Vegetarian fake chicken pie. Click here for high-resolution version.
To those of us born into a Northern European culture, there is no food more magical than a pie. Pies have ancestors in the ancient Mediterranean, but I suspect that it was in medieval England where the magical pies of fairy tales (and now, pubs!) came into existence.
Regular readers know how much I like the British and Irish pubs, and how deprived I feel because America does not have a proper pub culture. And, in pubs, it’s not just about the drink. It’s also about the food. I’m recently home from Scotland, and fall weather has arrived. So I can’t stop thinking about savory pies.
I kick myself for neglecting to photograph the seafood pie that Ken and I had in a pub in Peebles, near the John Buchan museum. Every pub is different, of course. Many pubs don’t have savory pies with a complete top and bottom crust — a lazy compromise. Instead, the filling is poured into a baking vessel, and a round piece of crust is laid on top. The pie is still good, but the magic isn’t very effective. The best pies, really, come from high street bakeries.
⬆︎ Click here for high-resolution version.
Cream of mushroom soup and whole wheat bread. Click here for high-resolution version.
⬆︎ Bread and soup
And then there’s bread and soup. Somewhere in Scotland there must be pubs that can beat me at bread and soup. I haven’t yet found those pubs, though.
⬆︎ Wood for winter
The photo is from my morning ATV ride. An old oak up on the ridge had died. Neighbors sawed it up and split it for firewood. I wish I had the option of heating with wood. But I don’t have a chimney.
I miss having a wood-burning fireplace so much. Gas logs are nice, but not a substitute for the ambience of wood heat.
This cooler weather calls for bread and soup – one of my favorite combinations. I discovered this as an adult, as soup was served with crackers in my youth. When I moved to South Carolina, vegetable soup is served with cornbread. Now cannot imagine one without the other. My preference is whole-wheat bread with all other soup varieties.
Your pictures above of food look so inviting.
Hi Jo: How I used to love to crumble crackers into my soup when I was a young’un! I admit I’d still love to do that today, but crackers, like potato chips, are things I’d better not buy.
I like food photography. Food photography is not what it used to be. The San Francisco Examiner used to maintain a separate studio just for food photography. The Chronicle’s food department, which had its own spacious quarters, was designed with photography in mind. Those days are gone. The New York Times and the Washington Post still have very good food departments, but the food photography is slap-dash, most of it a stark snapshot from straight overhead. And the classic food magazines such as Gourmet, which did extravagant food photography, are now gone.