Scandinavian and Finnish American Food: Contributions to Cuisine

The Finns and the Cornish worked together as miners in northern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They found common ground in the “pasty,” an oval-shaped pie filled with a mixture of beef, potatoes, onions, and sometimes rutabaga, turnips, or carrots, which they carried in their lunch boxes into the mines. The Finns have claimed pasties as their own because of their similarity to the meat pies traditional in eastern Finland. In the twenty-first century pasties are still sold in bakeries throughout the Iron Range of Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They make great picnic food, and every baker has a personal variation.