Pies
Me at the Steak & Kidney Pie Factory
“When it got too cold and damp to go busking in Dublin, I dreamed of a warm place to work through the winter. I imagined a warm magazine office, but got a bakery instead. It called itself “A La Français” and hired a pastry chef from Alsace, but what it really was was a steak-and-kidney pie factory. Or if you prefer, a slapstick comedy show. Some of the best memories and most entertaining moments of my life happened in that unlikely place on Blackpitts Street in the heart of Dear dirty Dublin Liberties. ”
1st November…Dublin
Dear Billy,
Well my friend, summer’s last swallow is still here, chasing tunes and elusive music sessions. After my traveler's checks ran out, I took to the streets with my harp. I was doing okay until the arthritic damp set in. (Trying to pry jigs from cold cramped fingers was hardly attracting customers.) So with my fake student work-permit, I went looking for a real job.
“There must be more to life than this,” says a weary worker at the old steak-n-kidney pie factory in the dirty heart of Dublin’s Blackpitts.
One frosty October morning I borrowed an old black banger of a push-bike and pedalled twenty miles out of Dublin, to Keeling's Apple Orchard to answer their ad for pickers. But when I got there the foreman looked me up and down and said, “Oh, now we don’t hire girruls. We wouldn't have girruls working in the same field with the men.” Then I answered an ad for a photographer’s model. But it didn't take me more than a few sips of a Guinness to figure out that he was up to something kinky.
Remember Paul MacDonald, the tall, lanky guitar player with the frizzy Harpo hair who run the Tailor’s Hall Folk Club? He’s started up his own business. Bought a pack of old brushes, strapped them on his old black bike, made up some funny business cards that say Sam Hall, Chimney Sweep, and set out to seek his fortune in soot. Somehow, he talked me into knocking on doors to look for dirty chimneys at 50 pence a chimney. Anyway, Billy, after three days of knocking on doors—“Wouldja like yer chimney swept, missus?” in my best fake Dublinese (God forbid they should guess I’m a Yank, for they think all Yanks are rich)—I could not find one dirty bloody chimney.
Finally I saw an employment ad in the Evening Press, about a job working in a French bakery. Ah, I thought. Peaceful work in a warm place…
In the grimy heart of the old Dublin Liberties
I went to see the owner, a surly-looking Frenchman. He asked me if I liked to bake pies, and I said “of course.” He asked me if I liked to eat them, and I said “oh no.” Two right answers landed me the job, as a “pastry cook trainee”—at age 32, Billy!—in a steak and kidney pie factory right in the grimy heart of the old Dublin Liberties. I went out and bought one of those white nylon frocks, a hair net, and some crummy second-hand shoes. The next morning I showed up for work and was greeted with a doughy handshake and a lump of puff pastry to pound. None of that polite orientation stuff. Only 15 minutes on the job, and I’m rolling pork into little pie-size balls and slopping steak and kidney stew into aluminum tins in a place right out of a Dickens novel.
The A La Français factory is on Blackpitts Street, still cobbled and overrun with Dick Whittington’s cats, rats and forlorn junk shops with dingy windows. It’s a small gray building on a grim empty street. I learned from Willie, one of the workers who knows all about Dublin’s history, that when they were excavating Blackpitts to build these factories, they found the mass graves of some medieval plague. (Charming site for a bakery). And the old River Poddle, mostly filled in a hundred years ago after it went out of use as an open sewer and repository for tanner’s and butcher’s wastes, still trickles above ground close by.
All I see of Dublin now, Billy, through the smudgy grilled windows of our pie factory, is rows of chimney stacks and a garbage dump. I bicycle to work in the dark and bicycle home in the dark. But the work is so new for me it's kind of fun. Squishing soft margarine onto trays, rolling sticky sausage into links, fluffing feathery grated cheese. At certain times of the day the place is a frenzy of pounding, poking, rolling, whirling, whisking, heaving. Then we rush to the oven and heave a big sigh.
The other workers are great. Putting out pies is only incidental to the craic—the good times. There are seven of us—eight if you count the cat that lives in the oven. A cocky, sinewy Malaysian lad who attacks the dough with Tae Kwon Do blows; a real Dublin woman who should have been in vaudeville; a choleric Frenchman whose two comments through a day are merde and ees no funny ; a solitary Belfast man who eats his lunch alone among the pigeons on the gray rooftop while dreaming of kinder days gone by living at the Brazen Head the oldest inn and pub in Dublin; Georges, a cool handsome Austrian; a quiet young Dublin woman newly betrothed, and me, The Yank. In our various Belfast, Dublin, sing-song Malaysian, Alsacian, Austrian and Indiana English, it's a wonder we can communicate at all.
One morning I’m weighing up the ground ham for the quiche and find a big bone in it, and Miss Mullen, the woman I work under, says “Oh! A hambone!” and Jacques says “Hambone? Jambon !” and Won howls “Jambon? In Chinese that mean loo bowl !” And then Georges, the stiff Austrian, is yelling at me for cracking fifty eggs into the quiche wash, when he had said fifteen . And sitting around the breakfast on a cold damp morning, Jacques asks me if I miss the comfort of the “central hating” we have in America. Billy, I think this job will be great. Just the pure and simple Zen of Dough. Dough and only dough. With this I can keep up the writing and the music. And hey! I have a new nickname—Buns!
Buns
"Mornin’, Buns…"
"Bonjour, Buns…"
"Howeyhyah, Buns?"
"Hallo, Buns…"
After two weeks on the job The Yank is starting to get the hang of it: clock in, change into old shoes, throw on coveralls, put up hair and tie on scarf; up the narrow staircase, say hello and grab hunk of marge. Grease the quiche rings, grease the trays, grease the tins. Roll sausages, weigh ham into six-ounce balls, fill steak and kidney pies, put hats on the bouchées and fork them, egg wash on sausage rolls, and fork the sausage rolls.
By the time she finishes on the quiche rings, a smudge of rosy light is just breaking through the window, thawing the cold slab of broken marble and softening the neon overhead. Seagulls squawk in the new day and Jacques is at his croissants, folding them into skinny crab shapes. Won is whipping huge vats of cream. Mary is chopping apples for the tarts. Georges is doing his fancy cake batter. Willie is sobering up to the shock of cold trays plunging into scalding water. And Miss Mullen is fussing over the day's orders…
“Won” and “Miss Mullens” at the Dublin Steak-n-Kidney pie factory enjoying a wee break
“Fifteen dozen small boo-shays, lordy, five dozen small steak 'n kidneys, mercy, three dozen large steak 'n kidneys, twenty quiche—‘is the ham up yet?’—five cheese flans, six doz sausage rolls, well, we has three leftover from yesteday, and eight doz cheese rolls.”
“Hang on, Miss Mullen, we'll get it all done. Not to worry, you have me working for you now.”
“Youse a good worker, Buns,” Miss Mullen says. “Child, youse catch on fast. A few months here, you'll be taking over my job. God knows I need a break after 26 years,” she sighs, throwing a flap of dough over a quiche ring and pinching it down.
“Twenty-six years! My God, that's a lot of bouchées, Miss Mullen.”
“Here's your tea, ladies” mutters Willie. “Buns, yours is schtrong as you like it, but mind yourself, it's schalding.”
“Ah thanks, Willie, I'm freezing.”
“Trays washed yet, Willie?”
“There must be more to life than this”
“In a minute, Miss Mullen.” Then Willie pauses, eyelids fluttering as if to steady himself, and looks searchingly at Buns. “There must be more to life than this,” he sighs. And when he arrives at the sink on the other side of the room, he adds, “To live…is the rarest thing in the world.”
Buns can read Willie’s mind. She knows he is only counting the minutes until morning break, when he can open the roof door and gaze through the tangled coils of barbed wire, to the wild gray clouds scudding over the smokey cityscape, and the silhouette of Christchurch Cathedral, founded in 1038 when Sitric MacAulaff was Viking King of Dublin.
A few inches to the right, five or six rooftops maybe, he could see the old Brazen Head Pub off Merchant’s Quay, the most decrepit and most loved hotel and public house in Dublin, whose walls have stood since 1198. Willie must have known more about Dublin than all the journalists of Dublin put together, after living there for 13 years. Why he had to leave he would never say.
“Schnigffl!” A rainburst from Miss Mullen. A snifffle quick-doused with flour. “Oh me dead sister. Was sendin’ out the Christmas cards last night, but I can't send one to her this year because she’s dead.“
“Dead?!”
“Ten months ago. She was just home to us on a visit from Africa—was a missionary over there. And a month after she went back we got a letter that she was dead. Fell down the stairs and broke her hip and died in hospital. Lordy, the cards we got, she was loved I tell you. Hand me up more quiche rings, will you now.”
“I'm so sorry, Miss Mullen.”
“I dunno what people's born fer anyway. Might as well die as soon as we're born, for the hardships we goes through in this life” Miss Mullen says, settling the scalloped rims onto the bouchées. Like little sand dollars they bask on the tray. Then she stoops down to the fridge below the bench and grapples, as if with an octopus, to haul up a giant lump of dough. It drapes itself in eight different directions, but with a determined grunt she lands it on the marble. She spreads it out and whacks it hard with her rolling pin. Then she nudges Buns and says, “Oh, child, go fill up the pail with steak and kidney. We'se got five doz small today.”
“Yes, Miss Mullen, I will of course.”
Locked in the fridge
Down to the big dark refrigerator goes Buns in search of steak and kidney. Groping, sniffing in the dark, she bumps into bald ogling turkeys strung by their feet, dangling yards of sausage and sad ear-hung rabbits. Uncovering this tub and that bin, she wonders “where the hell is it?” when her nose detects urine fumes wafting from a big vat, smelling of foul cat. She sloshes up the steak and kidney with a big spoon, and pail filled, turns to go, when GLONK! she’s locked in. Ten minutes pass…fifteen…
“Oh, Miss Mullen,” says Buns, returning breathlessly to the bench. “I had a fright down there. The fridge door shut on me and I had to pound and scream to get Monsieur Quidenay to open it.”
“Lordy, woman, no wonder you took so long. I got me a fright too just now. Georges is just after sayin’ the health inspectur’s visitin’ us today. With a mice-scrope, you know, that thing that brings up the germs. We'll all be in trouble if we don't pass inspecshun.”
Buns smiles, remembering last week and Miss Mullen mixing up a batch of dough. While the woman's head was turned, the lump of dough climbed up the arm of the mixer and lept onto the floor. Not to worry. Miss Mullen brushed off the sawdust and hairs and droppings and heaved it back into the mixer.
A dirty deal
“Well, what will happen if we don't pass inspection?“ Buns asks, concerned.
“Monshur Kidney will give out to us. But don't you worry, this place won't never shut down. Kidney’s got a deal or somethin' with the inspecter.”
Jacques, reaching over Miss Mullen to weigh crumbles of yeast, huffs “Ah, mon Dieu ! You would naever see place like zis en France. Naever…”
“What do you mean?” Jacques, asks Buns.
“Ah, merde. Cheap ingredients. Poison food dyes banned in France. Rush rush and no care for la qualité. The mean way he treat us—naever in France. Naever!” he shouts over the whirring blenders.
Jacques, who was lured from France for the job of pastry chef at £130 a week, is sorry he came.
“Oh, my gawd!” says Won, joining in with hearty disgust. “Yesteday you know what that mean boss man do? He accidentally step on my fut, and I pull my fut out from unner his fut to get away, you know? And he lose his balance and then he say to me—to me—‘Won, don't you apologize?’ I no take that. I say to Mr. Steak, ‘Solly, but you step on my fut. You can apologize to me.’”
“Great schtuff, Won,“ cheers Willie from the sink. “And what did he say to you after that?”
“He said, ‘I'll sack youse!’”
St. Patrick be praised
It was a mystery to Buns why Won put up with Monsieur St. Quidenay's abuse for his measly wages of £15 a week. His parents owned a rubber plantation near Penang, he said, and sent him plenty of money to live on. Won’s father still worked the family rubber plantation, even after Won’s grandfather was strangled and swallowed by a 45-foot long Burmese python.
Yes, it was hard to imagine, but Won had explained that his grandfather was tapping a rubber tree at dawn one morning, right beside where a mother python was guarding her babies, and the constrictor socked him in the head with its head to knock him out, then squeezed him to death, and swallowed him up to the shoulders. Won was happy to be in Ireland, where, thanks to Saint Patrick who ran the serpents off the island in the 5th century, there were no snakes of any kind.
“Why do you put up with this job and that man at all, Won?“ Buns asks. “You know, Buns. Because I lovvve Miss Mullen. Because she is so sexxxy. Miss Quiche of 1934. Ooooh!“
“G'won, Won, you cheeky boy.”
“Buns, when I finish my fashion design study at Grafton Academy, I go to Paris. You see.”
“And you, Miss Mullen,“ says Buns. “You should be running your own French bakery, for all you know about pastry now. Why do you stick it for 43 quid a week?”
“Because, child, it’s close to me bedsitter. And I’ve worked in worse places. And what do I need more wages fer anyway? I’se got enough for meself. And no matter how much money we gets, we're all going to die just the same.”
Miss Mullen takes a flap of dough that she has secretly been lace-poking with holes and places it on Won's black head. “There! a lovely hat for Won. Oh, doesn't he look lovely in it?“
“Miss Mull-en!“ shrieks Won. “Mind the dough! You can't use it now, with my hair in it.”
Childlike, wounded, Miss Mullen takes back the dough. She brushes the black hairs off, says “nice hat” and puts it back on the marble slab. A few minutes later, Won pokes Buns and shows her what he has made with a lump of puff: a puppet of Miss Mullen. Won waves the effigy in Miss Mullen's face. And the woman crows with glee and clowns around, strolling with her rolling pin like a flapper with her beads. Then Jacques hears heavy feet on the stairs and whispers “Watch out! Here he comes!”
Monsieur St. Quidenay strides into the room and in a big voice sings:
Monsieur St. Quidenay’s Good Morning Song:
“Ten Black Forests and a “Happy Birthday, Pappy!
Nice and moist—and make it snappy!
Yesterday’s quiche crusts were layered with patches—
What’ are we doing here, mending britches?
CHORUS:What is the meaning of zis?
Complaints about the sausage rolls again:
The crust’s too flaky, the dough’s too thin.
And if you think these scones attractive,
Wrong you are—my God, I’ll sack youse.
CHORUS: What is the meaning of zis?
Won—you sneaked in late today—
I’ll dock ten minutes from off your pay.
These steak and kidneys are a mess—
Broken bottoms, ugh—they’re useless!
CHORUS: What is the meaning of zis?
And here we are—now don’t you lie—
Who puts the steak and kidney in the steak and kidney pie?
Miss Mullen? Or is it this Yank? Fie!
Merde! Can’t you read a scale?
You’ve put in too much meat!
So I’ll lose on my sale!
I’ve got to make my profits To pay you all—you dossers!
CHORUS: What is the meaning of zis?”
The room is silent as Monsieur St. Quidenay pinches, sniffs and measures his way around the room. Then he is gone.
“I knew he'd give out to you about the steak and kidney,” says Miss Mullen. What'd I tell ya. Saturday after you all left, he yelled at me, sayin' he'd sack you for fillin' 'em too full. But I says to meself, ‘if she goes, I'll go, even after twenty-six years, because we works together.’ Lordy I prayed all weekend he wouldn't sack you.”
“You prayed for me about that Miss Mullen?”
“C'mon, child! Grease those rings and fill those tins and hide those broken bouchées so he doesn't see and hand me up three dozen eggs and beat the marge into the puff and fork the pork pie hats and I need four dozen sausage rolls and go ask for more cheese. Jesus Mary and Joseph—hurry please!”
“Yes, Miss Mullen, I will of course.”
“Twenty-six years here—you think I don't know that man! He'd go through you for a shortcut—or steal the steam off yer peas, me god! They'll burn! Jacques!”
Zee bouchées
“Merde !“ screams Jacques. “Miss Mullen, you crazee por zee bouchées, always zee bouchées. You want a heart attack por zee bouchées?“ Only minutes later, just as Willie has thrown the last of the soggy quiche crumbs to his birds, and Buns has smuggled some more sausage rolls, cheese scraps and a fruit cake into a big straw bag kept for this purpose in the loo, the health inspector arrives.
Notebook and magnifying glass in hand, he begins at one side of the room, peering into bins, taking flour samples, flashing his torch into the depths of the fridge, studying the floor on her hands and knees, and glaring critically over each shoulder. An hour later his report is circulated for the workers to read.
Miss Mullen studies it thoughtfully for a moment, then she reads to all gathered around. “Let's see, we'll have to get rid of the cat, it says. And Georges can't use the lightbulb anymore to roll out them sugarcrust rose petals with. And there's something here about not sneezing onto the cakes. And them rotten eggs—I knew they'd give out about the rotten eggs—St. Quidenay buys 'em cheap that way—the rest of it says what it always says, we just gotta get rid of the dirt. But this time of year's bad enough just gettin' th'orders out. No time for cleanin'!”
Miss Mullen goes back to her dough, cutting out hats for steak and kidneys. She pricks them with forkholes and carries them to the oven. But oops—she slips on some unmopped slop and her dear little pies go flying. They veer and careen, spin and roll on their slick little bottoms, blackened and old. But swoop, she's down like an old mother hen, folding them tenderly to her breast, and then flicking off sawdust, droppings and mould, they look just like new if the truth be told. A touchup job with eggwash slosh will cover the lingering debris. And who will be supposing that the flecks of brown reposing on the steak-and-kidney closing aren't grains of bran or wheat?
T’was the week before Christmas…
A week before Christmas, Dublin's bright shop windows are filled with Black Forest cakes glistening green and red with angelica and cherries, plump friendly fruitcakes, merry Nollaig logs, and jolly marzipan Santas. But the light coming from the smudgy windows of the pie factory where these delicacies are produced has no festive hue. It is a sickly gray, ghoulish beacon in the depths of the Liberties blackness. And it glows long, longer, before dawn and after dusk, as the workers inside race to feed a gluttonous oven.
“Mornin’ Buns. My—youse the early worm.”
“Early bird you mean.”
“No, I changed it. Terrible morning—would you look at that mess outside. Mother of God, didn't get a wink last night. Me hot water bottle burst in the bed.”
“Oh, Miss Mullen…”
“I brung you more chocolates, downstairs in me bag, don't let me forget. Is the ham up yet? Monshur Kidney was givin’ out to me about the sausage rolls bein’ too big. You'd think they was fairies buyin’ em.“
“I don't care, Miss Mullen. About the ham I mean. I can barely stand up. Just came from The Embankment—after-hours jigs and whiskeys. Didn't even see a bed last night.”
“Lordy, child! Ye'll destroy yourself. Is the ham up yet?”
“Miss Mullen!! Lay off the ham situation! Let's talk about some thing else, like baseball.”
“Baseball?“ mumbles Miss Mullen, her mouth crammed with bread. “Now neither you nor I knows anythin’ about baseball. But hurlin's a good game. You know with them white knee things.”
Miss Mullen peers through a hole in the smudgy window and jumps in alarm.
“Mother of God, he's in early today. Quick, Buns! Hide those broken steak-and-kidneys on the floor and stand in front of them so he doesn't see—we'll scrape the stuff out of 'em after he leaves.”
Obediently, Buns takes a wide stance in front of the tray of steak and kidneys, spreading her bell-bottomed jeans as wide as she can to hide the broken pies. Monsieur St. Quidenay strides into the room and when he walks by she pretends to look busy, though she is greasing the same quiche ring over and over again because she cannot reach the other rings without moving her legs.
Animals? What animals?
Monsieur St. Quidenay calls over to Georges from across the room. “Georges, have we seen any more animals today?“ he asks politely, referring to the rats. Georges says no and Jacques says yes and it is discussed. Ten minutes pass. Twenty. Twenty-five. Then Buns moans. “Miss Mullen—my legs!”
“It's all right now, he's gone,” Miss Mullens whispers. “Jesus me nerves. Buns! Pick up that and put 'em on those. Put it on the thing and bring me some of that and hurry don't you know, child, and pile it on and count them out and send it down, g'won woman!” Miss Mullen gasps.
Buns pulls herself together but while crossing the room for eggs she is nearly beheaded by a speeding tray, nearly walloped by a wooden paddle bearing hot fruitcakes. Stunned by these near-collisions, she soberly begins cracking 72 eggs into a pail and prays that she will make it back to the bench without tripping with 72 eggs. As she is cracking the last dozen to the tuneless symphony of trays banging, tins clanging, blenders roaring, rollers droning, she hears the most wonderful sound of all:
Breakkkkkfastttttt!
Broken scones
And pots of tea
And sausage rolls And lumps of cheese Second-hand eggs Runny quiche, fine but soppy Cups of cream Fractured tarts More rounds of tea Marzipan hearts
A feast!
Buns: Willie was saying that at last year's Christmas party for the staff, Monsieur St. Quidenay charged you each six pounds, then served sandwiches, bananas and Orange Squash. How could any body be so mean?
Miss Mullen: G’won Willie's oney coddin’ ya. We hadda nice party, in a room in a little hotel in town, and Monshur Kidney gave us a pound back each.
Buns: Willie! You sly old scoffer you! But he charged you for your own Christmas party? He charged you?!
Willie: It was a schplendid occasion.
Jacques: Merde.
Won: This year we get turnips and Coca-Cola.
Georges: Well I’m sorry to say there won’t be a party this year. Monsieur Quidenay, unfortunately, was not able to book a room.
Willie: Ah, do tell us—sure the grand Shelburne Hotel was booked out and he couldn't get the proper champagne from France.
Buns: I can’t believe it! No party?! After how hard we worked? But it's Christmas !
St. Quidenay's voice from intercom: Cut out the noise up there! And send me down 16 dozen large bouchées!
Jacques: (Inspired.) I know what we do. Tomorrow I bring in beeg amplifier and we hook it up to everything, so he can hear better the eggs breaking, trays banging, mixers roaring. (Howls of laughter.)
St. Quidenay: Shut up up there I sayyyyyy! Or I'll sack youse!
Miss Mullen: Jesus Mary and Joseph, Christmas is upon us! Me bouchées!
10th January, Dublin
Dear Billy,
I hope you've recovered from your crazy New York holidays. I had the worst Christmas in my life. The pace at the pie factory got to be hideous. Twelve hours a day in the cold and dark turning out Black Forest cakes for the bourgeoisie of Dublin. How could we feel like Christmas at all? And after giving up our Christmas week so that man could stuff his shops with fancy pies, he didn't even give us a party. Party, ha, there wasn't even a meal break on Christmas Eve. And he even made Miss Mullen, who should get a medal for all her years there, pay for a fruitcake and a turkey to take home to her family. Well, she was the only sign of Christmas in the place, bringing in presents for everybody, cigars for the men and a green plastic bubblebath apple for me.
I guess it won't surprise you to hear that I quit the job after New Year's. I feel sane again, but I miss them all. The other day I went back for a visit. Won had been deported for stealing fancy nightgowns at a department store. Jacques was there swearing at his croissants. Willie was still hunched over that manky sink. And Miss Mullen was at her bouchées. Ah, that woman. Revering those bouchées like they were the Pope's holy wafers. Well, I guess after twenty-six years, you'd see life through a forkhole, too. I felt my own vision of the world shrinking there day by day. That's why I had to get out. But it was easy. I'm only a tourist.
