The Literary Cornish Pasty

In Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century work The Canterbury Tales there are references to pasties in the Prologue to The Cook’s Tale, where he writes:

“Now telle on Roger, looke that it be good,
For many a pastee hastow leten bled”

In Act I of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597) Page greets his guests by saying:

“Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner:
come gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.”

And in All's Well That Ends Well, Act IV Scene III, Parrolles states:

“I will confess to what I know without constraint:
if ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.”

The diaries of Samuel Pepys (1660-1669) contain numerous references to venison pasties and are peppered with references to his having dined “on a good venison pasty and being mighty merry.”

Pasties also appear in Winston Graham’s Poldark series of historical novels set in Cornwall.

More recently, pumpkin pasties are a staple in several of the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling.