I’ll go with large…ish. Granted, the vast majority of pasties one finds today in Britain, both within and outside of the West Country, are quite small. Usually about five inches long, more often than not reheated in pubs where they’re served with beer. As previously mentioned, though, a real working man’s pasty was a big […]
READ ONThough not as contentious as the crimping issue, the topic of glazing still raises hackles among some in the West Country. Miners as a rule aren’t rich folk. In fact, they’re often downright poor, which means little luxuries like eggs weren’t always available to them. Thus many, if not most, pasties weren’t painted with egg […]
READ ONThis is a contentious issue among the pasty congnoscenti in Cornwall. When it comes to sealing your pie, should the seam run down the center of the thing, or along the side? Top crimp advocates maintain that if the seam isn’t running down the middle, above the filling, you lose too much of the gravy […]
READ ONA good question. Purists claim that the true pasty crust is a white flour pie or “short” crust. And indeed if you look back forty or fifty years, the simple short crust is the most common. But why stop there? Travel back in time another few decades and you’d discover that a white flour-based short […]
READ ONThe modern packaged foods industry is on fire for what it calls “hand-helds”: foods that can be consumed with no muss or fuss while walking, driving, operating heavy machinery, etc.. The hand-held is old news to the Cornish, who have become world famous for maintaining the tradition of the hand-held, pastry-enclosed supper: the pasty. So […]
READ ON…from — who else — Cristina of Mexico Cooks. There’s a reason the London Times named her the world’s #1 food blogger, you know. This article will tell you everything you need to know about Michoacán ice cream. What an amazing story of entrepreneurship and success it is. Thanks Cristina!
READ ONThey’re pronounced PAST-ee, not PASTE-ee. That’s something even my TV culinary hero, Alton Brown, got wrong when he did a show on pocket pies a few years back. And Lord was I embarrassed for the poor guy. PASTE-ees are little discs with tassels that exotic dancers wear on their upper parts and twirl in various […]
READ ONMy next project is a terrific request that I received last month. It happens to be near and dear to my heart (for reasons I will shortly explain), and will be a great way to kick off my “more savory” year of blogging: the Cornish pasty.
READ ONWanted to apologize to some of you folks out there who’ve emailed me and haven’t received replies. A whole pile of emails that were sent around the holidays were lost due to my own incompetence. Among them a couple of recipe requests and project requests. On which note, I wanted to once again throw open […]
READ ONI’ve gotten that query several times via email the last few days, and I confess it’s a hard question to answer. For there’s no denying that boule (ball)-type breads bake up very well inside thick metal or clay vessels. Dutch ovens, if they’re already hot when the dough goes in, both radiate and conduct heat […]
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