Featured

Heavy Plant

Walk past a "Heavy Plant" warning and wonder vaguely if the trees thought it was for them; if whoever put it up had enough imag...

2006-06-03

Pie

Ketchup on a pie - it's just wrong

Right, I’m back. It appears that we consistently exceed our bandwidth allocation so at the end of every month we lose our internet connection. Whilst I’m not averse to posting small things from work sat at your desk for twenty minutes whining online about how many pies you’re eating is probably not going to be viewed particularly well by your employer.

Speaking of which, I am eating too many pies! My pie count for the week is 4. It was a slow week pie-wise.

Not unlike the UK Australia has been through the foodie revolution and the standard of food available is now twenty or thirty times what it was ten years ago. Vegetarians are no longer put on the barbeque, though sometimes it can be a little difficult for Em to explain that chicken is not a vegetable, and that actually neither is fish.

Also like the UK there are some hang-overs from the terrible food past. For example in London you can buy a substandard cornish pastie just about anywhere. In Sydney you can buy a substandard pie just about anywhere. Although if you've got half a brain you'll look for five minutes longer and find that there is a bakers round the corner and that will sell you a gourmet pie for $2 more. Yes that's right a gourmet pie, and they're not kidding the good ones are really good. I'd steer clear of the curry ones though. What seems like a brilliant fusion of two great institutions is in fact a violation of natures law.

The Sunbeam Pie Magic 4

Australia may be the only country on earth where you can buy a pie maker. Most people would settle for doing it the old fashioned way, with an oven, but not your pie chomping sheep shearer. A pie maker is not unlike a toasted sandwich maker. You line the tins with pastry put in your filling, put on the pie lids and close the top. A few short minutes later you have pies. There even seems to be a pie maker specifically targeted at children. Why you would invest in a pie maker, make or buy pastry and make or buy filling and the fiddle around making substandard pies when you could walk to the corner of the street and buy a gourmet pie is beyond me.

Harry's cafe de wheels

My own pie consumption has been driven up by the amount of nights I am not at home for dinner. On my way off the ferry I have to walk almost straight past a window kiosk on circular quay that sells some of the bestt pies and pastries in Sydney. The temptation can be too much. Often I've grabbed a coffee and a danish for breakfast there in the morning too.

If you listen to the tourist guides there is only one place to buy a pie in Sydney Harry's Cafe de Wheels.

A pie floater

At Harry's you can buy an Australian delicacy, being Australia there is nothing delicate about it, it is called a pie floater. A pie floater is more commonly found in the state of South Australia. To make a pie floater take a bowl of mushy peas, float a pie in it - you're done. Harry's also put mashed potato on the top and cover it with gravy. I will leave you to imagine what I think of that.

2 comments:

  1. Oh-my-gawd; for once I simply don't know what to say. Why would anyone live there?

    ReplyDelete
  2. If the North of England were to be stretched out over a small continent...

    ReplyDelete