Pork pie when the pie is cooked, traditional recipes specified that clarified butter or a hot pork stock was poured into the pie after baking. This would set when cool, filling the gap between meat and pastry and preventing air from reaching the filling and causing it to spoil. Commercial makers use a 6% solution of gelatin at between 80 and 90 degrees Celsius, added into the pie immediately after baking. The Melton Mowbray pork pie is named after Melton Mowbray, a town in Leicestershire. While it is sometimes claimed that Melton pies became popular among fox hunters in the area in
Melton Mowbray 14 Feoffees, two of which are known as Senior and Junior Townwarden. Nowadays, the position of Townwarden is titular only, i.e. the ‘public face’ of the Town Estate at civic or ceremonial occasions. Melton Mowbray had only 1766 inhabitants in 1801, but in 1831 they had increased to 3327, in 1841 to 3740, in 1851 to 4434, and in 1861 to 4436. The Melton Mowbray official web site's About page lists the current (2009) population of the town as 25,276, and that of Melton Borough as 46,861. Prior to 1960, the Production Engineering Research Association of Great Britain (PERA) came