HIS colleagues call him the Mad Pie Man and Ian Grainger is
certainly an enthusiast, a persuasive evangelist for all things game.
His interest goes back to when he worked in an upmarket London game restaurant, and the Duke of Edinburgh
has been known to enjoy his "Grunt, Gobble and Zoom", a speciality pie featuring wild boar, turkey and pigeon
in red wine and brandy.
Through North Country Lass and its sister company Cumbrian Lass, Ian and his wife Margaret are
determined to bring the delights of game to a wider market and they find farmers markets are an
excellent way of spreading the message.
Ian says:"Yes there are barriers to break down, but once people try our produce they are hooked.
You can imagine the type of people that came to a game restaurant, most of them were very wealthy,
but now we will go to Blyth farmers market and a little old lady will come up every month for as steak
and oyster pie."
The business began 26 years ago. "After a career in the Navy, I came up North to work as a chef,
first at a hotel near Carlisle, and then near Keswick which is where I met Margaret, who was working
at a local bakery making Black Forest gateaux for the hotel.
"I had always wanted to make a business out of baking pies that I had invented when I was working in London.
We started selling gateaux and game pies to hotels in the Lake District and soon we were wholesaling from
Cornwall to Glasgow."
"After a while we wanted to develop the business in new ways and farmers markets seemed an ideal opportunity.
All was going well when along came foot-and- mouth: the markets stopped and that took away 50 percent of our
business straight away, and, of course, our wholesale clients were suffering, too.
"Foot-and-mouth nearly destroyed us. We were scraping the barrel, but we survived, "he says".
North Country Lass Is perhaps best known for Cumberland game pie, which can be served hot or cold, as well
as Kielder venison and partridge pie, a Prince Bishop pie, with venison and red sauce, with with red wine and
brandy, and Border Reiver pies with pheasant, gammon and wild boar, as well as various steak and stilton,
steak and ale, and ale and smoked oyster pies.
Ian says: "Normal game pie, which is set in aspic, can be an acquired taste but I wanted to make them
available to everyone."
"All of mine have booze in them, like Drunken Sailer's Pie, a London Dockland recipe dating back to
Victorian times that I discovered in an old recipe book."
We also offer a range of traditional Cumbrian farmhouse cakes, gateux and roulades, as well as coconut,
cherry and almond, and Lakeland ginger cakes made to a family recipe.
Ian is now 75, but he says he is bursting with energy - and as mad about pies as ever.
We make over 30 different recipes of pies, quiches, cakes and much more!!! Click on Product Range to
view our Extensive Product Range!