Foreign Food

 Hi Folks, been long day- new Saturday girl and a fair bit going on today so well busy.

         OK The Cornish Pasty to be called a Cornish Pasty does have to be made in Cornwall using produce from Cornwall ( why does Ginsters not have the tin mine logo  on their products? ). The contents of the pasty should be chuck steak or skirt of beef ( James can tell us the technical bits regarding the beef - and only beef and only those cuts ). Potato, turnip ( which in reality is swede ),onion,salt and pepper are the recognised ingredients. The pastry itself should be shortcrust,rough puff or puff pastry glazed with milk and/or milk. The meat shoul be a minimum of 12.5% and the veg a minimum of 25% and all ingredients should be raw and all cooked toghther in the sealed pasty. The "handle" or "crimp" MUST be on the side making the pasty a "D" shape and yes the handle was to enable the miner to hold his pasty safely. Believe it or not in the heyday of Cornish tin/copper mining there were not any facilities down the mines and seeing as a by- product of mining arsenic would be present on the miner's hands thus the handle would be discarded rather than consumed. A miner could tell his pasty by the crimping, everyone would have an individual pattern or shape to the crimp. 

      As for the fruit at one end yes I have heard of these and tales of past generations making these abound but I have never seen one these days. This does not mean there are some folk are not still making them in the family enviroment. 

   Proper Job is handheld in a bag or such like but sometimes a knife and fork and plate if in finer surroundings and you do not want to get in bother for making a lot of crumbs.

      There is a lot of agro between Devon and Cornwall as to who had pasties first, I think it is still a jury out situation.

      I also have to admit to being unable to finish a pasty- when in a farm b&b in Lizard myself and another surveyor were dished up our evening meal, one pasty on a plate for us to share, But it was a pasty somewhere around 18 inches  long at least !!

  I am sure a lot of folk have their own recipes and ways of making them but the strict rules apply to anyone wishing to sell and Calling the Cornish Pasties.

      By the By, Cornwall Cam is in Padstow today. 

That is almost unblievable Edward!

Yuck....