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THE CORNISH PASTY The
pasty has been a documented part of the British diet since the 13th
Century, at this time being devoured by the rich upper classes and
royalty. The fillings were varied and rich; venison, beef, lamb and
seafood like eels, flavoured with rich gravies and fruits. It
wasn’t until the 17th and 18th Centuries that
the pasty was adopted by miners and farm workers in Cornwall as a
means for providing themselves with easy, tasty and sustaining meals
while they worked. And so the more humble Cornish Pasty was born.
The
wives of Cornish tin miners would lovingly prepare these all-in-one
meals to provide sustenance for their spouses during their gruelling
days down the dark, damp mines, working at such depths it wasn’t
possible for them to surface at lunchtime. A typical pasty is
simply a filling of choice sealed within a circle of pastry, one
edge crimped into a thick crust . A good pasty could
survive being dropped down a mine shaft! The crust served as a
means of holding the pasty with dirty hands without contaminating
the meal. Arsenic commonly accompanies tin within the ore that they
were mining so, to avoid arsenic poisoning in particular, it was an
essential part of the pasty.
The
traditional recipe for the pasty filling is beef with potato, onion
and swede, which when cooked together forms its own rich gravy, all
sealed in its own packet! As meat was much more expensive in the 17th
and 18th Centuries, its presence was scarce and so
pasties traditionally contained much more vegetable than today. The
presence of carrot in a pasty, although common now, was originally
the mark of an inferior pasty.
Filling ideas are endless however,
and can be as diverse as your taste will take you. There is much
debate as to whether the ingredients should be mixed together before
they are put in the pasty or lined up on the pastry in a certain
order, with pastry partitions. However, there is agreement that the
meat should be chopped (not necessarily minced), the vegetables
sliced and none should be cooked before they are sealed within the
pastry. It is this that makes the Cornish pasty different from
other similar foods.
 It was such a commonly used method of eating
amongst the miners that some mines had stoves down the mine shafts
specifically to cook the raw pasties. And this is how the well
known British rhyme “Oggie, Oggie, Oggie” came about. “Oggie” stems
from “Hoggan”, Cornish for pasty and it was shouted down the mine
shaft by the bal-maidens who were cooking the pasties, when they
were ready for eating. In reply, the miners would shout “Oi, Oi, Oi!”
However, if they were cooked in the mornings, the pastry could keep
the fillings warm for 8-10 hours and, when held close to the body,
keep the miners warm too.
It was also common for the pasties to provide not
only a hearty, savoury main course lunch, but also a sweet or fruity
desert course. The savoury filling would be cooked at one end
of the crescent and the sweet course at the other end.
Hopefully these ends would be marked on the outside too!
Superstition and
Tradition The pasty is such a celebrated emblem for Cornwall that when the
Cornish Rugby team play a significant match a giant pasty is
suspended above the bar before the game begins. And, speaking of
giant pasties, one Cornish Young Farmers group decided to celebrate
the symbol by creating the largest on record in 1985; 32 feet long!
Although there are now many national businesses that trade in
Cornish pasties, any local would tell you that none compare to
traditional home-baked pasties.
As with a lot of British cultural symbols, there are
superstitions and beliefs surrounding the humble pasty that have
been passed on through the ages and accepted as ritual. Firstly, it
was said that the Devil would never cross the River Tamar into
Cornwall for fear of becoming a filling of a Cornish pasty after
hearing of the Cornish women’s inclination to turn anything into a
tasty filling!
The next
relates to the crusts of the pasty. A Cornish wife would mark her
husband’s pasty with his initials so that if he saved some of his
pasty for an afternoon break, he could distinguish his from his
colleagues. It was also so that the miner could leave part of his
pasty and the crust to the “Knockers”. The Knockers are mischievous
“little people”, or sprites, who live in the mines and were believed
to cause havoc and misfortune unless they were bribed with small
amounts of food. The initials carved into the pasties, it is
assumed, made sure that those miners who left their crusts for the
“Knockers” could be determined from those who didn’t.
In the 13th Century when pasties were part of
the diet of the rich and aristocratic, seafood was a common
filling. However, in Cornwall, a county much in tune and dependant
on the sea, the use of seafood in a pasty was unthinkable and
inappropriate. Amongst the most superstitious of Cornish fisherman,
even having a pasty on board their ship was believed to bring bad
tidings! This belief is thought to have been started by the Cornish
tin mining families who didn’t want their ingenious pasty invention
to be adopted by the fishing trade.
They may not have wanted another trade to use the idea
but when migrants from the Cornish tin mining community moved into
other counties of England and also across to America, in search of
work, they took with them their pastry crescent filled with a hearty
meal.
More Information
The Cornish Pasty Association - Protecting the Cornish Pasty.
The Association is applying for European protected
status for the Cornish Pasty and has lodged an application for
Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status. If the application
is successful it will mean that only pasties made in Cornwall, to a
traditional recipe and manner can legally be called Cornish pasties.
© K.E. Struthers Historic UK Ltd.
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