Cornish Pasty Trademark
February 15, 2009 by admin
Filed under Cornish Pasty Association
The purpose of the PGI recently applied for by the Cornish Pasty Association is to serve as a Trade Mark for the “Cornish Pasty” as a brand. The trade mark will have to be determined by the true characteristics of the product and the processes through which it goes to become an authentic finished Cornish Pasty from the definitive raw ingredients whence it started.
So what are the true characteristics of a Genuine Cornish Pasty? This extract from the CPA website details the pre-requisites of the product:-
A genuine Cornish pasty has a distinctive ‘D’ shape and is crimped on one side, never on top. The texture of the filling is chunky, made up of uncooked minced or roughly cut chunks of beef (not less than 12.5%), swede or turnip, potato and onion and a light peppery seasoning. The pastry casing is golden in colour, savoury, glazed with milk or egg and robust enough to retain its shape throughout the cooking and cooling process without splitting or cracking. The whole pasty is slow-baked and no flavourings or additives must be used. It must also be made in Cornwall.
A Proper Pasty, as it were, is exactly that all it takes to complete the process is a 45 minute bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg until the pastry case turns a beautiful golden colour…only then is it a Genuine Cornish Pasty!
martin on Thu, 11th Feb 2010 1:11 am
I had my first pasty in 1966 when i was 14. I loved it and ate them for a week. I was staying near porthleven close to helston. I live in christchurch/bournemouth and for years have longed for a local person to make a proper pasty but unfortunatly they are all extremely poor. They nearly allways insist there’s are genuine but as far as i am concerned they should allways be made of a shortcrust pastry not a horrible greasy soggy falling apart flaky type pastry.
Mostly i throw them away in disgust. SURELY you need the firm crust of a short pastry to enable it to be held and eaten as the miners would have done. We even had a new shop open calling themselves the cornish pasty shop and all there’s are flaky too.
Am I wrong did I just have the only decent pasty in cornwall ( the ship inn in porthleven )
I realise now I have to make my own so has anyone a recipe for the sort of pastry I am looking for.
All replies welcome
Martin
Dave on Tue, 26th Oct 2010 3:40 pm
I agree with the definition of a Cornish Pasty as stated in the extract from the CPA shown above, except for the last bit – “must also be made in Cornwall”.
My home-made Cornish Pasties are enjoyed by all who eat them, and I often wonder how many cornish people make their own Yorkshire puddings !!!
Long live the Cornish Pasty, wherever it is made !!!
Steve Rimmer on Thu, 24th Feb 2011 1:36 pm
No mention of quality or Cornish ingredients! Does it just have to crimped in Cornwall then? If the crimper lived in Devon but went to Cornwall for the day, would it be a Cornish Pasty or a Devon pasty? And if the Crimper lived in Cornwall, but crimped a pasty in Devon? How about if he took a Devon-made pasty to Cornwall just to do the crimping. Would that count? And if it does, how is it different? Wouldn’t ‘Crimped in Cornwall’ be a better description than ‘Cornish’.
admin on Thu, 24th Feb 2011 7:38 pm
Hi Steve, do you happen to come from Devon by any chance? Your second comment (not shown here) has been disregarded.
Davey of Cornwall on Sat, 2nd Jul 2011 3:36 pm
Many of these so-called Cornish Pasties are horrible with fillings made up from potato, pepper and scrag ends of meat but owing to the EU ruling the title “Cornish Pasty” has been given protected status. Amazingly one brand of pasties that I don’t like and won’t buy gets trucked all over the UK! Allegedly proper Cornish pasties as cooked for tin miners over a hundred years ago were huge and would give the miner enough energy to work all day. One end would have the savoury course and the other end would be the desert. Now THAT’S what I call a Cornish pasty.