Pie floater
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| Type | Street food |
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| Place of origin | Australia |
| Main ingredients | Australian meat pie, pea soup |
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The pie floater is an Australian dish particularly common in Adelaide and, to a lesser degree, Sydney. It commonly consists of a traditional Australian-style meat pie, usually sitting, but sometimes submerged (sometimes upside down) in a bowl of thick pea soup made from Blue boiler peas . It is usually garnished with tomato sauce, and the consumer may also add mint sauce, salt, pepper and/or malt vinegar to personal preference. The pie floater is usually purchased in the street from pie-carts as a late evening meal.
Anthony Bourdain, Joe Cocker, Billy Connolly, Nigel Mansell, Shane Warne and Angus Young are high profile fans of the pie floater.
In 2003, the pie floater was recognized as a South Australian Heritage Icon by the National Trust of Australia, but now available at a very few locations, one being the Café de Vilis.
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.
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Wikipedia