Tag: Cornwall

What Is The Point ?


BBC News – William Gladstone’s family to apologise for slavery links https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-66558156

I don’t get it, I really don’t understand the need for apologies.

What good does it do ?

Apologising will not undo the inhumanity, the indignities, and the stress endured in the past. The same is also true of the tearing down of statues.

Slavery, by any measure, is wrong. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. However, it was a different time then. People were educated differently, living by different standards.

Apologies by those that were not involved, made to those who were also not involved.

All we can hope to do is learn from our past. Make sure that such things never happen again.

Just as a footnote, you don’t hear much of an outcry about the Barbary Pirates that used to raid many countries, including the British Isles and as far north as Iceland. Many folks were taken along the Cornish, Devonish and Dorset coastlines, taking people to be sold in the Barbary slave markets. Are their ancestors going to apologise ?

It’s Got To Be A Pasty


What’s your go-to comfort food?

Nothing beats the aroma, taste, warmth and belly filling attributes of a good Cornish Pasty.

Not just any pasty will do. Not for me are those supermarket, factory produced pasties. Typically, they disappoint with their flaky pastry case filled with some kind of tasteless slop.

A true pasty has to be made with shortcrust pastry with a chunky “handle” around the perimeter. The filling should comprise chunky, not minced meat and potato, swede, onion. Other veggies are acceptable. The filling should fill the cavity, “floor to ceiling.” So often, the factory versions are just full of air.

Probably the reason the pasty is dear to my heart is that my mum used to regularly make them. The circle of pastry was dinner plate sized, filling added, then folded. So our dinner would be a pasty that filled half the plate, then additional veggies and gravy.

Also, we holidayed for many years in Cornwall. Highlights of those holidays had to be walking around Mevagissey with a freshly baked Cornish Pasty. Usually followed by clotted cream ice cream, but that’s the subject of a whole new post.

Pure heavenly, peppery scrumptiousness. .

Italian Pasty


Yuum !! Proper food !!

My favourite Italian meal when I want something filling and satisfying. I always refer to Calzone as the Italian Pasty.

By the way, a proper Cornish Pasty is my, all time, favourite “pie”. But it has to have the crust to the side, and be made with short crust pastry. It should not be of the “ridgeback” design, or be made with flaky / puff pastry. There is nothing worse than getting a faceful of “shrapnel” or losing half the pastry as it disintegrates in your hand.

I have never tried either Turkish pide or the East European piroshki referenced in this article. But they are now firmly on my food bucket list.