London South Central magazine
Day in the life of the pork pie man at Borough Market
Meat, jelly, pastry – bosh – that's all there is to Ian Hartland's English pork pies. Laura Ivill spends a day on his stall at Borough Market in London to find out what it's like to be a pie man
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Mrs King's Pies (0115 989 4101), Borough Market, 8 Southwark Street, London SE1. Thur 11am-5pm, Fri noon-6pm, Sat 9am-4pm. Map here
Saturday morning, bright and crisp, 9am – opening time at Borough Market. This is early for me, a sufferer of what's commonly called "sticky mattress syndrome" – not what you might think, but a condition that prevents people from getting up on time. I'm only 10 minutes late, but the pork pie man, Ian Hartland, is already selling to the early birds. I've visited this market quite a few times, but I've never sold anything on a stall – although, as a teenager, I did have a job serving refreshments at an adult education centre, which meant only one thing at the time – secretly scoffing the chocolate biscuits. Luckily for Ian his pies are safe – I don't eat meat.
I spot Ian before he spots me. And, boy, does he look the part – blue jeans, woolly jumper, thick white cotton apron, sturdy boots and a white pork pie man's hat. He's tall and stocky, but without being overbearing. His stall is simply presented – a counter of three sizes of Melton Mowbray pork pies – large, little and small (these are the technical terms, as little is larger than small, if you follow me). Then there are the fancy varieties – pork and blue stilton; game pie (venison, pheasant, rabbit and pigeon); pork, chicken, apricots and herb stuffing; turkey breast, cranberries, orange and herb stuffing. To a non-meat-eater (of the fish-eating kind – and why don't we have a sensible name for that?), the one with cranberries looks the nicest, but maybe it's because my eye's drawn to the pretty pattern of the fruit.
Ian doesn't make vegetarian pies, so I quiz him on that. "As a family business all our pies are homemade," he says, "and although we like to give our customers what they want, we really aim to keep those happy who want traditional pies." Tactfully put. Pork pies are pork pies and that's that – with the exception of game, oh and turkey.
There is also a mini hot-food counter with sausage rolls, Cornish pasties and the like (which make up 25 per cent of the business), and a large sign declaring the Englishness of the pies. I can't fail to notice the large and prominent England flag. Without even voicing my concens about this seeming, at best, jingoistic, Ian says, "That's not to be nationalistic, but to celebrate England. There's a lot of food from Europe here." I take his point – the market is a Euro food fair, so England has its place.
Ian chats away to me with complete ease; I hardly need to ask him questions at all. At first. this leads me to suspect that, with all the interest in Borough Market in recent years, he's over-professional in talking to journalists. But, as the day goes on, I realise, this is the genuine Ian – talkative, open, gentle, upbeat – and funny. He seems to know exactly who he is and what he's about.
While he's chatting to me, he's also serving his stream of customers. His arm swoops for a pie, he pops it into a bag, twists it round, hands it over and takes the money. There's a friendly exchange. For a big man, it's a balletic routine.
"The Nottinghamshire area is famous for pork pies," he says. "They were traditionally used to feed the hunting fraternity as they could sit nicely in your pocket. The pastry is a lot finer now – in the old days people might just throw it away. They're not fancy – a pint of beer and a pork pie – you can't really dress them up." I stare at his stack of pies, all uniformly brown and solid in their thick overcoats, except for being either large, little or small, of course.
His grandfather bought the business from Mrs Elizabeth King, renowned Nottinghamshire pie-maker since 1853. When he retired, he put the business into mothballs. Then, in 1985, he started it up again, with a view to handing it over to his grandsons – Ian and his brothers Paul and Neil. " We started in the back of Granddad's kitchen," says Ian. "Now we've got an industrial unit close to home and converted part of it into a shop. We do the meat preparation and the baking – physically it's hard work on your hands and back." He shows me the action of stooping slightly to make the pies. I mention my RSI; we commiserate with each other.
"On Monday morning we start with the admin and tidying," he says. "then we make the pastry in the afternoon – around120kg – which needs to rest for 24 hours." I try to pin him down as to how many pies this makes and, after lots of writing down and scribbling out, we settle on 60 large pies, 300 little pies and 200 small pies. That's 560 pies, most of which are sold here at the market on a Friday and Saturday.
"On Tuesday we get the meat straight form the abattoir in Nottingham," he says "It would have been slaughtered the previous Friday and hung over the weekend, and a shoulder of pork, for example, will have been prepared for us already. We use roughly half meat to half pastry." I like that idea – it saves on the maths.
"On Wednesday, we make up the pies and start on the jelly by boiling up around 60lbs of pigs' trotters, which we then simmer for nine hours overnight. On Thursday, we filter the jelly while the ovens are heating up. We start baking at 8am. We don't put the jelly in until after baking – it fills the gap between the meat and the pastry and protects the meat from drying out.
"On Friday morning, I set off for market at around 4.30 to beat the congestion charge. I finish at about 6pm, have a couple of pints at the Wheatsheaf, then it's off to the b&b. I've done county shows where I've been stuck in a tent, and rolled out into the dew in the morning. That's bad – we're just as soft as the southerners, y'know."
I'm starting to feel the cold myself. I spot a mug with a tea bag in it – so I offer to make him a brew. "I'd need to go to the loo first," he says, "but you'd have to mind the stall for a minute." I'm secretly pleased but a little enervous. Ian puts an apron on me and disappears. It's just me, the pies, the tin of change and lots of potential customers. In the next few minutes I sell a large pie (I'm chuffed), two little pies (still, bigger than the small pies – I'm getting confident) and cock up someone's change (I'm a clutz).
Ian comes back to his hot cup of tea and, I'm pleased to say, I'm allowed to keep my apron on for the rest of the day.
Mrs King's Pies (0115 989 4101), Borough Market, 8 Southwark Street, London SE1. Thur 11-5, Fri noon-6pm, Sat 9am-4pm
