Stephen McGinty: Lots at steak when it comes to my New Year pie fixation

THE crust had a golden hue and the hearty chunks of quality meat sat in a lagoon of dark, succulent gravy. We all have our own way of greeting the New Year. While there are those curious souls who favour an invigorating dip in waters chilly enough to stop the heart, others prefer to slumber through 1 January in a haze of alcoholic hiccups. Yet for me there are few traditions as delicious as the steak pie served as the first lunch of a bright new decade.

I'm not alone, it seems. A few years ago, independent analysts AC Nielsen revealed general pie sales enjoy a 45 per cent rise over the Christmas period. The reason is said to be the growing popularity of traditional British food as baked and stuffed by our cohort of TV chefs. However, when it comes to sales of steak pies over the festive period, some butchers, such as my local, Graham Drennan of Cranstons in Pollokshields, Glasgow, report a rise of over 200 per cent.

I have learned from bitter experience that the steak pie has to be from a local butcher's. A few years ago, in a feat of gluttony I scoffed my pre-ordered Cranston's steak pie on Boxing Day and, as sourcing a replacement was impossible, was forced to purchase a supermarket pie whose few chunks of boot-leather beef bobbed about in watery gravy like drowning sailors.

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So what is the genesis of our love affair with the steak pie, especially those eaten before the bells on Hogmanay? Do Scots delight in the fact that it is a vegetable-free zone, or that the pastry and beef can soak up alcohol like an old stair mop? No-one is quite sure, but it is a tradition that shows no sign of abating.

Perhaps the answer is that since Hogmanay was once a larger celebration north of the Border than Christmas, it seemed sensible to splash out on quality meat, and duck, turkey and goose had already been grabbed for Christmas Day. And a pie is an easy way to cook a dish for all the family.

Regardless of where the tradition comes from, the noble pie has a long history. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word "pie" back to 1303 as a "baked dish of meat, fish, fruit, etc, with a top and base of pastry". Yet the dish is older still, having slaked the appetite of ancient Rome. Cato the Elder – statesman, orator and stoic – wrote of his favourite pie recipe in his well-known work De Agriculture. Puff pastry made its way from the Italian patissiers to the Royal Dukes of Tuscany and on to the French court at the behest of the Medicis in the 15th century. It was only a short skip over the Channel to British plates.

Part of my passion for pies comes from the pages of The Dandy, where Desperate Dan can still be seen rolling out the pastry for Aunt Aggie's cow pie with a steamroller carefully driven at three miles per hour. When asked to comment for an article on steak pies, Dan, via his agents at DC Thomson, said: "Of course I love steak pies and all meat products, especially those from endangered species, and it makes a nice change from whale and chips." His appetite continues to be an inspiration. Each year, Blackwood butchers in Kilmacolm makes a "Desperate Dan pie", which is a foot and a half long, nine inches wide and feeds ten – or myself when divided between lunch and dinner.

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The late journalist and author Jack "Mr Glasgow" House used the steak pie as a litmus test for all restaurants. When friends recommended one, the first question he would ask was: "Can they make a real steak pie? If it turns out to be a sort of casserole steak with a square of pastry sitting on top, then watch out!"

Thankfully, no such imposter was scooped on to my plate yesterday. Happy New Year!

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