As a confirmed gastronomic tourist, there are a couple of necessities that ones taste buds should indulge in when visiting Cornwall. One of these, the revered Cornish pasty, we had sampled at the motorway services on own journey down. However, two factors technically invalidate that first sampling:
- we were in Somerset, not Cornwall, at the time;
- though of reasonable quality, since the pasty purveyor was sadly hors de pasties containing the traditional filling of steak, potato and swede [rutabaga in Amerispeak], we had to make do with pasties containing such inventive alternatives as pork and apple, bacon and leak or barbecued steak (the latter of which I suspect contained bottled smoke essence).
We will obviously have to arrange a second, more valid tasting.
The second required indulgence, and a luxurious one at that, is the Cornish cream tea consisting of scones, strawberry conserve and clotted cream. Today, our second day, prompted by the availability of some scones going cheap, we added strawberry conserve and clotted cream to our shopping basket and returned for the second Cornish rattling of our taste buds.
According to their packaging (and website), Rodda’s has been making clotted cream since 1890 when grandma Rodda made it in her kitchen. It was a success [there’s a surprise!] and it began began “exported” to England. I love that interesting phrase. Again according to the packaging, this stuff is a cardiac arrest in a carton: 60.5% fat. If it doesn’t actually bring on a heart attack, it at least gives meaning to the old warning:
A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.
With a predilection for pastry-wrapped pasties and clotted cream slathered scones, the Cornish are clearly not terribly fond of low fat diets. Francine and I did attempt a little redress by walking to a nearby 2500 year old historic site, an iron age hill fort called Warbstow Bury. It is well preserved but, given the (lack of) light would not have made an interesting picture so here’s an information board with a plan, instead.
I’m more into natural history than history, it must be said.
Ah, always wondered what rutabaga was, now I know!
Love the picture of the scones…..mmmmmmmmmm. I prefer to believe the Woody Allen film “Sleeper” when scientists have discovered that all the things we think are bad for us are actually good.