While Americans love their hamburgers, Australians love their meat pies and sausage rolls. We are the world's biggest consumer of meat pies with over 260 million eaten each year. The traditional Aussie meat pie is about 15cm in diameter, just large enough to hold in one hand and covered in tomato sauce. The pastry is usually shortcrust (heavy enough so it doesn't fall apart in your hands), and the filling is beef or chicken with enough thick gravy inside to stick it all together.
The actual origin of the popularity of the meat pie in Australia is not known but the first recorded mention of the ‘pie’ appeared in 1850 in the Melbourne Argus which reported that the Councillors preferred a meat pie from the pub opposite rather than the food provided in the chambers.
Pies as we know them came into being in Victorian era England when middle classes adopted the “Sunday roast” of either beef or lamb. The leftover meat was minced and the lamb was topped with potato, baked and became shepherds pie and the beef was noted as cottage pie. As the English migrated they took their cooking habits and recipes with them. Pie carts were common on street corners in most Australian towns and around schools at lunch time and indeed some can still be found in country towns today.
Of all the popular brand names of meat pies available today, Sargents is the oldest. George & Charlotte Sargent began selling Sargents Pies in 1883. Four ‘N’ Twenty were first baked in 1947 by local caterer Les McClure in the Victorian town of Bendigo. McClure named his pies Four’N Twenty after the line in the nursery rhyme, “Sing a Song of Sixpence”, about King Henry VIII entertaining guests by baking 24 blackbirds in a pie and having the birds fly out of the pie.