Better than cheese sandwiches

A quick sojourn away to Wales for some canoeing always requires a few snacks. As usual we brought enough sandwich filling for all involved. And at lunch on the first day as we were all extracting the breaded plastic cheese and ham, we discovered the instructors had already located the local butcher, in fact there were two, and were pulling out of their pockets the much more appealing pork pies.

So off I went, two for me and two for the tasters back home, and here starts the review. Which is most appropriately capped off by the exclamation of "Wow, they come in a paper bag", upon their unveiling to the tasting team. Upon which it was unanimously considered that all serious pies come in a paper bag.

However, it quickly became clear that the pie was lacking in one key area: the pastry. Particularly on the top where it averaged a very poor 3mm in thickness and had the structural integrity more akin to the slums of Mumbai than the well insulated homes of old Blighty. Trust the Welsh to get that one wrong.

All was forgiven when we made our first incision into this pie: the outer pastry was good; the sausage meat was exceptionally sausagy and chunky, a good cobbly mixture full of varied flavours, none of that supermarket rubbish; with just enough jelly "tucked around the back" to keep us interested but not put off.

All in all a very good pie which made up for the poor pastry with a good filing and a beautifully crumpled paper bag.

Pastry 3/10, sausage 8/10, jelly 6/10, packaging 9/10.