‘That’s not a pasty!’ my husband declares loftily, eyeing up what most definitely is a veritable clutch of cheese and onion pasties emerging from my oven. Handsome, puffed up, golden brown (the pasties, not the husband), filled with a cheese, potato and onion filling, contents threatening to splurge. The steam rises from them like in a cartoon, almost beckoning us towards them.

‘Oh, OK,’ I reply, sweetly. ‘I shan’t trouble you with them.’ He backtracks. No, no, perhaps he was hasty. What did he know about pasties? Shouldn’t he just try them anyway?

Crisp, light, golden pastry filled with soft cheesy mash and mellow onions

Normally my husband and I are simpatico when it comes to food, not least because we were both brought up in the north – but here our paths diverge, literally. While I grew up in the north-east, he grew up in the north-west. For me, rectangular, puffed cheese and onion pasties were a mainstay of my childhood, a staple of school dinners and unpretentious bakeries. For him they were unknown. For me, these are pasties.

But I do see where he’s coming from.........

© The Spectator