The pasty has been a staple in the UK since the 1300s, and is even mentioned in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. It's no surprise given that they're easy to make, portable and smell divine. Although your pleats may look a little bit less than flawless initially!

Ahhh Cornish pasties. Undeniably the most iconic pasty, these are also the most tightly litigated. If a bakery in the UK wants to sell something called a Cornish pasty – not just a ‘pasty’ – then there are rules to follow. Lots of rules in fact. This is because since 2011 the pasty has had PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status. If you really want to read the whole PGI rules you can find them here, but they mostly concern the filling. The pasty must be not less than 25% potato, swede and onion and not less than 12.5% beef, all of which has to be raw. They also, of course, decree that a Cornish pasty has to be made in Cornwall.

However, any comment section, blog post or Cornish neighbour will tell you there’s even more to it than is listed in the rules. Many Cornish people insist on chopped beef skirt – absolutely never mince – even though that’s not in the PGI rules. They also prefer their swede and potato to be ‘chipped’ rather than diced, and would probably turn their noses up at anything that wasn’t fairly hefty. No Cornish pasty canapés thank you very much.

However, it wasn’t always this way. If you look at the PGI rules, there’s an interesting elision. Although the document explains the well-established close association of the pasty with Cornwall, the furore around Cornish pasties is mostly concerned with policing the filling. So when did the onion-potato-swede-skirt filling become the norm?

In 1929 Cornish Recipes Ancient and Modern was published by the Cornwall Federation of Women's Institutes. It describes itself as ‘the first printed CORNISH RECIPE BOOK’ and includes 15 recipes for the Cornish pasty, collected from families around the area and ‘members of the Old Cornwall Societies and the public more generally’. Perhaps as Cornish a cookbook as you could find. 

What might surprise modern Cornish readers, however, is the recipes included. There are apple, chicken, broccoli and even rice pasties – all of which would horrify many Cornish traditionalists. There is also not a single recipe for the now-classic quartet of onion, potato, swede and beef skirt. There are meat and potato recipes, and swede (or turnip, as it's known in Cornwall) and potato pasties, but not all four together. 

The first Cornish recipe for a 'pasty' is from 1746, and it was made by braising boned mutton with spices and claret or port, and then baking everything in a pie. Not exactly an affordable meal for miners! By the nineteenth century, the pasty had evolved into something closer to the modern day hand-held treat. Mid-1800s definitions of a ‘hoggan’ (a Cornish word for pasty) still don’t associate Cornish pasties with the Fab Four, but they have moved away from mutton and claret. The Practical Cook from 1845 gives the following definition: ‘A HOGGAN (A Cornish dish). This is a pasty with meat only—beef, mutton, or venison, closed as the pasty is, exactly. They were first adopted, we imagine, by the miners, for convenience of carriage to their distant labour.’ A slightly later definition from 1882 links the pasty to miners more confidently, stating that a hoggan is ‘A pork pasty. A tinner’s pasty.’ These definitions show that the pasty has long been enjoyed in Cornwall, and was likely miners food – but not that the filling was rigidly fixed. In fact, many nineteenth century accounts of the Cornish pasty define it as a free-for-all, commending the pasty for being able to be filled with ‘meat or fish, and potatoes, or anything in short that the taste or purse dictates’.

In contrast, and somewhat ironically, one of the places where you do find the Cornish pasty’s filling clearly and specifically defined isn’t Cornwall at all – it’s Australia. In 1886, a reader wrote into the Burra Record to ask what could be submitted for the Cornish pasty bake off at their local fair. The response is not so different from that of the Cornish Pasty Association’s today: ‘The crust must be made with beef suet and the content must be meat and potatoes with turnips or onions according to taste.’ Now that’s more like it.

Why was there a Cornish pasty bake off in Burra in 1886 you ask? Well, today there are thought to be more people of Cornish heritage in Australia than there are in Cornwall; they make up about 4% of the total Australian population. Huge numbers of Cornish people moved to Australia in the 1840s for jobs in the mines, and you can be sure they took their pasties with them. Trove, the freely accessible Australian newspaper archive, is truly a treasure trove (sorry) of recipes for Cornish pasties, from as early as 1877. Although that recipe doesn’t mention swede – and starts with a square, not round, piece of pastry – it does mention using raw meat, potatoes, onions and the now-standard 1:2 ratio of fat to flour.

Small details that modern pasty aficionados would approve of – right down to chipping the potatoes – are generally more widespread in early twentieth century Australian newspapers than they are in British cookbooks. However, even Aussy-Cornish recipes include things that would be frowned upon today, like carrots and minced mutton, and frequently call for cooked ingredients.

The abundance of recipes for Cornish pasties in Australia raises as many questions about the accessibility of publishing in both countries as it does about Cornish food. But, these Australian recipes provide compelling evidence that a version of the Cornish pasty similar to the 2011 PGI definition has been around since at least the mid-nineteeth century. However, they also raise questions about what it means for something to be Cornish – or indeed authentic. The 1929 Cornish Recipes Ancient and Modern is far more inclusive of pasty varieties than many a grump who can be found in comment sections today, despite the fact that they were written by the very Cornish grandmothers whose traditions said grump often claims to be defending. While a rice pasty may not be a Cornish pasty, it is still both a pasty and, it seems, Cornish.

It’s fair to say that what is and isn’t a Cornish pasty is more complicated than it first appears. So while we’ve stuck to the pasty association’s rules below – chipped potatoes and all – if you want to bend them, we won’t tell anyone.

The instructions for assembling this pasty owes a great deal to Maria from Truro Cookery School, whose handy tip to dust the beef with flour gives you an extra thick gravy.

Cornish pasties freeze really well. Simply place them into a freezer, on their baking paper-lined tray, after they've been egg-washed but before they've been cooked. Cook from frozen, adding on 10-15 minutes to the cooking time. Since the meat is raw, it's really important that the beef is cooked through, so ideally use a probe to check the internal temperature of the pasty. Failing that, simply sacrifice one to cut in half and double check if it's cooked – better safe than sorry!

Once cooked, they will keep in the fridge for up to three days, although the pastry will be best on the first day.