Cornish Pasties: A Love Letter

Amazing how much good food will make me forget.

Tonight I made vegan cornish pasties from the Vegan Lunchbox cookbook. We're talking awesome whole wheat pastry wrapped around a savory filling of vegan sausages, shallots, turnips, and potatoes, seasoned with a bit of Marmite (?! I am AMAZED to find a context in which this is edible) and lots and lots and lots of black pepper. Oh man, SO GOOD.

That I love food like this probably points to my heritage-- I'm half Irish, a quarter German, and a quarter mystery. (Really, my grandmother on my father's side was found in a field in Canada when she was a baby. Who KNOWS what she might be?) It's really not surprising that I utterly adore such ridiculously western European foods as pasties. Of course, my bizarre American food habits instruct the actual preparation of such foods...

I sometimes think about my ancestors and what they'd think if they could see me now. Consider that as recently as the 50s, big supermarkets like Safeway were a sort of MARVEL to normal people. Imagine! You could have tomatoes ANY time of year! Etcetera. Definitely a dream come true... I feel like those people must be sad now to read about us hippies who only want to eat in-season tomatoes from local farms. But of course, I can't help what I am...

Veganism and vegetarianism used to be things you HAD to go through for one reason or another: it was war time, you were poor, your teeth weren't good enough to chew meat, etcetera. In a way, it is pretty incredible that we are privileged enough to choose this lifestyle.

Anyway, I'm rambling. All I wanted to get at, really, is that I LOVE these pasties.