I DO LIKE to reminisce of the good old days when we had real plain comfort food.

I am reminded of food we ate out of necessity, when people had to be grateful for what they were given.

Mum would regularly bake us a corned beef plate pie served with baked beans this time of the year.

Maybe corned beef goes well with beans, or it was a pretty cheap and a hearty pie, packed full of goodness to keep us going.

Corned beef may have sadly lost its popularity over the years, but in some pockets of hard-working Yorkshire class communities it’s still a beloved favourite, that reminds us of a parent or grandparent.

So I’m excited to share with you one of my family’s corned beef pie recipes, one that we often called cowboy pie as kids.

It certainly still has an old-fashioned family teatime feel about it when it’s still pulled out of the oven today - a real hand-me-down recipe.

I’m sure most households would have once had their own version years ago, baked in an old dinner plate or blue enamel-rimmed pie dish for a delicious teatime meal.

Potatoes, onions, carrots and peas were often added to the corned beef pie, flavoured with tomato sauce, brown sauce, Marmite or Worcestershire sauce for a warming aftertaste.

Today no one in their right mind eats tinned food, especially not meat that’s been –I will say it quietly - processed.

But to dismiss corned beef with such a sneer is sheer arrogance: it’s a wrong thing for me to do.

The loveliest thing about corned beef is the ritual of snapping off the key from the odd-shaped retro tin, then struggling to peel back the silver metal strip to reveal the moist meat beneath, knowing it’s just one slip away from losing you a finger if you break the key off.

What other food comes with such a sense of tension? And possibly followed by a ritual attendance to Airedale A&E?

So do check your personal injury insurance policies, as most will be invalidated if they find out you eat tinned corned beef!

This corned beef pie needs a true recondition –the youth of today will turn their noses up at it first, but without it, where would those Uruguayan farmers be!