The home of the pasty is Cornwall. It may be met with in Devon, and is possible in Yorkshire, but Cornwall is its home now. In a sense the pasty is Cornish. There are other dishes, but the pasty comes first, the making of which is handed down from generation to generation. Every created thing that may be eaten goes into a pasty—fish, flesh, or fowl, and the herb of the field, whether sweet or sour, to say nothing of fruits and humble potatoes and turnips. When a woman has a rage for pasty-making, nothing comes amiss when the strip of dough is ready. There's a knack in turning out a shapely pasty no longer than one's hand, or big enough for a family to carve at and come again. All pasties are alike on the outside; and the cable-twist running from end to end, delicately tapering from the centre towards the points, is a work of art to look at. As the pasty goes to the oven, so it comes out, puffed up a little with self-conscious pride at having gone through the fiery trial and come out a generous brown, with every cable-twist intact, and every curve swelling with inward importance. The origin of the pasty is lost with the language, but the thing is universal, and the friend of all. The workman takes it in his bag, the traveller pops it in his pocket, the family sit around it. No knife, no fork, no tablecloth is wanted; out comes the pasty, and the feast begins. A pasty fresh from the oven sends up an incense which makes a hungry man thankful to be alive. A man will call at a friend's house with his pasty in his pocket, and the good woman will warm it for him, and he'll join the family circle without any one thinking it an intrusion. Tea is the drink with a pasty. Anything else will do, from white wine to cider; but tea is the drink for choice.
A pie is another Cornish dish, and lends itself to the racial aptitude for secrecy. Almost anything under the sun may be put into a pie, and no one be the wiser, for the crust puts on a brave face and hides the poverty (should there be poverty) underneath. No end of stories have been told of pies. A person in a sarcastic mood has been known to send a neighbour a pie with a halter in it; but the piskies did something better than that, and sent the barren wife of the Earl of Cornwall a pie which, when opened, was filled with sweet herbs and wild flowers, in the midst of which a little heir lay smiling. And then, as a set-off, Old Nick comes in and watches a woman make an "all-sorts" pie, in which nothing seemed out of place; and so afraid was he that his own dear self would be included that he skipped out of the county. The pie, like the pasty, is a mystery until it is opened, unless the crust is decorated with the foot of a duck, or some other indication of contents. The heads of pilchards peeping through the crust suggested the name of "star-gazey pie;" but a stranger in the land may never see it—indeed, he may never see many things.
[Chapter XXI]
Through August and down to the middle of September is the season for blackberries, and wherever the bramble can grow, there the black, luscious fruit hangs ripe and tempting. The Bookworm hazarded the guess, as we tramped along, that the plant followed the Celtic immigration in Cornwall and Brittany. The Bretons make money of the fruit, but here whoever is minded may pick and eat and carry away; and no one was ever prosecuted for wandering over fields in search of the fruit, and pulling down bits of hedges to secure it. During the season, blackberry parties go out with crook-sticks and baskets, and faces as clean as usual, and return tired and torn, with hands and lips and faces dyed all over with the dark juice. Some say it was the blackberry juice which the ancient inhabitants used for frightening away the Roman legions; but nothing positive is now known. It is, however, the fact that the Cornish dye just as much of themselves as is visible with blackberry juice once a year; and this may be a survival of an ancient custom. Just for a wonder, it was neither saint nor piskie who was quoted in connection with blackberries, but Old Nick himself, who ate so many one thirteenth of September that he felt real ill, and he cursed the fruit with such a terrible curse that, after the fatal thirteenth, the fruit is said to be unfit for food, and is allowed to rot where it grows.