[Fwd: SC - Re: pasties]

[david friedman]

At 7:07 AM -0700 3/4/98, Mary Hysong wrote:

Perhaps Mary could pass the rest of this post on to Lady Lyddy.

>and Lady Lyddy's reply:

>> When did Columbus go out of period???

He didn't. But foods that could not have been available before Columbus may
well not have become part of European cuisine until after 1600. We have
almost no pre-1600 recipes using potatoes, tomatoes, capsicum peppers, c.
pepo (squash and pumpkin), maise, ...  . The only reference to a pre-1600
recipe using potatoes that I can think of implies that they were
exotics--not the sort of thing one would expect to find tin miners eating.

>> I can give you the pasty receipes in period if they want them but they
>> aren't Cornish receipes.
>>
>> More than you ever wanted to know about pasties:
>>
>> The "traditional" Cornish Pasty of steak, suit, Swedes, onion and potato
>> is late period but that filling would only appear when such dream food
>> was available.

What is the evidence for its being late period? In this post none has been
offered. Are you suggesting that potatoes were available in late
period--where "available" means not merely that herbalists knew about them
but that Cornish tin miners, or someone nearby, were growing them?

>>   The word pasty is period because it was a Roman invention.

According to the OED, the word "pasty" comes from Old French. The word
"paste" comes from Latin ("pasta").

>>I have
>> period receipes titled pasties. Pastry was called paste, something
>> wrapped (usually a whole bird) in paste was called a "pasty" . ...

What is the source for this particular usage--"pasty" as usually meaning a
whole bird wrapped in paste? It doesn't seem consistent with either the
definition or the quotes in the OED. Which period recipes use it that way?

>>But though this proves the term to be in use, there is nothing in
>> the wording to indicate that these were of the Cornish variety.

Correct. And the question I asked was what the reasons were for thinking
that Cornish pasties were period.

>> The Cornish Pasty of history is more of a particular design than of
>> content.  Barley pastry rolled out round, filled with whatever was at
>> hand, folded in half and sealed with a fancy thick roll that went the
>> length of it.
>>   The dough was so hard, it was practically inedible. The men carried
>> them in their shirts! Jokes were made of how many fathomes they could be
>> dropped in the mine before breaking. But function was the key here. They
>> were portable lunch boxes for the miners and the farmers.
>>
>> Mining has been going on in Cornwall since before the Celts in 1000 BC.
>> The tin ore  being mined contained arsnic, the roll provides a handle
>> which was then thrown away to the mine rats. If they began taking
>> pasties of that design into the mines when they went underground in
>> 1500, then its not too big a step to presume that they weren't invented
>> over night.

But you have offered no evidence that the Cornish miners began taking
pasties of that design into the mines when they went underground--which I
presume is why you wrote "If they ...  ." All you have told us was that at
some unstated date--possibly 1500, possibly 1800--pasties were regarded as
miners' food. So it sounds as though you have no evidence at all that
Cornish pasties are period--merely that "pasty" is a period word.

Is that correct?

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/


============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================