Food History

By one of life’s very happy coincidences, the family that owns the pork pie recipe were invited to Christmas dinner yesterday by the same friends who invited me. And they have kindly given me permission to let you make up your own mind about the pie, by telling you its story.

When I was at folk dance class one Thursday night several years ago, I asked Christine how she was going in retrieving this never-written-down recipe from her mother, Mary. Christine’s son Andrew was there as he wanted to borrow the car while his parents were teaching. He overheard us talking about the pies and gave them an overwhelming endorsement.

I felt a bit concerned when Christine said that there might be some trouble getting the recipe - and that no-one had been able to work out how Christine’s mother made it, including Christine’s mother. We were discussing techniques for getting beyond the stalling point. Oral recall by making the thing with a very observant note-taker in tow, or oral recall by sitting down in a comfortable chair and recounting the makings?

In the end, Christine’s mother dictated to her daughter. This was as much for Christine and her family as for me, as the way of making these pies has now been forgotten by everyone except Christine’s mother.

Andrew, like many young men, had let his thoughts wander their own paths while his mother and I were discussing the niceties of oral recall.

“They’re the pies that killed Uncle Bob,� he inserted, at a suitable moment.

Christine turned to him and said of course not, that no-one knew for certain how Uncle Bob died and the fact that he had eaten the pork pie just beforehand was probably absolutely irrelevant. Mary was appealed to for arbitration.

Uncle Bob apparently loved his food. He was thin, however, and no matter how much he ate, never seemed to put on any weight. Some less than reverent members of his family called him ‘Old Face Ache’ because he was just a bit too good-looking. Even at 76 years old, he had thick, black curly hair, and a particular eye for the girls. Apparently women were drawn to him like a magnet - a sure recipe for disapproval by the in-laws.

In the last fews hours of his life, he enjoyed a Christmas snack of turkey with all the trimmings (stuffing, vegies, gravy), finished off with a fair-sized lump of the famous pork pie, followed, of course, by pudding and custard. Then he simply collapsed and died.

His agitated wife tried mouth to mouth resuscitation. The sticky pudding and custard hindered her efforts a fraction, and it failed. Then she called an ambulance and waited by the front gate to direct them.

Because her sister and brother and their families were due to visit from the UK just a few days later, Uncle Bob was not buried immediately. In fact, he was laid out in his full glory in the front room. The air conditioner was turned onto its iciest and a man from the funeral parlour came round regularly and took his temperature.

Mary put it like this:

“The relatives arrived, excited at the thought of enjoying some Ozzie plonk and sunshine and maybe some leftover pork pie! The curtains were drawn back from over the archway into the front room, and there he was …

My God!� shouted the dear ones, “We thought he’d ‘ave bin buried days ago, won’t ‘e go orf?�

Andrew persisted with his version of the tale, that first night I heard it.

“Do you know,� he said to me, “I remember being asked if my sister and I wanted to see Uncle Bob. Of course we said “Yes�. We got a big shock when we walked into the living room and there he was in his coffin. We thought we were going to talk to him.�

This is not one of those recipes that must rest ever unchanged. For instance, Mary uses 8 oz of lean bacon instead of a quarter of the pork, because she likes the meat to be pinky inside the pies.

The family and Folk Dance Canbera have eaten these Engish Pork Pies with great alacrity on many occasions and the only possible fatality was Uncle Bob, over twenty years ago.