Pasty—Family-Size and Individual

Pasty, a meat - and - potato pie adopted from Cornwall, England, is popular in this country, especially in neighborhoods where people of Cornish ancestry live—Mineral Point, Wisconsin, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Montana’s mining areas and other places.

For family use, the pasty usually is large enough to serve everyone at the table. For lunch boxes and picnic hampers, individual turnovers are the rule. They’re served cold and are picked up and eaten from the fingers when toted; hot in home meals. It was the custom of miners’ wives in Mineral Point to stand in their doorways at mealtime and shake a white cloth to call the men home to eat. This part of the town, now being restored, is still called Shake-Rag-under-the-Hill. When the men ate at the lead mines, their wives wrapped freshly baked pasties in their shawls and carried them to their husbands.