As suggestions go, it is one of the most regionally inflammatory claims that could be made: the equivalent to saying Rangers and Celtic are really Edinburgh clubs, or Yorkshire puddings are from Lancashire.

Nevertheless Dr Todd Gray, chairman of the Friends of Devon's Archives, insists he is right. The pasty is a Devonian delicacy and Cornwall stole it. His claim is based on a document found in the historic Audit Book and Receivers Accounts for the Borough of Plymouth, which dates back to the 16th century.

Dr Gray said he spotted four key lines of text which refer to the financial cost of making a pasty, using venison from the Mount Edgcumbe estate just across the Tamar River in Devon. The words date back to 1510. So Dr Gray contacted the Cornwall Record Office and found that its earliest record of a pasty recipe was in 1746. Thus Devon wins the pasty war by a clear 200 years, he concluded. 'This is one of Plymouth's ancient 16th-century documents which has never been properly presented to the public. This is a great joy for me as an historian uncovering local history,' he said.

It was also a great joy for him to put one over on Cornwall, one suspects. For those of Cornish origins, however, the discovery has gone down like a cup of cold suet.

'There will always be debates about the origin of the pasty; one theory in parts of Cornwall is that it almost goes back to the beginning of time,' said Les Merton, author of The Official Encyclopaedia of the Cornish Pasty. Angie Coombs, spokesman for the Cornish Pasty Association, agreed: 'There has been a continual argument regarding the origins of the pasty and who was the first person actually to make it.

'In medieval times they always used pastry as a vessel for serving - they would eat the insides and throw the pastry away. I think it was going on as early as the 1100s, and this argument about who was making it which side of the border will go on and on.'

In fact, the Cornish pasty turns out to have a lengthy global pedigree. These semi-circles of meat and vegetable were favoured by miners from south-west England who exported them to America and Australia. It is still said a good pasty should be strong enough to survive being dropped down a mine shaft.