If there's one dish guaranteed to cause an argument among West Country folk, it's the Cornish pasty. Everyone has a view on how to prepare this famous pastry turnover, even though it has so few ingredients.

Most people agree that the classic ingredients are beef skirt or flank, onion, swede (confusingly called turnip in Cornwall) and potato, bundled in lard pastry, but the proportions vary according to whim and what is available. When times are lean, the steak is replaced with extra potato and the pasty becomes a tiddy oggy - tiddy being potatoes and oggy a pasty. It's said that the rope seam or “handle” that runs down the middle or round the edge was once a practical means for tin miners to hold their portable lunch and avoid being poisoned by arsenic on their fingers. It is also said that fishermen never take pasties aboard their boats because they bring bad luck. Furthermore, it's not traditional to make a fish pasty.

It was, then, with some trepidation that I allowed myself to be coerced, by the West Country bookseller Ron Johns, to write a book on pasties. I don't claim the definitive pasty recipe, preferring to show its diver-

sity. Along with my favourite pasty recipe, which we make at the family home in Cornwall, I collected recipes from experts such as Anne Muller of The Pasty Shop at Helston, and from chefs Mark Hix and Antony Worrall Thompson, and British food experts Marguerite Patten, Jane Grigson and Caroline Conran.

I also treat the pasty as a vehicle for leftovers or for using small amounts of meat, fish or fowl with whatever else is to hand, and suggest “cheats' pasties” using quickly cooked ingredients in a bundle of ready-made pastry, such as spicy chickpeas and potato; and goat's cheese and leek.

My second recipe here is a lovely idea at Christmas: little empanada-style pasties to be piled on a plate, dusted with icing sugar and a sprig of holly.

To order your copy of Pasties for £9.89 (rrp £10.99) with free p&p, call Times Booksfirst on 0870 1608080 or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst

Recipes

Classic Cornish pasty

Mincemeat with cranberries

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