There is little in the way of traditional fanfare when my mother emerges from the house, holding the pie aloft like a newly promised messiah. Trumpets do not blare a rousing chorus. Nor does the cloying aroma of incense rise to our nostrils. Instead, the birds continue to chortle in the trees, and the scent of summer - freshly cut grass, warm earth, dried sweat - lingers in the air.
My father is the first to react, closing his newspaper and placing it gently on the flagstone floor beside him. Two vacant chairs are filled as my brothers clatter into them, breathless and giggling. Throughout it all I remain where I have been, on the edge of my seat, clutching my cutlery.
It is thought that the derivation of the word pie comes from “magpie,” because the dish, much like the animal, collects a variety of things. Humans too share this tendency; we gather opinions and experiences with a gusto to rival that of any scavenging bird. Our compulsion to express these identities, when coupled with the pie’s ability to suggest much about its maker, marks the dish as an anthropologic indicator, despite the word’s avian etymology.
Where someone lives, their cultural background, and even familial histories can be discerned from the pie they place before you. What's true for them is true for yourself too. And while shortcrust self-portraiture may seem a foolish, even narcissistic practice to some, I have yet to find a better way of discovering my true tastes than with my own tongue.
Similar to the Herdwick, the pie of my youth was hefted to the land; Cumbria filled my pastry in the viscous form of steak and ale. Battered and bruised was how I first encountered it, draped in a shirt five years too big for me. I devoured my steaming, gravy-covered helping, scraping the paper plate clean with a brittle fork. Horizontal rain lashed the windows and the smell of stale beer permeated into my clothes as I asked my new teammates an innocent question.
‘We get this every Sunday?’
Unfortunately, the foil-bottomed fancies of my childhood could not last forever. As the Sunday morning matches gave way to Saturday night parties, I lost one passion and gained another. My teammates became employees and I a student, winging my way south on a cloud of youthful excitement. Here the pies were filled with fish. Their heads often leered up out of the pastry to catch a glimpse of me. More often than not, they saw a pint of cider.
Although I may never tire of post-surf pasties, one cannot stay shackled to the certainties of student-hood forever. And so, too impatient for a mid-life crisis, I decided on having a quartered one and flew across the Earth. Bintang, nasi goreng and an earthquake was followed by vermouth, artichokes and a staff room. Eventually, I found my way back to our little isle and, once within its sheltered shores, began my self-portrait.
The topping: blistered pumpkin seeds like the cobblestones I spent months getting lost on. The hard shell: salty like the Southwestern air. But it is the filling, earthy beetroot, wilted spinach and softened onions, that takes me back to that place I miss the most. Where my mother would place her offering on the garden table and we’d all eat together, as one.