Pasties: From Cornwall to Everywhere In Miner's Lunch Buckets

by Michigan Tech staff writer, John Gagnon

At the recent alumni reunion, the most popular event among the 21 activities was the pasty picnic, which attracted more than 400 participants who savored this Cornish fare steeped in the culture of Upper Michigan.

There is a half-baked notion that pasties are to Upper Michigan what jambalaya is to Louisiana and cured hams are to Virginia. In reality, pasties are fare all over the world, because Cornish miners, out of tin, out of copper and out of work, traveled afar looking for minerals and jobs.

So much so, it was once said of these stalwart miners, "If you look at the bottom of a hole anywhere in the world, you'll find a Cousin Jack." And where you find Cousin Jacks, you find pasties, says social sciences Professor Pat Martin.

An industrial archaeologist, Martin has traveled the world to study historical mining districts; he's particularly interested in the relationship among industry, communities and the environment.

He has been to Cornwall, Australia, Mexico, Germany and Sweden to learn how minerals are extracted—whether silver in Mexico, lead in Wisconsin or copper and iron in the Lake Superior district. He finds common ground all over, and, he says, the Cornish not only brought their mining techniques with them, but their social organizations as well, not to mention the grub. "That's what brings us to pasties." Martin says. He has found them in downtown Mexico City.

The mining industry in Mexico is age-old, predating the Hispanic arrival, but the Cornish established a presence there, Martin says. "You can spot the descendants all over," he points out. He knows, for instance, a man named Jose Trevathan in Pachuca.

"That's one of the towns where the Mexican pasty is made," he says. "Go into those mining towns and buy food on the street—what do you find? Pasties. It might be a mole pasty, or a pasty that includes pineapple instead of rutabaga, but it's a pasty nonetheless."

He has found them in Australia, as well. "The Cornish heritage is very powerful there," Martin states. "The state of South Australia was founded in 1837, just like the state of Michigan. Copper mining began very soon after that, just like in Michigan. The Cornish showed up in Australia, just like in Michigan. And the pasty showed up in Australia, just like in Michigan."

Martin, who plans to visit mining districts in Chile, knows he'll find pasties there too.

But he allows that he is "not an expert on pasties."

"Seeing them in a mining context is what I know," he says.

Jean Ellis, who taught at Tech in the early 1980s, knows about pasties. Of mostly Cornish descent, she is active in promoting her heritage and chaired a festival, called the "Gathering of Cornish Cousins," that rotates around North America and was held in the Keweenaw in 2007. For her work, she has been designated "a bard of the Cornish" by an ethnic group dedicated to the preservation and celebration of the culture.

There are different recipes for this meal of meat, potatoes and vegetables wrapped in a pie crust that is usually shaped like a half moon. Some use ground chuck, others flank steak and pork with a pinch of suet to make it more moist. No rutabaga, no pasty, some insist, or a good measure of carrot, just a little bit for color, or none at all. "Ketchup is fine," Ellis says. Gravy? "Yuck."

In general, Ellis partakes of a variety of pasties. "If I don't have to cook it, I like it," she jests.

One other ingredient of the pasty is magic. Ellis says there is an old saying, "The devil couldn't go to Cornwall—they would cut him up and put him in a pasty."

More down to earth, she says, the pasty was a handy, portable meal for miners to take into the bowels of the earth—a meal concocted by a "proud and resourceful people."

She treasures that lineage.

"A lot of things go into who we are," she says.