The Bakels New Zealand Pie Awards discussion

Yes no peas in my B & E please and no carrots or onions. I don't mind chopped parsley however.

With you fully on that Graeme. It's the same people who moan that Asian immigrants don't get involved in Kiwi society that then moan when they do and win all the awards. They can't win! Thoroughly enjoyed the Pie Awards this year. Looking forward to my next trip to 'Vegas to try one of Pat's specials. In the mean time, I'll make do with the highly commended place in Waitakere's Green Bay!

By Graeme Hill
So, another Pie awards has come and gone, and what a great show put on by the incomparable Catherine Saunders. We heard last night to gasps and "oh no"s that it was the last awards she will be involved with. One of those "oh no"s was mine. Congratulations to Catherine on putting on the best awards in the land for so many years.

The supreme award went to Pat Lam from Bethlehem in Tauranga again this year... and this time it was his bacon & egg! That must be one hell of a good B&E, and we know that there are NO PEAS in it.

Gold Award for commercial Mince & Cheese (60,000 per week minimum) this year went to Murray Blair Swetman of Gourmet Foods Ltd in Tauranga. Gotta get one. Good for you Murray. We'll be playing an interview with him from the awards night on Sunday at 10:30.

80% of the winners were asian immigrant bakers... and guess what.
Here's what I heard on a radio station today (I can't remember what one)... "I'm not a racist but... what happenned to the good old Kiwi pie?".

OK. I'll tell you.. immigrants have come here and raised the standard of our pies, thus improving our quality of life... and you are complaining??? And in any case these people ARE Kiwis... they just don't talk or look like you, and that's the only thing you're pointing out.

I'm not racist but.... Yeah right.

THANK YOU and congratulations to our immigrant pie-making geniuses. We are glad you chose New Zealand (if you even had a choice) as your home.

Yes the foil should be allowed.

1.A least you can expect a decent amount of filling.
2.Its easier to get the uncomplying pie out of the warmer, rather than sticking the tongs through the middle.
3.Your not left eating the black residue of every other pie baked in the pie tin trays that may not be well cared for.
- And finally its truely a great pie maker who can get the pastry to cook perfectly through using a foil tin.

Don't get me wrong, I buy mince, but I do so much to make it taste like food, that it struggles next to a piece of steak that merely needs to be seared. There is no eye filet mince, t bone mince, neck steak mince, its all lost somewhere between the tail and the chin. Mince is just meat for meats sake. I’ve been thinking lately that a mutton or chevron pie would have promise … (Lamb in a pie is as tofu to a soup….and I had to look up chevron since goat sounds like cow) The Regency Pie shop used to make the Tuatua pie. I would have bought some for freezing if I'd known David was going to lose... The best pie since then is the carpetbag, but not even close to pastriefied pipi ( and im not sure thats a word).

OK, I've just had a bacon and egg with tomato and onion in it... Who's gross idea was that? Onion never goes with egg and certainly not with bacon! Yuck!

Dear Arrogant. I think you meant ambiguous, not "unambiguous" but anyway.. look at mince this way... good mince is simply grinding meat up so the flavour has nowhere to hide... not its origin. I used to think of mince as a cop-out until I realised there was a good culinary reason for its inclusion in a pie.
Who did the David Tuatua? Sounds O for Orsome!

No peas, ever, in anything, except perhaps a thai or indian dish but... once there was a David Tuatua pie out of Whangarei, I worry that it may be hanging up its gloves along with Dave, but it was a very tasty little number... I'm well over mince.. why not a steak and pecorino, venison, ostrich or even gator? best pie should be a delight, nothing says "unambiguous meat product" like mince. Duck, wild pork, eel, anything but bloody mince. Whats wrong with the aluminium things? Pie Burqa?

Go and listen to Supreme Awards Judge and multi-award winner James Buckrell on the subject of peas in pies. His strong opinion can be found at 8 minutes elapsed.

http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Pie-Awards-youngest-winner-James-Buckrell-talks-pies/tabid/506/articleID/14672/Default.aspx

GH

I suppose the real question here is WHY the pea, rather than other vegetative imposters, so frequently gets the nod??... Is it because people don'ty have to cjop them? Aside from that... NO TO THE PEA! Anti pea people, you will be very pleased to hear what Pat Lam, the 2009 B & E winner and also supreme award winner last year has to say. Go listen. It's towards the end.

graeme