Pasty

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  A pasty, the crimped and folded pastry now tied to Cornwall and Devon, once appeared in a royal charter as a legal obligation. In 1208, King John granted a charter to the town of Great Yarmouth. Every year the town had to send the sheriffs of Norwich one hundred herrings, baked in twenty four pasties. The sheriffs delivered them to the lord of the manor of East Carlton, who conveyed them to the king.

  Today the word means a baked British turnover with a filling, typically meat and vegetables, sealed inside a folded and crimped circle of shortcrust pastry. Herring pasties for a king sit oddly beside a lunch you can hold in one hand. That distance raises questions. How did a dish with a royal pedigree end up in a worker's pocket? Who has the right to call a pastry Cornish? And how did one food from a corner of Britain end up cooked on other continents?

  134

• 2. Pastry Before Cornwall

  ›

  Chrétien de Troyes, writing the 12th century Arthurian romance Erec and Enide, has characters from the area now known as Cornwall eat pasties. Pasties turn up again in Havelok the Dane, written at the end of the 13th century. They appear in the 14th century Robin Hood tales and in two plays by William Shakespeare. The dish was a familiar piece of literary furniture long before anyone called it Cornish.

  The chronicler Matthew Paris wrote in the 13th century that the monks of St Albans Abbey, "according to their custom, lived upon pasties of flesh-meat". The English word itself comes from Medieval French, where a related word named a pie baked without a dish. Such pies were filled with venison, salmon or other meat, vegetables or cheese.

  In 1393, the French text Le Ménagier de Paris gave recipes for pasté made with venison, veal, beef or mutton. In 1465, a total of 5,500 venison pasties were served at the installation feast of George Neville, archbishop of York and chancellor of England.

  The earliest reference in Devon or Cornwall comes from the Plymouth city records of 1509-10. The entry reads "Itm for the cooke is labor to make the pasties 10d". Royalty ate them too. A baker wrote to Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, hoping that "this pasty reaches you in better condition than the last one".

  Samuel Pepys mentioned pasties several times in his diaries in the mid-17th century. At one dinner at Sir W. Pen's, he recorded eating "a damned venison pasty, that stunk like a devil". After that period, the word was used less and less outside Devon and Cornwall, which left the pasty to a very different crowd of eaters.

  4561170

• 3. The Miner's Lunch

  ›

  During the 17th and 18th centuries, tin miners in Cornwall and west Devon took up the pasty and made it their own. Its shape made a complete meal that could be carried easily and eaten without cutlery. Down in a mine, the dense folded pastry could stay warm for several hours. If it did go cold, a miner could warm it on a shovel held over a candle.

  The crimp has drawn its own theories. Because side-crimped pasties have a thick edge, some suggested that the miner held that edge and then threw it away. That would keep dirty fingers, possibly carrying traces of arsenic, away from the food and mouth. Old photographs complicate the idea. They show pasties wrapped in paper or muslin bags and eaten from end to end. The earliest Cornish recipe book, published in 1929, calls that "the true Cornish way". Another theory says an owner's initial was marked at one end, so an unfinished pasty could be reclaimed.

  An early description of the food comes from a New Zealand newspaper. It describes Cornish cottagers who baked at home, making little pasties for those working in distant fields. The pastry used flour with suet or lard. A couple of ounces of bacon and half a pound of raw potatoes, both thinly sliced, were considered enough for a meal. The newspaper says the pasty could be carried in a man's pocket and would last the whole week.

  The term "Cornish pasty" has been in use since at least the early 1860s. One writer recalled buying a pasty at Bodmin in the old coaching days. The writer took it home to a cook, so it could be dissected as a pattern for pasties in another part of the country. Another account says Cornish pasties were very popular with the working classes in that neighbourhood and had lately been introduced into parts of Devonshire.

  By the late 19th century, national cookery schools were teaching pupils their own smaller version. They pitched it as an "economical savoury nibble for polite middle-class Victorians". A name that appealed to cookery teachers would eventually draw the attention of lawyers.

  314152116

• 4. Guarding the Name

  ›

  On the 20th of July 2011, the European Commission awarded the name "Cornish pasty" Protected Geographical Indication status. It ended a campaign of nine years by the Cornish Pasty Association, a trade organisation of about 50 pasty makers based in Cornwall. Under the ruling, a Cornish pasty must be shaped like a "D" and crimped along one side, not along the top. An oval pasty with a top crimp is the traditional form of a Devon pasty.

  The rules govern where a pasty is made, but not where it is baked. A Cornish pasty must be prepared in Cornwall. It does not have to be baked there. Nor must the ingredients come from the county, although the association notes strong links with local suppliers. Packaging for pasties that qualify carries an authentication stamp, and the association polices its use.

  The shape rule cut across local habit. Crimping varies within both Devon and Cornwall, and some bakers maintain that a top crimp is more authentic. Cornish bakers have made top-crimped pasties for generations, yet those who keep the method now cannot legally call their product Cornish. Paul Hollywood, writing for BBC Food, said a traditional Cornish pasty should have about 20 crimps.

  Producers outside Cornwall objected. One said EU bureaucrats could "go to hell". Another called the award "protectionism for some big pasty companies to churn out a pastiche of the real iconic product". The supermarkets Asda and Morrisons both said they would be affected, as did the bakery chain Greggs. Greggs was one of seven companies allowed to keep using the name for a three-year transitional period.

  The stakes were commercial. Members of the association made about 87 million pasties in 2008, with sales of 60 million pounds. That figure amounted to about 6% of the food economy of Cornwall. In 2011, members employed over 1,800 permanent staff, and some 13,000 other jobs benefited from the trade. Surveys by the South West tourism board show food is one of the top three reasons people visit Cornwall. The pasty is the food most associated with the county.

  3133343252

• 5. Inside the Crust

  ›

  The protected recipe calls for diced or minced beef, onion, potato and swede in rough chunks, with light peppery seasoning. The cut of beef is generally skirt steak. Swede is sometimes called turnip in Cornwall, but the recipe requires actual swede and not turnip. Salt and pepper are the usual seasoning, adjusted to individual taste.

  The pastry is left undefined, as long as it is golden and does not crack during cooking or cooling. Modern pasties almost always use shortcrust. A humorous belief holds that the pastry on a good pasty should survive a drop down a mine shaft. The barley flour once commonly used does make a hard, dense pastry.

  In the United Kingdom, the Meat Pie and Sausage Roll Regulation 1967 sets a floor for the filling. A pasty must contain meat equal to at least 12.75% of the weight of the pastry.

  Old Cornish cookery books show that pasties were generally made from whatever food was available. The earliest recorded recipes include venison, not beef. Pasty has always been a generic name for the shape. Fillings now include stilton, vegetarian mixes and even chicken tikka. Pork and apple pasties, with an apple flavoured sauce mixed throughout, are readily available across Cornwall and Devon. Sweet versions such as apple and fig, or chocolate and banana, are common in some areas of Cornwall.

  On Parys Mountain in Anglesey, copper miners of the 19th century ate a part-savoury, part-sweet pasty similar to the Bedfordshire clanger. The technician who researched it claimed Cornish miners probably carried the recipe there while looking for work. No two-course pasties are commercially produced in Cornwall, but the supermarket chain Morrisons sells one as the 'Tin Miner Pasty'.

  Other traditional fillings have included pork, bacon, egg, rabbit, chicken and mackerel. Sweet fillings have included dates, apples, jam and sweetened rice. When times were hard and steak was out of reach, an extra potato took its place, producing a "tiddy oggy". "Tiddy" means potato and "oggy" means pasty. A meatless alternative is the herby pie, made with parsley, wild green herbs, chives, ramsons or leeks, and a spoonful of clotted cream.

  2941454772

• 6. Cousin Jacks Abroad

  ›

  Migrating Devonian and Cornish miners, colloquially called Cousin Jacks, and their families, called Cousin Jennies, carried the pasty around the world in the 19th century. As tin mining in Devon and Cornwall declined, they took their expertise and traditions to new mining regions.

  On the Yorke Peninsula in Australia, an annual Cornish festival has run since 1973 and is claimed to be the world's largest. A clarification of the protected status ruling confirmed that pasties made in Australia may still be called Cornish pasties. Closer to home, the Lancashire pasty swaps swede for carrot, and Welsh pasties use lamb instead of beef, sometimes with leek.

  In the United States, pasties are found in California Gold Rush towns such as Grass Valley and Nevada City. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the pasty is a cultural symbol, and pasty shops are a significant tourist attraction. The village of Calumet holds an annual Pasty Festival. Finnish immigrants to the Copper Country mines mistook the pasty for their own piirakka and kukko pastries. The food is now tied to all the cultures there and on Minnesota's Iron Range.

  Mineral Point, Wisconsin, saw the first mineral rush in the United States in the 1830s, after lead was discovered. Many of its early miners came from Cornwall. Butte, Montana, "The Richest Hill on Earth", tells a similar story of Cornish miners and a preserved local delicacy. In the anthracite coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania, around Wilkes-Barre, Scranton and Hazleton, an entrepreneur began marketing pasties in 1981. The brand name was Mr. Pastie.

  In the Mexican state of Hidalgo, the twin silver mining cities of Pachuca and Real del Monte have notable Cornish influences. Locals call the pasties pastes, and consider them typical cuisine. Real del Monte has a pasty museum and holds the International Pasty Festival each October. Pasties are also popular in South Africa, New Zealand and Ulster.

  In Jamaica, different spices and fillings turned the pasty into the Jamaican patty. In Japan, the potter Shōji Hamada, who had spent time with Bernard Leach in Cornwall, brought the pasty to Mashiko in Tochigi. It is called "Paasuchii", and daikon, a winter radish, replaces the turnip.

  5456586465

• 7. Knockers and Chants

  ›

  Knockers haunted the tin mines of Devon and Cornwall. These were spirits whose knocking either showed where rich veins of ore lay or warned of a coming tunnel collapse. To win their good will, miners left a small part of their pasty in the mine for them to eat. Sailors and fishermen tossed away a crust to appease the spirits of dead mariners. Fishermen also thought it bad luck to take a pasty aboard ship.

  A Cornish proverb recounted in 1861 stressed how varied pasty fillings were. It claimed the devil would not enter Cornwall for fear of ending up as a filling. A playground rhyme current among Cornish schoolboys in the 1940s went: "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, ate a pasty five feet long, Bit it once, Bit it twice, Oh my Lord, it's full of mice."

  In 1959, the English singer-songwriter Cyril Tawney wrote a nostalgic song called "The Oggie Man". It tells of the pasty seller who stood outside the gates of Plymouth's Devonport Naval Dockyard late at night, when the sailors were returning. He had a characteristic vendor's call. After World War II, hot dog sellers replaced him.

  The word "oggy" in the chant "Oggy Oggy Oggy, Oi Oi Oi" is thought to come from the Cornish dialect word "hoggan". That word derives from "hogen", the Cornish word for pasty. When pasties were ready, the bal maidens at the mines would supposedly shout "Oggy Oggy Oggy" down the shaft. The miners would answer "Oi Oi Oi".

  Cornwall has also built oversized pasties for public ceremony. During regatta week, a giant pasty is paraded through the streets from Polruan to Fowey. On St Piran's Day, another is paraded around the ground of the Cornish Pirates rugby team and passed over the goal posts. The first World Pasty Championships took place at the Eden Project on the 3rd of March 2012, in partnership with the Cornish Pasty Association.

  7374782379