The Pasty

[greynotsoold]

There are at least 3 shops here, in Butte, that sell only pastys (no "-ies" to avoid confusion), and just about every restaurant serves them at least one night a week. On those nights you have to call your order in during the morning. In the old mining days they had a saying that, if there was a pasty in your lunch box, your wife still loved you. On top of the Continental Divide, over looking Butte, is the 90 foot "Our Lady of the Rockies" statue. It was built by money accumulated at countless pasty sales. My aunt estimates that she herself made nearly 10,000 of them over the years.
My friend grew up in Minneapolis, and a guy moved there from Butte and opened a pasty shop, leaving my friend with a life-long addiction he has trouble feeding in Southern California. When I lived in Phoenix a pasty shop opened in Tempe, but, alas, they were "gourmet" and really not very good at all.

Thats really interesting Grey. I am assuming that originally the recipe came over with the Cornish Miners in the 19th century. You are right about gourmet pastys too. The simplicity is what makes them, Good quality beef steak or skirt, Potatoes onions and swede and pastry and your good to go. Your aunt sounds like a great cook and that is a great saying about the pasty in your lunch box.

If you ever come across a book entitled "Copper Camp" (a collection of stories about Butte published in 1943), it is very worth reading if only for the chapter on the pasty, how it is made, what ingredients are proper, and the divine nature of a truly gifted pasty-maker.