Jim McBeth tells us more than we really want to know in a article in the Scotsman, The Scotch pie shows its upper crust:
DRIVEN by desire, surrounded by golden pastry encasing meaty concoctions you knew would never contain cow lips or eye lashes, Brian Monteith, the MSP for mid-Scotland and Fife, revealed his secret.That's OK, the folks "further south" have their culinary preferences elsewhere:
He runs a pie club. As confessions go, it is not in the class of, for example, the average Royal butler, but this is no ordinary pie club.
This is the Scottish Parliamentary Pie Club, a little-known, but important adjunct to the governance of Scotland.
It meets once a month in an Edinburgh pub on the Royal Mile, where the Conservative MSP and chums gather to deliberate, cogitate and digest copious amounts of pies.
"Winning bakers get a certificate," said Mr Monteith, who added: "Pies are wonderful food; I have no time for food fascists who say otherwise."
The MSP’s unique insight led him to Glasgow yesterday, where he was empanelled as a judge in the 4th World Scotch Pie Championship at the Glasgow College of Food Technology.
The title is somewhat of a misnomer.
A Scotch pie was traditionally made with mutton, but, today, the preferred ingredient is beef, particularly meat from Aberdeen.
Furthermore, the competition is not open to the bakers of the world.
The government’s "food fascists" will not allow savouries to be imported, which is perhaps just as well.
It would be awful if a Japanese baker or somebody won it, but, even worse, there are entries from ... further south.
The man who introduced The Beatles to Americans is finally bringing a U.S. export back to the U.K. - the hot doughnut.Gad! What's next? North Carolina Barbecue?
Veteran television presenter Dick Clark, who is widely credited with giving The Beatles their first U.S. break on his American Bandstand show, is part of a partnership that plans to open 25 Krispy Kreme doughnut and coffee outlets in the U.K.
Fans of the Fab Four will argue the Liverpudlian group are worth slightly more than a sweet-flavored ring of dough, but Clark and his partners figure Krispy Kreme's variety of glazed and filled delicacies will prove just as much of a hit with Britons. After all, each year British people eat about one-quarter of Europe's sugar products and almost one-third of its chocolate.
