Non-Cornish pasties!

Wining & Dining
I’ve eaten hamburger in Hamburg, Wiener schnitzel in Vienna, frankfurters in Frankfurt and Arbroath smokies in Arbroath, among an awful lot of eponymous dishes and drinks (port in Oporto, sherry in Jerez and Newcastle Brown Ale in Geordieland, for instance.)

I’ve eaten hamburger in Hamburg, Wiener schnitzel in Vienna, frankfurters in Frankfurt and Arbroath smokies in Arbroath, among an awful lot of eponymous dishes and drinks (port in Oporto, sherry in Jerez and Newcastle Brown Ale in Geordieland, for instance.) As a de-tribalised Yorkshireman, I was brought up spoiled stupid by being served the world’s finest Yorkshire puddings at almost every opportunity

 Dusty Miller

When you eat a traditional Cornish pasty in Cornwall in south-west England, it’s usually made of first class finely chopped, sometimes shredded, beefsteak and small cubes of potato and swede (rutabaga…it won’t grow here, but it’s a tasty type of turnip with pleasing yellowy-orange flesh) and onion; sometimes and/or carrot and the odd pea.

I suspect that, originally, like many working class staple dishes from around the globe (minestrone soup springs to mind) it contained whatever left-overs were going begging in the cottage kitchen where it would be prepared for the men and boys to take down the dark, satanic and damned dangerous tin mines with a bottle of cold tea for the menfolk’s lunch (or supper.)

We know that in its early days the Cornish pasty was somewhat bigger than it’s usually made these days and one half of the traditionally crescent-shaped bakery speciality contained savoury goodies, as described above, and the other half had jam, custard or stewed fruit in it. The very thick pastry kept the fillings warm for hours and this could be grasped with filthy underground workers’ fingers without the muck contaminating the contents.

Here endeth the first lesson!

I thought I’d give you that culinary history session because Cornish pasties as commercially prepared in this country usually contain nyama… chete! And that, I think, is a pity and makes little economic sense when good export quality Zimbabwean beef costs a great deal more than spuds, carrots, turnips, onions and peas and people want the vegetable content, which also helps to “cut” the rich protein filling and carbohydrate casing.

Certainly one I enjoyed with relish at Vali’s Bakery and Café at Kensington just before I left for the Persian Gulf and South Australia was very, very meaty and, definitely at first, acceptably hot. It came with a small-to-medium-sized portion of some of the nicest hand-cut chips I’ve eaten recently in a restaurant.

It was also accompanied by a very pleasant side salad with a moreish piquant dressing on the same plate, which obviously then couldn’t be heated up to help keep the pie-and-chips warmer, longer!

It was a memorably good creation, notwithstanding the lamentable lack of vegetarian matter already mentioned. The only way I’d improve it would be to delete the salad, allowing the plate to be properly heated and serve with mashed potatoes (preferably) or the very excellent chips I ate …and gravy! Thick, nourishing, beefy, steaming, onion-filled gravy would be just… heaven!

I’m not quite sure how much this main course cost because the new fiscalised receipts don’t give much away. (They’re also on thermal paper and soon totally fade, anyway!)

But the bottom line for pasty, chips and salads, a pot of rooibos lemon tea which provided three or four cups and an absolutely wonderful, sophisticated grown-up cinnamon-rich apple strudel was just US$10.

I’d been on business to Borrowdale Village (as always pumping with people, especially after the schools had broken up…but check people climbing into their newish US$40-US$50 000 four-wheel drives which occupy every parking spot for kilometres around, and no one ever seems to actually BUY anything there!)

I wasn’t terribly hungry but it was vitally important that I got back to my being-serviced-as-I-left computer so I tried to have a light lunch at Deli…cious. That was absolutely ridi…culous! Every table was taken, with hopeful punters queuing, salivating with tongues metaphorically hanging out.

I took a stroll down to Pistachio which, in its immediate past incarnation, was Mimi’s. (It’s opposite the site of the old unlamented Wimpy Bar.) With signage and décor in that eponymous shade of green, it was even worse. Pistachio’s been open under its present moniker and ownership regime only a few weeks and it looked to me as if it may well take another few weeks to get served.

As, recently, I’ve eaten almost throughout Borrowdale Village, on your behalf: Leonardo’s, Butcher’s Kitchen, Miller’s (no relation) Café, 360 Degrees, Mandarin West, Antonio’s, O’Hagan’s, Circle and the Greek Sizzler across the main road in Pomona, I pulled out of the place, heading back to town, through the dreadful traffic jams now choking our city.

Ignoring Avondale, I signalled right into Kensington Shopping Centre. It was too soon for me to professionally return to the new branch of Arnaldo’s, the Portuguese-style piri-piri chicken restaurant which has expanded there from its original “possie” in Graniteside, but a gorgeously aromatic sizzling, hissing braai outside the Spar store reminded me that I was quite hungry and time was definitely getting on.

The Vali’s Bakery and Café lunch described above took just 12 minutes to order, eat and pay for, but what should have been — literally — a three-to-five minute drive back to my office in the Kopje proved to be a 16-minute nose-to-tail crawl, remarkable for motorists who had no concept of lane discipline… or safe, considerate driving for that matter.

I think, in the New Year, when I get back from holidaying in Adelaide, I’ll start taking sandwiches and a flask to the office for lunch… but how will I wring 900 words out of egg-and-cress, cheese-and-tomato or ham-and-mustard?

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