Oggy! Oggy! Oggy! the well-known Cornish chant that is the abbreviation of the Cornish language word ‘Hogen’ the the Cornish word for ‘pasty’ and the later version of an Old Cornish word ‘Whyogen’.
Over the centuries the pasty developed to what has now become the traditional recipe that is recognised under Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) and Protected Designations of Origin. They were usually eaten at crib or croust time and were especially handy for Cornish tin miners.
Ingredients:
Pastry
Beef
Turnip*
Potatoes
Onion
Salt & Pepper
Milk/Egg glaze
The vegetables should be cooked from raw within the pastry and crimped off-centre. It’s not a pre-cooked stew spread over pastry as one ‘celebrity’ chef did and then claimed it to be a traditional ‘Cornish’ pasty.
Some people use leeks, or carrots (yes, carrots) and ‘crimp’ the pasty near to the bottom, or across the top. This is fine, but that’s just a ‘pasty’ and doesn’t adhere to the traditional Cornish pasty recipe, therefore it’s not a traditional Cornish pasty.
And it has to be Gwrys yn Kernow! (Made in Cornwall)
*The English refer to this vegetable as ‘swede’.
Actually in most of England it’s also called a turnip. The two are not identical. The smaller turnip (or ‘white turnip’) is traditional to the British Isles and noted as such since the 16thC. The larger Swede or ‘Swedish Turnip’ is a larger variety introduced from Sweden in the 19thC. This difference is well-known and a common mix of the two as a vegetable mash is identified as ‘swede and turnip’. I ate it a lot in school dinners.
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