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The pie floater is an Australian dish particularly common in Adelaide. It consists of a meat pie in a thick pea soup, typically with the addition of tomato sauce. Believed to have been first created in the 1890s, the pie floater gained popularity as a meal sold by South Australian pie carts. In 2003 it was recognised as a South Australian Heritage Icon.
Development
Pea soup with meat has long been part of English culinary history, with mentions in the 19th century, including Yorkshire "pea and pie supper", "pea soup with eel", "suet dumplings or saveloys", (Dumplings in soup were known as "floaters"). It may have developed from those dishes, which are useful for feeding groups of people on a budget: for example at a sports match or at harvest time. A pie floater commonly consists of a traditional Australian-style meat pie, usually sitting, but sometimes submerged (traditionally upside down) in a bowl of thick pea soup made from blue boiler peas. It is often self-garnished with tomato sauce, and the consumer may also add a combination of mint sauce, salt, pepper, or malt vinegar according to personal preference.
Early records in South Australia state that the pie floater was reputedly born in Port Pirie, South Australia, conceived by one Ern "Shorty" Bradley in 1890s, but no one really knows if he did or how it came about?
Pie carts
Pie floaters were typically purchased in the street from pie-carts, as a late evening meal. Pie-carts are typically a form of caravan/trailer/cart, (originally horse-drawn), with an elongated "window" along one or both sides where customers sit or (more usually) stand to eat their purchases. The pie-cart was typically moved into position at lunch time and in the evening. As traffic became busier and on-street car-parking in demand, the carts evolved to have one window on "the footpath side", and were moved into position after afternoon peak-hour traffic had ebbed. They do business until late-evening or early-morning, after which they were returned to their daytime storage locations.
South Australia has had pie carts in the Adelaide metropolitan area since the 1870s. In the evenings, the Norwood pie-cart was located on The Parade adjacent to the Norwood Town Hall. It was also the only place where members of the public could buy draft Hall's "Stonie" ginger beer directly from the keg. In the Adelaide city centre in the 1880s, there were 13 pie-carts operating in King William Street and North Terrace. By 1915 there were nine pie-carts in operation. By 1958 this had reduced to two: Balfour's pie-cart on North Terrace outside the Adelaide railway station, and Cowley's in Victoria Square outside the G.P.O. In 2007, the Glenelg Tramline was extended from Victoria Square along King William Street and North Terrace past the Adelaide Railway Station, and the Balfour's pie-cart was forced to close.
In 2003, The South Australian National Trust traced the history of the pie floater: an impressive history tracing back 130+ years. In 2003, the pie floater was recognised as a South Australian Heritage Icon by the National Trust of South Australia, but is now available at a very few locations, one being the Café de Vilis, Enjoy Bakery on Norwood Parade and another the Upper Sturt General Store. Floaters using traditional pea soup or the more new age pumpkin soup can also be found at Prices Fresh bakery outlets.