Roger Rabbits with Jim Bunny

ADVISORY:  LIKE MINCE AND CHEESE PIES, THIS STORY MAYBE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. READ, THEN SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE IF NECESSARY.

It was my worst ever pie experience. And 42 years later it still sticks in my craw and on my conscience.

I bought the pie at a dairy outside Lancaster Park in Christchurch before a rugby test. In hindsight, I should not have been there, and they certainly should not have been here.

They? The apologists for Apartheid, the agents of racism, the Springboks.

The pie gave me acid reflux to remind me I was morally bankrupt that day.

It was a dreadful pie and a dreadful occasion at a dreadful time – the first All Black rugby test against South Africa, Saturday, August 15, 1981.

A cop later remarked it was “sheer luck” no-one was killed in that day... a day of national shame, anti-tour protests, barbed wire, Piggy’s Red Squad, and bad pies.

The All Blacks won the game, but New Zealand lost the day.

Bethlehem’s favourite son

So, why are we banging on about pies?

Because Bethlehem’s favourite son, Pat Lam, whipped up a little duck, onion and mushroom creation to win the 2023 Supreme Pie Award. Again.

Why aren’t we surprised? 

I love Pat’s story. The refugee who fled Cambodia, found pies and is now a national treasure. Anyhow, it got us talking pies.

Apparently New Zealand gorges 67 million pies a year – that’s a lot of shortcrust pastry and ground-off cuts.

Thirteen pies a year for every one of 5.123 million Kiwis.

I haven’t eaten a pie all year. That doesn’t make me a martyr, I simply prefer other crap food. My allocation of 13 pies is smeared on the collective thighs and waistlines of this nation by someone else with a fascination for the always humble but rarely hearty mince pie.

To put it in some perspective, Aussies eat 270 million pies a year – shouldn’t surprise, because they’d eat road-kill if there was enough tomato sauce on it.

But that’s only 11 pies per capita. Less than us.

Even so, Australian pie consumption has plummeted “catastrophically” post pandemic – it’s been suggested they’ve burned their mouths once too often.

Perhaps NZ Police should tell them to blow on their pies first.

The lid-lifter

Everyone has a story about pies.

Like my mate ‘L’. Her $5, once-a-week school lunch would be a pie, small pack of chicken flavoured chips, and a Coke.

She would prise the lid off the pie, eat it and then dunk the chicken crisps into the mince. Revolting. This is the same person that puts butter on porridge. She picked up her pie culture from the best – her Dad. Time spent with him always involved pies. Driving back from the bakery he would lift the lid of his pie so there was only that gossamer thin veil of pastry to keep it warm. Dad would fold the lid of the pie back on itself to save the crumbs, and eat it. Then he’d eat the rest of the pie – all this while driving – and light up a cigarette for dessert. That’s how they roll in the Mamakus.

It’s living 600m above sea level, and all that fog and duelling banjos.

The pie sandwich

Down the East Coast they had a “pie sandwich”.

Heat a pie, smother it with tomato sauce and slap it between two slices of buttered white bread. You could buy them at school. “The teachers would even buy us a pie sandwich to reward for good behaviour or good results.” But the lunchbox Nazis stopped the practice dead, for some unfathomable reason.

Another bloke described his “most New Zealand Day ever” involving a pie and Lion Red. It was “crate day” – the first Saturday of summer. He bought a $2 pie from a dairy to soak up some of the sponsor’s product. “It was like wet cat food inside – like jelly meat.”

There was an immediate and violent projectile reaction.

And this man with a one-pie-a-week habit can talk philosophically about pies, and a nation’s affinity.

“I think it’s because they are warm, they are convenient and they are relatively cheap. Nothing more complex than that. There’s better stuff out there but we like pies.”

There was another guilt-ridden guy, another lid-lifter, who would buy a pie and retreat to his bedroom. Pies can turn people weird.

There, in his private space, he would spoon out the meat and leave the crust, which would be found and disposed of later. He needs rehoming and some personal coaching.

Georgie Pie

Another colleague tells the story of going on a primary school trip and having Georgie Pie for lunch. Those were the days. Colleague explains to teacher about her lifelong loathing of pies and mince, and a gluten intolerance, and asks for the mince pie to be substituted for a fruit pie. Teacher rolls his eyes and says: “Why can’t that child be bloody normal?” Pies can be a menace, they can leave children emotionally scarred.

There’s also the story about ‘Three Pies’ – he’s a local legend and he doesn’t know it. But that’s a story that might have to sit in the warmer growing campylobacter for a couple of weeks.