The Cornish Pasty Pilgrimage

The Cornish pasty has Protected Geographical Indication status, which means a pasty can only be called "Cornish" if it was made in Cornwall. The recipe is legally defined too: diced or minced beef, sliced potato, swede and onion, seasoned with salt and pepper, enclosed in a shortcrust pastry case, crimped to one side into a D shape, and baked slowly so the raw filling cooks inside. No carrots. No peas. No messing about. It was invented as a portable meal for tin miners - the thick crimped edge was the handle, held with dirty hands and discarded - and it's been made the same way for centuries.

You can buy a pasty anywhere in the country now, but there's a reason the protection exists: a proper Cornish pasty, baked that morning by a family bakery that's been doing it for three generations, eaten warm on a harbour wall with the Atlantic below you, is a different thing entirely from the service-station version. Cornwall has dozens of celebrated bakeries, each guarding their recipe like a state secret, and the annual Cornish Pasty Championships at the Eden Project are taken with deadly seriousness. Fly in, eat the real thing at the source, and you'll never settle for a cold one at Paddington again.