If you change the base to 8 you can calculate pie as 3.1recurring alot easier to use
Sick of the 'criminal' lies about pie? Lobby the government HERE
Mathematicians have been computing the value of pi for years*, but cooks have struggled to be anywhere near as exact about a certain pastry-based homophone. Now the cream of the culinary world could face the cops unless they stick to new rules about what constitutes a proper pie. A man called Bill T Wulf has launched a …
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 09:31 GMT Steve Channell
Re: I will sign IF
Shame he didn't do his research: PIE is also the acronym for the Paedophile Information Exchange, that was for a brief time affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), and enjoyed the advice of one Harriet Harperson.
Greeting the wrong kind of PIE with two-bricks should not be a criminal offense
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 13:19 GMT stucs201
Re: pastry horns
Pie Factory in Tipton by any chance? Although I've had worse I was disapointed that even a self-declared pie specialist doesn't make proper fully cased pies.
Their steak and kidney pudding with proper suet pastry is a much better choice, and also a quid cheaper than the 'not really a pie'.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 09:53 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Hilarious maybe
"But he is right!"
No he's not. He's proposing high quality building standards that only apply to the roof. And whilst the roof is indeed (too often) made of straw, what about the rest of the house?
Now, if he wants to set up a petition that demands minimum solid meat content, along with long jail sentences for "gravy and gristle pies" (unless marketed as such), and similar application to pasties, then I'm with him. And whilst the buffoons of parliament are at it, they could offer us legal standards for properly trimming the cortex out of kidneys before they get used in steak and kidney pies.
So that's why he's wrong: In the grand scheme of things, the inadequacy of pie casings and crusts is at least a caution to diners, warning them of the horrors that lurk beneath.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 10:26 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Hilarious maybe
Ledswinger,
There's nothing wrong with not serving the best meat in pies. And actually a reasonable gravy content is important, as you need some nice liquid to go with the pastry. Although you don't want gristle or the nasty bits of kidneys hiding in there. Even if it is a right bugger when you have to trim it off - something I have to do regularly as a frequent maker of the superior steak and kidney pudding.
However poor quality of meat is a sign that you shouldn't be going back to a place. Because their product is crap. Whereas non-pie-ness is an all too common problem which the market does not appear to be able to solve. Hence we need government regulation to force compliance with reasonable standards.
A proper pie is a lovely thing to eat. But also a bit of a hassle to make. Therefore it's the sort of thing that we invented restaurants for. So they can do the buggering about, greasing, rolling, shaping, blind baking, filling, sealing etc. I always end up squashing my pastry flat, and turning it into biscuits. Which is why I've resorted to the more forgiving steamed pudding.
I suppose we need to add another exception for cobblers, or whatever you call it when you stretch dough across the top of a casserole and bake it. Actually I think they might be two different (delicious) things. They're really nice, and easy to eat, as you rip off some bread and dip it in the gravy Not like those awful puff pastry hats, that so many places foist on us.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 12:01 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Hilarious maybe
I saw one of them telly chefs do that. I think it was Raymond Blanc (who otherwise seems to be a sensible chap), putting best steak into a kate & sidney pudding. Given it's going to get seared, then steamed for over 3 hours - I really don't know why he was wasting his time doing that. Plus you want something with a bit of fat in it, to make a nicer gravy.
I'm inspired to have a go now. Since I've started making bread, I'm hoping that my (long neglected) pastry skills will have improved. So I think I should have another go.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 21:01 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Hilarious maybe
"Vegetarianism is a strategy for dealing with not having meat full stop. No gristly cortexes and inedible bits of carcass to worry about."
Correct. You just have to worry about decaying vegetable matter. Remember, from the moment it's picked or dug up, it's started the rotting and decaying process. Then there's hidden rot you find inside when you bite into an apple, cut a potato open and find disease, eat a plum with a rotting stone inside etc. Ugh, it all sounds disgusting. Give me roast chicken to rip apart!
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 11:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ I ain't Spartacus (let the flamewar begin)
"There's nothing wrong with not serving the best meat in pies."
I'm well aware that meat is a way of making more of the less attractive bits of meat (as are sausages and burgers), and I didn't suggest that fillet steak was mandated!
I did suggest that all too often the meat content was minimal, or stretched the definition of meat to cover bone, gristle, and big gobs of chewy fat. And that's where I wholly disagree with you that outsourcing pies to other people was ever a good idea (as proven by the UK horsemeat scandal). It's a bit like sausages - buy them from a good butcher and they are a world apart from the vile factory produced rubbish sold in supermarkets even under their "best of" brands, that appear to be solely made from udder, rectum, ears, lips, eyeballs, cartilage and sinew, dyed pink and injected into a twisted garden hose.
And so it is with commercially made pies - there's no connection between the accountant and meat buyer who "create" factory produced pies, and the sadly undiscerning customer who gets served one of their "pies". That is a route that leads to a bowl of weak, salty gravy laced with flavour enhancers and thickeners, and containing rancid donkey meat from Romania, plus a few dead badgers (from DEFRA's cupboard full of murdered badgers), and maybe an "unfit" cow carcass if you're lucky, topped off with a thin lid of tasteless commodity grade pastry.
So regardless of the faff involved in making your own, the best thing you can do as a pie lover it always to make your own at home wherever possible. I made a stonkingly good steak and homebrewed ale pie the other week, lightyears better than commercial rubbish. Where this petition should be headed is forcing the charlatans of commercial pie makers out of business over the fillings so that it is at least safe to choose a pie from the menu when you are eating out.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 13:28 GMT NumptyScrub
Re: @ I ain't Spartacus (let the flamewar begin)
And that's where I wholly disagree with you that outsourcing pies to other people was ever a good idea (as proven by the UK horsemeat scandal)
Oi, cheval is pretty damn tasty. As is kudu, bison, wildebeest, and many other animals we don't normally get on UK shelves. I understand people being unhappy about not getting what they thought they were buying, but "horse" as a meat is perfectly edible :P
On the subject of using AMR or MSM product in pies I wholeheartedly agree with you. You serve the good stuff as steaks, the mediocre stuff (and the good parts of offal) cubed in pies and casseroles, and the leftovers for sausages. Some bits should just be left as waste products though ^^;
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 14:58 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ Numpty Scrub
"Oi, cheval is pretty damn tasty. As is kudu, bison, wildebeest, and many other animals we don't normally get on UK shelves."
I wasn't complaining about horsemeat per se, merely about the fact that the horsemeat scandal showed that you couldn't trust industrial pie or burger makers. As it happens I'd be quite relaxed about eating horse so long as it is real meat (and Findus' customers didn't complain, so they obviously liked it).
FWIW Lidl are stocking ostrich steaks at the moment, and that's usually lovely.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 17:42 GMT NumptyScrub
Re: @ Numpty Scrub
I wasn't complaining about horsemeat per se, merely about the fact that the horsemeat scandal showed that you couldn't trust industrial pie or burger makers.
Horsemeat is fine, selling it as "beef" was the issue. I did get a bit narked at all the sensationalism from some quarters alleging that it was unsafe for consumption "because horsemeat" though. I'd much rather have horse burger than anything with MRM "beef" in it, even if it can technically claim to be 100% "beef".
Crocodile is the oddest I've ever eaten, it's like a sweet chicken. Wasn't sure what to make of it ^^;
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Friday 5th December 2014 19:49 GMT jcitron
Re: @ Numpty Scrub
"Crocodile is the oddest I've ever eaten, it's like a sweet chicken. Wasn't sure what to make of it ^^;"
It's pretty funny how many odd meats taste like chicken - rattlesnake and guinea pig among them...
I agree if they said it was horsemeat I was eating prior to eating it, fine I'd give it a try, but don't pass it off as something else. I've traveled to various countries, including those in the Far East, and have enjoyed the ethnic foods. Some were quite tasty and were quite "normal" while others were a bit too exotic and I just couldn't get them past the lips!
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Wednesday 3rd December 2014 17:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @ I ain't Spartacus (let the flamewar begin)
To peel a squirrel (or other smallish mammal): before gutting, cut the skin round the forepaws and around the head, slit down the forelegs and join with a cut up to the neck cut and down the belly just deep enough to cut the skin. Then, nail the forepaws at the "wrist" to a stout fence post or stump, and use pliers or vise grips to grasp skin and peel in one piece to the back legs and anus, cutting off the skin at the outside of the anus (remove that when gutting) and the back paws with the skin. Now gut, and remember to remove the musk glands on many mammals or the meat will be more "flavored" than desirable. Central Midwest US here, and shooting for the pot is still alive and well, requiring mad skills with a .22 (or a wrist-reinforced slingshot and steel ball bearing) to get the head shot on a treetop squirrel or possum. Oh, don't know about the UK, wear gloves in US when dealing with raw small animal meat, tuleremia and other nasty diseases rare but present. Knowing the grey squirrel invaders in Britain, could Jamie Oliver or some such tv chef convince the populace that grey squirrel pie is a great delicacy?
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 13:46 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: @ I ain't Spartacus (let the flamewar begin)
It's a bit like sausages - buy them from a good butcher and they are a world apart from the vile factory produced rubbish sold in supermarkets even under their "best of" brands, that appear to be solely made from udder, rectum, ears, lips, eyeballs, cartilage and sinew, dyed pink and injected into a twisted garden hose.
I'd heard sausages were made out of that too. But personally, I think it's just bollocks...
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Thursday 15th January 2015 11:37 GMT Kristian Walsh
Re: @ I ain't Spartacus (let the flamewar begin)
Yup. There's no place in sausages for offal. (unless you're making something like leberwurst, of course)
"Cheap cuts" is not the same as "bad meat". Stews and pies use cheaper cuts with more fat, but a good pie needs those to come from good quality meat.
The fat in these cuts holds much of the flavour, so lean cuts like chicken breasts or fillet steak are bad pie candidates. And yet, many home cooks end up using these because supermarkets don't stock anything except lean cuts, and then get disappointed that their stews or pie-fillings are tasteless and rubbery.
Find a butcher. There's still a few of them about, and they're cheaper than you think.
(And I won't have a word said against vegetarian pies either: a good pie doesn't need meat, it just needs to taste good)
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 15:03 GMT Cheapster
Re: Pi ... its full value has never been expressed...
I think you may have typed in a hurry too, what is that word.
I don't think maths is the reg's sort of thing.
Back to the question, surely it depends on what you mean by expressed.
Pi should be something like ln(-1)/(-1^0.5)?
Happy to be told how to really write it in that form.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 08:57 GMT Adrian Harvey
Re: How about a counter petition then...?
Due to an accident of fate, McDonalds in New Zealand actually serves real pies! - see https://mcdonalds.co.nz/georgie-pie
They bought a native fast food restaurant back in the 90s basically to acquire the sites for their own restaurants and many years later 'due to popular demand' brought back some of their range. They're actually quite good IMHO - won't win any prizes, but there are plenty worse on sale. They certainly meet the petitioner's requirements, so perhaps you could ask the UK branch to introduce the NZ product!
Beer icon because, while you're asking them, McDonalds in France serves that!
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 10:52 GMT Jonathan Richards 1
Ah, New Zealand...
... home of the best meat pies that I've found on this planet. I particularly remember a venison pie from Te Anau that was sublime.
Hmm. Belle's Pies doesn't seem to have a web presence, but the store is here on Town Centre[1], Te Anau.
[1] Typical kiwi no-nonsense street naming, right there.
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Wednesday 3rd December 2014 09:55 GMT chr0m4t1c
Re: Ah, New Zealand...
>... home of the best meat pies that I've found on this planet. I particularly remember a venison pie >from Te Anau that was sublime.
This guy doesn't do venison, but he is trying to replicate the NZ pie experience: http://www.gourmetpie.co.uk/
He's doing a pretty good job, too. I bought some of his pies at a food event during August and they were all good, I plan to order some more as soon as the Christmas freezer is emptied at the end of the month.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 09:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Originally, the pastry wasn't even edible
and was just something to hold the filling. The pastry would have been hard enough to brain anyone you hit it with. So what's his problem!
And anyway as the saying goes, "fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me" - so what the feck is he doing still buying them!! Sheesh.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 10:13 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Originally, the pastry wasn't even edible
Surely that depends on the pie? I know that the cornish pasty had what was effectively an inedible pastry handle to hold it by with dirty hands. That was the bit you left - but the rest of the pastry was supposed to be eaten. I'd imagine similar things being true elsewhere. When you're trying to feed people who're taking their meal to work, then you need something to keep it in. But if you're cooking for home, you'd not want to be wasting any ingredients. It's not like flour and fat was lying around just to be thrown away!
Edible plates were the thing, back in the day. So you might serve stew on a trencher of bread, which you eat to mop up the gravy. I'd be amazed if a pie was much different.
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Wednesday 31st December 2014 02:06 GMT HelpfulJohn
Re: Originally, the pastry wasn't even edible
"It's not like flour and fat was lying around just to be thrown away!"
Ahhh, the consumer society of the early 21st Century! I have *lots* of flours and fats and stuff to throw a way. The wife used to make breads, some of them extremely fancy, but she went away and I haven't used the ingredients she left. I've been slowly binning them for a couple of years.
They are far too elderly and iffy to give away, even if I knew anyone to give them to. But binning them isn't quite as easy as ...
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 10:32 GMT Truth4u
finally
Always disappointed to tuck into my pie, and, wait a minute, what happened to the rest of it?
They always use a huge ceramic dish filled one tenth the way up with filling.
I'm thinking of creating a pie in a 4 foot tall dish with an inch of filling at the bottom and pastry on top. I will sell it for £800.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 15:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: finally
""This is a nice weighty pie", I thought foolishly."
Which proves that fired ceramics are cheaper wholesale than proper food.
Quite remarkable that Chinamen can dig clay out of the ground, process the clay, dig coal out of the ground, use the coal to fire the clay in an oven, transport it halfway round the world, deliver it to the food processor, and it's STILL more profitable for the supermarket than just making a decent pie sans case.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 10:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
What about the debt
The country is trillions of pounds in debt. He might want public money spent for yet more Government interference in our lives - I don't.
If you don't like pot pies, then ask before ordering, "Excuse me, is your pie served in a pot?"
Clearly this moron isn't capable of leaving his house without some sort of hand-holding intervention from the Government to protect him from his own stupidity.
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Thursday 4th December 2014 13:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: What about the debt
Hang on a mo, if they're selling pot pies without putting "pot" in the name, that's false advertising not consumer stupidity.
Nonsense. When did your local restaurant last show on the menu whether they fried their chips in vegetable oil or sunflower oil? Have you ever ordered a dish with winter veg and it didn't actually list what veg that consisted of?
When you order a 'pie', you know it could be all pastry, or it might come in a pot with a pastry lid. If you care, then you ask before ordering. This is not false advertising.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 11:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
NZ Pies. Mmmmmmmmmmmm!
I love the pies in New Zealand! Had my first steak and cheese pie in the café at the top of the gondola in Christchurch and found the wonderful Sheffield Pie Shop (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheffield-Pie-Shop-The-Famous/118910998134851) on a day out!
My local UK pie emporium sources the meat locally and makes the pies completely on site - http://www.castlegatecafehelmsley.co.uk/, just pop round the back to the shop and hope they have some left, if you have not rung ahead to order.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 11:55 GMT Steve Davies 3
American Pies
(queue the song...)
don't have pastry tops. More like a Flan that a proper pie.
Now if the petition were about suet Puds then I'd sign it in a tick. Even supposedly good chefs can't make suet pastry to save their lives.
Steak & Kidney Pudding with lashings of proper gravy. Yummy.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 12:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: American Pies
Troll, how ignorant and discriminatory can you be? Flan? Really? Maybe a "Streusel" topping but not on pie. Just wouldn't happen.
I don't know what you think you had but it wasn't a pie. There are GREAT pie's in the USA all you have to do is go to a REAL American Diner or Bakery. There are even places that do meat pies though not many folks here eat kidneys or other organ meats. Most of what we eat are Apple or Cherry or Pumpkin pies.
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Wednesday 3rd December 2014 02:18 GMT Mark 85
Re: American Pies
There's actually more meat pies than you think. One grocery chain sells a chicken pie with veggies, but the downside is you have to take it home and bake it. Same for many restaurants. Strange too, that for some reason, if they have meat in them, they're call "pot pies" even though there's no pot as such. Just a pie pan.
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Friday 5th December 2014 21:02 GMT jcitron
Re: American Pies
Yup.
We have turkey, chicken, beef, and pork pies. They're supposed to come stuffed with an array of veggies, lots of meat bits, and gravy. My preference is for the turkey and chicken as I find the pork and beef to be a bit greasy.
Up where I live, we have this place: The Chicken Connection https://www.ediningexpress.com/live20/115/158/ who is famous for their chicken pot pies which are made from scratch and to order.
For fruit pies well there's our famous apple pies, among others, which are great served hot with vanilla ice cream. Hmmm.. can you tell it's getting close to dinner!
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Wednesday 3rd December 2014 14:33 GMT sawatts
Pie Sandwich
"typically" - that was the point I was going to make. The definition allows for any baked dish, even those without pastry top *or* bottom.
However, I hold to the definition of a "proper" pie as something with the structural integrity to be used in a pie sandwich - an excellent way to eat meat pies without getting gravy down your sleeves.
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 13:16 GMT stucs201
Can we have full declaration of major ingredients too?
Too often I've ordered a nice sounding "steak and ale" pie, only to actually be served a "steak, mushroom and ale" pie, which is a very different thing (particularly when I hate mushrooms, but even if you do like them it's not what you ordered).
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Tuesday 2nd December 2014 15:31 GMT Stevie
Bah!
Speaking as someone who has eaten and regurgitated more than his share of (apparently) Alsatian Dog can I just say that until I threw them back up those faggots and peas from the Parson's Eson (name changed) were the tastiest things on the planet?
And that furthermore, in the interests of my personal safety I was in sore need of ridding myself of all the beer I had foolishly consumed in the mistaken belief I was having a good time?
And that the track bed of the railway running across the Radford Road was kept nicely weed-free by my stomach acids (and whatever was in the faggots that hadn't once conversed by saying "woof")?
Ah, British Casual Cuisine, the best in the world! Why would anyone want ingredients they could positively identify?
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Tuesday 23rd December 2014 08:25 GMT Tim Roberts 1
reminds me of a limerick
(apologies to the originator of this if I've made an error in quotation)
It has been an ambition of mine
A new value for pi to assign
I'd fix it a three
'cos it's easier you see
than 3.14159
Apparently there have been some attempts to do this - only in USA of course......
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state-legislature-once-pass-a-law-saying-pi-equals-3
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Wednesday 24th December 2014 20:10 GMT Henry Wertz 1
I guess I'm not an afficionado?
I guess I'm not an afficionado... but
1) I just can't see having a bottom crust or not as that huge a deal (for savory pies -- I've never seen a fruit pie without a bottom crust.)
2) It seems like it's just as easy to ask "does it have a bottom crust?" if it's a big deal.
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Monday 19th January 2015 14:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Completely agree
Just got served a 'pie' in our canteen that was a spoonfull of chicken remnants with chopped ham, then this ridiculous puffed-up flaky rugby ball dropped on top of it, that you then have to carry to a table on a tray hoping it doesn't just roll off onto the floor. Criminal indeed.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
