pasties

[elderado]

Two questions about cornish pasties,i read in a paper the other day that they orginate from Devon, is this true or are they really from corwall?also is it true that they were made for the miners so they could hold onto the crust and not get the main part of the pie dirty?

[shaneystar2]

Cornish tin mines contained arsenic, and it was an advantage to the miner that they could hold the pasty by the convenient 'handle' that it provides to the eater.They would be able to eat the inside and discard the crust when they were finished.
There is no definitive answer to who originally created the pasty. Some people feel it was the Vikings, who brought it over when they invaded Britain. Whereas some feel it may have developed from the Italians, as the Cornish, who developed the pasty, were sailors. But the first written reference to the pasty was with the Cornish.

Here is the story about them originating in devon

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0 ,,1945876,00.html


My dear old Mum would ..a champion tatty oggie maker would have been flabbergasted to read that !

[vivandorron]

I can't really answer your question but would mention that the best 'cornish pasty' I've tasted was in a pub in Plymouth;
which I think is in Devon.

[shaneystar2]

My mother was a Falmouth woman ..born and bred ..and she used to make lovely pasties ..I have never been able to make them the way she used to. My grandmother who lived nearby used to come round( she was getting on a bit )when mother was making pasties .She used to get one straight out of the oven and and used to wrap it into her pinny (apron) to take home to eat.
Sorry to digress elderado but the thought of it makes my mouth water !

[brachiopod]

A researcher from Devon found a written reference to pasties (a recipe, I think) that pre-dated the earliest Cornish one.

From The Observer, 12 Nov '06

"Dr Gray said he spotted four key lines of text [in the historic "Audit Book and Receivers Accounts for the Borough of Plymouth"] which refer to the financial cost of making a pasty, using venison from the Mount Edgcumbe estate....in Devon. The words date back to 1510.
So Dr Gray contacted the Cornwall Record Office and found that its earliest record of a pasty recipe was in 1746."

So the reference may pre-date the first recorded Cornish recipe, yet it is hardly a recipe itself - more of a tax note!

It's probably an argument that can never be solved, as pasties probably existed in the South West peninsular for a while before any written reference to them was made.

[badlands]

There are some who strongly believe that pasties originated in Brittany and were introduced to cornwall/Devon by the links the west country had thru Celtic heritage!
Best Pasties ...Horse and Jockey Bakery ,Helston
Carn Du Bakery Rosenithon, Lizard

[jessiedog]

Best I've had from Malcolm Barnicutt Wadebridge. Taste lovely but always give me indigestion. My problem not theirs !

[vivandorron]

I confirm that I do not know the origin of the so called
Cornish Pasty.

However, the thought occurs to me that perhaps it was introduced to Cornwall from Gower, South Wales; where it was made with a Lamb (cig oen ) and Potato (Tatw ) filling. After all, a lot of sea-trade went on between the two areas (including Smuggling ). Check-out cottages in Cornwall which are built of stone from the Gower area.

The history of the Pasty is a bit like that of Whisky, which was first distilled in Wales and called Chwisgi; was copied by Irish folk and renamed Whiskey; before being commercialised by Scots( who dropped the letter E ) into what we now know as real Whisky.