The Cornish Pasty is a typical dish of English cuisine, known for its half-moon shape and crimped edge.

It is a pasty originating from Cornwall.

It is made by placing a meat and vegetable filling on one half of a flat circle of pastry, folding the pastry in half to encase the filling in a semicircle, and sealing the curved edge before baking.

The recipe for a Cornish Pasty, as defined by its regulations, includes: beef (although early recipes used venison) onion, potatoes, and rutabaga, diced or coarsely chopped, along with a “lightly peppered” seasoning.

Sometimes turnip is used, but the recipe calls for the actual rutabaga variety, not turnip. The use of carrot in a traditional Cornish Pasty is frowned upon, although it occasionally appears in recipes.

There are also sweet Pasties with ingredients such as: apple and fig or chocolate and banana, which are common in some areas of Cornwall.

Initially a meal for the nobility, pasties became famous thanks to miners, fishermen, and farmers.

Particularly, it is to the miners that their spread around the world and the particular shape is owed: their wives made them with a thicker, crimped edge so that men could eat them safely, avoiding contamination. The miners would heat the pasties with a candle under a tin bucket and ate them with their hands, eventually discarding the outer crust that was dirty with copper and tin dust.

In 2011, Cornish pasties received both the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), thus they must meet very specific requirements.

These requirements are as follows:

– They must be made in Cornwall.

– They can contain only beef, potatoes, swede (rutabaga), onion, salt, and pepper. No other meat, no other vegetables, no other condiments are allowed.

– The ingredients must be raw when the pastries are assembled and then cooked slowly.

– The edges must be sealed by crimping them in the traditional Cornish way.