Back from the pie quest and the results are now in.
The journey was a difficult one. It was lashing down with rain and the A168 was awash in places but the first port of call, Greenwoods in Boroughbridge was pleased to see me again. I udated the butcher on my cycling exploits and then it was down to business. I left with pork and apple pies, pork pies, farmhouse sausages, welsh dragon sausages, pork and leek sausages and slabs of their black pudding. I also had a 'pie for the road' a straightforward pork pie.
Appletons in Ripon was skipped as their pies were a known quantity, the weather and road conditions weren't too good so I decided to focus on Cockburns of Bedale where I knew there was a large unsampled range of pork pies to choose from. I eschewed the pork and mushy pea, pork and black pudding, pork and cranberry and pork and apple pies leaving with pork ploughmans pies, pork and haggis pies, pork and red onion pies, pork, pheasant and ham pies, plain pork pies and wild boar and apple sausage and pork and black pudding sausage. I had a bacon wrapped sausage style pie/roll for the road and pressed on towards Morton on Swale where I decided to leave the butchers unexplored for now.
Reaching my friend's house in Darlington I spread the good cheer by sharing my spoils - they were left with enough sausage bacon and black pudding for two good fry ups then the serious business commenced - pie eating. The judging panel of six engaged in serious troughing and debate before reaching a conclusion.
The results are:
Greenwood's pork and apple pie ......................
Greenwood's pork pie.........................................
Cockburn's pork, pheasant and ham pie............
Cockburn's pork and red onion pie.....................
Cockburn's pork ploughman's pie......................
Cockburn's pork pie...........................................
Cockburn's pork and bacon wrap......................
Although only offering two pork pie variants Greenwoods matched the best of the Cockburns selection with the top scoring pies from each pie shop voted the pies to die for.
Getting home from Darlington with a seriously depleted pie supply saw the remaining pies being used for the evening meal. My wife and daughter voted the pork and red onion as the winner from the Cockburn range. The remaining Greenwood pies were left in Darlington.
Today has witnessed a personal best:- Eight pies and a pork and bacon wrap.
At the moment it's best to stand upwind of me.
and their dragon (?) sausages weren't half bad either!
