Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Have Pastry goods will travel: The pie wars.





Pastry travels

On my many trips overseas the one thing that seems to highlight some of my travel blogs are that of me eating pies or some other pastry goodness sometime during the day. I have sampled many delicacies on the road. To me it is food and I will eat when hungry. The only unique thing I have is the fact I have no smell and taste. This is something I have mentioned in my other travel blogs so maker eating out unique and have to be careful at the same time.

While on holidays I usually have my 3 meals a day and they can be anything I lay my hands on. One of the reasons I don’t go out grocery shopping for food and eating at the hostel is that I am usually on the move every couple of days and having food left over would be a waste as I am on a bus for hours and I would rather travel light. Some of the easiest food to find is something from a bakery or even a dairy. Some supermarkets do sell hot pies too especially in New Zealand. Some of the places I have been to can be listed for the pastry goodness.

When going to Cornwall there is something that you cannot try before leaving and that is the Cornish Pasty. Sure you can buy them anywhere in the world and throughout London. I had my first one at the Paddington Station in London where the train travels to Cornwall. When I was staying in Cornwall I did try many different pasties and I liked the mint lamb ones and there were even vegetable ones. I do want to go back one day to eat some more. I know in Bendigo there was a bakery that sold Pasties and I headed there after being given the tip while doing a mine tour at the Deborah Shaft. I don’t usually go looking for them in Australia, but I think I got my fill when I was in the UK.

Pies are the most common thing you can find. I am talking about the meat pie and not the other pie that seems to be directed towards a pizza type thing. Pies come in many different flavours and I have had some good ones. I really do like potato topped pies and that gives me really good memories of school being a senior student where I could walk in and buy things without waiting for the hordes of kiddies after food. There was a pie shop in Tweed city where I used to annoy people by eating a steak and garlic pie or even a steak and kidney pie. I have not seen a steak and garlic pie since that pie shop had closed. In New Zealand I have found several supermarkets that do sell heated pies and even when hungry I have gotten a bacon and egg pie directly from the deli. Christchurch was the most difficult place to find food and I found some stuff to eat in the supermarket as I had that pegged as a last resort. The only reason was that the location was still a disaster zone due to the earthquake and I was hungry. I did hear about a café on the South Island while on the bus called the Roadkill café that sold all sorts of pies. I think they were joking when they said there were possum pie as I never seen any and was wanting one.

Pastry shops or bakeries are those special places where you can eat all your pastry goodness and actual pastry shops seem to be very popular in Europe. I was lost in Nuremburg and was looking for food. One place I found was a bakery type place that you could select what you wanted and had tongs with paper bags. I never found that shop again and there was another in Berlin I ended up at for coffee with several other bakery products at Checkpoint Charlie for lunch. There was a MacDonald’s next door too, but this place I preferred and the server thought I was German until I spoke English. He did say sorry, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I don’t know what you would call these sorts of bakeries in airports like Kuala Lumpur, but I have had a fondness for black bean buns and several strange oddities that I have smuggled onto the plane for very long flight to Europe or even Australia. I don’t really like the pork bun type things with the white pastry stuff around them as I cant explain why, but there are others that are wrapped in a banana type leaf that you eat whatever is on the inside. Makes a mess, but isnt too bad. Not really a bakery item, but a hotdog stand in Paris sold me a hotdog with a firm piece of bread that seemed to be stale, but could just be French.

One bakery type store that was similar to the ones I had visited in Germany was recently in Melbourne across the road from Flinders Station. It was the busy lunch hour and I had grabbed several things including the strange hotdog type pastries that I think are yummy. New Zealand has them too, but they are actual bakeries with things like hedgehog slices and many other little slices. I could just about have a location guide to pastries of all sorts that is if I really wanted to. Waipu Bakery was one such place that had really nice bakery goods and being a small town near Whangarei as well. Once in Copenhagen I went to enjoy a donut I had bought with a drink and got annoyed by some lady I think was speaking Russian and wanted money. It did annoy me as I wasn’t local and just wanted to sit and eat.

Where would we be without mentioning the humble fingerbun? I should mention that a fingerbun you can find in just about any bakery, but some don’t seem to have them unless they have been very popular. People get worried when I don’t have fingerbuns or don’t mention them for a while. It seems you can find them at Bakers Delight, which is an Australian bakery although many small town bakeries would have them. I cant remember if I had found them in New Zealand, but I always end up with a pie with some bakery goodie. There are some buns that are more fruit sticky bun with the icing on top, but more often than not they are a plain roll. I do have a liking for cinnamon, but will take the other toppings though smarties and chocolate are the different toppings that I have had in the last couple of years. Coconut icing is the most popular too and I wonder if I should actually go looking for fingerbuns overseas. I do like them soft instead of being very crispy.

Until I can think of more pastry type delights I think this would make a little travel blog on my stomach. They are quicker and faster than waiting at a place called Maccas or even KFC. The best way to eat a pie is to suck the insides out especially when it’s a potato pie. You may make a mess, but it will be around your mouth. It is personal preference if you want a little sauce with the pie and some places have mashed peas too again preferences. One thing not bakery that I should find is a squid on a stick.

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