In Pursuit of the Perfect Pasty
by Katie Richards
It’s probably fair to say that beyond English borders, our regional food doesn’t have the best reputation. But as an English girl who has lived in various parts of England and Wales for my whole life, not counting a brief flirtation with France in my early twenties, I am proud to say that English food is a great deal more than fish and chips.
First things first. You’ll only find a Cornish pasty in Cornwall. Now, while that might sound obvious enough, it took the Cornish Pasty Association a trip to the European Court in 2006 to gain this recognition. The story of the pasty, however, begins some 700 years earlier during the reign of Henry II when it was enjoyed by the wealthy and filled with exotic ingredients such as venison, eel and salmon. By the 18th and 19th centuries, the development of the mining industry in Cornwall meant that the pasty had become the food of the workers who required a nutritious and portable lunch to carry into the mine.
Cornish pasty. Photo by monkeymagic1975 via Flickr.com
From the outside, granted, the Cornish pasty doesn’t look particularly appealing. But the buttery pastry shell in a half-moon shape with a characteristic crimped handle made of pastry gives way to a mouth-watering mixture of steak, potato, turnip and onion all seasoned with a liberal dash of pepper. While the crimped handle is today a handy means of eating your delicious pasty on the go, the handle was originally discarded due to the high levels of arsenic in tin mines several centuries ago. The thick pastry handle allowed miners to enjoy their hot meal and avoid being poisoned by the arsenic and tin on their hands as a result of a hard day’s work in the mine. Another traditional characteristic of the pasty which hasn’t lasted to the modern day is the savoury and sweet combination. One half of the pasty would be filled with the traditional steak mix while the other half contained a sweet apple pie-type filling as a welcome end to the miner’s hearty meal.
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