The best pork pies
Once you have tried them you will not go anywhere else, superb.
David Fairest
by email
Fellow pie enthusiasts
I read with great interest the letters, (Star, February 20), from my fellow pork pie enthusiasts Howard Knight and Terry Palmer. It makes a pleasant change to be discussing the merits of pork pies rather than Brexit and local tree felling.
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Hide AdI agree with Howard that the Melton Mowbray pork pie is distinctive, but not for the reasons he has quoted. It is of course all a matter of personal taste – you either like them or not. His advice to buy them from one of the nine local producers is well given. However, I am not sure what he means. Are these producers in the Melton Mowbray area or are they in Sheffield?
If in Melton Mowbray it is a long way to travel for a pork pie. If in Sheffield, and the pie is baked by local producers, it is hardly a Melton Mowbray-made pie.
He says that his good friend Dr Matthew O’Callaghan ‘has been an unrelenting and outstanding campaigner on behalf of the Melton Mowbray pork pie’.
It is indeed amazing that this gentleman can offer judgement on the quality of the pie if he is a vegetarian.
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Hide AdIs his judgement based on actually tasting the pie or wishful thinking of how he would like it to taste?
Similarly, in response to Terry, I have limited mobility and cannot travel to Barnsley to sample Percy Turner’s pork pies.
I was referring to my experience of sampling pies made in Sheffield and also in the local supermarkets. Again it is a matter of taste – I like my pies cold, not warm.
I cannot conclude my letter without again mentioning Konrad Kempka, my ‘personal pork pie producer’ – a fine example of alliteration for your discerning readers.
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Hide AdHe tells me that he has had a lot of extra pork pie orders since his business was featured in the Star.
I told him that I was making an expensive return taxi journey from Shirecliffe to his Abbeydale Road shop. He immediately offered to deliver my order on a Friday evening when he is in my neighbourhood.
He not only bakes my pies to order, lightly done pastry and gelatine to my taste, but he is saving me a great deal of expense by delivering them to me. Pies freshly baked and filled to your requirements, top quality and taste, with delivery to your doorstep.
This is a service which no supermarket can offer, and I suggest very few local butchers.
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Hide AdKonrad is truly a pork pie craftsman, who with the advent of the supermarket, provides an individual service reminiscent of days sadly long gone when providing the customer with quality goods and service was de rigueur for that age.
Cyril Olsen
Busk Meadow, Sheffield, S5
You make us sick
So, Iraq warmonger and ex-PM Blair thinks Brexiteers are thick and stupid and do not understand what they voted for and calls for ‘remoaners’ to rise up against the democratic decision of leaving the EU.
Certainly the thousands of ex-Labour party voters know exactly what they voted for regarding Brexit and I have just four words for that snake of a human being called Tony Blair. “You make us sick.”
Terry Palmer
South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley, S74
I’ve nothing against trees
In response to JW Sert, I have nothing against trees or indeed the birds and the bees, and thank you for your attempt at poetry, but if I wanted to read about trees I would buy Gardeners’ Weekly.
Ted Fowler
by email
Fantastically offensive
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Hide AdI was flabbergasted to read your story, February 22, about the customer who complained to Primark about the supposedly racist T-shirt that said “Eeny meeny miny moe”.
Apparently this was “fantastically offensive” and even better, it was a “subliminal message”.
What tosh!
It’s about time these people stopped looking for things to be offended by.
If the writer didn’t like the T-shirt, I assume he was under no pressure to buy it.
I hope he isn’t upset by me typing in black.
I’m sure that must offend someone.
T Chaplin
Crookes, Sheffield
I shake my head
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Hide AdWhile we await developments regarding the scandal of Loxley Church and burial ground and ponder the human tragedy involved in the loss of the 17th century Spout House at Stannington and concern over Carbrook Hall I shake my head over another development.
Sheffield’s Conservation Advisory Group – low profile but invaluable forum whose light is hidden under a bushel – inexpensive to run – is cancelled for ‘lack of business’.
Where’s the logic in that and what does our Heritage Champion – Councillor Ian Saunders – think about it?
Regrettably the Hallamshire Historic Buildings Society’s invaluable Cruck magazine will no longer see the light of day, while the fledgling Joined Up Heritage group and the founding father The Hunter Archaelogical Society remains silent.
“Crisis What Crisis?” as Jim Callaghan once said.
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Hide AdAny spare yellow ribbons for our dwindling and at- threat old buildings?
Ron Clayton
S6
Inadequately funded
In Health services not ‘sustainable’ (February 16) we read that the South Yorkshire Sustainability and Transformation Plan concludes children’s and maternity services will need to be “shaken up” as part of a plan to save £571 million in the next five years.
This is because our NHS is inadequately funded.
The Government last month was forced to admit that NHS England will face a big cash drop of 0.6 per cent in real terms in 2018-19.
It is also suffering from privatisation and the structures created to allow privatisation.
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Hide AdWhat patients and staff need is the NHS Reinstatement Bill, which has won cross-party support.
It removes the purchaser/provider split and bans for-profit companies from the NHS.
Companies that want to break up the NHS are making profits from it now.
We could afford the NHS in an impoverished, post-war Britain in 1948 so we can afford it now.
What we need is a government that believes inthe NHS and restores its basic principles.
Natalie Bennett
Green Party Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Central