Food as signifier
Food is part of our every day, there is much food studies scholarship on the relationship between food and identity (Shah, 2018) and Atkinson and Deeming (2015) have written about the relationship between social class and food in the 21st Century Britain by using Bourdieu's theory on food preference and class - that our food preferences are informed by our social class and habitus (1984). I wanted to explore this relationship between food and social class, and food and the idea of belonging. So I turned to my partner, the pie-eater.
For my partner, who no longer lives in his hometown of Wigan, it is a tradition when he returns to get a hot pot with his family. It is a sense of belonging that cannot be satisfied in a bakery anywhere else, and so the idea of locality is emphasised. There is clear importance placed on the pies from Wigan, rather than just any pie at all. There isn't much scholarship on pies and identity specifically, but I have conducted some ethnographic research, of participant observation at a traditional ‘pie shop’ in Standish, Wigan borough to explore the link between food and social class in the North-West of England.
A History of 'pie-eaters'
It dates back to 1926, during a General Strike of miners. Wigan is an ex-mining town, and so its miners were on strike for better working conditions and against falling wages (BBC, 2006). Unfortunately, the collieries in Wigan began "starving their miners back down the pit", and so the Wigan miners were the first to cave, and "forced to eat humble pie" and thus the nickname for Wiganers became 'pie-eaters' (ibid.).
Image: Exterior of Gents Pie Shop. Taken from Manchester Evening News
A step back in time…
The pie shop had no sign, but I was told it was referred to locally as 'Gents Pie Shop'. It felt like stepping back in time as I walked into a shop without a till, and the server used a piece of paper and pen to calculate the sum of orders. This shop was worlds away from any cashless, till-reliant chains that have come to dominate the high street. The selection on display was limited - I was told that they sell out by lunchtime every day. This suggests that there is no tendency to overproduce in this establishment, they make enough to sell, minimising waste. The options on offer were a few homemade sandwiches and sausage rolls, and the sweet options were blackberry and apple tarts. I don't think I've seen either of these tarts in a bakery for a long time. I learned that they keep the pies and hot pots "out the back", as they seem to be not long out of the oven.
The prices are low, you could get a hot pot (meat, gravy and potatoes covered with pastry) for just £1.60, and the steak pies were even less. The woman quickly tells us "that'll be £3.20 love" and we're on our way, my partner is excited to see my reaction to his local delicacy.
Resistance to Contemporary Business Practices
What I observed was a busy place, and was told that there are usually queues around the corner most days. It is immensely popular, and is referred to frequently in reviews as "the best pie shop in Wigan". The people who frequent during the week are usually various labourers who drive through, and on weekends it seems to be more of a family affair. From what I've discussed with its customers, it is very much a working-class tradition, in keeping with the origin story of the miners 'eating humble pie'.
Community
With this in mind, the shop has a community feel, despite its small size, the server knows everyone, she has been there "since day dot" (Randek, no date), all the customers are regulars and so know the familiar face. This shop has survived for decades and decades (although I can't find its established date anywhere online) from the local people frequenting it on a regular basis. This is a true definition of 'shopping local' that we see plastered over social media around Christmas time each year.
This place is supported by its community, as it barely has a social media presence (it has a very basic Facebook page), which is what many businesses use as a tool in the 21st century. There isn't even a sign anywhere to be seen on the exterior. There isn't a till, and the calculator is a piece of paper and a pen. This suggests to me that this shop hasn't had to adapt to the 21st century, as its custom is fiercely loyal. Despite Gents not posting on social media themselves, you can easily find Facebook users posting video reviews and pictures of the gents' pies, praising them highly to their followers (Gents PIE Shop).
Pie as Signifier
Eating the pie or hot pot from Gents Pie Shop signifies a tradition, a working-class one with a history that still lives on today, as pies are predominantly enjoyed by that same class in Wigan now. It is a signifier of social class that is informed by habitus, which shapes the tastes of actors within that habitus. This study is of course not exhaustive and the theory of ‘habitus’ risks generalizing an entire social class of people from Wigan. However, I think there is evidence of the tradition that continues today, in an ex-mining town, of ‘pie-eaters’.
Bibliography
Atkinson, W. and Deeming, C. 2015. Class and cuisine in contemporary Britain: the social space, the space of food and their homology. The Sociological Review, 63: 876-896. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.12335
BBC. 2006. Think Wigan Think Pie. Bbc.co.uk. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2006/12/14/141206_wigan_pie_feature.shtml [Accessed 24/02/2022]
Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction. London: Routledge.
Gents PIE Shop. No date. Gents PIE Shop [Facebook]. Available at: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=291056654383323 [Accessed 24/02/2022].
Randek. No date. Best pie shop in Wigan (reuploaded) [Youtube]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XxUvYkdjEo [Accessed 24/02/2022].
Shah, R. 2018. Food & Identity: Food Studies, Cultural & Personal Identity, Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies, pp. 1–8.
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