National Express - 37

Gastro Britain

WEST OF
ENGLAND
AND
WALES

Cider

- West
Country

When
supping
your next pint
of cider, take a
moment to raise
your glass to the
Normans. Luckily for us, with the great
changes of the Norman Conquest
came the introduction of cider as the
'people's drink', and apple orchards
began to frame Britain's countryside.
Tradition has it, cider apple trees
have to be protected from evil spirits
during the annual ritual of wassailing,
especially in Somerset, the home of
British cider. During the evening, a
'guardian' tree is selected to represent
the whole orchard. Pieces of toast
soaked in cider are then placed in the
tree and cider is poured around the
base of it. Shotguns are ﬁred into the

top-most branches and buckets are
beaten to scare away evil spirits and
wake the sleeping trees. Participate
in the tradition and you'll more than
likely get some mulled cider out of it!

Cornish pasties

- Cornwall

We've all heard the chant, 'Oggie,
oggie, oggie!', and maybe even
shouted it ourselves at some point.
But did you know that what you're

hollering actually translates as 'pasty,
pasty, pasty'? Tin miners' wives or
sellers used the expression to notify
miners that the pastry-based goods
were ready for eating. The response
of the hungry miners, as one can
guess, was 'Oi, oi, oi!'
Carried to work in a tin bucket, the
pasty was the perfect portable lunch
for 19th-century miners. The chunky
texture of minced or roughly cut beef
(no less than 12.5%), swede, potato
and onion acted as hearty sustenance
to fuel their labour. And, to avoid
being poisoned by tin or copper dust
from the miners' ﬁngers, the pastry
crusts were thrown away afterwards.
To enjoy a real Cornish pasty today,
you have to visit Cornwall. Nine years'
worth of campaigning, fought by
the Cornish Pasty Association, has
stamped Cornwall's pasties with the
illustrious PGI status.

Leeks - Wales

This relative of the onion,
with its more subtle ﬂavour,
is Wales' national vegetable
and emblem, worn every
year on St David's Day on
the lapels of the patriotic.
Some people now prefer
to wear the decidedly
more aromatic daﬀodil
but, interestingly, one of
many Welsh names for
the daﬀodil is Cenhinen
Bedr or Peter's
leek. The
leek has always been
an ingredient in cawl,
a traditional Welsh
broth. Referred to
by the French as 'the
asparagus of the poor',
this root vegetable has long
been regarded as a cure for
the common cold, so, as
autumn sets in, now's the
time to get cooking some
cock-a-leekie soup.

37

'THE PEOPLE'S
DRINK' - SOMERSET
IS THE HOME OF
THE BRITISH CIDER
National Express

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