One-time Upper Peninsula resident Brigitta writes in with this: I first encountered pasties when I went to college in the late 70’s in the western end of the peninsula. Although the largest ethnic group in the area are Finlanders, the pasty arrived when miners from Cornwall emigrated there to work in the copper mines. Just […]
READ ONPasties, as I mentioned last week, aren’t limited to Cornwall. Though Cornish fishermen, field hands, builders and other workmen ate them just as readily as miners, it was the latter who were responsible for spreading the pasty over the globe. The reason: the decline and eventual collapse of mining in the county. It’s a sad […]
READ ONThere’s another longstanding debate on this point, too. Did most workmen eat their pasties hot or cold? To the best of my knowledge, the answer is hot. One of my pasty mentors of old spoke about her father the field worker, who was so insistent about pasties, she was forced to run over-field for a […]
READ ON…side-crimped, glazed, with sliced potatoes and pork, that is. Top-crimped steak pasties coming soon. So then, let’s start with the dough, which is a very elementary proposition, even for those who fear pie crust. Begin by whisking your flour and salt together. Add your fat… …and work it in by hand until you get a […]
READ ONThis dough is a slightly wetter version of the dough that I use for top-crimped pasties. But either one is very wet compared to pie dough of the kind you bake in a pan. That extra toughness is of course what allows the pasty to maintain its shape without the help of a mold. So, […]
READ ONI’ve gotten more mail on this subject that I think I’ve ever gotten for a topic on joepastry.com — and from all over the world! It’s amazing how many people have stories to tell about pasties. The down side for me is that they come with too many requests! Several of those requests have been […]
READ ONOr perhaps the distinction should be between savory and savory WITH sweet. Allow me to explain. Back in the day, when workers relied on pasties for their daily sustenance, it was fairly common for Cornish housewives to tuck something sweet into one corner of a large pasty as a sort of “dessert”. Most often this […]
READ ONThis, if you can believe it, is another old pasty controversy. Sliced potatoes, it’s thought, release more moisture as the pasty bakes, creating a more succulent “gravy” in the interior (especially when half of them are placed on the top of the filling). Also, when laid down over the crust, they’re thought to protect the […]
READ ONYou might as well ask: what sort of ingredients go into stew? Or pot pie? Or hash? Traditionally it was whatever was on-hand that day: pieces of meat and root veggies if times were good (beef, pork, mutton, chicken, rabbit), just the root veggies plus other miscellaneous “stuffings” when times weren’t so good. What might […]
READ ONLast week I mentioned that most miners who ate pasties usually left behind a portion of their crust as an offering to the “knockers”. But what exactly is a “knocker”? In a nutshell, a knocker is a member of a race of spirits that are supposed to inhabit mines. A knocker can be either benevolent […]
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