Bakery Bulletin by Philippa Kelly: The rarely-heard song of the pointless pie bird

Ok, not the partridge, but the other things are.

I must therefore decide which term to use for the purposes of this fascinating piece about pie whistles/funnels/vents/chimneys/birds.

Which word after a word shall I use?

As the great Margaret Atwood wrote, “A word after a word is power”, but much as I love the sound of Pie Power, I think I should choose a more appropriate word for after my word. Word.

Whistle in any context reminds me of Whistle While You Work - once a Disney kid, always a Disney kid - so it’s mildly distracting as I’m now thinking of magic carpet rides, flirtatious candlesticks, and before you know it we’ll be building a snowman.

Funnel is good but could lead me astray as I’m already seeing funnel but reading Fun House.

When I was seven I got a guinea pig and named him after the legendary presenter of Fun House: Mickey.

Yeah, exactly. It was obviously Pat Sharp - I do now know that - so who was Mickey?

Not Mouse; I never really cared for him; he’s proper old-school Disney and I’m not that old and I greatly dislike Fantasia.

The mysterious Mickey strikes funnel off the list.

Vent sounds angry. Vent’s out.

Chim chiminey, chim chiminey, chim chim cheree, a sweep is as lucky, as lucky can be.

Anything even slightly connected to chimneys, pavement-chalking, or penguins, reminds of my dear, sweet Mary Poppins who is, of course, practically perfect in every way.

She will not, therefore, be lowered to my level - I shan’t do it - so let’s leave Mary out of it. I love you, Mary. I wish I’d had a neglectful banker as a father and a suffragette mother who was good at catching falling vases but not much else, and then you could have come to my house instead of namby-pamby Jane and Michael’s.

That leaves bird. A pie bird is a pointless contraption that, if I hadn’t once worked in a kitchen utensil shop, I’d never have heard of.

They’ve been around since Victorian times, and they’re basically little ceramic birds that sit in the middle of your pie and release the steam to prevent the pie-filling boiling up and over the pastry.

They were once also known as Crust Holders, as they supported the crust in the middle of the pie to prevent it from sagging - nobody likes a saggy middle.

It wasn’t until the 1940s that the bird-shaped ones really took off - ba dum tish - and these days, some of them are so ornate that they’re more of a collector’s item than a useful utensil.

As far as I know, they don’t actually whistle like the similar device on a stove-top kettle, as not only do I not own one, but if I did, would I hear it from outside the oven?

It’s like the tree falling in the forest that nobody sees - is it Catholic?

Sing a Song of Sixpence is not only irritating, but might also be why most pie birds look like blackbirds.

Idea for a business doomed to fail #8 - a pie bird that sings nursery ryhmes that are audible from the safe side of the oven door. Idea for prolonged longevity of washing machine #1 - don’t put rye in your pockets.

Victorian ovens weren’t exactly reliable. They must have been quite bad to warrant the necessity of pie birds. Modern ovens can cook things evenly, so it’s goodbye pie birds and hello Smeg. Everyone loves Smeg. I know I do. Ah, Smeg.