Don’t let a Cornish pasty go all upper crust . . .

I WAS mortified to read Clare Thorp and Andy Bates’s recipe for Cornish Pasties (Mail). I wonder where this recipe came from — these are certainly not Cornish pasties. My children think I make the best pasties in the world — and all children in Cornwall think the same about their mums. I hate puff pastry. And as pasties, in their original function, had to be able to withstand a hard voyage down the mine, they weren’t built that way. The rim, of short crust pastry, was generally thrown away so the miners

Brenda Crowle: Stick to the original and best recipe didn’t poison themselves with the arsenic from the tin ore on their fingers — they could hold the rim, then discard it. A good pasty contains quality skirt beef, potatoes, onions, swede or turnip — none of which should be pre-cooked. After all the ingredients have been put on the pastry, before closure, you should add a good dollop of Cornish butter, followed by salt and pepper. Then crimp the edge of the pastry and bake at 200c for half-an-hour before reducing the heat for another 20 to 25 minutes. Leave it to cool slightly. When the pasty is cut open, it should run with the juices from the meat and veg — delicious! I once showed a hotel chef in Kathmandu how to make Cornish pasties and the whole hotel ate them for their evening meal. Verdict? You lucky Cornish. The best non-homemade pasties are Barnet-fayre of Bodmin, while Barnicoats, also of Bodmin, do a steak and Stilton version to die for. Happy eating . . .

BRENDA CROWLE, Torquay, Devon, (but late of Gorran Haven, Cornwall).