There appears to be something of a spat going on in the world of pork pies at the moment - it's handbags at dawn in Leicestershire. Pie-maker Northern Foods has launched a legal challenge to try and stop the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association, which is attempting to make sure that only pies made in the town can carry its name.

They're after a European 'protected' status, which is designed so that only things traditionally made in a particular geographical area can use the area's name - so you can only make Newcastle Brown Ale in Newcastle, for example (although technically it's actually made in Gateshead, so we won't dwell on that). Which only seems right and proper. If the decision goes through, pie-man won't be able to whip up a pork pie in the staff kitchen and pass it off as a 'Melton Mowbray' pork pie, being as said staff kitchen is inconveniently a couple of hundred miles too far north. But there's a complication - Northern Foods has been making its 'Melton Mowbray' pies in Shropshire and Wiltshire for over a hundred years...so which tradition is the more traditional? A nice one for the lawyers to wrangle over, methinks. And just don't get them started on Cornish pasties...