ARTISAN FOOD
Forty years since Ann Muller opened her first pasty shop on the Lizard Peninsula, her bakes still set the gold standard for Cornwall’s “national” dish
Saturday was pasty day when Ann Muller was growing up. “I remember the smell of raw onions filling the kitchen and the speed with which my mother would peel and flake the turnips and potatoes,” she says of her Cornish childhood. Years later, Ann – whose mother, Hettie Merrick, had written the bible on Cornwall’s “national” dish, The Pasty Book – would use this recipe as the basis of her business, Ann’s Pasties, becoming an authority in her own right.
Hettie had inherited her recipe from her own mother, Ida. “All the pasties in my mother’s family were damn good and they all tasted different,” Ann says. “I could tell my mum’s pasties from my Great Aunt Hettie’s, my Auntie Sylvia’s, my Auntie Joyce’s and my granny’s.” Devotees of Ann’s Pasties could pick out hers in a pasty line-up, too. Locals and visitors often cluster outside Ann’s shops at Helston, Porthleven and the Lizard Peninsula, with many a repeat customer counting their first bite as the moment their holiday begins. Rick Stein is a fan, as is actor Jenny Agutter, while film crews have come from as far afield as Japan and South Korea to record Ann making and baking her famous fare.
LOVE AT FIRST BITE
“I don’t think there’s any better flavour,” says Ann’s son Fergus Muller, a former chef and now managing director of the business. “When the pasty’s piping hot from the oven and the salty liquor is coming out over the top of the bag and running down your fingers, it’s impossible to resist.”
The trick is in the pastry, he says of the recipe, which hasn’t changed since his mum and grandmother Hettie opened a pasty shop in Porthleven in 1984. “Gran used a shortcrust made up light,” he explains, adding that his cooks take less than a minute to mix the pastry dough so the fats and flour don’t amalgamate too much. “We like a flaky pastry, so some of the juices can leak out during cooking. That’s how we get the salty caramelisation round the bottom that enriches the flavour.”
Many a repeat customer counts their first bite of an Ann’s pasty as the moment when their Cornish holiday begins
