Photos A Walk in Nature

There is only one pasty worthy of the name for most of us whichever part of England we come from.😁


The Cornish Pasty​

by Ben Johnson​

The pasty has been a documented part of the British diet since the 13th Century, at this time being devoured by the rich upper classes and royalty. The fillings were varied and rich; venison, beef, lamb and seafood like eels, flavoured with rich gravies and fruits. It wasn’t until the 17th and 18th centuries that the pasty was adopted by miners and farm workers in Cornwall as a means for providing themselves with easy, tasty and sustaining meals while they worked. And so the humble Cornish Pasty was born.
The wives of Cornish tin miners would lovingly prepare these all-in-one meals to provide sustenance for their spouses during their gruelling days down the dark, damp mines, working at such depths it wasn’t possible for them to surface at lunchtime. A typical pasty is simply a filling of choice sealed within a circle of pastry, one edge crimped into a thick crust . A good pasty could survive being dropped down a mine shaft! The crust served as a means of holding the pasty with dirty hands without contaminating the meal. Arsenic commonly accompanies tin within the ore that they were mining so, to avoid arsenic poisoning in particular, it was an essential part of the pasty.





The traditional recipe for the pasty filling is beef with potato, onion and swede, which when cooked together forms a rich gravy, all sealed in its own packet! As meat was much more expensive in the 17th and 18th centuries, its presence was scarce and so pasties traditionally contained much more vegetable than today. The presence of carrot in a pasty, although common now, was originally the mark of an inferior pasty.

Filling ideas are endless however, and can be as diverse as your taste will take you. There is much debate as to whether the ingredients should be mixed together before they are put in the pasty or lined up on the pastry in a certain order, with pastry partitions. However, there is agreement that the meat should be chopped (not necessarily minced), the vegetables sliced and none should be cooked before they are sealed within the pastry. It is this that makes the Cornish pasty different from other similar foods.

Public Domain - Cornish tin mine
It was such a commonly used method of eating amongst the miners that some mines had stoves down the mine shafts specifically to cook the raw pasties. And this is how the well known British rhyme “Oggie, Oggie, Oggie” came about. “Oggie” stems from “Hoggan”, Cornish for pasty and it was shouted down the mine shaft by the bal-maidens who were cooking the pasties, when they were ready for eating. In reply, the miners would shout “Oi, Oi, Oi!” However, if they were cooked in the mornings, the pastry could keep the fillings warm for 8-10 hours and, when held close to the body, keep the miners warm too.

It was also common for the pasties to provide not only a hearty, savoury main course lunch, but also a sweet or fruity desert course. The savoury filling would be cooked at one end of the crescent and the sweet course at the other end. Hopefully these ends would be marked on the outside too!


As with a lot of British cultural symbols, there are superstitions and beliefs surrounding the humble pasty that have been passed on through the ages and accepted as ritual. Firstly, it was said that the Devil would never cross the River Tamar into Cornwall for fear of becoming a filling of a Cornish pasty after hearing of the Cornish women’s inclination to turn anything into a tasty filling!

Public Domain


The next relates to the crusts of the pasty. A Cornish wife would mark her husband’s pasty with his initials so that if he saved some of his pasty for an afternoon break, he could distinguish his from his colleagues. It was also so that the miner could leave part of his pasty and the crust to the “Knockers”. The Knockers are mischievous “little people”, or sprites, who live in the mines and were believed to cause havoc and misfortune unless they were bribed with small amounts of food. The initials carved into the pasties, it is assumed, made sure that those miners who left their crusts for the “Knockers” could be determined from those who didn’t.

In the 13th century when pasties were part of the diet of the rich and aristocratic, seafood was a common filling. However, in Cornwall, a county much in tune and dependant on the sea, the use of seafood in a pasty was unthinkable and inappropriate. Amongst the most superstitious of Cornish fisherman, even having a pasty on board their ship was believed to bring bad tidings! This belief is thought to have been started by the Cornish tin mining families who didn’t want their ingenious pasty invention to be adopted by the fishing trade.


They may not have wanted another trade to use the idea but when migrants from the Cornish tin mining community moved into other counties of England and also across to America, in search of work, they took with them their pastry crescent filled with a hearty meal.

​

 
No knife in this photo (sorry folks) but it’s been a long time since I’ve had any pictures worthy of this thread. 😊
Here’s a picture of Lake Galena from a lookout which is a two minute walk from the house we are renting. You can see the Eagle Ridge Resort on the shore of the lake. Sorry for the dark photos but we just got back from town and decided to walk down there before it got dark. 8C3FA3D4-DD91-4017-8CB8-CFC58C11FE67.jpeg2B6A6068-8227-40C2-A682-741137BC755D.jpeg
Maybe if we didn’t have to stop at the Turkey crossing on the way back from town we would have made it to the lookout sooner! 🤣3F7046A5-1D1E-4036-A61E-7E252B7B3411.jpeg5D3E07F8-C144-4B58-8C74-8680959DA38A.jpeg
 
bigfish64 said:
No knife in this photo (sorry folks) but it’s been a long time since I’ve had any pictures worthy of this thread. 😊
Here’s a picture of Lake Galena from a lookout which is a two minute walk from the house we are renting. You can see the Eagle Ridge Resort on the shore of the lake. Sorry for the dark photos but we just got back from town and decided to walk down there before it got dark. View attachment 1711267
Maybe if we didn’t have to stop at the Turkey crossing on the way back from town we would have made it to the lookout sooner! 🤣
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The warm glow from the cottages below looks inviting.
The pic has this holiday vibe to it, very nice :thumbsup:
Enjoy your time at Lake Galena Todd :)
 
black mamba said:
Mitt, that terrain looks so much like my old whitetail hunting spot in southern Illinois that it brought a rush of emotion. Nothing quite like riverine wilds.
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It's Corps of Engineers land around a local lake. I have seen all kinds of wildlife out there while on hikes, deer, rabbits, bobcats even a rare daylight sighting of a mountain lion.

I came across this guy when I was out on an early morning run not too far from where I went hiking today.
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Mitt said:
I came across this guy when I was out on an early morning run
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I used to take pre-dawn runs, and deer sightings were very common, along with the occasional fox. One morning a whitetail snorted at me from just 3 or 4 feet away as I was running past some thick brush - it startled me a little, and I casually wondered how long I would lay there before somebody found me if the thing had stomped me.
 
Just Tom. said:
I used to take pre-dawn runs, and deer sightings were very common, along with the occasional fox. One morning a whitetail snorted at me from just 3 or 4 feet away as I was running past some thick brush - it startled me a little, and I casually wondered how long I would lay there before somebody found me if the thing had stomped me.
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I trail run the area more than I hike it and often wonder the same thing. I have a few scars on my knees from tree roots wanting to give the toe of my shoes a hug. The good thing is those trails are so heavily traveled there isn't much to worry about.
 
We drove about 7 hours to join our family for the New Year celebration tonight.

After the recent postings about Pasties I was pleasantly surprised to find my Mom making some yummy Empanadas 😋

Not a “nature” shot but I could not resist pulling my Laguiole out of my pocket for a picture 😎

I will need a long walk in nature tomorrow to digest all the goodie’s that I will overindulge with tonight 😁

Happy New Years everyone 😊


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I have decided I must go and see the Eagles in Scotland,no silly I dont mean singing Hotel California 🤣

Golden and white tailed flying birds of prey is what I am after.

I started planning today,my problem is I cant carry much and with camera gear even less.

My preferred Nikon DSLR camera is very heavy so I bought a D750 years ago but I dont seem to get anywhere near as good results.

So I tried it out again today hard to judge as not much to see except a very distant red kite,but it doesent feel right.

The other option to lighten my carry is a £1500 300mm lens the new one is smaller and half the weight of the previous model I have,you could say more money for less..

Its also the wrong time of year no boat trips for months.

Still if I go I am guaranteed to spot a lesser spotted haggis,square sausage, and deep fried mars bar at least.

Though I am unlikely (with restrictions) to end up with 5 lasses drinking vodka and irn bru in a Rough Glasgow bar like I did on my last visit,though you never know 😁

















These are with my iPhone.

I forgot to put my boots back in the car,I had my mooching around the yard slip on shoes on,not ideal especially as the area was flooded 😁













 
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