Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

The Melton Mowbray pork pie is the most over rated pork pie on earth!.

Let me explain why.

This pork pie has such an amazing reputation and now has a Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) (like champagne). Now I can understand why real champagne would have protection, you have to have the right type of grapes grown in certain soil in a certain climate etc etc

But pork pies!, they are made from pigs and flour!. To explain this further the following are the requirements to be classified as a Melton Mowbray pork pie:

  • It has to be baked within a geographical boundary around Melton Mowbray
  • It has to be made from uncured pork
  • The pork should be diced or minced
  • The meat content should be 30% minimum the weight of the whole pie
  • It has to be baked free standing and not in a tin or form
  • The pastry must be hot water pastry made from lard
  • It can contain salt and seasoning

That's it, in other words it a very ordinary basic pork pie!. The ingredient don't even have to come from the Melton Mowbray area.

In other words the Melton Mowbray is nothing special and the whole protected area status is nothing more than a marketing gimic created to help boast the sales of locally made pork pies.

Now if you want a superior award winning traditional pork pie then click here traditional pork pie

 

Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

You can see from the image above the characteristic shape of the Melton Mowbray pork pie, the sides bulge out because it is baked free standing.

This does not improve the taste of the pie but it does help it to brown all over, pies baked in tins tend not to brown as much on the sides.

Lets face it, they are pretty ugly looking pies.

Melton Mowbray PGI Specification

You can read the full Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) in the following link

Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Protected Geographical Indication (PGI)

When you read this you will discover that the ingredient are very basic and nothing special.

One point to note which most people get wrong is that the the filling can be EITHER diced or minced, in fact some of the most famous Melton Mowbray pie makers who boast about their pies use minced pork (obviously because it is much faster and cheaper than hand dicing)

Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Problems

There are several problems with the Melton Mowbray pork pie which is why it's so overrated:

  • The PGI specification says that the meat content only needs to be 30% minimum, so this encourages pork pie makers to make a pie with a heavy pastry content, flour is of course a lot cheaper than pork so they make more money.
  • Because it is hand raised it is very hard to get thin pie sides and base, the best pork pies have thin pastry which crisps up better when baked making them taste much better. Melton Mowbray pork pies are generally very stodgy, most people prefer a pie with more meat content.
  • The PGI specification says that the meat can be either diced or minced, this of course encourages pie makers to use minced pork which is significantly faster and cheaper to use. The best pork pies use a mixture of diced and minced pork.
  • The PGI does not even specify where the ingredients for the Melton Mowbray pork pie need to come from, in other words I could import all the ingredients, the pork, flour, lard and seasonings from China, and just because it was made with a certain radius of Melton Mowbray it magically becomes a special pork pie LOL