Guilty pleasures
Tom Norrington-Daviessays pies should be elevated from junk-food status When is it hip to be square? When you are a pie of course. On a wintry Friday lunchtime, Square Pie’s concession is easily the most popular in Selfridges’ foodhalls. The queue is in serious danger of snaking its way on to the street outside. Not that I mind. I’m a terrible menu dawdler and the staff won’t take kindly to any umming or ahhing. So, despite the agonisingly mouthwatering smells coming from the counter, I’m glad of a few minutes to make a choice.
Steak and ale is an obvious one, but there are lamb and rosemary, mushroom and asparagus, and salmon and broccoli, too. The broccoli pie is, apparently ‘perfect for that new year’s detox’. You might laugh, but the couple behind me are clutching smoothies. There isn’t a pint or ashtray in sight.
A few years ago London’s last remaining pie and mash outfits were like mini museums to the bad old days. Pie wasn’t naughty enough to compete with fish and chips or burger bars. It was too frumpy to take on anything as exotic as conveyor-belt sushi. It was put out to grass in school canteens and freezer sections where, like most institutionalised foods, the products of this wonderfully ancient craft suffered all kinds of abuse. Industrial pastry and questionable fillings don’t do anything for one’s image. Even Sweeney Todd would have balked at making ‘pie-by-e-numbers’.
The daft thing is that while pie went out of fashion, all sorts of its near-relatives came into favour. When the Brits adopt a cuisine they usually save their most ardent affections for the greasiest, stodgiest part of it. Pizza is Italian for pie, literally. Indian samosas, Thai spring rolls, Middle Eastern boreks and even flouncy old quiches are pies. And they all share the same historic roots. Pastry, whatever form it takes, was once a vessel for food more than anything else. It kept the flies and dirt out of feudal takeaways, which were made in the small hours and eaten in the fields.
One remnant of these edible hold-alls is the Cornish pasty. The twiddly bits at either end were once handles. Tin miners held them in their blackened hands so they could eat the middle without it getting grubby.
With prosperity came richer, more artful pastry casings and soon these became as prized as the fillings. Sadly, pastry’s transition from the essential to the luxurious has served to make pie a ‘guilty pleasure’ for modern calorie-counters. No wonder the phrase ‘Who ate all the pies?’ is such a common jibe at the overweight.
Luckily, there are a number of enterprising individuals who are giving pies a 21stcentury makeover. One of these is the food writer Angela Boggiano. Pie was published by Cassell last autumn. Wrapped in a pastry-coloured dust cover and bursting with recipes for just about every kind of pie you could imagine, it’s a delight to read and to cook from. When asked what inspired her to write the book she laughs and says that despite being a ‘pie obsessive’ herself, it was listening to the way other people talked about them.
‘Everyone has a favourite pie, and with it comes a story. It’s often the nostalgia and comforting thoughts they conjure up that make pies taste all the more delicious.’ It was nostalgia that made Martin Ewes start SquarePie back in 2001. ‘I got angry,’ he tells me. ‘I wanted to be able to buy a pie that tasted like my mum’s. And I couldn’t, so I started making them. We use proper ingredients. No batteryfarmed fillings, no hydrogenated fats. I’d say the pies we make are even good for you in moderation. Not that I want the customer to think this is health food. It’s pure, guilt-free indulgence!’ This concept is certainly working. It is part of a welcome fashion to rescue what has come to be thought of, unfortunately, as ‘junk food’ from the behemoths that have made it so. Observer Food Monthly awarded Pokeno Pies, a café and takeaway in Brighton, with their coveted cheap eats award. And it is not just about pies. If a gourmet burger bar, woodfired pizza restaurant or fish and chip shop with a conscience hasn’t opened up on a high street near you yet, watch this space.
Tom Norrington-Davies is head chef at Great Queen Street, WC2; tel: 020 7242 0622.
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