My Pork Pie Pilgrimage: Tradition and Innovation in Melton Mowbray

7 MINUTE READ

Author Across Cultures, Yang-May Ooi, visits Melton Mowbray, the home of the eponymous pork pies on a special pilgrimage to the original shop where this British specialty was born. Read on for some social history and culinary innovation packed into a crunchy, yummy foodie delight…

Belonging and Maverick Thinking in Melton Mowbray

Often when I’ve gone on a walk in the countryside, I take with me a pork pie for my lunch. There’s something rustic and satisfying sitting down on the slope of a hill, looking out over the rolling English landscape and munching a pork pie, its crust crunchy and as full of flavour as the compacted meat inside, the savour jelly melting in my mouth. 

I never choose any other pork pie but a Melton Mowbray. It is the champagne of pork pies. 

Melton Mowbray, a small market town in Leicestershire, has become synonymous with this iconic British food. This Easter holiday, I came to the town on a pork pie pilgrimage and discovered that behind this simple food is a story of innovation and connection to the land and its people. 

The Birth of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

In the 18th and 19th centuries, when Melton Mowbray was a bustling market town strategically located on coaching routes between London, the Midlands, and the North. Trade and commerce thrived.

Stage coaches full of travelers and traders with wagonloads of wares passed through the town. They all needed food that could be eaten quickly, sometimes on the hoof, to maximise fast turnaround times so they could get on with their long journeys. The food also needed to last over journeys of several days, especially in those days before refrigeration.

Mary Dickinson is credited with being the innovator that created the iconic shape and form of the Melton Mowbray pork pie. Her technique made the pie portable and durable – and tasty, of course. She raised the pastry by hand using a wooden dolly around which she shaped the dough made with hot water. The dough was then built up around the chopped pork, which was then made to sit tight with a gelatinized meat jelly that preserved the filling. A topper of crust then sealed it all. 

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The Melton Mowbray pork pie’s unique characteristics—the bow-shaped crust that gave it a sturdy structure and its naturally preserved filling were the result of creative thinking by a local woman who saw a gap in the market. I love her willingness to think differently, and diverge from tradition. To me, it highlights that belonging does not necessarily mean conformity. Pork pies had existed before but Mary Dickinson created a unique identity for her craft within her community.

The Agricultural Connection

The story of the Melton Mowbray pork pie is also connected to the wider agricultural eco-system in the area. Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, the local counties, were known for dairy farming, particularly the production of Stilton cheese. The surplus whey from cheesemaking was used to fatten pigs, creating an abundant supply of pork. This efficient re-use of resources highlights the interconnectedness of local economies and their different industries.

Learning all this on my visit here, I love that the Melton Mowbray pork pie is a product of its place, shaped by agricultural practices, geography, and local ingenuity.

Transport and Social Networks

Mary’s grandson, John Dickinson, opened a bakery dedicated to pork pies in 1851. It still stands today in central Melton Mowbray – the destination of my pork pie pilgrimage. They still make and sell hand-crafted pork pies in the shop while also making more in bulk in factories for mass market distribution. 

Other entrepreneurs like Edward Adcock and Enoch Evans saw the potential to market the pies beyond the town. They sold Melton Mowbray pork pies in London via stagecoach, turning a local specialty into a national sensation.  

The pies were also popular among fox hunters, who appreciated their portability and sturdiness. This association with hunting culture added a layer of prestige to the humble pie (in those days), elevating it from a practical food to a symbol of leisure and tradition.

Protected Geographical Indication (PGI status): A Modern Legacy

In 2008, the Melton Mowbray pork pie achieved Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status. Champagne also has PGI status!

What this means for the pork pies is that only those made within a 10.8-mile radius of Melton Mowbray, using traditional methods, can legally carry that name. It is a recognition of the cultural and historical significance of my favourite portable lunch! And ensures that the production of the Melton Mowbray pork pie remains rooted in its place of origin – while now able to reach a global market beyond the dreams of Adcock and Evans!

Today, most Melton Mowbray pork pies are produced in factories, but they must still adhere to the traditional hand-raised method. This is one of the requirements of the PGI status award.

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Even in large-scale production, the pastry is shaped around the filling, not pressed into a mold. Machines mimic the hand-raising technique, but human oversight ensures that each pie retains its unique, rustic appearance. To create the hot-water crust, dough is still made using the traditional method, with flour, hot water, and fat mixed while warm. The pork is uncured and seasoned, just as it was in the 19th century. After baking, the pies are filled with pork stock to create the signature jelly. Humans oversee the processes and the finishing.

The PGI rules actually reject uniformity. The pies must have slight variations in shape and size, even those made in factories, reflecting their handmade origins. In our machine-led age, this is a rare example of industrial food production embracing imperfection.  

This balance between tradition and innovation honours the past while adapting to the present. But then innovation was already baked into the Melton Mowbray pork pie from the moment Mary Dickinson started to mix flour with hot water to reimagine what the existing pork pies of her time could become!

Belonging You Can Taste

Today, Melton Mowbray is not quite the bustling market town it used to be two hundred years ago. But there is still a feeling of belonging on market day. I watched as many locals had tea at the many cafes or chatted in the street as they met by chance doing their weekly shopping. There are still two livestock markets each week that take place in the central stockyard of the town. Everyone we came across was friendly and chatty, even to us who were strangers in the area.

During our week’s stay in a village just outside of Melton Mowbray, we bought fresh meat from the nearby farm shop, enjoying the taste of beef, lamb and pork raised in fields just across the way. Our veg was also the product of the landscape we could see from the window of where we were staying. We also ate Melton Mowbray pork pies every day – of course!

I’ve left Melton Mowbray with a load of pork pies from the original Dickinson shop as well as Stilton cheese from the local area. Munching on these foods back home in Oxford, I will remember the people who came together back in Mary Dickinson’s day —farmers, bakers, travelers, hunters— and also those who are here today – livestock and vegetable farmers, pork pie bakers, cheese makers and more – to grow and create food that symbolises community and connection. 

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Sources: 

Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe – https://porkpie.co.uk/pages/our-story-timeline

National Geographic – https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/what-are-melton-mowbray-pork-pies? 

The Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association – https://www.mmppa.co.uk/?page_id=5 

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Photos: Yang-May Ooi

Map: AI

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