Pork Pie

English food gets a bad rap. While it’s true that, set beside an elegant tray of sushi, or the steamy surprises on a dim-sum cart, or a confit de canard at the end of a long autumn walk from Calès to Rocamadour, a plate of chips and mushy peas may not fare very well.

But consider the pork pie.

The Melton Mowbray pork pie is part of a worldwide continuum of hearty protein-in-dough specialites that includes Chinese jiaozi, Italian ravioli and tortellini, Hawaiian manapua, Mexican tamales and enchiladas, French quiche–even, when you think about it, sandwiches themselves.

But as far as I know, the pork pie is the only member of that venerable fraternity with a hat named after it and a bit of Cockney rhyming slang to its credit (a “porkie pie” is a lie).

And if all that weren’t enough to establish its coolness, the Melton Mowbray pork pie has what amounts to an appellation d’origine controlée for European foods: the PDO, or Protected Designation of Origin. As of this past April, you can’t call it a Melton Mowbray pork pie if you don’t produce it, more or less by hand, in the town of Melton Mowbray.

The pork pie is a great example of a culinary specialty arising from a specific place and its agriculture. Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, is the home of Stilton cheese. Cheesemaking arose from the abundance of milk produced by the region’s richly-pastured dairy cows, and gave rise to an excess of whey. Whey, it was discovered, made an excellent addition to the diet of pigs, and so pork arose alongside blue-veined cheeses as a notable regional product.

The Melton Mowbray pork pie is a “raised pie”. A sturdy hot-milk dough is “raised” around a wooden form, filled with the raw meat mixure, lidded with more dough and slowly baked, freestanding on a baking sheet, to a crisp dark gold. The raised method allows pies to be made in any number, in a variety of sizes from a handheld lunch to a big four-pounder, without expensive specialized baking tins.

A hole in the center of the slightly-domed crust lid lets out steam, and, when the pie is cooled, lets in that most critical component of the finished dish, pork jelly.

The pork mixture inside–a combination of trimmed and cubed pork shoulder, bacon, sage, salt, pepper and a little anchovy paste–shrinks a bit during the long, slow baking, leaving a space between it and the crust. Into this space, once the pie is cooled, is funneled a warm, reduced stock of bones, a trotter, aromatics and herbs. This cools into a jelly layer betwen the meat and crust. The jelly is critical to the savory flavor and rich mouth feel of the finished pie, which is always served cold so that the jelly doesn’t melt.

The crust is traditionally made using lard, an egg, and hot milk instead of water–all ways of incorporating the local agricultural abundance into a convenient and portable food.

A savory and deeply satisfying meal, the traditional Melton Mowbray-style pork pie is proof that in Britain, as in most parts of the world, the real, wholesome, local cuisine is excellent.

Tags: English food, local cuisine, melton mowbray, pork pie