Meat pie 2024

Summary

This ceramic artwork of a meat pie was made by Kenny Pittock for the 2025 City Gallery exhibition 'The Dirty Dozen'. Curated by award-winning food writer and author Richard Cornish, the exhibition delved into the sometimes-dark, often-uplifting stories behind street food, produce markets and the dining habits of the 19th-century elite. The twelve ceramic artworks produced by Pittock bring to life 12 quintessential Melbourne street foods. All look good enough to eat.

"Many street vendors were poor or invalid yet selling hot pies on the streets of Melbourne paved a road to riches for Catalan brothers Joseph and Francis Parer. When they arrived in Melbourne in the mid-1850s, they were broke. They found lodgings in a tin shed near the site of St Paul’s Cathedral and teamed up with a French chef to make and sell pies. Within the decade, they had made enough money to open the Spanish Restaurant in Elizabeth Street, arguably Melbourne’s first Spanish restaurant. The Parer family eventually owned more than 30 pubs in Melbourne.They also owned 16 hectares of land at Box Hill, where Francis grew produce for the hotels and was among Melbourne’s first to grow tomatoes." - Richard Cornish, 'The Dirty Dozen' exhibition catalogue