melton mowbray pork pie

Stopped back in at Old Country Deli and Meats for another round of haggis recently and decided to sample something else again. With the very cholesterol friendly scotch egg last time clogging my heart, I figured it would only be fitting to stay on that healthy kick.


Why not a meat pie! Your everyday choices include such delights as chicken pot pie and scotch meat pie, but what sold me was the meltown mowbray pie. Having no idea what or why this pie is different, I figured was a good enough place to start. And boy was I in for an education.

It seems like a growing number of foods and beverages are becoming certified to a specific region of the world. Two examples of such organizations include the DOC in Italy and the AOC in France. It should be no surprise than that the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association has been set up to protect this little treat. Hey, if champagne and buffalo mozzarella can be protected..why not I say!

In accordance with wikipedia, a pork pie consists - of roughly chopped pork and pork jelly sealed in a hot water crust pastry, and are (is) normally eaten cold. What makes a mowbray pork pie different is the use of uncured meats as opposed with the cured pork in your typical pie. So we definitely have the jelly, we have the pork, we have the pastry crust.

It is easy to see why the pork pie was so popular back in the day. Like the scotch egg, the pie would give you quite the caloric boost. Whether you were working the fields or in some industrial revolution pollution machine you were surely in need of such sustenance. Now...maybe not so much. Like 1000 calorie Starbucks beverages, this pie should probably be consumed as a special treat (or shared among 4 or 5 people!). The taste. Well it was chunks of pork, jelly and pastry. I'm not one to turn down pork parts (or jelly), and the pastry was great....so really, I'm just happy to have tried it, even if it wasn't made in the required 1,800 square mile requirement!