When is a turnip not a turnip?

Brussels bureaucrats have ruled that a swede can be called a turnip when it's in a Cornish pasty.

The European Commission is drawing up guidelines on the permitted ingredients of the traditional West Country lunch, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Officials have decreed that only minced or diced beef, sliced potato, onion and swede are allowed to fill the pastry.

However the Cornish are unique in referring to swede as turnip, even though they are completely different root vegetables.

Because of this linguistic quirk, the regulations have been amended to allow either term to be used on the label although only swedes are allowed in the pasty.

This will mean that genuine Cornish pasties will be allowed to go on sale advertised as containing turnip, but will break the rules if they actually do contain it.

The draft regulations, giving Protected Geographical Indication status to the Cornish pasty which are due to come into force in January, specify it must be D-shaped and crimped on one side, "never on top".

The EC regulation notes: "Traditionally, in Cornwall 'swede' is referred to as 'turnip' so the two terms are interchangeable, but the actual ingredient is 'swede'."

The Cornish Pasty Association applied for protected status for the delicacy earlier this year, in order to prevent rivals passing their inferior products as the genuine article.

William Dartmouth, UKIP MEP for the South West, complained: "The case of the phantom turnip is only the latest in a long line of food-related chaos inflicted on us by Europe."