The Mexican Pasty

Is it filled with chiles, black beans and rice? I honestly don’t know. However I do know that in a town in the south of Mexico known as Pachuca, they make and serve hand pies they call pasties. They are, of course, another product of Cornish emigration, brought there by miners who weren’t after tin, but silver. The veins of silver that are (still) mined there were discovered by the conquistadors in the 1550’s. However it took the Cornish, who had the equipment and the know-how to conduct deep tunnel mining, to fully exploit them. The pasties that are made there, I’m told by my friends Rachel Laudan and Mexico Bob, are more like empanadas than true Cornish pasties (made with empanada dough and such), however their pedigree is undeniable. If they’re baked with raw ingredients instead of cooked then they deserve the moniker. Interestingly, Pachuca is also know in Mexico as the cradle of Mexican football (soccer), because the Cornish brought that with them, too.