REMEMBER THE SMELL of hot pies warming in the pie warmer of the school canteen? Irresistible!
Everyone had their favourite school pie: in Warrnambool it was usually a Chitticks. In Port Fairy, Cobbs pies. In Mortlake, Clarke’s. In Timboon, the Timboon bakery…
For those lucky enough to be able to “buy their lunch” – wow! – the canteen ladies (and they were all ladies) would squirt the pie with a squiggle of tomato sauce (it was free) and slip it into a crunchy brown paper bag ready for it to be devoured while sitting on a bench in the shelter shed.
Some of us may have even had a pie AND a finger bun.
And to think, there was no such thing as childhood obesity back then – we just ran it all off.
I did love those Chitticks pies BUT my favorite was a packet of potatoes chips in a buttered bread roll and then we would rub the inside of the greasy chip bag over our legs and sunbake!!!!!
I am speechless about the chip bag suntan oil. And I thought that Reef coconut oil was bad!
Reader, Nanette Hoysted contacted us about this story and with her approval we wanted to share this with you all.
“Hi Carol, loved the lunch order piece you wrote. Reminded me of a family legend- probably exaggerated but isn’t that what family legends are for? My grandmother, Rena Parker, is said to have ‘invented’ the nibble pie! She and Percy were great friends with the Chitticks. Rena suggested he make small pies to have at their drinks parties. I believe she was also fond of champagne cocktails but not sure the two go together!”
Amazing.. and to think I didn’t know what a ‘nibble pie’ was until I arrived in Victoria… aren’t they just “party pies’?? ed. Louise
Louise, they’ll always be Party Pies to me.
In fact despite growing up in Victoria, I had never heard the term Nibble Pie until settling in the South-West!
I still have to correct myself when asking for a Part….. NIBBLE Pie!