(edit title) Melton Mowbray Pies It's too quiet here!!! Options

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

I want a pie!!!

Made with rising, or raising flour...either one is acceptable...I'm not anal retentive you know!!!

I'm not English, but I consider myself as an Anglophile...

Does that help???...Can I buy one???

In my heritage I have Norman French surnames...You know, from the Viking guys that lived in France for a while and invaded in 1066, and wasn't it a "Norrland" guy that shot the arrow into King Harold!!!

After all this time doesn't that qualify me as English???

Do I have to fill out forms to allow the purchase of an English product by a non-English person???...But I am???...Aren't I...???

Will I have to wait until all the "native English" have their pie orders filled???

If I am waiting in a queue...will rude people push by me???

Is there a pie quota relevant to people like me???

Is there a pie purchase registration process through a, regulated governmental agency with a lot of employees dedicated to the preservation of the integrity of the product that allows sales to those that are worthy...or not???

Can I skip all the necessary governmental regulations and buy a "black" pie???

Will my last sentence brand me as racist???

Please help I cannot stand not knowing and cannot spell Gugull, or whatever that thing is!!!

[Laurelia]

I actually had a melton mowbray pork pie yesterday.

[Hisingen]

I actually had a melton mowbray pork pie yesterday.

And you didn't offer to share it??
That was most inconsiderate of you, especially as there are many of us who have not tasted such a real pie in ages. Now you have really gone down in my estimation. Selfish, that is what you are - with a capital S. You did not even let us smell the wrapper!!

[Solith]

I love the ones at Christmas with the cranberries on top. There's just something about meat, rich pastry and tangy fruit. Mmm.

[yet another brit]

You have to remember the social history of pies in Sweden to understand the rules.

Pies were heavily regulated by the Ministry of Dreariness in 1974, which followed a well-meaning but ultimately futile attempt to make everyone wear miners helmets & lights whilst walking, since that worked so well with the cars.

One of the reasons for doing so was a secret addendum to the IB files, showing that communists like pies. However, Jan Guillou likes pies, so he decided not to publish that bit.

You can buy pies in heavily regulated state stores, call Pajbolaget. You'll find these open Thursdays every other month between 11 and 13, though closed for lunch from 11:30, and the staff have their morning fika at 11. There are four stores, none of which is closer than 50 Swedish miles from Stockholm. They were moved there in the late 90s as part of the attempt to reinvigorate the countryside, and as a consequence of no-one wanting to actually move away from Stockholm to work, Pajbolaget may only be contacted by phone between 8 and 8:15 am, alternate Tuesdays [June, July and August excepted]. Standard pies have a recipe approved by Socialstyrelsen, and may contain no more than 5% lard, and no self-raising flour. On the plus side, the traditional British inclusion of the bits of a dead pig that even the dog food factories would turn down is also banned, and Swedish pies can be suprisingly tasty as long as your forget what they taste like abroad.

Assuming that you have both a Certificate of Non-Lardiness ("Sundhetsintyg") from your doctor, and a Permission to Obtain Pies ("Pajtillst?nd") from your local Socialstyrelsen office - required from no readily apparent reason except historical ones - then you are allowed to buy pies. However, to get a Sundhetsintyg, you need to already have a Pajtillst?nd, and vice versa. Thus, it's quite complicated to actually buy pies, even though this is the only transaction in Swedish history ever authenticated as not needing a personal number.

The Swedes have a complex relationship to pie. It is generally considered more or less socially acceptable (as long as you don't talk about it in public) to buy a pie on the black market. Everyone does it, but pretends that they don't. This is especially true for politicians and a certain type of B-list celebrity, who have to pretend that they don't eat pies at all. Mikael Persbrandt seems to get away with constant pie consumption. It is rumoured that, in her younger days, Princess Madelaine was fond of a pie or two, and Julian Assange doesn't understand that how he allegedly ate his pies in Sweden could have possibly been wrong. Foreign men believe that Swedish girls are all blond and will hand out pies indiscriminately, neither of which is true. Deeply scurrilous rumour suggests that the King used to enjoy his pie served with coffee.

The ownership of pies is no longer taxed. Everyone is nevertheless required to declare their pie consumption annually to Skatteverket, who haven't quite yet worked out whether it is going to be taxed again, but they'd like to give it a go now that the Social Democrats are back in power. The Social Democrats are a bit scared of doing so, despite their rhetoric, since abolishing the pie tax was what got the Conservatives into power in the first place.

The Conservatives believe that pies should be available in privately owned shops. The Social Democrats do too really because it is cheaper, but they have to pretend that the state system is better so that the Left party stays happy. The Greens want locally sourced pies made with renewable energy. The Liberals want immigrants to be able to spell "pie" correctly in Swedish. No-one knows what the Centre party position is (nor do they care), and the Christian Democrats just want traditional pies to be available at end-of-term services in local churches. The Sweden Democrats want to ban foreigners entering Sweden to eat our pies. Despite the fact that the popularity of the Sweden Democrats might well be telling the other parties something uncomfortable about the messaging of their own pie-politics, the other parties just gang up and ignore them.

Both Aftonbladet and Expressen publish entirely prurient lists of peoples annual pie consumption under a thin pretense of public interest, though the private interests of their shareholders would seem to be a stronger rationale. If you are really lucky, your neighbours will get to admire your pie consumption statistics from the newspapers, though they can go and look it up anyway if they are that bothered. Knowledge of everybodies pie consumption is seen as normal.

It would seem logical to be able to freely buy imported pies in normal shops. The earth probably wouldn't stop rotating as a result.

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

At last...a kindred spirit!!!

Thank you!!!

[Hisingen]

At last...a kindred spirit!!!. Thank you!!!

Yea verily, forsooth.
I had not realised that the pie had such a reputation here in the Three Crown Kingdom. Not one iota of the revealment above was to be found on Google or even Wikipedia, hence we have all been kept in the dark.
Until now.

And just imagine - it took yet another Brit to reveal the truth.

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

And!!!...In a most comedic way

[yet another brit]

Glad you liked it! :-)

[Hisingen]

Indeed yes. What a change from MV moans et al.
Genuine folklore, providing us with that news that the Internet cannot possibly provide - whereby no-one need feel guilty because they don't bother to try researching it.

What other pearls of wisdom are lurking in that mind of yours?
Don't be shy now.
Having provided us with that pienormous explanation, there must be more to come.

We are now all on tenterhooks, wondering what the next instalment will reveal. Could it be the wonders of 'Lagom', or an in depth analysis of 'the fika'. or why people greet you with a 'hej' and see you off with a 'hej, hej'.
Thereby hangs a tale.

[Svensksmith]

There's nothing better than a piece (of pie).

[LLHope]

Pi Day is on 14th March

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

3.14159265...to infinity!!!

[Hisingen]

Would that be American Pie, GH??

[FlyingFraudster]

YetAnotherBrit's summing up of the whole Swedish state through the eyes of pies was remarkable.

I'd happily read an article like that every day!