The Cornish Pasty

The Welsh oggie

The Giant Welsh Oggie

from The Original Welsh Oggie Company
Reproduced with permission

Right, boy, or should it be "boyo" in this case!

The Welsh Oggie Company Ltd is a company that sells the traditional Welsh pasty at events all over the UK - including agricultural shows, horse trials, game fairs, flower shows and festivals.

The company has a range of products that includes regular oggies and lamb & mint oggies, also steak pies and Welsh cakes .....

Regular oggie

Lamb & mint oggie

The Welsh Oggie is very similar to our Cornish Pasty: the star pasty is the Traditional Giant Welsh Oggie above

The oggie is made daily from fresh, locally sourced Welsh meat and vegetables and besides the usual potato, onion and beef (or lamb) it also has its own Welsh speciality - leek!

This is no pale imitation of our Cornish Pasty - it is a Welsh Pasty in its own right - a real Celtic cousin!

One of the Welsh Oggie Company's electric web pages also tells the story we have told elsewhere on "The Cornish Pasty" web site about the purpose of the pasty crust - and how it is thrown away after eating your pasty underground. This time they include coal dust as well as sometimes arsenic that could be on the hands of the miners .....

I think any Cornishman or Devonian has to try one of these if the chance comes along, boy!

I have not gone into the origins of the Welsh Oggie but it may well be tied up with the origins of the Cornish Pasty, after all, the first mention of Arthur was reported in an old Welsh account recounting a battle in 600 AD - see HERE.

- 6 Sep 2009

I have heard from a retired Welsh academic friend who said that the Welsh word pastai would mean a pasty in as much as it means anything enclosed in a pastry case.

- 14 Sep 2009

Welsh Valley Pasties

Besides the "Posh Nosh" pasties above, there are other pasties sold in the former mining valleys of Wales that are filled with mashed potato, flavoured with corned beef and onion all mashed in together. There are times when the percentage of potato is quite high, being reminiscent of the true tiddy oggie form of the Cornish pasty. These were pasties of potato in times when the Cornish people couldn't afford meat.

Acknowledgements
1.  Many thanks to Ross Williams for permission to use the photos of pasties (oggies) from The Original Welsh Oggie Company web site.
2. My thanks to Iolo ap Gwyn for the information about the Welsh word "pastai".
3. My thanks also to Marion Banks-Wilkinson for the information about the Welsh valleys pasty.