Tyne Brand steak and mushroom pie filling – tinned – and woe
betide Mum if she'd bought steak and kidney by mistake as I detested steak and
kidney to the point of retching. Loved steak and mushroom, though, though the
mushrooms were so unplentiful, finding one in your pie-slice was as lucky as finding
the king in a Galette
des Rois or the sixpence in a Christmas pudding.
We weren’t royalty for the day if we found one, however. I’d
like to say that role went to Dad, it being his name and what have you, but he
spent much of his precious time off work cleaning our red-brick council house
and walking the legs off us children to get us out of Mum’s way, which I can
hardly imagine Prince Phillip having to do on a Sunday.
Two tins of pie filling, not one. With a household of eight of
us, half of them active, hungry males, Mum made two pies on a Sunday,
though as I got older – 11 or 12 - I took on the job. ‘You’re rather a messy
cook, aren’t you?’ Mum once said, surveying the light dusting of flour all around
the kitchen, but she always praised my ‘lovely’ pastry. Said it had a light
touch her own didn't have, though I'm pretty sure she just said that to trick
me into cooking.
Thick, plain flour pastry, edges pressed with a fork and brushed
over with milk, not egg, each pie decorated with a couple of pastry leaves we’d
all hope would be part of our slice. A stab of the knife through the crust to let the air out – hitting
the bottom of the enamel pie dish with a clink – and then cooked in the gas
oven on high.
Then served up with roast potatoes, crisped edges caught to
the point of burning and cooked in lard which dripped out as liquid as you bit into
them. Mashed spuds – Dad’s job to mash them within an inch of their lives - and
for me (since finding a boiled caterpillar on my dinner), no cabbage and just Co-op
tinned peas or carrots alone.
Topped with the Yorkie puds of my father’s childhood and not
the London batters of my mother’s, liberally covered in thick Bisto gravy, ‘one
slice or two?’ the longstanding joke my brother reprised at Mum’s funeral.
And no sign of the Daddy’s tomato sauce bottle – ‘Not on a Sunday!’,
our dad had declared, which was a shame as it was delicious mixed into the
mash.
I wouldn’t taste a roast beef Sunday dinner till almost an
adult, and even then I ate it elsewhere. But I loved those childhood Sunday
dinners, and homemade short crust pastry remains the thing I miss most about
my enforced gluten free life.
Alison Mott
