Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
From ‘Eldorado’ by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
Two hundred years ago this year, a young tin miner called Abel Glasson travelled from my village here in West Cornwall, to the mountains of Mexico. What courage it must have taken to leave this remote corner of the British Isles and head off into the unknown. Abel and his companions became what in Cornwall are still known as ‘Cousin Jacks’ - miners and engineers whose descendants now make up the Cornish diaspora and whose legacy can still be seen in mining communities across the world.
Abel and his brother travelled on board the ship ‘Melpemone' out of Falmouth and they could not have anticipated the extraordinary hardship that lay ahead. As well as experienced miners and engineers, the Melpemone and her sister ship carried tons of heavy mining equipment made by Harvey’s of Hayle. Pumps, hoists and steam engines were all destined for the disused silver mines of Mexico.
The ships were unable to land as planned and so were beached at Mocambo some 400km from the mountainous mining community that was their destination. As the Cornish men started to unload the machinery, it quickly sank into the sand and it took Herculean efforts to get it off the beach. Weakened and malnourished, the men fell prey to vómito - yellow fever - and many died. The remainder set off on an heroic journey into the interior of Mexico. Heavy rain, the absence of decent roads and every sort of disaster befell them. Eventually some eighteen months later, the survivors staggered with their mules and precious machinery into the town of Pachuca Real del Monte in Hidalgo province. The men must have felt such anticipation at the idea of reaching their destination, but what they saw was a town in ruins. Happily those local inhabitants who had remained after the local mines closed, gave them a rapturous welcome. The equipment was put to good use, the mines reopened and the town became prosperous once more.
The links between the mining districts of Cornwall and Mexico still remain. A couple of miles from my village, locals walk their dogs on Mexico Towans - the dunes overlooking St. Ives Bay. I can drink at The Mexico Inn just up the road, and in Pachuca Real del Monte the Cornish pasty is famous. It and other aspects of Cornish culture survive - in Methodism, football, mining chimneys and Cornish surnames. Pachuca is known all over Mexico as the 'cuna del fútbol' - the cradle of football. Fascinating to think that the Mexicans might not be playing football if the Cousin Jacks hadn’t taken it with them
There are multiple celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Great Trek this month, both here in Cornwall and in Real del Monte - where there is the world's only pasty museum. The Great Trek has long fascinated me and one of my two unpublished novels concludes with my fictional heroine becoming the only woman to have survived it. Years later she returns to Cornwall leaving behind a prosperous business very like the one in the photograph above. Ah well….
A dish of protein wrapped in carbohydrate probably exists in every cuisine in the world - pasties, samosas, pierogi, jiaozi and empanadas. They are all forms of portable food. Down a mine a Cornish pasty would have been kept warm on top of an upturned bucket with a candle burning underneath. The crimped seam meant it could be held in dirty fingers and still eaten, the crimp (which could easily have had arsenic on it) was then discarded. These days a Cornish pasty contains beef, potato and swede, it’s heavily seasoned and has a knob of butter added before it’s sealed. However back in Able Glasson's time it might have contained anything - mackerel, pork, or just potato if times were hard. In Real del Monte they make them with meat and molé, or tinga - shredded meat in a spicy tomato sauce.
You can buy wonderful Cornish pasties everywhere in Cornwall so I rarely make them. They are great for a late lunch when you are really hungry and I like them with tomato ketchup which is probably sacrilege. This recipe was made in response to my other half suggesting I made a vegetarian one with some Pink Fir Apple potatoes and fresh leeks from our local farm shop.
I had a quiet hour with Radio 3 making these. Basically I made some cheese pastry and rolled four thin discs from it. I shredded one fat leek and softened it in butter, deglazed the pan with some vermouth then added my diced cooked potato, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a tablespoon of crème fraiche, lots of black pepper and about an ounce of grated Parmesan. I put about two tablespoons of the mixture on each pastry disc and rolled it over so the seam was underneath. I couldn’t crimp because my pastry was too thin. I egg washed the pasties then baked them for 25 minutes at 185c and we ate them warm with a side salad. Nice.
PS. It just occurred to me to try and find out if Abel Glasson survived. An Abel Glasson married in a village about seven miles away in 1838. It might be him but there are no records of an Abel Glasson in any subsequent census returns in England. Maybe he came home, married and returned to Mexico. Who knows?
Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied,
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’
(Ibid)
Wonderful story, Liz, which somehow I had never heard before. And another good recipe—not least because (and this is defo heresy) I don’t like traditional Cornish pasties!!!! I don’t like beef&potato pie either, so Cornwall mustn’t take it personally….