Goodbye Pork Pie
Travelling back to St Bees on the little railway that serves Sellafield, just south of my hometown I noticed that the Spillers Dalgetty Pork Pie factory in which I laboured, messily & mephitically, between school and university is now in an advanced state of demolition. This gave me a great feeling of gratification and pleasure.
posted by Nick at 11:02 am
6 Comments:
I like that term, "mephitically" ... Many years ago, someone I knew (not the esteemed Nick) described to me his holiday job in a pork-pie factory. I have never knowingly consumed the smallest fragment of a pork-pie since, though it has to be said that the more alarming ingredients were allegedly introduced without the knowledge or complicity of the management.
So, where does the pork-pie hat come from?
Presumably a result of economic decay rather than a sudden outbreak of healthy eating?
Must of been when the bottom fell out of the market due to all the Whitehaven Jam Eaters.
VL - I thought the Jam Eaters were from Workington?
BL - I can assure you that pork pie reality outstrips your worst fears & most lurid imaginings . . .
Dr John - I suspect that for most West Cumbrians 'healthy eating' means having only one pattie with their fish and chips.
Eleanor - the origins of wearing a pork pie on your head are shrouded in mystery. I believe the burgers of Melton Mowbray are first recorded as doing so as part of their Shrove Tuesday celebrations in 1325. The practice was outlawed by Oliver Cromwell in 1653, restored in 1661 when King Charles visited the town with a shortcrust pastry and a pair of copulating odalisques atop his wig, and finally fell into disuse in the 1850s on the grounds of extreme silliness
Quote from Wikipedia,
The insult 'Jam Eaters' is used as part of the rivalry with local town Whitehaven. Supposedly, this term arose from the mining days because miners from Workington were richer than those from Whitehaven and could afford more exotic sandwich fillings.
So, assuming Jam is more exotic than other sandwhich fillings you are quite correct.
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