As a child the highlight of my Saturday would be a quarter share of a freshly baked pork pie – bought from the local shop and more often than not still warm. Unfortunately the baker, Coopers of Rotherham, went into liquidation sometime in the mid-1980s, but my love for pork pie was born.
Sadly good pork pies are a rare thing these days. Supermarkets stock things that are labelled as ‘Pork Pie’ but they are vile mass produced mechanically recovered grey mush surrounded by an over thick lardy pastry, guaranteed to have you reaching for the Rennies.
Fortunately South Yorkshire is blessed with several excellent purveyors of pork pie, among them are; Elmhurst of Goldthorpe, Percy Turner of Jump and Waterall Bros in Sheffield Market. There may be others but these are my personal favourites.
I discovered Waterall Bros’ several years back. One of my colleagues would occasionally take pity on me and on return from her weekly market trip present me with a small (ish) pork pie and a piece of black pudding. It was love at first bite – the light crisp golden pastry surrounding the delicious pink (proper) meaty filling with just the right amount of jelly to separate them. A pie so good that any accompanying condiment would be deemed sacrilegious – even Henderson’s! Followed by the most delicious black pudding it was a true northern delicacy, even if it was a little calorific…
Read the whole article at ofpiesandbirds
