Subject: Pasties

From: [email-masked] (Jennifer Davis)
Date: 12 Sep 1994 17:27:50 -0400

My husband, who is a big fan of pasties (you know, those meat and 
veggie filled Brittish pastries), and I were wondering when the pasty was 
first created.  Does anybody know?  Are there any old recipes floating 
around for them?

-Jennifer

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From: [email-masked] (BILL HILBRICH, ST. CLOUD, MN)
Date: 13 Sep 1994 03:51:13 GMT

>first created.  Does anybody know?  Are there any old recipes floating 
The story in this part of the world, and for that matter in Montana as
well is that the tradition came over with the Welsh who worked in the
mines. I am sure that there are as many recipes as there are families,
but Marcia Adams usually puts one or two in her regional cookbooks.

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From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: 14 Sep 1994 10:44:08 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (BILL HILBRICH, ST. CLOUD, MN) writes:
|> In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jennifer Davis) writes:
|> >	My husband, who is a big fan of pasties (you know, those meat and 
|> >veggie filled Brittish pastries), and I were wondering when the pasty was 
|> >first created.  Does anybody know?  Are there any old recipes floating 
|> >around for them?
|> >
|> The story in this part of the world, and for that matter in Montana as
|> well is that the tradition came over with the Welsh who worked in the
|> mines. I am sure that there are as many recipes as there are families,
|> but Marcia Adams usually puts one or two in her regional cookbooks.

Cornish, please!  Yes, a lot of Welsh miners went to work in Cornwall
and subsequently emigrated (some of my ancestors among them), but
pasties are a Cornish dish.

I don't know when they were first made or have any old recipes, but
I was once told that the original pasty was made around a flat fish,
and the meat and vegetable filling came later.  I have no proof of
this.

Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  [email-masked]
Tel.:  +44 223 334761    Fax:  +44 223 334679

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From: [email-masked] (Timothy J Lundgren)
Date: 15 Sep 1994 19:55:56 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>first created.  Does anybody know?  Are there any old recipes floating

This question has the status of an FAQ on the group alt.great-lakes so you 
might want to try there.  Recipes for pasties are frequently posted there, and 
their history is often discussed.

Tim L.

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From: [email-masked] (Robert Hart)
Date: 15 Sep 1994 22:47:31 +0800

Nick Maclaren ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (BILL HILBRICH, ST. CLOUD, MN) writes:
: |> In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Jennifer Davis) writes:
: |> >	My husband, who is a big fan of pasties (you know, those meat and 
: |> >veggie filled Brittish pastries), and I were wondering when the pasty was 
: |> >first created.  Does anybody know?  Are there any old recipes floating 
: |> >around for them?
: |> >
: |> The story in this part of the world, and for that matter in Montana as
: |> well is that the tradition came over with the Welsh who worked in the
: |> mines. I am sure that there are as many recipes as there are families,
: |> but Marcia Adams usually puts one or two in her regional cookbooks.

: Cornish, please!  Yes, a lot of Welsh miners went to work in Cornwall
: and subsequently emigrated (some of my ancestors among them), but
: pasties are a Cornish dish.

Most definitely Cornish! (I am an ex Devonian...).

: I don't know when they were first made or have any old recipes, but
: I was once told that the original pasty was made around a flat fish,
: and the meat and vegetable filling came later.  I have no proof of
: this.

According to what I have heard, "traditional" Cornish pasties were fish
(rather than meat) at one end and "sweet" (ie the dessert) at the other?

Any comments?

-- 
Robert Hart                                  [email-masked]
Voice: +61 (0)91 72 0429                     Fax:   +61 (0)91 72 3560
Hedland College, PMB 1, South Hedland WA 6722 Australia

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From: [email-masked] (Diane Duane)
Date: Fri, 16 Sep 1994 10:40:06 GMT

Hi, all!

Here are a couple of recipes --

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v7.01
 
     Title: Cornish Pasty
Categories: British, Cornish, Pastry, Meats
  Servings:  4
 
      1 lb Rump, chuck, or skirt steak
      5 oz Onion, chopped
      3 oz Turnip (swede), chopped
      8 oz Potato, peeled, sliced thin
           Salt, pepper, thyme
 
  "Make a firm pastry and roll out two dinner-plate circles, or four
  side-plate circles, according to whether you are feeding two ravenous
  people or four of moderate appetite.  Leave to chill, while you prepare
  the filling.
  
  "Cut all skin and gristle from the meat, and chop it.  There should be at
  least 10 oz of skirt, and rather more of better quality steak.
  
  "Season and layer the filling ingredients to one side of the pastry
  circles.  Or mix them together (traditions differ).  Brush edges with egg:
   flip over the pastry to form a half-moon shape, and twist the edges to
  give a rope effect.  Mark initials on the pastys, if you have varied the
  filling, in one corner.  Brush over with egg and make two small holes at
  the top for steam to escape.  Bake at 400F for 20 minutes, then lower the
  heat to 350F for a further 40 minutes.  Protect the pastry with butter
  papers or foil if they brown too fast.
  
  "...The pasty -- pronounced with a long ah as in Amen -- is Cornwall's
  most famous and most travestied dish.  Admittedly in times of poverty, its
  contents might be reduced to potatoes, or to parsley and an egg with a
  leek or two or a hint of bacon, but surely it never tasted as awful as the
  so-called Cornish pasties sold all over the country in supermarkets and
  cheap restaurants.  The pastry obviously had to be firm, because pasties
  were a packed lunch, for carrying to the mines, fishing boats or schools
  (though not so hard that the pasty could be dropped down a mineshaft
  without breaking -- an old joke).
  
  "At home, whatever might be put in a pasty on a working day, might come to
  the table in the form of a double-crust plate pie, or even without pastry
  at all -- steak, topped by turnip and potato, being layered into a pot and
  baked in the oven, a dish known as meat'n'under, or under roast.
  
  "Whatever other people do to it, the Cornish keep their love of pasties;
  and all over the world, where Cornish miners have gone to find work, you
  are likely to find pasties.  In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, for
  example, other ethnic groups have taken to the pasty, and you get Finnish
  or Italian versions as well as the original Cornish kind.   They even keep
  the Cornish habit of marking initials on a corner of the crust, so that a
  half-eaten pasty can be left on a school bench, for example, and reclaimed
  by its owner after a fight or a game.  And so that each individual in a
  family can have the variation of filling that he or she likes best."
  
  (recipe and quote from THE OBSERVER GUIDE TO BRITISH COOKERY, Jane
  Grigson)
 
MMMMM
MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v7.01
 
     Title: Cornish Pasty II (Variations)
Categories: Cornish, British, Meats, Pastry
  Servings:  8

  The below are from CORNISH RECIPES, ANCIENT AND MODERN, a pamphlet
  cookbook issued by the Cornwall Federation of Women's Institutes.  (The
  copy I have is dated 1959:  the first edition was published in April 1929:
  this edition is the 20th.)
  
  MEAT AND POTATO PASTY
  
  Always use fresh steak, potatoes cut small, salt and pepper, flavored with
  onion.
  
  RABBITTY PASTY
  
  Use fleshy part of rabbit cut the same as meat, fairly small.
  
  TURNIP PASTY
  
  Turnips and potatoes, sometimes all turnip with a lump of butter or cream.
   Or far bacon may be used.
  
  MACKEREL PASTY
  
  Allow one to two mackerel to each pasty, and clean and boil them in the
  usual way.  Then remove skin and bones, and lay on pastry:  fill up with
  washed parsley, and add pepper and salt.
  
  HERBY PASTY
  
  Prepare pastry as for ordinary pasty.  Well wash equal quantities of
  parsley, bits [an unidentifiable local herb found only in North Cornwall],
  shallots, half quantity spinach, prepare some slices of bacon cut into
  small pieces and an egg well beaten.  Pour boiling water over the parsley,
  bits and spinach that have been cut into small portions, and let stand for
  half an hour, well squeeze all moisture out.  Put on pastry with the
  shallots cut finely and the bacon, pinch up the edges of pasty allowing a
  small portion left open for the egg to be added, finish pinching and bake.
  
  STAR-GAZING PASTY
  
  [A variant on another famous Cornish dish, "Stargazy Pie", in which the
  fish heads look out at you from under the pie crust, around the edges of
  the pie.]
  
  "Mawther used to get a herring, clean 'un, and put same stuffin' as what
  yow do have in mabiers (chicken);  sew 'un up with niddle and cotton, put
  'en in some daugh made of suet and flour'  pinch the daugh up in the
  middle and lave the heid sticking out one end, and tail t'other.  They was
  some nice pasties, too, cooked in a fringle fire with crock and brandis
  and old furzy tobs."
  
  Other variants also mentioned (essentially, just cut the ingredients up
  and put them in the pasty):  apple with cinnamon and brown sugar (and
  sometimes blackberries as well):  broccoli;  chicken;  dates;  jam;  pork;
   rice;  parsley and lamb.
  
  The cookbook also notes:  "It is said that the Devil has never crossed the
  Tamar into Cornwall, on account of the well-known habit of Cornishwomen of
  putting everything they met into a pasty, and he was not sufficiently
  courageous to risk such a fate."  And they quote the well-known poem which
  describes the basic pasty structure:
  
  "Pastry rolled out like a plate,
  Piled with 'turmut, tates, and mate',
  Doubled up and baked like fate,
  That's a 'Cornish Pasty'."
 
MMMMM

                         Diane Duane 
(a member of The Owl Springs Partnership, Co. Wicklow, Ireland)
 "A little science...a little magic...a little chicken soup."
            Internet:  [email-masked]
                Follow-ups to email, please!-