Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Annotations
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a meat turnover. pastry dough is wrapped around a filling ( usually meat &/or vegatables) and baked. a variety called a ‘cornish pasty’ survives today.
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More on the Cornish pasty at: http://www.cornish-links.co.uk/pasty.htm
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Here’s a modernized recipe for a traditional venison pasty of a type that Pepys might recognize: http://www.macbeths.com/recipesvenison.html
and here’s another, but it lacks the vegetables:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/venisonpasty_66117.shtml -
I have had venison pasty (and it was delicious) in Charleston, S.C., where game is plentiful. It was, essentially, a coarse venison pate with a pastry covering.
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To Season a Venison Pasty from a seventeenth century recipe.
Take out ye bones & turn ye fat syde down upon a board. Yn take ye pill of 2
leamons & break them in pieces as long as yr finger & thrust them into every
hole of yr venison. then take 2 ounces of beaten pepper & thrice as much salt,
mingle it, then wring out ye juice of leamon into ye pepper & salt & season it,
first takeing out ye leamon pills haveing layn soe a night. then paste it with
gross pepper layd on ye top & good store of butter or mutton suet. -
Upper Crust to Underground to Down Under
“The Cornish pasty is the original hand-held convenience food with a pedigree that dates back to the Middle Ages. In the 13th and 14th centuries, pasties were filled with venison, beef, lamb, salmon and lampreys (eels), dressed with rich gravies and sweetened with dried fruits. It was a high table dish enjoyed almost exclusively by royalty and the upper classes.
“The pasty became synonymous with Cornwall some 500 years later, thanks largely to the development of tin and copper mining in the county. Filled with beef, potatoes, onion and turnip, the pasty was a highly portable, well-insulated and nutritious meal ideally suited to the gruelling conditions underground. …”
“When Cornish miners emigrated to work in the USA, Australia, South Africa and South America they took their pasty-making skills with them.”
— “The Cornish Pasty” http://www.agrebooks.co.uk/pasty.htm
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Pasty as State Religion
“From the moment you cross the Makinac Bridge from downstate Michigan onto the Upper Peninsula, you see signs for “Pasties.” Everywhere. …
“I also asked him to describe one, and he told me that just recently, a tourist had come in and asked the same question. Roger gave him a lengthy explanation, and as the man left, he yelled to his wife in the car, ‘Stew in a bun.’”
— “Sidetrip: Pasties with a twist,” by Michael Vitez, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 July 2002 http://inquirer.philly.com/go/pasty/
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The cornish pasty was traditionally an entire meal (or so the tradition goes). It contained the savoury part at one end and the sweet part at the other. Whether or not there was some indication as to which end you should start from, I can’t say.
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Upon John Winthrop’s arrival in America:
“… returned with them to Nahumkeck (aka Salem), where
we supped with a good venison pasty and good beer,…”Winthrop’s Journal, “History of New England” 1630-1649. Volume: 1. Contributors: James Kendall Hosmer - editor. Publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1908. Page Number: 49.
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Wikipedia on Pasty (including its venerable history)
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Elizabethan Venison-Pasty receipe
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/venison-pasty-old-recipe.htm
References in the diary
- 1660
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Jan: 6
Jul: 20
Dec: 1
- 1661
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May: 22
Jul: 5, 27
Aug: 1, 27
Oct: 17, 25
Dec: 11
- 1662
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Aug: 14, 20, 21
Sep: 6
Oct: 9
Nov: 25
Dec: 1
- 1663
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Jul: 7
- 1664
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Jun: 14, 15
Jul: 2, 13, 21, 31
Aug: 1
- 1665
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Jan: 1
Jun: 9
Aug: 15, 31
Sep: 9
Dec: 19
- 1666
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Jul: 10, 28
Aug: 14
Sep: 9
Nov: 24
Dec: 11
- 1667
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Aug: 1, 5
Nov: 14, 15
- 1668
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Jun: 13
Aug: 20
Sep: 10
Dec: 4