The encyclopaedia of gravy
How the gravy pie differs across Britain and the former colonies: northern meat and potato pies, Scottish steak pie at New Year, London pie and mash, and the Australian and New Zealand meat pie.
The pie is one of the few foods where the gravy inside changes noticeably from county to county.
Northern England¶
Meat and potato pie is the staple: beef and diced potato in a relatively thin gravy, because the potato absorbs liquid as it bakes. Served with mushy peas, and very often with more gravy poured over the top — see best gravy for chips for the same regional instinct applied to chips.
Wigan has a particular reputation for pies and wears the nickname cheerfully. In Lancashire and Yorkshire generally a "pie" at a chip shop or a football ground arrives with gravy as a matter of course, which in much of southern England it does not — see northern chip-shop gravy tradition.
Butter pie — potato and onion, no meat — is a Lancashire speciality with Catholic Friday origins, and takes a light onion gravy.
Scotland¶
The Scottish steak pie is a New Year institution. Beef in a thick, dark gravy under a puff pastry lid, very often bought ready-made from a butcher in a foil tray and finished at home on 1 January. The gravy is richer and glossier than the English pub version, and there is a lot of it.
The Scotch pie is a different animal: a hot-water-crust mutton pie with straight sides, eaten at football. Gravy, if any, is added by the eater — often from a polystyrene cup.
London¶
Pie and mash with liquor is its own tradition, and the "gravy" is not brown at all but a green parsley sauce. It has its own page: pie and mash liquor.
Australia¶
The Australian meat pie is a genuine national institution, and its filling is defined by a thick, glossy, unapologetically gluey beef gravy — considerably thicker than a British pie filling, which is what allows it to be eaten one-handed at a football ground without disaster.
It is finished not with gravy but with tomato sauce squeezed onto or into the top. In South Australia the pie floater upends the whole idea by serving the pie in a bowl of thick pea soup.
New Zealand¶
New Zealand takes its pies seriously enough to judge them competitively at an annual awards scheme. The signature is the mince and cheese pie — a thick beef gravy filling under a layer of melted cheese — alongside steak and cheese, and butter chicken versions that borrow from curry-house cooking.
Elsewhere¶
| Place | Pie | Gravy |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | Beef and stout pie | Dark, sweetened slightly against the stout |
| Cornwall | Pasty | No gravy — the moisture comes from swede and onion. Gravy on a pasty is contentious |
| Québec | Tourtière | Spiced pork, served with ketchup or a thin gravy |
| USA | Pot pie | Cream-thickened, closer to a white gravy than a brown one |