Another food fight for Berry... this time it’s pie
No soggy bottom for the former Bake Off judge as she offers up a dish that has only a pastry lid
Mary Berry has started a new culinary debate about exactly what constitutes a pie. The former Great British Bake Off judge cooked a vegetable pie on her BBC One show, Mary Berry Everyday, with no pastry base, prompting viewers to suggest it was not worthy of the name.
WHEN Mary Berry added double cream to her bolognese sauce recently, the nation was divided. Now she has set another culinary conundrum: what exactly is a pie?
The former Great British Bake Off judge cooked a hearty potato, leek and cheese pie on her BBC One show, Mary Berry Everyday. But the pie had no pastry base, and viewers expressed their doubts.
Twitter, the social media forum, was flooded with comments about whether it was a pie.
“That’s a pastry lid – not a pie,” said one. “Whatever that was, it was not a pie,” said another, while one viewer made the sombre declaration: ration: “A pie without a base is a lie.”
According to the experts, Berry was indeed in the wrong. “That’s not a pie,” said Matthew O’Callaghan, the chairman of the British Pie Awards. “It’s’ s just a casserole with a bit of pastry on top.” The rules for entry into the British Pie Awards state that “a pie is a filling totally and wholly encased in pastry”. About this, Mr O’Callaghan is strict. “We want a top and a bottom. Lattice, open top, only a top – they’re not allowed at the British Pie Awards,” he said. “These are things called ‘pies’ that we wouldn’t recognise as pies – shepherd’s pie or cottage pie, for example. Americans call tarts ‘pies’.
“We’re not going to criticise Mary, though. She came to one of our food festivals in Melton Mowbray years ago and she was very nice.”
Using only a top pastry layer avoids the dreaded soggy bottom. But Mr O’Callaghan said: “Mary will know very well about blind baking, which is how to avoid it happening. We’ve just had this year’s awards with 900 pies entered, and there wasn’t a soggy bottom to be seen.” The supreme winner this year was a Melton Mowbray pork pie.
Last year there was controversy at the awards when the title went to a beef and vegetable pasty – under the rules, a Cornish pasty qualifies as a pie.
One former judge called it “a sad day for pie fans”.
Berry did make her own flaky pastry for her pie, which she described as “absolutely scrumptious”. The recipe called for generous helpings of butter and cheese, and she told viewers: “It’s a little bit naughty and very rich, but very good.” Tom Newitt, the winner of the 2015 Best Pie in Britain title, sided with Berry and said a pastry bottom was not essential. Mr Newitt, a butcher from Thame, Oxfordshire, appeared on the show and counts Berry as a customer. He said: “There is no hard and fast rules when it comes to pies. The quality of the ingredients is what counts. Mary is a national treasure and we can’t contradict her statements.” The veteran cookery writer inadvertently provides a talking point in each episode. After “bolognese-gate”,log she astonished millennials with the admission she had never ordered a pizza delivery, then proceeded to eat one with a knife and fork.
When is a pie not a pie? Mary Berry has prompted another culinary controversy by producing a pie without a base, to the horror of aficionados. It had a pastry top but no bottom, soggy or otherwise. Matthew O’Callaghan, the chairman of the British Pie Awards, derisively called it “a casserole with a bit of pastry on top” insisting that “a pie is a filling wholly encased in pastry”.
But what is a shepherd’s pie or a fish pie, neither of which have pastry at all? Mr O’Callaghan said these should not be recognised as pies, which will be news to millions of cooks around the land. True, the dictionary defines a pie as “a baked dish of fruit, or meat and vegetables, typically with a top and base of pastry”. In most cases yes, but not always. Let Mary have her bottomless pie.