WHEN the World Pasty Championships celebrated their 10th anniversary (tin, appropriately) at the Eden Project in 2022, none of us knew it would be the last event of its kind to take place in the biomes. While some felt it had run its course, a lot of people were very disappointed, including competitors both professional and amateur, and consumers who came in their droves to watch the categories being judged.

I was among those judges, and it’s no exaggeration to say the occasion was like an annual family reunion. We greeted each other with the warmth reserved for old friends: the proper Cornish die-hards in their kilts, the friendly old professor who came over from Michigan each year, the WI ladies - who had surely baked thousands of oggies in their time, and would coo over how much my daughter had grown during the intervening months.

Said Daughter progressed to totting up the scores for each entry. Perhaps, I jested, she had been sufficiently trained to judge on her own account?

When I heard the contest was to be rebooted as the Global Pasty Championships at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, I was quick to offer my services, on the understanding that I’d be accompanied by a 15-year-old plus-one. “Of course – would she like to judge too?” came the reply.

I asked the question. “OMG – I feel like I’ve made it in life,” came the answer, which was never going to be no.

I thought it prudent to lay down a few ground rules. Daughter is particular about her pasties, and can be brutal in her criticism. Being a judge means trying everything with an open mind, and offering constructive feedback - especially in amateur and junior categories. After all, you want people to learn and come back next year.

Come the big day, we arrived bright and early, and instantly bumped into some familiar faces in the car park (cue air-kissing). We wandered through the delightful gardens to the Steward’s House, where judges were gathering, among them head judge Graham Cornish – former development head at Ginsters, and inaugural winner of the World Pasty Championships with his mother’s recipe, with which he subsequently launched his own business.

We got stuck in, and I quickly realised how much Daughter had learned and how seriously she took the job. She was appalled when asked to cut a pasty in half for the camera: “That’s step 3, and we haven’t done steps 1 or 2 yet,” she chided. (For the record: step 1 is to count the crimps and test for sturdiness, step 2 to assess the visual appearance of the pasty – D shape, smoothness, glaze).

We began with a couple that needed a bit of work on their pastry. Seasoning would prove challenging: “TOO SALTY!” wrote Daughter on one sheet. “A well-distributed filling that would doubtless have tasted great with a little less salt,” I added underneath, ever the diplomat.

Alternative pasties aren’t everyone’s bag; I even heard a visitor declare: “They aren’t really pasties!” They might not be Cornish pasties - a protected designation, permitting only beef, potato, swede (turnip) and onion - but I love to see the different flavour combinations people will try in pastry. A feta cheese, butternut squash, spinach and red onion pasty concoction tickled our tastebuds and looked great to boot; when it scored 91 points, I knew it was a potential winner.

As judging drew to a close, St Austell and Newquay MP Noah Law emerged looking as glazed as the pasties he’d tasted. “I feel like I’ve eaten a six-course tasting menu,” he admitted. “I’m stuffed.”

Daughter and I worked it off by dancing to the Tregony Teachers, followed by a tour (in rare spring sunshine) of the garden to see new sculpture Lowarnes/Vixen, before heading back for the results.

Our veggie sensation took the top spot by a mere point, as thrilling for us as judges as for the purveyor. Rowe’s development chef Oscar Timmings confirmed the recipe had won a previous competition in collaboration with Pirate FM to find a new product for the hot cabinet. Whoever suggested it deserves a medal – it knocks plain old cheese and onion into a cocked hat.

A regular sight at Eden was the Bristol gang who hired a holiday home each year in order to bake pasties in Cornwall – essential to enter the Traditional category. Their dedication earned them induction as Pasty Ambassadors, and they were back for the reboot. Having won the coveted Cornish Amateur title twice before, Vanessa Farr was thrilled to triumph again, this time in the Traditional Individual category against professionals.

It all made for a highly successful day. Sir Tim Smit himself said: “Almost everyone has come up to me and said it feels like Heligan is where the Global Pasty Championships should be. It’s coming home.”