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Contents

The Cornish Pasty

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Cornwall

The Little Book of the Pasty

 

The Cornish Pasty web site is pleased to present this new book - The Little Book of the Pasty ....

 


Reproduced with permission from the Cornish Pasty Association, 2011

The Little Book of the Pasty - Emma Mansfield
Published by Lovely Little Books, 2011, 148 pages, £5.99
ISBN 978-1-906771-28-7

 

This book was commissioned by the Cornish Pasty Association to celebrate the winning of PGI - Protected Geographical Indication status for the Cornish pasty. This means that a pasty cannot be commercially described as being Cornish unless it is made in Cornwall.

There is no list of contents in the book, no list of chapters. It is all one long and glorious celebration of all things there are to know about our pasty! Some of it is factual, some of it is historical, some of it consists of quotes from all over the place and some of it is humorous.

The book covers some of the things that are featured on this web site, one topic is crimping! There is a description on page 99 of how to crimp the Crantock Bakery way, and very good it is, too, en if you can't manage that, then you can always try doing it "My way" (click on the top photo to see the movie)!

Several pages of your 148 describe different pasty-makers in Cornwall and that is interesting to see, reading about how some of the firms started out.

On page 103, the book tells the facts about cock and hen pasties, 'tis real I tell you, we 'ad'n 'ere on The Cornish Pasty ages ago! When I opened this page and saw what the book said, I just thought "Brilliant" ..... now people will know proper! What I never knew was that about 85% of pasties are hens.

Carrying on with the hens and cocks theme, you had to be careful in our younger day! In them days you couldn't buy anything to eat in a pub except for crisps and peanuts. However, in Cornwall, on a Friday night, some of the pubs got in nice, hot pasties. We used to go to The White Lion in the Greenmarket in Penzance. Not only did they have pasties, it was a singing pub, too. When we were courting in the early 60's , if you were sharing a cock pasty with your young lady, you had to be ever so careful what you said when you asked her if she wanted a bit! If it was hen pasty and you asked her if she wanted a bit of your hen, that was alright .....

The Little Book of the Pasty is a gem of a book, packed with all kinds of interesting information, a real "must read" about the Cornish pasty.

Acknowledgement: We are grateful to the Cornish Pasty Association for permission to use the image of the book cover on this web page.

 

 

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