The Australian Bakery Cafe
48 S. Park Square, Marietta. 678-797-6222, australianbakerycafe.com
Pouch
151 E. Broad St., Athens. 706-395-6696, pouchpies.com
On Pi Day, March 14, I cracked open my laptop, loaded up Facebook and saw that all my food-obsessed friends had dutifully uploaded stories about pie, paeans to pie and delectable pictures of cherry, peach, blueberry, coconut, pecan and Boston cream pies. I might argue the latter is actually more of a cake, but no matter. Pi Day is an ecumenical holiday.
But I was in a completely different world of pie. On March 14 I was just finishing up a great vacation in South Africa, where pies are small, buttery things filled with meat that feel as warm as a newborn kitten in your hands. Some of these pies need a fork and plate, while others can be eaten directly from a paper sleeve. Some get fancy: I once walked by a bistro sandwich board offering both duck and cherry as well as springbok pies (along with red velvet cupcakes, which have colonized the Southern hemisphere). But others are basic. The ubiquitous steak pie holds what I’d think of as beef stew in a thick gravy. It isn’t great, but, in the moment, it is everything.
Our afternoon shopping expeditions went something like this: My wife would find a charming crafts market filled with such prime souvenirs as ostrich egg pendant lamps, zebra-striped iPhone cases and watercolors of willowy women in long gowns balancing amphoras on their heads. I would wander off to the nearest King Pie, a fast food chain that keeps a variety of pies warming at all times. A large pie from King Pie, with a side dish and a drink, is what you might think of as lunch. A small pie serves as a fillip — a between-meals treat for those of us who don’t have the sweet tooth but, rather, the savory tooth.
In this regard, the trip to South Africa reminded me very much of my travels in the British Isles a few years ago when I became equally pie-besotted. I seem to recall a Guinness-gravy pie in Ireland that I basically inhaled as well as a steak-and-kidney pie of such historical significance and stature that it came with the baker’s crest imprinted in the dough as well as a fancy-looking label of authenticity affixed to the top. I may have inhaled that one, too.
It seems the whole English-speaking world, with the exception of our corner of it, is pie crazy. Besha Rodell, the former Creative Loafing food editor and current dining critic for LA Weekly, grew up in Australia, where a pie was her favored treat.
“There’s something about having your own, individual pie that’s so comforting,” Rodell wrote in an email. “For one, they’re portable in a way a slice of pie just isn’t — the personal meat pie is basically the hot dog of Australia, and it would be mighty hard to sell pie by the slice at a gas station. But, more than that, the basic magic of pie is that it’s goodies encased in pastry, and to have your very own personal pastry envelope of meat and gravy — it’s so much more satisfying than a sloppy slice of pie. It’s like having an entire world of delicious in its own little package just for you.”
Rodell said she thinks people hold similar feelings for cupcakes here in the United States of Sugary Treats. Then she wrote something unprintable about cupcakes, a feeling I sometimes share.
So, why do pies default sweet in America, but not elsewhere? Slate writer Rachel E. Gross asked just that question of food historians on Pi Day. You may not be surprised to find out the transformation started here in the South, where the sugar refineries of the early 19th century transformed American cooking. Sugar, which had once been scarce and expensive, became commonplace. Easy as pie.
I wish I could indulge more easily in my taste for savory pies as I go through daily life. You know, filling the tank with gas, picking up prescriptions at CVS and, what the heck, stopping by the pie shop. While that isn’t going to happen anytime soon, I can search out a pie if I’m willing to drive for it. The Australian Bakery Cafe on Marietta Square has pies that I recall as pretty good from a few years back.
But everyone is talking about a pie shop in Athens called Pouch. It was started by Scotsman David Malcher along with his wife, Jane, and their daughter Charmaine Enslin. The Malcher family had long lived in South Africa, and when they moved here they found the pie paucity distressing.
With no restaurant experience, they opened Pouch with a menu of British Empire pies. There’s an Irish one with tenderloin and bacon in an Irish ale gravy, a South African one with beef in a red wine and black pepper gravy, a Scottish haggis pie and a classic steak and kidney pie.
“We did some market research before opening, and people did not know what a steak pie was,” said David Malcher, who was nervous about how Athens would take to pie. The rest of the world’s pie. Real pie.
He needn’t have worried. There was a line out the door the next day.
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