Who ate all the pies?

You're not a real Aucklander until you've dined at a pie cart.Sharu Delilkan checks out a book that honours a delicious Kiwi tradition
The Great New Zealand Pie Cart fits right in with this year's NZ Book Month theme: "a book for every taste, every palate, every mind in NZ".
It takes only a mention of pie carts to stir nostalgia in Kiwis. But, ironically, that was not what the co-author of The Great New Zealand Pie Cart intended.
"I went into the project not realising what a sentimental piece of Kiwi history I was delving into," says Lindsay Neill. "but I quickly realized that everyone had a story to tell."
The Hillcrest resident says he got the idea to write the book four years ago while walking down Queen St.
"I saw the White Lady (pie cart), and I had been thinking of presenting a paper at The NZ Gastronomy Conference, and both ideas converged," recalls Neill pointing out that although he came up with the idea, the book, which includes contributions from writers Ted Bryant and Claudia Bell, is the sum of the authors' strengths.
"Ted wrote a lot of the history, due to his wider food knowledge, while Claudia, who has a sociological and vernacular background, wove it all together. She basically 'gib-stopped' it so well that I can't even tell which parts I wrote' giving it a single cohesive voice."
Neill, a hospitality management lecturer at AUT University, says one of the discoveries he made during his pie cart research was how food has changed over the years and keeps changing.
"Curried sausages with boiled eggs and raisins were on the menu during the pie carts' heyday in the 1960s. That was followed by the pie phase which included pea, pie and (s)pud, which was eventually replaced by burgers and hot fast food to go, which was influenced by the sprouting of the US fast food chains."
The book is one of many showcased during September's celebration of Kiwi books the point of which is to encourage us to read more books written by our fellow Kiwis.
Today, Neill, the 2007 winner of the Emerging Food Writer's category of The New Zealand Guild of Food Writers says pies are not even on pie cart menus anymore.
"Like the pie carts that have reflected the changing demographic over the years, I believe it won't be long before we see either a kebab or noodle pie cart."
September is officially NZ Book Month. Details see http://nzbookmonth.co.nz/