‘Pie King’ Calum Franklin wants people to be ‘proud about British food again’

Chef Calum Franklin is on a mission to bring back Britain’s historical pie recipes to “make people proud about British food again”.

Franklin, who has been dubbed “The Pie King” by fellow chef Jamie Oliver, says Britain has this “incredible” food culture and history but “we’ve never really shouted about it much before”.

He wants to prove it’s not just “fish and chips and roast dinners”.

Franklin spent hours studying the history, reading “extremely valuable manuscripts” in The British Library and has tweaked original recipes to suit modern audiences for his second cookbook, The Modern Pie Maker.

“Over the years of running restaurants, and with my first book, it taught me that there is a massive international interest in our pie culture because we’ve never really shouted about it much before.

“People are fascinated and they say, ‘Oh, we didn’t realise that Britain has this incredible food culture, this history. We just thought it was fish and chips and roast dinners’.”

Franklin grew up in southeast London and says his childhood memories of pies originate from his mother’s cooking.

“My dad often worked out of the country, so she was trying to juggle three difficult children and make a lovely dinner,” he says.

“She was able to put a beautiful shepherd’s pie, chicken pies, on the table, so it reminds me of a really nice time.

“It reminds me of being together with my family, and I think that is the same for a lot of people in the UK.”

The 42-year-old, who still lives in London, says his love for pies was reignited years later when he had a hot pork pie in a pub for the first time.

They are usually eaten cold, but he says this one was served with gravy and this was a “game-changer”.

He even created his own version later on, saying he wanted to make it the “ultimate expression of a very simple dish”.

He says: “I just thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is how it should always be. It’s incredible.

“All the fats that are inside it just become unctuous and soft, and the pastry becomes velvety because all the fats come out of it. I love it.

“I always encourage people to have hot pork pies now.”

Franklin opened the Holborn Dining Room in 2014, alongside renowned restaurateur Des McDonald, serving classical British brasserie food – and the pies were “very popular”.

One day, while looking through the basement in the building, which was full of antiques, he says he discovered a pie tin called a corset mould, which has different sections and keys to lock it together.

With none of his team knowing how to use it, Franklin says he knew he needed to learn the technique and “pass this down to (his) kitchen”.

He says: “I set upon that journey, and that then turned into a deeper journey into British pie-making.”

This led to Franklin’s first book, called The Pie Room, and a “very deep appreciation for British pie-making”.

However, he did not stop there, continuing his research and working with experts, including food historian Polly Russell, spending hours in The British Library.

“Polly would tell me, ‘I’ve found this incredible recipe. You should have a look at that. Come in and visit’,” Franklin says.

“A lot of these books, you can’t take them out of the British Library – a security guard has to be there.

“You have to wear special gloves because these are extremely valuable manuscripts.”

Franklin says Russell flagged one recipe for a Norfolk Plough Pudding, and, after his own research, he made his own version and posted it online.

He says this created “chaos overnight”, as there were debates over the pie’s origins.

“I realised how tribal and passionate people are about regional pies, so I thought, ‘Well, wouldn’t it be lovely to try and capture all of our regional pies in a book?.

“I thought, ‘This would be my service to pie-making’,” he says, to “capture the history, stories and etymology of these pies”.

However, he needed to make some tweaks to make the recipes more suitable to modern audiences and to ensure they do not die out.

“Tradition does change and a lot of people nowadays don’t like that, they don’t like the concept of that,” Franklin says.

“They don’t understand that, actually, if you look back historically, tradition always changes because of politics, because of economics, because of religion.

“So, if we make some adjustments nowadays for contemporary tastes, as long as you pay respect to the original recipe, I think that is tradition.”

Focusing on pastries across the British Isles, the book takes readers through the history of each pie, its origins and nuances, and it includes recipes for a homity pie, macaroni pie, balti pie, Cornish pasty and Manchester tart.

There are tips and tricks, too, such as putting a chopping board in the fridge before working with pastry to keep the dough supple and workable.

Another tip is using solely egg yolk, rather than a whole egg, with a splash of water as a glaze for a pastry to achieve a “gorgeous shine”.

His apple pie includes grated cheddar in the dough, which he notes as “an absolute game-changer”.

Franklin loves that pie-making can be an “an outlet for creativity”, both with the fillings and designs, and he hopes others experience the same enjoyment and “pride” while making these recipes.

“It has been a lovely part of my professional career, spending months in the library, just being a pie weirdo,” he says.

“I always feel like our pie history is so deep that there’s still so much more to tell.”

“My main hope is getting more people pie-making. My second hope is that it makes people proud about British food again because I think we’ve taken a beating over the years about British cooking.”

The Modern Pie Maker: A Mouth-Watering Journey Around Britain in Eighty Recipes by Calum Franklin is published in hardback by Bloomsbury, priced £26. Photography by John Carey. Illustrations by Calum Franklin. Available now.