The Cornish Pasty

The Tin Miner's Pasty

The Cornishmen talk of the pasty
An awful long way from here,
I'll tell you one story of many
If you'd like to put down your beer.

The miners for years ate cold butties
For many, yes many a year,
Until the good wife of a miner
Decided to make pasty 'ear.

Mind you the idea of cold 'teddy-oggy'
Way down the mine daily you see,
Was alright if your tummies were hardened
By years of sipping cold tea!

Tea's a great English tradition
But Cornishmen didn't have flasks.
The only hot thing for the miner
Was the sweat from the toil of their graft.

The wife of a certain tin miner
Decided one day just to bake
A meal in a pastry hard jacket,
'N drop it hot down the shaft,
Him to take.

The trial though right in its idea
Did not quite hit on the mark.
'Cause when dropped from the top of the mine-shaft
Missed its miner and was lost in the dark.

Again that lady experimented
And again and again and some more.
Until she happened to perfect
That tuneful pasty by air!

The secret was not in the baking,
But its shape that gives it the noise.
It was found that below ground that a pasty
Could if right be caught by the boys.

The boat shape of a pasty say sea-men
Comes from using some pilchards and cream.
The truth the crimp all along it
Yes a dropped pasty if right it can scream!

However I know you don't believe it
'Bout the whistle a pasty can make.
It can tell a man of its close position,
And of course its just hot from the bake.

So next time you eat Cornish Pasty
Have a thought for that good miner's wife.
She gave those tin miner's their dinner
Always hot throughout their hardworking life.

……..recipe and other pasty poems followed......