by Billy Deakin
On the morning of the 2013 championships I was tired and a little stressed. I'd spent most of the previous day at the Eden Project being filmed making pasties and doing interviews for the evening news, with camera crews from BBC Spotlight and ITV Westcountry. I rushed home, straight into the kitchen to begin making pasties which I'd be entering the following day. Another interview (this time for Radio 5 Live) and I eventually finished baking around 11pm. I wasn't as happy with the pasties as I'd have liked, I knew I'd rushed them and the crimping wasn't as neat as usual but I was too tired to start over so they had to do.
After handing the pasties over on arrival at Eden the next morning, I tried to relax and enjoy the day's entertainment, but despite there being a packed day of music, dance, comedy and more, it felt like an awfully long time until the awards ceremony. This time we had put the dogs into kennels for the day so we didn't have to rush home, and it turned out to be the right decision; I was successful in defending my title despite there being many more entries than the previous year, and despite not being 100% happy with my late night baking.
I decided that once could have been a fluke, but to win the title 2 years running proved that I could indeed make a proper pasty! I knew then that I had to write my book, and started to wonder if I could do the hat trick and win it three years running...
Graham Cornish, who had won the professional title the year before, decided not to enter a pasty himself, but his 2 children both picked up prizes in the kid's category which was nice to see – he might work for Ginsters, but he can clearly make a proper pasty in his own kitchen and is teaching his kids to do the same – proper job!
Once again Eden had hosted a fantastic event, bigger and better than the year before, and this time with no “embarrassing” confusion over any of the winning pasties!
The winners of the 2 company categories were Pasty Presto, and The Chough Bakery and I was particularly pleased that Brian Etherington Meat Company had picked up a third place – they are just down the road from me, and that happened to be where I bought the beef that I used in my own pasties for the competition.
The 2013 World Pasty Championships were certainly bigger and better than 2012, so I wonder what Eden have in store for next year? One thing is for sure, you now have the previous winning recipe in your hands, so the question is, will YOU be collecting a trophy at next year's oggy oscars?
A Cornwall shaped giant pasty at the 2013 championships
Pasties Around The World
“Where there's a mine or a hole in the ground
That's what I'm heading for that's where I'm bound
Look for me under the lode or inside the vein,
Where the copper, the clay, where the arsenic and tin
Run in your blood they get under your skin
I'm leaving the county behind and I'm not coming back
So follow me down Cousin Jack.”
- Cousin Jack, Show Of Hands
The old saying goes that, “Wherever there's a hole in the ground, you'll find a Cousin Jack at the bottom of 'un”. A Cousin Jack, or Cousin Jenny, simply means a Cornishman or Cornishwoman. The nickname dates back to a time when it was common to greet one another in Cornwall as “cousin”, and Jack and Jenny were at that time the most common names.
The “hole in the ground” of course relates to mining, and as we saw in a previous chapter, the Cornish exported their mining skills all over the world. Where there's copper, tin, or arsenic in the ground you'll be sure to find Cousin Jacks, and Cousin Jennys. And where you find Cousin Jacks and Cousin Jennys, you find pasties!
The extent of the Cornish diaspora runs wide, with Cornish communities in mining areas of the United States, Canada, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa. It's estimated that as the local mining industry was in decline between 1861 and 1901 some 250,000 Cornish emigrated, taking their mining skills and their pasty recipes with them.
Where the Cornish settled they had a dramatic effect on the local area, building tight knit communities and keeping Cornish traditions alive. In Moonta, South Australia, the descendants of those immigrants are so numerous that they host the World's largest annual Cornish festival – Kernewek Lowender (Cornish happiness) which attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year.
It's estimated that 20% of the population of South Australia have a Cornish heritage (more than the number living here in Cornwall!) In the United States there's an estimated 2 million people with Cornish heritage, mostly centred around the mining areas such as Butte in Montanna, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And in all the places that the Cousin Jacks and Cousin Jennys settled, they are as proud of their Cornish heritage and especially the pasty as any native Cornish ever are!
Like any stranger in a foreign land, the Cornish had to adapt to different climates and different local resources. That has led to some subtle differences in pasties around the world, such as the insistence of people in the UP of Michigan (known as “Yoopers” - UP, for Upper Peninsula) of eating their pasties with a dollop of ketchup, while pasties in Butte, Montana, are generally served smothered in gravy!
It's not just condiments either, differences in fillings, crust and crimping are also noticeable from place to place. Taking Butte again as an example: if you order a pasty there what you'll get will generally be round and suspiciously 'pie' looking (especially when it's smothered in gravy, or served with a jug of gravy on the side). Residents of Butte insist that they are pasties however, and once you break through the odd looking crust you'll certainly see evidence of pasty heritage – beef, onion, potato and rutabaga (the word that most Americans use for swede, more on that later!). It certainly smells and tastes like a pasty, and there's no doubting the Cornish heritage of the good people of Butte, though quite why they have evolved their pasties in such a way is a mystery.
Typical Butte pasty served with gravy on the side!
Aside from pasties around the world with a Cornish heritage, there are pasty-like foods in the cuisines of many countries which developed independently. Calzones from Italy, Empanadas from Mexico, Bierock from Germany, Salteñas from Argentina – the list goes on and on. It seems that wrapping meat and vegetables in some sort of crust is just a “good idea” that lots of different cultures hit upon to a greater or lesser extent.
There's no doubt that some of the pasty-like foods around the world were influenced by the pasty to some degree (The Mexican “paste” for example even sounds like “pasty”) however, it's just as clear that others were not. Food such as the Italian calzone for example appear to have developed entirely independently from the pasty.
This might look like a box of Cornish pasties, but in fact these are Argentinian “empanadas salteñas”. Dating back to the early nineteenth century, there can be little doubt that these are heavily influenced by the Cornish pasty, taken to to Argentina by European settlers.
Part 2
Pasty Making
How To Make An
Award Winning Cornish Pasty
Ingredients
“To get the best flavour you need to use the best ingredients. Use local produce if you can. At the end of the day simplicity is the key.” - Michel Roux Snr.
There are only a handful of key ingredients in a proper pasty, so getting them right is essential, because there's nowhere to hide. In the introduction to this book I said that one of the questions I get asked the most is, “What's the secret to your pasties?”. Well, I guess the closest there is to a “secret” is using the best quality ingredients. You'll struggle to make a great pasty with cheap supermarket beef, budget flour, and a poor choice of potato variety. On the other hand, take the time and effort to buy good quality beef from your local butcher, invest in decent flour, and use fresh local vegetables and you really will notice the difference.
They say that “you are what you eat” and a pasty can only be as good as the ingredients used to make it. Yes, you might pay slightly more for higher quality, local produce. However, not only will it taste great,
but you'll also be giving your money to the local economy rather than shareholders in a big multinational supermarket, reducing your carbon footprint by avoiding unnecessary food miles, and probably eating more nutritious food with less chemicals in it – that has to be a win-win situation if ever I heard one.
Flour
I once had a girlfriend whose mother made pasties with a crust so hard I was often tempted to take a hammer and chisel with me when invited round for dinner (don't worry I never actually did, I suspect that it might have been somewhat frowned upon!). While there are several things which can cause tough pastry, most obviously using too much water and overworking it, I'm sure that a big part of the problem was her insistence on using cheap “value” flour from the supermarket.
The crust is what defines a pasty. It's such an important part of a pasty that it's essential to get it right, not only so that it does its structural job of holding its shape and encasing the filling, but also so that it tastes good. To get the texture right and the taste great, you need to buy decent flour.
Many people suggest using strong flour (bread flour) for pasties. The logic being that, unlike a pie, a pasty needs high structural integrity so it can be eaten in the hand without falling apart. The high gluten content in strong flour means that the pasty does firm up and hold its shape extremely well. This also has the added benefit of making the pastry slightly easier to roll out and crimp, but in my opinion that is at the expense of texture. I feel that pastry made with strong flour is slightly chewy, and that there is no need: if you use plain flour and do it properly, not only will the crimping be easy, but the cooked crust will hold its shape even when eaten in the hand, and it will taste great and crumble nicely in the mouth.
So I use plain white flour for my pasty pastry, and I always buy good quality flour from a reputable brand. There are slight differences between brands, particularly with regards to how much water they will absorb, so I would suggest that when you find a brand you like you stick with it.
There is however a time when I use strong flour, and that is for a wholemeal crust. Wholemeal flour has a lower gluten content than white flour, so I would normally use a strong wholemeal flour (often branded as wholemeal bread flour) or use normal wholemeal flour mixed with strong white flour in a 2 to 1 ratio. Bear in mind that a wholemeal pastry will absorb more water than white, and that it can be worked a little more.
Meat
Whatever type of meat you're using in a pasty, I highly recommend buying from a good local butcher. Very rarely does any supermarket meat compare to the quality and flavour of meat from a good butcher, and of course with a butcher there are so many other advantages (like being able to get bones for stock, or for the dogs!)
For a Cornish pasty of course we want beef, and the best cut to use is skirt. Beef skirt is a cut from the plate, which is a prime cut from the underside of the cow (behind the brisket). It's an incredibly versatile and under used cut of beef with great texture and lots of flavour. It's not too expensive, and since it can be used in so many ways (everything from long, slow braising to fast stir frying if treated properly) I always buy a good amount and freeze what I don't use. If you're in Cornwall, some butchers will actually label skirt as “pasty meat” or “pasty beef”, but elsewhere it will be called skirt, or possibly plate.
If you can't get skirt for any reason, you could use flank or chuck.
Potatoes
Ideally you want to choose a potato variety that will be firm enough to maintain their consistency during the long cooking. There's nothing worse than biting into a pasty and finding it filled with a soggy mush (on that note, using minced beef in a pasty should, in my opinion, be a criminal offence!!)
So it's the firm, waxy varieties of potato that work best. Maris Piper, Wilja, Charlotte, Jersey Royals etc. will all do the job. Of course, Cornish new potatoes work perfectly when in season. Just avoid floury varieties such as King Edwards and Roosters as they will tend to become overly soft during cooking.
Swede (did someone say turnip?)
I have to be honest, I've been dreading writing this section of the book, since this is a subject which can almost cause riots in Cornwall – what to call that large, purple, bulbous root vegetable with the yellow flesh?
The scientific (Latin) name is Brassica napobrassica (although even that is contestable with some authorities listing it as Brassica napus subsp. rapifera) but the common names include swede (short for Swedish turnip), yellow turnip, turnip, neep (from the Old English næp, commonly used in Scotland), rutabaga (commonly used in the USA) and even lesser known and quite adorable colloquial names such as baigie, tumshie, snadgers, snaggers and narkies!
The main cause of confusion is that the majority of the UK, including many people in Cornwall, use the term swede, while at the same time there are lots of Cornish people who insist on the term turnip, especially when referring to pasty ingredients.
Now, calling them turnips certainly isn't wrong. They are, after all, a species of turnip (they originated as a cross between a white turnip and a cabbage). However, the word turnip is commonly used throughout the UK and most of the English speaking world to refer to the white turnip (Brassica rapa rapa), often known as the Milan turnip, and also referred to as the “true turnip” by a number of sources, including the Encyclopedia Brittanica, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
Almost every supermarket, greengrocer, cook book and restaurant menu uses the term “swede” to refer to the Swedish (yellow) turnip (which is what we use in pasties), and “turnip” to refer to the Milan (white) turnip... except, when talking about pasties in Cornwall you'll often see turnip used to refer to the Swedish turnip!
Confused yet? Well I'm not surprised. In fact, the linguistic quirks that surround this vegetable are so entrenched that when the European PGI status was awarded to the Cornish pasty in 2011, special consideration was given to it. Under European law, genuine Cornish pasties can be advertised as containing “turnip” so long as that “turnip” is actually swede (they can of course also be advertised as containing “swede”). However, they cannot be sold if they contain “turnip” (meaning Milan or white turnip)!
Swede /ˈswēd/ n. (pl. -s)
1. a Eurasian plant, Brassica napus (or B. napobrassica), cultivated for its bulbous edible root, which is used as a vegetable and as cattle fodder: family Brassicaceae (crucifers)
2. the root of this plant
[From its introduction from Sweden.]
Now, at the risk of offending some of my readers I've decided to use the term swede throughout the recipes in this book, purely for the sake of brevity and simplicity. I know that many will feel this is “plain wrong” (I've been told so to my face and via email several times in heated and colourful language, in fact I thought a fight was going to break out on one occasion!) but equally, if I use the word turnip there are lots of people who would complain, and I feel it would cause even more confusion. An argument that I've heard on several occasions is that the word swede is “simply a slang term for Swedish turnip”. While the gist of that argument is correct (that is the origin of the word) it shows a lack of understanding of the evolution of language. Languages aren't static, they are constantly evolving and it would be hard to make a claim that a word, such as swede, which can be traced back to 1781-2 and is listed in all the major English dictionaries, is “just a slang term”! It is an abbreviation, but one that has been in popular use for so long that it's now considered as a word in it's own right. Claiming that it's just a slang term would be like saying “vitamin” is just a slang term, as technically it's short for vital amine, or that “car” is slang since it's a shortened form of carriage.
Now please don't think I'm trying to say that swede is the “correct” word to use, or that anyone who uses the word turnip is wrong. On the contrary, I firmly believe that anyone who claims that one or the other is correct while the other is wrong merely betrays their own etymological ignorance. I'm simply choosing to use the word swede in this book to
avoid confusion.
The simple fact dear reader, is that when you are out shopping for ingredients you're far more likely to see these beautiful root vegetables labelled as swedes than as turnips and therefore it would be unfair on you if I called them anything else. If you take offence at that, please forgive me... and if you're reading this on the other side of the Atlantic, ignore everything I just said and use rutabaga!!
Left: The bigger, dark purple coloured swede (Swedish turnip) with its distinctive yellow flesh. Right: The small, pink and white turnip (Milan turnip) with bitter tasting white flesh.
Everything else
White onions, black pepper (and also a little white pepper!), salt, butter... all the rest of the ingredients are nice and simple. Don't stress about ingredients though. If you can't get the cut of beef you want, don't have time to visit your local butcher and have to use supermarket beef, or don't know what variety of potato you happen to have in your kitchen just use what you have – cooking is supposed to be fun, so use what you have or what you can get and enjoy the process.