Christmas Leftovers I

Photo © Rob Jones

Pasties on Boxing Day.

I don’t know why. As a child I just accepted it. I have feeling it was displacement activity after the trauma of relatives arriving en masse for Christmas Day.

The announcement, ‘Well, I suppose I ought to start making the pasties,’ ranks alongside comments like…

‘Well, I must let you get on…’ and, ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ and ‘I need to talk to a man about a dog,’

But … the pasties were lovely. Turkey pasties. Made from leftovers. An entire Christmas meal encased in pastry gorgeousness.

But why we always made them for Boxing Day, I don’t know.

But because of that, I have a lifelong love of pasties, cemented by a year spent in Falmouth training to do radio. Happy Days.

But then … that makes me very choosy.

According to the Cornish Pasty Association

The contents should be …

• Roughly diced or minced beef

• Sliced or diced potato

• Swede (turnip)

• Onion

• Seasoning to taste (mainly salt & pepper)

The meat must be beef, and no other veg other than those listed above. There must be at least 12.5% beef, 25% veg. All the ingredients must be uncooked when the pasty is put together and then slowly baked.

The outside can be shortcrust, rough puff or puff, but it has to be savoury, and able to survive the rough and tumble of being hurled down a mine shaft. If the edges aren’t crimped, it’s not a Cornish Pasty.

Luckily - these days, like everything, you can get them by post.

If you want to go off piste, take a look at these rescipes from a Pasty maker in Wisconsin.

In fact you’ll find pasties anywhere that Cornish miners found a home.

Anyhow … Boxing Day is Pasty Day.

RJ