WAGS 26 01.2022: Scotch Pies and Pigs Brains

 

Here at last is the promised news  that you have been waiting so impatiently for. The winners of the top prize in the 22nd World Championship Scotch Pie Awards were announced last week. Brownings the Bakers Ltd of Kilmarnock are World Champions 2022 as the bakers of the Best Scotch Pie in the World!

They also won:
The Diamond Award for their Apple Pie
The Silver Award for their Butter Chicken Pie in the Hot Savoury category
The Bronze Award for their vegetarian Cauliflower, Leek & Truffle Oil Pie.

I don´t know how many of you have ever been to the fair town of Kilmarnock but now is a good reason to go there. The name Kilmarnock comes from the Gaelic word for church cill (cell), and the name of Saint Marnock. It was also where the Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, was educated.

And if adherents of the WhatsApp W.A. Gourmet subgroup would like to know more about the esoteric techniques of Scotch Pie making and baking, and indeed of Sausage Roll and Bridie making and baking, including the all-important aspect of double-glazing said Sausage Rolls and Bridies (and I´m not talking about glass windows here), I recommend that they save and follow this link. A Bridie, by the way, is a superior kind of Cornish pasty.

https://worldchampionshipscotchpieawards.org/judging.php

and watch the enthralling videos in it.

Paul writes:

I feel that deserves an addendum on behalf of we reticent English who prefer to be less nationalistic and refer to British achievements, particularly of Cornwall's pasty making prowess. (see comments below):

Say “Cornwall” to an uncontacted pygmy brave deep in a New Zealand forest and his bamboo flute will swiftly carve the shape of the Cornish pasty into the Shotover riverbank sands. “Oggy, oggy, oggy,” he will cry, as he mimes pushing a too-hot Cornish pasty into his unambiguously delighted face. “Oggy, oggy, oggy!”

But last Monday, the feast day of Cornwall’s proud Saint Piran, American food industry lobbyists revealed plans to exploit the end of our protection by the EU’s regional foods scheme. American “Cornish” pasties could be on their way into Britain. And yet Arthur, who swore to return if his land was imperilled, sleeps soundly still in his Tintagel cave.

The Leave-voting Cornish comedian Jethro Tull has appeared twice on the Leave-voting comedian Jim Davidson’s Generation Game show, demonstrating how to make Cornish pasties. During one sequence, Tull mocked the interfering EU for insisting pasty preparers wear gloves. Now he and Davidson will be able to fly to America and see Cornish pasties being made by Hispanic slave labour from factory-farmed, hormone-ridden cattle, doused in petroleum, reduced to pulp and squeezed from automatic tubes into pre-molded pasty pastry Hot Cornwall Pockets™®. Doubtless they are delighted.

If he could see the meat and potato atrocities about to be enacted in the name of his beloved Cornish pasties, Cornwall’s holy Saint Piran would turn in his grave, had his remains not been split up and sent all around the country in the 14th century. As it is, one of Saint Piran’s arms revolves in Exeter Cathedral, the other in Waltham Abbey, while his missing head spins somewhere undisclosed in St Piran’s Old Church, Perranzabuloe.

And now, after all that excitement, we can turn to the more prosaic matter of the WAGS walk report for January 26^th. This was third time lucky for Rod who, after two failed attempts, actually managed to arrange a start from a café that was open and serving both coffee and food. Over to him for the report.

"Later even than usual!....and I didn't watch any of the rugby or much of the tennis for that matter, as an excuse!

A walk of an unusual number of events when John & Hazel, Yves, Maria, Janet, Dinah  and Rod met at Cafe Silva

Unusual in that our leader finally found a café that was open, unusual in that it happened to be the same café from where the AWW were also gathering for their walk.

Starter photo no.1 including Yves, taken by JohnH

Starter photo´ No. 2 including JohnH, taken by Yves 

Starter photo no.3 including both Yves and JohnH. (How did they manage that ?)

All the Starters :(AWW in black, WAGS in red)

Back Row: Sergio, JohnH, Janet, Yves, Rod ,Linda, Geoff, Frank Mc, Jim, Ken, Peter, Tony, Kevin, Julie, Tom, Steve.

Front Row: Sue, Hazel, Miriam, Maria, Dina, Ros.

We chatted over coffee for a while before the AWWs disappeared over the horizon at a pace to remind us of the old days.  So off we strolled for a few hundred yards before our leader changed his mind.. again.. and set off on an exploratory route. 

Hhm.... I wonder....

 This didn't prove particularly successful and we found ourselves heading up a hill that wasn't  the original idea...it led us in a longer loop to the north than intended.

We eventually hit the tarmac road leading up to the Funcho dam  which took us back down to the intended route. The dirt track back up to the village had a few more developments from our previous visit, a year or two back, not least of which was a splendid gate leading to nowhere we could see, which boasted a sophisticated security system sign which might have been a real deterrent had there been any electricity nearby. 

Banana sharing....how nice !

As the track enters the village from below there is a small commercial establishment flogging principally snails to the local eateries...they even claim to export them too, although to where however didn't seem clear. 

The owner, or maybe his wife, appeared on the scene and a lengthy diatribe followed.

Snails it seemed were in increasingly short supply due to climate change, lack of rain, the disappearance of habitat and chemical fertilizers, etc. This obliged them to divert more of their efforts to herbs these days.

This end of the village, it was claimed by a local just round the corner, was all Portuguese...

judging by the number of chickens and general architecture we were not going to disagree....well until we came to an abode entitled Casa Kennedy that is to say.   We continued along the ridge through what used to be a eucalyptus plantation but now shorn to stumps and the mess and general detritus that is always left behind.

And so down to the road, at which point, since we had taken so long on our initial detour and various other stoppages en route, we decided to omit the loop towards Amoroso and head back. This meant a  bit of a trek along the main road until we returned back up to the ridge. This time there was nobody to delay us until we had to stop and check the way to the Necropole de Forneca. 

This proved to be a narrow path that seemed to go through various backyards. The owner of one who proved, on enquiry, to be English seemed  totally unfazed by folk traipsing past her backdoor. 

viaalgarviana Right of Way

The Necropole itself seemed to pass by unnoticed. We continued along the ridge lane until we turned off a footpath leading back down to the main road and Cafe Silva.

This passed yet another Necropole which was much more obvious and well explained on a notice board...or would have if it had been made of something rather more rain-proof.

Slim fitting

  Then back to Cafe Silva...always friendly folk...who had a menu do dia  of a quantity, and quality, I must leave to regular lunchpartakers to describe. The tostas were good too.

We sampled Brain of Pigs but did not photograph that dish on the grounds that pigs don´t know how to take photos.

JohnH was delighted to be served first

We were served tapas, peru com congumelos and vitela de vaca plus salad, all very adequate indeed

as well as the tostas

and finished with drunken pears

The Track and the Statistics

Rod´s Track and Comprehensive Statistics can be found on this link

https://www.outdooractive.com/en/r/234353571?utm_source=unknown&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=user-shared-social-content 

I'm at a bit of a loss for suitable closing music this time, so have had to resort to this video.

If Paul can come up with something better, he's welcome to change it.

Paul writes:   

        I too might be at a loss if the criteria for WAGS Blog Closing Music was 'Suitable Music', but fortunately I have never been hindered by lack of taste.

   For the main course, we have the nauseating and rather tribal 'Scotch Pie Song'.

    I will let John apologise at his leisure!

  I am truly sorry for some of the language in that song, which fortunately only one or two might understand. Thankfully there are no subtitles.

       As an optional main we have the erstwhile Cornish Pasty Song, where a genuine but lightly accented Cornish duo head for the World Pasty Championship at The Eden Project armed with a bacon and Marmalade pasty and this song, in which they explain the outcome. I hope you have recovered sufficiently from the Scotch Pie song to digest this assault on the World Pasty Championship.

   More or less suitable, John?