Cooking with Kids: Cornish Pasties
"Giving your children the right amount of the heart-healthy oils is just as important as keeping them from eating lard." —Missy Chase Lapine, from 'The Sneaky Chef'
That's funny, because in preparation for Thanksgiving, I just sent my wife and daughter to pick up some leaf lard. We buy our lard from a local farm, Skagit River Ranch. It's certified organic and, if you care about this sort of thing, loaded with the exact same monounsaturated fat found in Lapine's beloved olive and canola oils. More important, Skagit's lard is of superb quality, elevates every food it touches, and is essential to the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving table: Cornish pasties.
Why pasties? My wife, Laurie, traces her roots to Penzance, Cornwall—known for its pirates and pasties. And pasties are very much in the spirit of Thanksgiving: comforting, starchy, nap-inducing.
The proper Cornish pasty is a football-shaped pastry crust (made with lard and butter, although margarine and shortening are frankly also authentic), stuffed with beef, sliced potatoes, onion, and rutabaga. The filling is never precooked. I like mine with HP sauce, which is to the U.K. as A1 is to the U.S. While I'm not dogmatic about local eating, it does seem appropriate to the holiday, and Seattle-area farmers grow all of these ingredients in November. (Not counting HP sauce.)
When Laurie and I visited Penzance a few years ago, before our daughter, Iris, was born, we took to snacking on child-size pasties, often labeled "for the cheel." So since Iris's first Thanksgiving, when she was 11 months old, I've been making her a little pasty. This year she'll help make her own. Maybe she'll master the crimping of the dough, something I've never gotten quite right in several years of pasty-making—our tradition is the top crimp; the Burton family frowns upon the calzone-style side crimp (as seen in the Wikipedia entry for "pasty").
As for side dishes, I'll probably make Michael Romano's great hashed brussels sprouts again. There will be pumpkin pie. That will be plenty.
How does your family monkey with Thanksgiving?
About the author: Matthew Amster-Burton lives in Seattle. His work appears frequently in the Seattle Times and Seattle magazine. He also maintains the blog Roots and Grubs. His favorite food is pad Thai.
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8 Comments:
spanakopita is almost always present at my grandmother's thanksgiving and i love it. we enjoy American food, but like to keep traditional Greek family recipes on the table.
protest at 3:48PM on 11/21/07
Where did you pick up their lard? I must know! :-)
Lilly Tao at 12:47AM on 11/22/07
Um, "loaded" with monounsaturated fat? How is that possible? Lard has to be mostly saturated fat in order to be solid - in other words, lard. Just basic chemistry. Whether or not saturated fat is bad for you is still an open question.
emily20008 at 8:36AM on 11/22/07
I have been trying to find leaf lard for 12 years in San Antonio for our plum pudding, and have been desolated to not do so. Does your source mail order? Please, please advise!!!
dksbook at 10:00AM on 11/22/07
Lilly Tao, Skagit River Ranch sells at most of the Seattle farmers markets, including U District, Ballard, and Columbia City.
emily, lard is about 50% saturated and 50% unsaturated. The ratio of saturated to unsaturated fat determines the freezing point of a fat--it's not as simple as "solid is saturated, liquid is unsaturated".
And dskbook, I have good news for you, I think. "Dietrich's Meats in Pennsylvania (610-756-6344). Freshly rendered leaf lard is $2.50 per 1-pound container, plus $10 to $15 shipping if you order one to five containers," according to The Oregonian. I know Cook's Illustrated has recommended their lard in the past.
mamster at 11:37AM on 11/22/07
Cornish miners brought pasties here to Northern Minnesota's Iron Range via the mines of Northern Michigan.
Lard is mandatory, in order to produce a crust flaky but sturdy enough "to survive being dropped down a mine shaft". Standard ingredients are, in order of application; potato, carrot, cubed (not ground) beef with just enough fat, and onion. The vegetables should be diced, not shredded, and layered loosely enough to allow steam to escape through the crust while the pasty cooks.
You'll know you're getting a genuine pasty if you're asked, "With or without?", in reference to rutabaga", (which is added with the carrot).
srhcb at 8:42AM on 11/23/07
Matthew, I think you should do a pasty internship with Granny Burton--her crimping is almost musical in its fluidity. But when I commented that Mom's comes out different (even though she learned from Granny), Granny said quite definitely that there's no One Best Way. (As long as the crimp is on top.)
Wendy79 at 11:22AM on 11/24/07
My family goes back 110 yrs to the UP mines & later "Da Range". All the women made pasties, NEVER have I seen one crimped anywhere other than the SIDE, never saw or heard of one crimped on top till now. And you NEVER se carrots onlt "begas" or not.
taconite at 5:04AM on 02/14/08