Talk:Pork pie

Questions, questions...

What's the white stuff called?

What white stuff? If you mean the white flecks in the meat part of the pie, they are pieces of fat and collagen.

The plate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.78.168.233 (talk) 19:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's what I think you mean, it's just unbrowned pastry that has soaked up gelatine - not sure it has a name. 78.151.189.91 (talk) 14:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Notes

This article could do with expanding, like a history section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.114.88.7 (talk) 14:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Pickled cucumbers?

I see this has been in the article since at least February: "Fillings added to the pork include apples, pickled cucumbers or bacon." Apples, yes; bacon, I can believe; but surely "pickled cucumbers", as a filling added to the pork and baked in the pie, is a confusion with English (ie Branston-type) pickle, which is available as a (Pork Farms) supermarket variant of the "normal" snack or picnic pork pie? I'm happy to be proved wrong, but it seems unlikely.Ghughesarch (talk) 23:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Origin of ingredients

One would assume that, to qualify as a Melton Mowbray pork pie, not only would the pie have to be baked within the area in question, but the ingredients would have to be local as well. If you could bring in pork from anywhere and make the pies in the Melton area, doesn't this make a nonsense of protected status? After all, surely the local farming and stock-rearing conditions contribute no less to the quality of the finished product than the fact of where it's made? Yet I noticed something odd on a Melton Mowbray pork pie sold at ASDA. The main label claims that it was made within the Melton Mowbray protected area, but the closure label, in extremely small print, states "made in the UK, pork from the EU." This may well comply with the letter of the regulations, but is very far, surely, from the spirit of them. Pavel (talk) 12:26, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Melton Mowbray pork pie

Should the article not define, or at least reference, the designated area for the PDO? ratarsed (talk) 11:53, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"Long Egg" is fanciful / joke ?

I think the description of how the "long egg" in a Gala Pie is made is wholly fanciful and may have been intended as a joke. As far as I am aware the eggs are just boiled and lined up inside the pie before it is baked (online recipes seem to back this up). The original reference for this seems to be a jokey comment. Deicide (talk) 21:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

There is a long 'tube egg' available commercially which is used in eg. catering, but AFAIK it's not made the way described here. In any case, I don't see the relevance of describing the egg production methods in an article on pork pies. Hence I will just remove that, esp. given that nobody has objected to your comment from five years ago. DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:29, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

'External image' link should be removed from the 'Variations' tab in the article

In my opinion, the 'External image' link should be removed from the 'Variations' tab in the article and moved to the 'External links' section of the article. Xboxsponge15 (talk) 16:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Hot or Cold?

An editor keeps adding that Yorkshire Pork pies are served hot to the Melton Mowbray section. The references in this section state clearly that all pork pies are eaten cold. There are two references in the Yorkshire section that say that sometimes pork pies are served hot in that county but nowhere does anything say that there is such a thing as a specific Yorkshire Pork pie. That pork pies can be served hot should be mentioned and that this is associated with Yorkshire is reasonable but the Yorkshire Pork Pie section is mis-named. I suggest we rename the section 'Pork Pies in Yorkshire' and correct 'often' to 'sometimes' in line with the references and remove statements that say there is such a thing as a Yorkshire Pork Pie OrewaTel (talk) 08:56, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I have made some changes based on the above. It should be noted however that pork pies made in Yorkshire (and sometimes served hot) are very different to Melton Mowbray pies, which are never served hot. Yorkshire does have a distinctive pork pie culture and there is rivalry between Leicestershire and Yorkshire as to which is the true home of the pork pie. Lard Almighty (talk) 12:23, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

What's so special about Yorkshire that it must be mentioned in Melton Mowbray? I've had hot pork pies in London, Berkshire and New Zealand. OrewaTel (talk) 14:52, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

As I explained, Yorkshire and Leicestershire both consider themselves to be the centre of "traditional" pork pie making in the UK, and they are the two major producers making very different styles of pie. One of the things that differentiates them is that Yorkshire pies are sometimes served hot while Melton Mowbray ones never are. So it is simply highlighting a difference between two major styles of pie (as highlighted on the reference in the Yorkshire section). Lard Almighty (talk) 15:13, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

I think we need more sourced explanation than this. It seems unlikely serving temperature is the only key difference. As I understand it, one of the reasons Melton Mowbray or traditional pork pies are not served hot is hinted at in the article although not explained. The clarified butter/pork stock/gelatine mixture that sets when the pie cools will melt again when it is heated. The pastry may or may not handle this but even if it does, the mixture will likely still leak out given the shape and consistency when eaten. (Unlike a Meat pie intended to be eaten hot where the gravy largely stays in.) I suspect, but don't know, this means the Yorkshire meat pie has a different version of this addition, perhaps more like the gravy of a meat pie or maybe even doesn't have it at all. Nil Einne (talk) 13:11, 31 July 2023 (UTC)