The Cornish pasty began far from the mines, with herring pasties paid to King John as rent and pasties mailed to Jane Seymour. This episode follows how the dish moved down the social ladder to become the essential lunch of Cornish tin miners, with a thick crust that kept food warm underground and could be reheated on a shovel over a candle.

We test the famous myth that miners threw away the crimped crust to avoid arsenic, explore the 2011 protected geographical indication rules and the swede versus turnip and side crimp versus top crimp disputes, and trace the pasty’s global spread with Cousin Jacks and Cousin Jennies to Michigan, Mexico, Australia, and beyond. We close with mine folklore about the knockers and the true origin of the oggy oggy oggy, oi oi oi chant.

• Why historians doubt the arsenic handle story and how muslin bags and carved initials actually worked
• What PGI status requires: a D shape, a side crimp, beef skirt, potato, onion, swede, and assembly in Cornwall
• How the collapse of Cornish mining sent the pasty to the California Gold Rush, South Africa, and Pennsylvania
• How Finnish immigrants in Michigan and bakers in Hidalgo, Mexico adapted the pasty to local tastes
• The knockers offering, the devil joke about the River Tamar, and how a shout down the mine shaft became a sports chant