Anyone who has stopped eating meat has to have an answer ready to this question: do you miss it? My answer is I only miss one thing: pork pies. In four meat-free years, I have had only one flirtation with flesh, and that concerned a pork pie. I was at a friend’s funeral in Birmingham, making that awkward small talk you have to make at wakes until the craic starts happening. In difficult social moments I’m inclined to panic eat, and when the buffet was unveiled, things got tricky. In the middle of the table, the very centrepiece in fact, was the edifice of a pork pie, one of those with an egg in the middle. I made for it, salivating, but somehow was rugby-tackled by my conscience before I got to it. I just troughed a load of Twiglets instead.
I’ve waited long and hard for a decent vegan pork pie to hove into view. I tried one once, from Holland and Barrett. It was all pastry with only disappointment for filling. Then, this week, Morrisons launched one. I was there first thing Monday morning. I had misgivings when I was led to the hot pie counter, and then saw its fancy-dan shape. Pork pies can only be one shape, and must be eaten cold. And the filling must be solid, not squidgy. Squidgy is fine for sausage rolls, but not for this. I found that deep-chilling firmed things up a bit, and it wasn’t unpleasant, but neither was it a pork pie.
Then an internet search yielded the Pieminster Good Elf, a “vegan turkey, cranberry, port and thyme pie ... indulgent and Christmassy”. Nigh on tumescent with excitement, I tried it and it is quite magnificent. But it’s a, like, proper pie, with a nice filling in gravy. It’s not a pork pie. The search goes on. Dear Santa …
