Not to start on a morbid note, but a line in my Nanna’s eulogy read, “and what Lena couldn’t do with a tin of corned beef is nobody’s business”. A delightful chuckle went around the perfectly permed congregation, and knowing smiles rippled across the faces of my large, Welsh family – we took up at least the first five rows of pews. And it’s true, my Nanna Lena was the ultimate thrifty cook, and corned beef was regularly served up in one form or another on her red formica kitchen table.
CORNED BEEF PIE
Hearty steaming basins of corned beef stew – full of soft, sweet, slippery onions, potatoes that just about held their shape until you squashed them between the roof of your mouth and tongue breaking into fluffy goodness, chunky carrots, and the rich stock juices mopped up with rounds of white bread (the kind that would cause a hipster to bloat at 10 paces).
If it wasn’t stew, it would be corned beef hash in all its fluffy, filling mashed potato glory. But perhaps the one that sticks in my nostalgic tastebuds more than any other is Nanna’s corned beef pie. Its smooth shortcrust pastry case filled with mashed onion, potato, and corned beef, perfectly set (it’s always better having been in the fridge for a while so the fat solidifies a bit). The pastry always browned from the milk that had been “brushed” on with a forefinger – Nanna wouldn’t have wasted a perfectly good egg for a glaze. Thick wedges of pie would be carved out revealing the pink willow pattern plate underneath. We’d eat it with baked beans or simply with a slice of heavily Flora’d white bread.
PICNIC PERFECT
I think back now, and I’ve never known life without corned beef. For my Nannie Gwen, sandwiches with thickly sliced corned beef were a picnic staple – be it a trip to the seaside (Porthcawl usually) or sat in a car while Mum nipped to the boot to retrieve the flask of tea trying to avoid the downpour outside. The same wonderful ritual: my Nannie carefully unclinging the slightly sweaty sandwiches (cut in four squares or triangles) and handing them around while Mum poured out the tea (always in china cups) in a careful balancing act on the dashboard as the steam misted up the windscreen. I would squash the sandwich between two palms – I don’t know why, it just tastes better.
KEY INGREDIENT
Watching my Nannie in the kitchen was always an education and I remember being intrigued by the corned beef tin (it still flummoxes me a little why it’s packed like this). We (my brother and I) were never allowed anywhere near the corned beef tin apart from helping to turn the key because we would either a) cut our hands off, or b) slice our fingers open, and so corned beef preparation (much like opening the oven, or receiving post though the letterbox) was reserved for adults. I still have a slight fear about the tins even now and wonder if I should wrap them in paper or something before recycling in case someone (binmen, skip divers etc) severs a limb. I do remember my Nannie cursing when the key would snap and she’d have to try to open the tin with a tin opener, which of course is awkward due to its corners, or when the tin had no key at all. So prevalent was the use of corned beef in her kitchen, that she kept a spare key in her cutlery drawer (the one that to open you had to lift the cupboard door underneath while simultaneously pressing your hip into the other cupboard door next to it).
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
When I moved to London and felt a little homesick, I went to the only place I knew could help give me a taste of my nans’ kitchens – I popped into Greggs for a corned beef pasty. But the hair-netted ladies behind the counter looked at me blankly as I repeated my order several times. They’d never heard of it and were sure it wasn’t in the Greggs’ baked goods repertoire. Dejected, I left pondering why it didn’t exist here, and burning my mouth on a straight-out-the-oven steak bake instead. I tweeted Greggs not long ago to ask why, and they told me told me it was a regional thing. *so are Cornish pasties but they sell them!*
PIE TIME
It wasn’t until I made my version of Nanna’s corned beef pie and took it to work that I realised it was indeed a geographical thing. People in my office (those from in or around London and the South East without northern or Welsh grannies) had never (ever) tried corned beef. “It’s like Spam isn’t it?” was one question, “Isn’t that what they ate in the war?” was another. Well, no, and yes. After a little trepidation, they lapped it up and dumbstruck faces lined the end of my desk, that corned beef tasted so good. But then a mix of pastry, fat, salt, and potato can surely never taste bad.
Coming soon: my version of Nanna’s corned beef pie recipe!
