Photo-a-Day  (Sunday, 1st August, 2021)

Ok Mick, what has a Lobbies pie consist of ?
Looks like a dose of heartburn to me !

Ive been told that these Wigan Lobbie pies are going down very well and they are now being served in the east end of London Pie Mash and Jellied eels shops.
The makers have applied for Protected Designation of Origin certificate from the EU but because of Brexit and Covids its all up in the air at the moment.

The ingredients listed are exactly what I put in lobbies....potatoes, onions, carrots and corned beef, but I could make enough to feed Desperate Dan for £2.30, including a bit of a crust alongside. But oh, to taste a barm cake from Edwards' in Platt Bridge again!

Had one of these not long ago, pastry was fatty underneath and overcooked on top plus far too much salt seasoning. Overpriced won't bother again.

Irene, Your list of ingredients for lobbies is very similar to what a pan of
scouse is made of in Liverpool. I have heard lobbies being referred to as
Lobscouse in the Wigan area. If you were a bit short of money to make
scouse in Liverpool, and couldnt afford any meat, it was made without
meat and called " Blindscouse ". Cheers, Ray.

I was under the impression that Lobby was a Leigh "thing"? They'll be up in arms about this one.

Irene, maybe you could make a pan of lobbies cheaper, but these are convenient food and are ideal for taking on picnics.

Ray, you're right....it originates from "Lobscouse" and varies slightly in name and ingredients district by district. My niece in Liverpool calls it Scouse, we in Wigan call it Lobbies and some places call it by the singular name Lobby. It can be made with corned beef or shin beef and with or without a crust, which, if included, is cooked either on top of the lobbies in the oven or separately on a baking sheet and then cut into squares. Thankfully I have never had to make Blind Scouse but I can remember people having no choice but to do so. A "pon o' lobbies" with a barm cake is a meal fit for a King and I envy no-one their haute cuisine of two tiny lamb chops dribbled with "jus" with two pieces of grass arranged "artistically" on top!

McRobb's Mick, surely you have a butchers in Shevvy ? :)

"Lobbies" was of Wigan origin but the same term was used in Horwich - we had it with crust cooked on top, in the oven, usually with shin beef. My Dad would have lived on it.
Here in the NE the standard bread bake is a stottie, wide round and flat. Not a patch on a barm cake.

Gary, I very much doubt that "Lobbies" is of Wigan origin. And " the same term was used in Horwich"? I would say the same term is used nationwide.

Lobby with brown sauce,delicious.

Have to agree Pw

Lobbies come from Scandinavia with Vikings, it got the name Lobbies because the spuds go into a lob when cooking.
No Standisher we don't have a butchers in Shevy, I think its because more and more Shevyites have cut back on eating meat, you might say doing there bit on cutting back on these greenhouse gases

St Helens/ Wigan is for pies,Leigh is for Lobbies. No cross borders with a Wigan lobby. leighers dont no how to make pies so called so there should be no crust

Gerrem telt Pey.

A pie on a barm cake was called a slappy in Leigh .I remember a pie shop in Leigh ,Clapham's,and they were excellent pies

I do believe there is a lot of wind in Shevvy Mick

They don't eyt red cabbich i'Shevintun!

You're right Helen,heartburn, and cholesterol.

But oh, Our Edna and Our Helen.....it's worth it, ladies! xxxxx

You couldn't pay me to eat that.

Sorry, Maureen, Edna and and Helen....I meant a pan of lobbies is worth the heartburn, not Mick's pie! Sorry, Maureen, I know you are not a meat-eater and I respect that. My apologies, my friend. xx

Nor me Maureen, it looks awful.
Mick, I'd imagine that it would have taken you a week to digest that pastry, if it did actually digest that is.

On Rick Stein's German Bite a chef was making lobscouse or labskaus. Here's the Subtitles Transcript from those scenes:
**This restaurant specialises in Hamburg's most famous dish.
I love it!
It also happens to be Liverpool's iconic dish too.
And it's called...
This is lobscouse.
Well, this is the legendary lobscouse or labskaus...
Labskaus...which is common not only to Hamburg, but also, of course, to Liverpool. Hence some people say the word Scousers.
And it was actually a staple diet of all northern European maritime nations. In here we have salt beef, corned beef.
And that would have been a staple on all boats, cos it keeps so long.
We've got onions.
We've got beetroot juice, which is making it red in colour, but also the saltpetre in the corned beef would also be making it red.
And we've got water, we've got salt, pepper...
Anything else? Vegetable stock.
Vegetable stock. Just tell me, how long have you been cooking this for?
Oh, for a very long time. Should I say ten years? Really? Yeah.
Do you eat it regularly. Actually, I like more fish than meat.
Being from Ghana...
From Ghana, ..You like fish.
From the coast, yeah.
So Mensah takes the lumps of beef out, saving the precious stock and then he puts them through this fearful shredder.
It's like something Sweeney Todd would have had at the back of his wife's pie shop!
I think you can make this with a tin of corned beef at home.
Then he simmers the shredded beef in the stock and adds a load of butter AND marg in gargantuan quantities.
Finally, more butter in the mashed potatoes and that goes in too.
It's one of those dishes, it may not look very beautiful being cooked, but it smells divine and it really tastes fabulous.
Well, an hour's gone by...
Well, not really, because we can't afford to wait for an hour, and so we've got another one. But this is how it would look anyway.
And I was just thinking as I was watching him making it, I mean, it would be an ideal thing for a ship's cook to make, because it's very, very easy to do, and making it quite easily in vast quantities for the crew. So it's obvious, innit?
Some Liverpudlians say that it should be firm enough for a mouse to trot over it, but mushy and capable of being spread on bread to make a lobby butty.
That is truly wonderful. Yummy is the word. It's just like - wow!
Fried eggs, the labskaus, the beetroot, the beer - yes.
It's good. Very, very, very good.** Copied from here:
https://subsaga.com/bbc/documentaries/food/2013/rick-steins-german-bite.html

There's no video of it on youtube, however there is German Cookery For Beginners in which Labskaus is cooked, the preparation only begins around two minutes in so scroll along, interesting how they mix everything in, as we have the beetroot, gherkins or pickles and red cabbage on the side here:
https://youtu.be/bkm1EXu_XSU

Irene,there's no need to apologise,I appreciate that meat eaters love their meat,poultry etc,since I was a child I've never been able to stomach it for various reasons,it takes all sorts as they say doesn't it. xx

No matter how tantalising it's made to sound I could not eat lobbies on a butty! I always thought lobbies were cooked on top of the oven, my mam made a lovely meat and potato pie with a crust on in the oven. It was always my favourite but I never made it as good as she did. I never make it these days.... but I must say my grandchildren have introduced me to Fajitas and I love them. Lovely tender chicken with peppers/onion and mayo spread on top and squeezed onto the unleavened bread
I don't think they would like my meat and potato pie, it would just be wasted.

Irene I love lobbies, the way you do them,I was talking about the pie on barmcake. Sometimes they are full of gristle, and let's face it,we don't know what goes in them, like we do with our lobbies.xx

You couldn't pay me to eat that.

Q: Where do you weigh a pie?

A: Somewhere, over the rainbow.

("Somewhere, over the rainbow, weigh a pie"!)

My iPad has the hiccups again.