They are seen as comfort food, traditional food from childhood, and eating pies brings back memories. So what's your favourites - from the traditional pie and mash shop to the farmers’ market speciality piemaker; from the coffee shop that serves to-die-for apple pie to the gastro pub which devises its own. If it’s pie and you love it, then enjoy it this week. For more details on British Pie Week see, www.britishpieweek.co.uk

PIE - A HISTORY

9500 BC: The ancient Egyptians made honey-filled galettes, pie-like food baked on hot coals

160 BC: Roman statesman Cato produces the farming manual De Agri Cultura, which includes a popular pie recipe

43 AD: Cornish pasties are devised by the wives of tin miners, influenced by the Romans

1429: Partridge pie is apparently served at King Henry VI’s coronation

1589: Apple pie makes its first appearance in literature as the Elizabethan dramatist R Greene writes: “Thy breath is like the steeme of apple pies.”

1625: Pumpkin pie recipe appears for the first time in a British cookbook