Melton Mowbray Pork Pies

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit a quaint little market town in the East-Midlands known as Melton Mowbray. Nestling in rural Leicestership, Melton Mowbray is known as a ‘Rural Capital of Food’ and boasts a culinary heritage that few can match. As well as other produce, visitors can sample Melton Mowbray pork pies and Stilton cheese, both famous delicacies that though imitated, the truly authentic can only be made locally.

Melton’s history is inextricably linked to hunting, and for centuries it was the place to be, with the royal, the rich and the famous spending autumns and winters here. 

Needing a bite to eat mid-hunt, pork pies became a saddlebag favourite and were literally ‘eaten whilst on the hoof’. Nowadays, rich, crunchy pastry and succulent British pork ensure these unique pies remain popular, and Dickinson & Morris’ Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, established in 1851, is one of Melton’s top attractions.

The development of the diary industry was encouraged by the Enclosure Awards of the 1700’s which incidentally created the perfect foxhunting environment. Whey, a by-product of the cheese industry, was an ideal food for pigs so pork became a common feature of the Melton diet. Originally baked in a clay pot covered with a rough pastry, the pork pie evolved to resemble a “parcel” of pastry wrapped around a pork filling. This allowed the pie to be carried whilst at work (agricultural workers, grooms and hunt servants would often carry them), and the pastry case was discarded before eating.

In the late 1700’s foxhunting developed in the Melton area, Melton Mowbray becoming the centre for the three famous local hunts (Quorn, Cottesmore and Belvior) and the capital of foxhunting in England. In fact nearby Leicester City football club are known as The Foxes.

The local pork pie was “discovered” by visiting hunters who saw their grooms and servants eating it during the 1780’s and they discovered it to be broadly different and superior than many other local pies.

The pie developed further, a hot water crust pastry was used as the edible casing raised by hand around a bottle or wooden dolly, hence the expression hand raising a pie. The meat of the pie when cooked was grey in colour, not pink, because the hunting season coincided with the slaughter over the autumn and winter months of local pigs, and the associated production of pork pies.

The pies were baked free standing which gave their bow shaped appearance when they came out of the oven. Bonestock jelly was added to the hot pies to fill all the air spaces to preserve the meat inside the pie longer and to ensure the pie did not crumble when carried by huntsmen riding over ditches. The fresh meat, grey when cooked, seasoned with salt and pepper, crunchy pastry, succulent jelly and the distinctive bow-shape of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie distinguished it from all other pork pies.

Although I am sure Melton Mowbray has other things going for it, when I found myself only 10 or 12 miles away in Oakham, I just had to go and try an authentic Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. There are lots of people in Britain and even more overseas who are very snooty about local British foods yet will take your ears off about local French, Italian or Spanish meats or cheeses whilst many young people aren’t even aware there are such things.

After exploring the town centre and eying up a number of great looking pie shops, we settled on a little place a little hidden away but where we could sit down and enjoy things in comfort. A portion of Melton Mowbray Pork Pie with some delicious and local Stilton Cheese and a small pot of chutney.

It was such a delicious meal, I know that if I lived there I’d be the size of a hot air balloon from eating them every day. Far superior from mass-produced and imitation products you get else-where, as usual the original is always the best.

In fact I liked them so much I had to buy two large pies to bring home with me, one of which had melted stilton cheese amongst the meat inside the pie. Despite each one being the size of a side plate, they didn’t last long I can tell yoU!