Sunday, October 22, 2006
Pasties: Why?
In a characteristically insane and selfless act of futile courage, Nige, the sage of Ken High Street, has raised the matter of the Cornish Pasty. This is like strolling through Blackburn in a niqab when the pubs are chucking out. The Cornish can get ugly about pasties. Nige has noticed that the West Cornwall Pasty Co has opened in, yes, Ken High Street. Reasonably enough, he asks me, 'Why?' Nobody ever buys pasties, nobody ever eats them and yet here are these new fast fooderies opening everywhere, ostensibly to sell these highly indegistible comestibles. There is something odd here, something made odder by the fact that the company's web site seems to reveal that it has no branches actually in Cornwall. Is some kind of insurrection afoot with these shops forming a fifth column in our midst? Quite possibly. However, the Cornish do not resort to terrorism. A frontal assault against overwhelming odds is more their style. It should take no more than a brigade or two of light infantry, armed with flails and boathooks and stationed at the Hammersmith flyover, to see them off.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
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ReplyDeleteThe thing (the thing?) about these 'pasties' is that they are in no way Cornish. Even the ones that claim to be 'Original' are based on beef, not mutton. The rest are packed with fillings of wild, and most un-Cornish, exoticism. What's more, half a dozen companies are flogging the things, or rather failing to - the West Cornwall gang are but the tip of an encrusted iceberg.
Nige
Oooh. We like the West Cornwall pasties. But then again, we're from California! :D
ReplyDeleteCalifornia? It's the way out West thing then. They do things differently there. Perhaps with your state's reputation for 'fusion' cookery, you could publish a recipe for a tofu or sashimi pasty.
ReplyDeleteOnce stayed in a Wiltshire B&B with two 40 something Californian fellow guests. They'd retired from computers, but I'm not envious. Said they were 'witches' over for the solstice at Avebury as my hand froze with spoon poised over the boiled egg. Cornish pasties? Ghastly. All that pastry and potatoes. Carrots too. Wasn't Straw Dogs the last word on Cornwall? Or have I missed something.
ReplyDeleteI take it, Cap'n, you are referring to the Sam Peckinpah film of that name and not the book by my good friend John Gray. Speaking of which and veering slightly from the subject of pasties, were not Dylan's appearance in and score for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid things of great beauty?
ReplyDeleteI know the miserable opportunists that started the west Cornwall pasty company. Like Morrissey said "Don't we hate it when our friends become successful". More so because I had the idea in the first place. For that I apologise. Their pasties are truly awful. They don't even cook them enough, so they give you indigestion. If you must eat one try putting it in the oven on 160 dec C for twenty mins. At least it won't follow you round for the rest of the day then.
ReplyDeleteAnd I thought "pasties" were those things strippers wear to keep their nipples out of view. Imagine my confusion as I read this blog entry!
ReplyDeleteI used to think pasties was rather a good name for those soft, flattish, earthy looking shoes certain type of people, usually Lberal Democrats, wear. But the nipple thing is much better.
ReplyDeleteperhaps they will pay people what they owe them
ReplyDeleteApparently, Pasties have 2 different meanings (it's a homophone btw).
ReplyDeletea.) Cornish Pasties, the one you blogged, are baked pie pastries.
b.) Breast Pasties, commonly called as "pasties" alone, are nipple covers attached to the bosoms of women. At first I thought you were talking about them. :P
Great thing I was able to read through the post. I'm not really a cornish pasty fan, but I love other pastries like croissants in general.