Gregg Wallace’s BBC show sparks fury in Cornwall as he goes to ‘unauthentic’ Ginsters factory and historian tells viewers the pasty was not invented there
- Gregg Wallace, 55, infuriated Cornish viewers after visiting a Ginsters factory
- One Twitter user wrote: ‘Ginsters is not and never will be a real Cornish pasty’
- The show also claimed the Cornish ‘cannot lay claim to inventing the pasty’
Gregg Wallace’s BBC show has sparked fury after visiting an ‘unauthentic’ Ginsters factory and telling viewers the pasty was not invented in Cornwall.
The presenter went to the company’s factory in Callington, which makes three million pasties every week, to show how the baked pastry is produced.
But Twitter users reacted fiercely to the visit and accused the show, which aired at 9pm last night, of doing a ‘huge injustice’ to the Cornish pasty.
Gregg Wallace’s ‘Inside the Factory’ pasty episode aired last night at 9pm. But Cornish people were left furious after he visited a Ginsters factory in Callington
One said: ‘This inside the pasty factory on BBC2, please tell me that it isn’t Ginsters pasties?’
Another said: ‘Gregg Wallace has gone to a Ginsters factory to learn how to make a pasty. I’m disgusted.’
A third wrote: ‘Inside the factory doing a huge injustice to a Cornish pasty. Ginsters are absolutely vile!’
A fourth added: ‘Absolute travesty this!’
Another social media user tweeted: ‘”You can have mince in a Cornish pasty” absolute b***ocks mate, whole episode had me fuming. Ginsters is not and never will be a real Cornish pasty.’
The programme also examined the history of the pasty, with food history researcher Glyn Hughes claimed tales about how Cornish tin miners used the pasty crust as a handle were ‘false’ and completely made up.
It was previously thought that tin miners used the crimp as a handle to avoid poisoning themselves with arsenic or tin oil that was still on their fingers from working.
But Glyn appeared on Gregg Wallace’s Inside the Factory, alongside fellow historian Ruth Goodman, on Tuesday night to rubbish the historic theory.
Twitter users, above, reacted furiously to the show, with one accusing the programme of doing a ‘huge injustice’ to the pasty and labelling Ginsters as ‘absolutely vile’
He told the show that pictures from as far back as the 1890s instead showed miners ate pasties from cloth bags.
He said: ‘We’ve been back through literally thousands and thousands of newspapers and magazines going back to the 18th Century and we can find absolutely no mention of it (miners using crimpers as handles) anywhere.’
And sparking further fury from the pasty community Glyn told the show that the Cornish ‘can’t lay claim to inventing the pasty either’.
He said: ‘People have been folding pastry over fillings for more than 2,000 years.’
Glyn said the word ‘pasty’ was first used in the 13th Century to refer to one single piece of meat covered by pastry, such as a Beef Wellington.
However, he said that because working classes didn’t often write about their food, the first reference of the Cornish pasty in print wasn’t until 1861 in the Leeds Times, where it was referred to as the ‘standing dish of Cornwall’.
The claims were met with horror by fans of the traditional Cornish pasty.
The show also examined the history of the pasty, with a food history researcher claiming tales about how Cornish tin miners used the pasty crust as a handle were ‘false’ (file photo)
One wrote on Facebook: ‘What rubbish. The Cornish word hogan which evolved to oggy has been in use for centuries which proves pasties have been around in Cornwall for a very long time.
‘References to pasties (hogan) are also made in old Cornish folk songs. Recipes were handed down from generation to generation.
‘My great Grandmother and her parents before her used to make them. Some mines even had a sort of oven for keeping the pasties warm in.
‘Some miners in the 19th and 20th century did use muslin or paper bags to hold their pasty in whilst they ate it, but prior to that they were made with a thick crimp to hold and the pastry was made from barley flour which was a lot harder than the pastry we have now.’
Ginsters have previously said they are ‘puzzled’ and ‘slightly hurt’ by Cornish people’s opinions of the company, telling Cornwall Live in 2018: ‘I think we are misunderstood. We have great Cornish heritage.
‘We are very much Cornish. We have no intention of leaving the county. In fact Cornwall is becoming more front of centre on our packs.’