h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have ask, does anyone else find it disturbing, that New Zealand pies cannot be exported to Australia, not due to health issues, not due to bad politics, but for the simple reason that New Zealand pies have too much meat!!

Its true! No "meat pies" in Austraila cannot contain more than 40% meat (from memory it may be even lower!), and the tried and true pie in New Zealand will contain up to 80% meat!

Apperently this is more meat than the Ozies can handle!

Does one dare ask what makes up the remaining 60% of an Ozzie pie?

So, can you call it something other than a meat pie (say, as a 'gourmet savory' or as a 'mini beef wellington') and sell it then?

I'm sure that in the dustier and less hip recesses of Australian law libraries, the exact measurements and configuration of meat pies are laid down in legal terms. They must be or else there would be no 40% meat stipulation.

Try to sneak a Kiwi pie into Oz under a different name, and I'm sure local Ozzie pie makers would jump and down, point at the legislation and say "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it must be a web-footed, feathered member of the family Anatidae".

Surely similar meat-filled pastry goods would come under similar scrutiny - but what a job that would be!

"Mmmpfh, no, no, way too much meat in this one! *munch* Pass the ketchup!?"