Homeland food

I guess most people have a homeland food which conjures up the place which they're from, for which they have an affection which lies beyond any kinds of objective criteria. For me, one of those foods is the cheese-and-onion pasty, so on returning to Devon a key mission was finding a good one in Sidmouth. I need not have worried because this small town has at least three bakeries in the centre as well as one specialist pasty-monger: Georgie Pies. This was a very good discovery indeed, on a par with the great pasty shop on the main street of Beer and Oggy-Oggy in Exeter. I'd had lunch and a large dinner awaited but it was time to bracket such considerations, and indeed my vague aim of losing weight, to savour the pastriness, the cheesiness and the all round heartiness of a really good pasty. The other big attractions in Sidmouth were taking photos of the capsized container boat Napoli, which had brought in the crowds, and pictures of the wild seas (as seen in the accompanying shot of a foolish Merovingian getting much too close to the waves).