[Sca-cooks] OP - Australian veggie and meat pies

[Stefan li Rous]

Margaret, from  Melbourne, Australia, answered my questions about meat pies with:
<<< The meat pie is an "Aussie icon" along with kangaroos and Hills Hoists. >>>

Okay, I'll admit my ignorance again. What is a/are "Hills Hoists"?

<<< "The" Aussie meat pie is meat. In theory it's beef but it's kind of a slurry and you probably don't want to investigate it at all closely. Tomato sauce on top for most people. (In Adelaide, it's served floating in pea soup, but Adelaide is like that.) >>>

I thought part of the idea of a meat pie was that it was "finger food". Something, like a sandwich, that you could pick up, easily eat without a lot of utensils, even perhaps carry around. Both this tomato sauce/ketchup and this floating in pea soup, seem to really defeat this purpose.  Admittedly, Americans often put ketchup inside their hamburgers, but that is safely inside, not where it can drop or smear on things.

<<< (Texas BBQ, Pepperoni or Southwest anything not so much.) >>>

Yeah. Definitely a regional variation. I can imagine various other "regional variations" as well, such as what you might do in New York or New Orleans or Florida. Hmmm. Fish isn't common in Australia?

<<< The practice of indicating the types with a stripe of cracked black pepper or curry powder, or cut-out pastry shapes on top is very common. >>>

Lol! And that was one of the things I assumed was specific to this particular restaurant. It definitely hadn't occurred to me that it might be a traditional thing to do.

Thanks for the comments.

Stefan

--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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