I'm gonna have a food theme running over the next few days featuring local cuisine and restaurants galore - and so where better to start than with one of the city's most famous names - Wallace's.
These 2 ads from the 60's are for The Auld Dundee Pie Shop (Wallace's) in Castle Street, now no longer with us.
In the top ad it mentions that the original shop was situated in the Vault area of town before moving to it's permanent location in Castle Street, a shop I'm sure every Dundonian our age has been to.
Now I'm no expert, but I would mark their pie and bridie pastry 10 out of 10, but would only give them 1 out of 10 for the peely-wally clump of gristle inside!
Hope that doesn't make me seem disloyal, because I did feast on them for many years.
Then in December 1977, Reo Stakis stepped in and bought the lot for £75,000.
Then in December 1977, Reo Stakis stepped in and bought the lot for £75,000.
Below is a short clip of local celeb, Frank Gilfeather, indulging...!!
Wallaces had a pie shop on the Blackie Road. It was a regular stop for football fans before boarding the 22 Bus to Dens or Tannadice. I was brought up on the stuff.
ReplyDeleteI too hate to sound disloyal, but after 15 years away and a switch to a a lighter diet including fruit, I tried for old times sake and have to say it was filth. I felt scunnered by the grease and gristle soaking oot the peh. Worse than a bad doner kebab.
I think that may be why there is no longer a Wallace Pie shop, too much unhealthy meat products which would not pass today's standards.
ReplyDeleteWallace's pehs were majestic. A mangle of fat and gristle with light as touch pastry and a peppery aftertaste.
ReplyDeleteI eat fruit too but am not up my own erse.
I grew up eating pies,bridies and white pudding suppers, and my cholesterol levels are below average.
ReplyDeleteThe healthfood facists keep telling us that eating this stuff will kill us.
I could never work out how they managed to pour a pint of fat into one small pie though.
I remember seeing many a football supporter being walloped on the back of the head by Wallace's pehs chucked about at football grounds in the early 70's!
ReplyDeleteThe flavour of the crusty corners on an onion bridie were quite brilliant though!
I was heartbroken when the tea rooms closed down. It was a fantastic place with dark wood panelling, heavy epns cake-stands and cutlery, waitresses in black uniforms with wee white aprons (invariably auld wifies) and there was one window that I remember which had bars on it and looked out onto a weed infested courtyard.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see some pictures of the interior if you have them GG.
If I remember rightly Wallaces got put out of business trying to deal with a major supermarket who ordered them to upgrade their works, after the work was done, lots of money out of pocket, the supermarket chain turned around and said nah we ain't dealing with you after all.
ReplyDeleteThe closest you get to a Wallaces peh these days... nothing there, they are all done with thin pastry and a filling i wouldnt feed to a dog.
That was Wallace land of cakes. Not the Auld Dundee Pie shop
DeleteMy mouth is watering at the thought of the old Wallaces in Castle Street. How I used to love lunchtime or saturday visits into the resteraunt part with my parents.
ReplyDeleteDinna say "pie"!!!!
ReplyDeleteif yir fae Dundee, yi ca it a "peh"!!!
"ehl hay 3 plain bridees, an an ingin ane in a!"
Well said Drew ! and if it's mair than ane it's no peh's it's "pehz" ;)
ReplyDeleteand that would be "plehn" bridies Drew :)
ReplyDeleteOMG...the crusty slightly overdone crusty corners of bridies were my favourite foodie thing ever....especially if they were warm and smothered in very cold tomato sauce.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteThe "Auld Dundee Pie Shop" and "Wallace Land of Cakes" were two branches of the same family but totally separate. I believe there was a family rift decades ago. The shop in Castle Street was "Auld Dundee Pie"; the shop in Crichton Street was "Land of Cakes".
Wallace Land of Cakes was taken over by, I think, Balgray Bakery and, subsequently, McIntosh of Dyce.
In the last 10 years or so, there were three firms who could all stake a claim to carrying on the Wallace tradition - Wallace Family Bakers, Fisher's Bakery and the Old Mill Bakery.
Old Mill Bakery was run by former Wallace employees; I don't know if it's still on the go.
Fisher's Bakery - I don't know if it's still on the go but Fisher is a family name of Wallace descendants (see below).
Wallace Family Bakers was run by former directors of "Land of Cakes".
The latest news I have, following an email to Alan Fisher, former MD of Wallace Family Bakers a couple of months ago, is that WFB was taken over by McGhees Bakery in Glasgow and are now based in Longforgan. WFB is now purely a distribution base for McGhees and although the rolls for this area are made to the Wallace recipe, the meat products are not. See:-
http://www.wallacebakers.co.uk/
I worked in Claude Alexander in the Overgate, during the 70s. We had an Area Manager, based in Edinburgh, who timed his visits to our shop to coincide with lunchtime, so that he could have a bridie from the Castle Street shop.
A poem my uncle recited to me, many years ago:-
"Big, fat, muckle bridie,
sittin' there, yi look richt tidy.
Bough' oo' o' Davie Wahllussis,
fit tae be ea'en beh keengs in palaces!
8=)
Didn't know Wallace's had a wee website up & running. Will have to dip into it from time to time.
ReplyDeleteStay tuned for some Land O' Cakes goodies coming up on Retro in a couple of days!
Someone must still know how to make these to the original recipies.
ReplyDeleteAn ex-employee baker for example.
As a kid in the 1960s I was taken into the resteraunt and used to have the best baked rice I have ever tasted for a sweet.
ReplyDeleteThere was also an auld Dundee pie shop up the Hilltoon and another ane in the Ferry. A fresh greasy peh for breakfast whilst walking to work on a cauld winters morning with the grease dripping down and solidifying on yer jaickit....Braw !!
ReplyDeleteEh remember Mum takin me tae Castle St. fir a peh wae a sair heed fir effters!
ReplyDeleteA sair heed fir them wha disnae ken, wis a sponge cake wae a white collar roon it, much like Rab C Nesbit's heed gear.
I agree about the pastry being delicious and the meat being dire.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if a waiter came over to you with that same dollop of meat on a plate for you to tuck into, you'd think it was a joke.
It's only because the meat was hidden inside the pastry casing and you couldn't see what the contents looked like, that the people scoffed the stuff in the first place!
Curt.
Whit aboot the busters
ReplyDelete