October Challenge - The Clangers - Not a Pasty

Day 31 of the October daily challenge - the Clangers.

The last day of the Box in the Corner challenge gives us another children's programme to end with.

Clangers have been around for a lot longer than the creatures featured in this series. Most people have heard of (and probably eaten) the Cornish Nasty Pasty - a complete main course for the working man's lunch, meat and vegetables wrapped in pastry. Here in Bedfordshire we go one better with the Bedfordshire Clanger, for you can have your main course and pudding all in one while working out in the fields (under the baking hot summer sun naturally).

Our local speciality is a suet based pastry wrapped around a savoury filling at one end (normally some form of meat) and a sweet filling at the other end (jam or fruit). The helpful housewife would prick the pastry on the savoury end and score the pastry on the sweet end so that the hard working man knew which end to start first.

Not surprisingly this wonderful dish is not quite as popular as the Cornish version (only real Cornish ones though please - you know the ones with edible meat in). It was described by H E Bates (from the neighbouring county of Northants) as "Hard as a hog's back, harder 'n prison bread", more frequently described as like a soggy suet roly-poly and about as appealing as a wet sock. The name is thought to derive from the local dialect word "Clang" which means to eat voraciously, so perhaps the local housewives versions made lovingly for their husbands were somewhat better than they sound, or maybe it was just a matter that the work was hard and gave you an appetite, so any food was appealing.

So, there you have my final contribution to the Box in the Corner challenge - a culinary clanger to represent the children's clangers. Please feel free to abstain from the Bedfordshire Clanger, as a man who was born and bred in the county, I have never had one (Yes, they are made commercially, though baked rather than boiled), and I haven't the dedication to blip to get me to try one. Shocking isn't it.