I have very strong opinions about pies

 

I have very strong opinions about pies.

• The only thing I consider pies are ones are hot snacks about the size of your hand, with pastry on all surfaces. The filling can be meat or some wonderful vegetarian concoction, but it has to have some kind of gravy, and must be baked in an oven for optimum results.


• I have tried pies in some form all over the world, and can objectively state that New Zealand pies are the best pies in the world. Australian always put them in fucking bases that make everything soggy (and they have the worst meat). Britain has over-evolved into weird pasties. I don't know what the fuck Americans are doing.


• I once saw a lovely looking beef pie in the window of a shop in Scotland, somewhere in a village halfway between Loch Ness and Edinburgh, and when I bought it they threw it into the deep fryer for five minutes and then coated the whole thing in lashings of vinegar before handing it to me.


• Yeah, it was weirdly delicious and just what we needed on a cold and wet Scottish afternoon, but that's not the fucking point.


• We also saw the Loch Ness Monster that day. Big day.


• The Irvines brand is going to disappear from NZ shelves soon and I honestly think that is a fucking disgrace, because it means the loss of the last good, cheap meat pie. All the others in the price range are complete dogshit, lacking in flavour and substance.


• The only other options are gourmet shit, where you're paying $12 for something full of leeks. These can also be delicious too, but again, that's not the point.
  

• The only good thing about the Georgie Pie franchise, which tried to do for pies what McDonalds does for burgers in the 80s and 90s, was that you could get 50c pies, and when you were on the fucking dole, that was a meal sorted for less than a couple of bucks. When they brought them back a few years back, they charged, like, five bucks for them, and that shit was never going to fly. They don't do sell them anymore, again.


• I am not personally a fan of any pie with bacon in it, although I understand why others like it. I just think it's too vulgar, and overwhelms the gravy.

 

• Jimmy's Pies, from the fine town of Roxburgh, are the best pies you'll get in a paper bag. Solid, and lasting in their solidity. I once bought some mates a tray of them after breaking a bit of their house in drunken stupidity, and all two dozen of the pies disappeared in two and a half days.


• But I was also born in Timaru, so a deep love for the Mays pie is literally running in my blood. They're a pepper bomb for absolutely everyone else in the world, but everybody else in the world can go get fucked.


• The absolute best pies ever made in the history of the world were produced in the 1990s at a Washdyke food outlet. The chicken pie was some seriously good shit, with chunks of chicken, vegetables and a thick cheesy gravy. Their cornish pastries were literally an entire meal - we lived on them for one glorious summer - with massive bits of spud and steak, layered in a thick gravy, because again, it's all about the gravy.


• I have no opinion about fruit, cream or other kinds of sweet pies. They are all absolutely wonderful.