Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Friday, September 16, 2005

Nanny Bans Cornish Pasties

Nanny Bans Cornish PastiesDear oh dear, things must be getting pretty desperate in the nursery.

Even by Nanny's standards, she has scraped the proverbial barrel with this incursion into a harmless activity.

This time Nanny vented her spleen on poor old Dave Polley, who was driving his car and innocently munching on a Cornish pasty.

When he had munched all of the filling, he found that he was left with some of the crust.

Now I know that we should eat our crusts up as well; but Dave did what many of us are inclined to do, he lobbed the crust out of the window for the birds to eat.

Unfortunately for him, in the car behind him was an officious git from Penwith District Council who is one of their anti litter officers.

Can you guess what happened next?

Yes, that's right.

Instead of seeing reason, and using common sense, the "officious git" gave Mr Polley a ticket and fined him.

Rumour has it that Penwith District Council are now patrolling parks, looking to arrest people for feeding the ducks.

Common sense has long since flown out of the window.

Those of you who want to make one, and send it as a gift to Penwith District Council or simply eat it yourselves can try this recipe.

Cornish Pasties Recipe

Cornish Pasties originated in Cornwall as a handy way for miners to take their lunch to work.

Shortcrust pastry encases a mixture of finely chopped meat and vegetables.

Ingredients

10 oz flour
A pinch of salt
4 oz of cold butter
1 to 3 tablespoons of water

8 oz of cubed beef
2 potatoes
1 swede/turnip
1 medium onion
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley
¼ teaspoon of mustard
2 teaspoons of tomato sauce / ketchup (optional)
1 egg

Short Pastry

In a large bowl or food processor sift the flour and salt, cut the cold butter into small cubes and add to the flour.

Rub the butter into the flour with your hands or using the food processor, until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Make a well in the centre and add sufficient water to mix to a firm dough.

Handle as little as possible as this prevents the pastry from becoming hard when it is baked.

Roll into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Filling

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Put the cubed meat into a large bowl.

Chop the onion finely, and add to the meat.

Peel the potatoes and swedturnipip, cut into very small cubes.

Mix thoroughly with the meat, add the seasonings (a little water may be added to moisten) and cover.

On a lightly floured bench or board roll the pastry out to around 1/8 inch thick.

Cut 6 rounds, using a 6 1/2 inch diameter plate as a guide.

Arrange the filling evenly in the centre of each round.

Lightly beat the egg and glaze the edge of each round with a pastry brush.

Lift the two opposite edges of the pastry and pull together over the filling.

Pinch at regular intervals along the edge to form a frill.

Brush each pasty with egg and place on a baking tray.

Bake for 3/4 to 1 hour.

Eat hot or cold.

7 comments:

  1. I guess next Nanny will ban the eating of these in public because of their unhealthy ingredients (white bleached flower, ground red meat).

    BTW, I hadn't heard of these before. I'll have to make some this weekend.

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  2. Anonymous5:18 PM

    A few technical inaccuracies I'm afraid. liberranter, never ground beef. Beef (skirting) is in small cubes, and the potatoe and swede is not cubed but sliced thinly. Also the contents are not mixed but layered.

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  3. Anonymous1:00 PM

    200 degrees for 45 minutes? It doesn't seem hot enough. Great site though! jo.

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  4. Centigrade not farenheit

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  5. Surely they should know that you are supposed to throw away the crust! That is the way that they where traditionally eaten down the mines. The supersition is to give it to the Pixies so that they don't get angry. The more prosaic explanation is that Tin ore is normally found with large concentrations of Arsenic. So you hold the crust, therefore it gets covered in Arsenic, therefore you throw away the bit with the deadly poison on it.

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  6. Anonymous11:46 AM

    "If you can't do the time; don't do the crime."

    I can't see eating a pasty whilst driving as an innocent act. Surely the risk of killing or maiming others must be increased by such behaviour, or do you consider that a price worth paying for the right to behave irresponsibly?

    I don't want to find other people's discarded items wherever I go either so I'm glad that something is being done about this. Even if this behaviour was not criminal I would not behave in this filthy way and I do not see why such behaviour should be tolerated.

    I am a frequent visitor to Penwith and often have visitors from that district staying with me. I, and they, find the difference in levels of litter there from many other areas of Britain very apparent. More rubbish blows into my garden from the road every day than I could see in a couple of hours walking around a town in Penwith.


    Your allegation of a ban on pasties is inaccurate and ridiculous. Your report is of the enforcing of the law for throwing a discarded item in the road. The people of Penwith are proud of their pasties, they would not tolerate such a ban. They are also justifiably proud of the low level of litter in the district and in my experience many of them welcome this sort of action.

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  7. In case you need to be told, this site tends towards being "tongue in cheek".

    If you had read the article you would clearly see that pasties have not been banned.

    wrt crusts from pasties being "litter", they would be eaten by birds so quickly that they would not remain on the ground long enough to offend the eye.

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