Pie Story

Shanghai Pie was conceived over champagne in Shanghai years ago. In like 2004. The Big Pie had had his eye on the ports of the Huang Pi River. He'd seen container loads of frozen meat pies arrive, but amongst the wheeling and dealing where did they go he wondered?

The Big Pie, hungry as ever had uncovered the appetite for pie amongst the British, Australian, New Zealand and South African expats in their Shanghai posts.

Over drinks on the Huang Pi view balcony one evening our hero struck up a conversation with Caroline. He told of the vanishing pies which peaked her interest. She'd discovered her brothers secret stash of frozen four-n-twenties crammed in his mini-bar freezer. The Big Pie revealed that in a desperate moment of craving, he'd found a commercial oven. She laughed when he asked if she knew how to make a pie. Of course she did! On Sunday afternoon he sent a text:

"Wanna put some pies in my oven?"

A furious trawl around the internet turned up some history of the meat pie. The original English meat pie had a fifteen centimetre diameter; perfect for the size of a mans hand. Poetry first recorded it in 1362 and one school of pie thought believes that the base should be short-crust and the top puff pastry. Facts about fillings and tips about preparation were procured and Caroline set out for the supermarket ready to cook up some storming test flavours. Meanwhile The Big Pie was making his own calls and sold the first batch to an expat watering hole down on Mao Ming Lu.

Two days later in Colin's kitchen cum pie factory the Black Eyed Peas urged us to 'Get Retarded'. Nine kilos of prime Chinese beef were skinned and diced and the other secret ingredients added to the pot of thyme and tomato gravy. Our hired labour sat in the corner dishing out anecdotes from a previous pie experience whilst downing Suntory. With the steaming pot of pie filling cooling in front of us, our pastry fears reared their ugly head. The perfect pie as a sum of it's parts was missing some key ingredients and the Pie Party were a bit tipsy and facing eating ten kilos of pie filling. The Big Pie was kicked into action to rescue his sinking dream!

An hour later and larded up the team moved into the finishing straight producing twenty four flavourful pies and hailed a Shanghai taxi. "To the Kangaroo Bar", the cavalier entrepreneurs yelled as they raced toward the seven pm delivery. Fresh, top quality Shanghai Pies were to be on the menu for the next ten weeks.

Then Caroline went home to England to quit her day job, which took err a few years, and now in 2007 she's back and the Pie Company is in business. With health certificates and a lovely factory called Pie HQ out in Song Jiang!