Is the pasty really Cornish? 6 Minute English

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning

English. I’m Neil.

And I’m Rob.

Fancy a game of ‘food connections’, Rob?

So I’ll name a place and you say the first

food that comes to mind. Ready?

Yeah, sure, let’s go!

Italy.

Erm…’pizza’ – or ‘lasagne’.

New York?

‘Hot dogs’, of course. Or maybe ‘bagels’.

Now how about… Cornwall from the UK?

If it’s Cornwall, it must be the famous

‘Cornish pasty’, right?

That’s right! Cornwall, the region which

forms the south-western tip of Britain, is

as famous for its pasties as New York is for

hot dogs. In this programme we’ll be finding

out all about Cornish pasties. We’ll hear

how it’s gone from humble beginnings to

become a symbol of Cornish identity and spread

around the world to Jamaica, Argentina

and Brazil.

But what exactly is a pasty, Neil?

Somewhere between a pie and a sandwich,

right? A piece of pastry which is turned

over and crimped

along the side to make two corners…

… and filled with different ingredients

- which brings me to my quiz question for

today, Rob. What is the traditional filling

in an authentic Cornish pasty? Is it:

a) Chicken, avocado and brie

b) Beef, potato and turnip, or

c) Pork, onion and chorizo

Well, chorizo is Spanish isn’t it? And avocado

with brie doesn’t sound traditionally Cornish,

so I’ll say b) beef, potato and turnip.

OK, Rob. We’ll find out later if you were

right. What’s for sure is that the Cornish

pasty has had a long history as BBC Radio

4’s The Food Programme discovered.

They spoke to Dr Polly Russell, a public

life curator at the British Library. Here she

is reading from one of the earliest

mentions of pasties

from the late 17th century:

There’s a lovely bit here where he’s describing

what a housewife in Hertfordshire does and

he’s talking about her way to make pork

pies and pork pasties: pies may be made and

baked either raised in paste earthen pans

or in pewter dishes or in the shape of a turnover,

two-cornered pasties. So that’s a very early

reference to a pasty in the shape, I think,

that we know it but also being made specifically

for labourers - to be feeding labourers on

a farm at harvest time.

So the earliest pasties were made in pewter dishes

– a traditional cooking plate made of a

silver-coloured metal called ‘pewter’.

And they were eaten by agricultural labourers

– workers doing physical farm work during

harvest time – the weeks in autumn when

crops like wheat are cut and collected

from the fields.

But it wasn’t only farmers and labourers

who ate pasties. As well as its farms and

fishing, Cornwall was famous for tin mines,

as Ruth Huxley of the Cornish Pasty

Association explains:

Pasties would have been eaten by lots of people

who went to work but it just worked perfectly

down mines, and Cornwall became the world

capital of mining. And so lots of pasties

were made, lots of pasties were eaten and

then that mining community went all over the

world and took the pasty with them.

Pasties were eaten by hungry workers involved

in the mining industry - digging up materials

such as coal or metals like gold, or in Cornwall

tin, from the ground.

So far we’ve been talking about Cornwall.

But you said the Cornish pasty has spread

around the world, Neil. How did that happen?

Well, that’s connected to the tin miners

we just talked about. Here’s

Polly Russell again:

This is replicated, not just in Mexico but

with migrants moving to America, to Minnesota,

to Canada, to Australia. So anyone who travels

to many of those places now will see foods

which are incredibly reminiscent and familiar

and just like Cornish pasties.

In the 19th century, many Cornish tin miners

emigrated, moving abroad to start a better

life. Their pasty recipes were replicated

– or copied exactly, in the new places where

they landed, from America to Australia.

And that’s why in many places around the

world you can find food which is reminiscent

of pasties – meaning it reminds you of something

similar, in this case the original Cornish

pasty… with its traditional filling of…

what’s was your quiz question again, Neil?

Ah, yes. I asked you what the traditional

Cornish pasty filling was? You said…

I said b) beef, potato and turnip.

And you were right! ‘Keslowena’, Rob – that’s

Cornish for ‘congratulations’!

‘Heb grev’, Neil – that’s ‘no problem’!

In fact those other fillings – chorizo,

avocado and brie - really did feature in pasties

entered for this year’s Annual World Pasty

Championships, held in Cornwall every spring.

Other pasty-inspired ideas include Argentinian

chimichurri empanadas and spicy

Jamaican patties.

So the pasty is still going strong, both in

Cornwall and around the world.

Today we’ve been discussing Cornish pasties

– a kind of filled pastry from the south-west

of England, originally made in pewter dishes

– a silver-coloured metal dish.

Pasties were eaten by agricultural labourers

– farm workers bringing in the autumn harvest

– the time when crops are cut and collected

from the fields, and also by workers in the

tin mining industry – digging up metals

like tin from underground.

Later, when these miners emigrated to new

lands, pasties were replicated – cooked

again in the same way.

In fact Cornish miners moved to so many new

countries that today, almost every corner

of the world has food reminiscent of – or

reminding you of, the original Cornish pasty.

That’s all for today. Join us again soon

for more topical discussion and vocabulary

on 6 Minute English. Bye for now!

Bye.