My Great Grandmother Emma Lavinia King Hayes Van Duzer came from Cornwall to San Francisco in 1894. Nana eventually settled in Grass Valley, California where she was a prominent member of the Grass Valley United Methodist Church. One of the Cornish traditions that she carried with her from Cornwall was the baking of Cornish pasties. Auntie Dot (her oldest daughter) also carried on the tradition, and they made pasties by hand for many years. Eventually, the Methodist Church of Grass Valley used pasty bakes as fundraisers and you could buy a nice quantity of pasties to put in your freezer and bake later, without all the work! They still make around 1,000 pasties a month with the help of volunteers. I am sharing the official recipe of the Grass Valley Methodist Church, which is probably very close to Nana's pasty recipe. If you choose to make them at home, you will need to find a Youtube video on how to correctly crimp the edges, which is the hardest part. Last year, my husband Geoff and I made several batches from scratch. Geoff used to work with the youth group in the kitchen at the church to make pasties when he was in high school, so this was a fun project for him! The church recipe does not add the traditional ingredient of swede (yellow turnip or rutabaga) and adds parsley which is not a traditional ingredient, but this recipe will get you a pretty authentic result.
The pasties we made at home smelled and tasted heavenly and brought back wonderful memories of Sunday dinners with family. They are best served with very strong and dark hot tea. Nana preferred Red Rose.
Crimping the edges....it takes practice!
"The Cornish pasty originates in Cornwall and can be traced back as far as the 1200's. Mining was once a thriving industry in Cornwall and at that time pasties were baked by the wives and mothers of the tin miners. Pasties were made with a thick crimped edge along one side so the miners could use the crimp as a handle to hold on while eating. The miners hand would often be covered with arsenic from the mine, so the miners would discard the handle when they were done. The crusts were never wasted though, as many miners believed that ghosts, or 'knockers', inhabited the mines, and the leftover crusts would keep these ghosts content. Traditionally, pasties were made with different fillings at each end. One end contained meat and vegetables, and one end with a sweet filling. The sweet end would be marked with an initial so the miners knew what side to eat first. Today, Cornish pasties are filled with steak, potatoes, swede (rutabaga) and onions." gv-umc.org/ministries/
A traditional Cornish Pasty
Pasties went down into many mines all over the world in Cornish miners' tin pails. This simple, portable meal connects Grass Valley history and my family history to the global history of the Cornish diaspora (the dispersion of the Cornish people and their culture). Cornish people could be found in America, Canada, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, the Samoas and Brazil. The saying was..."If there is a hole anywhere on earth, you're sure to find a Cornishman at the bottom of it." Grass Valley was a fast growing gold rush town after 1849 that attracted a large population of Methodist Cornish miners and their families. They brought with them many traditions from the British Ilse. This is one of my favorites!
Dorothy Ross Hayes and Emma Lavinia King Hayes Van Duzer. Photograph taken on July 2, 1939 when my grandparents Margaret Elizabeth Hayes and Harold Lloyd Hansen were married in Grass Valley, California.
Relationship Reference: Me->Margaret Hansen Boothby->Margaret Elizabeth Hayes Hansen->Emma King Hayes Van Duzer. Emma and Lester Hayes had three daughters: Dorothy, Francis and Margaret (Betty).
No comments:
Post a Comment