[Great Lakes Pirate]

Numero Uno: The Cozy Corner bar in South Range - but they sell out fast, so you have to call in ahead time to reserve your pasty.

Numero Dos: Mohawk Superette - a tiny store, almost like an old General Store, in Mohawk (north of Calumet). Also a limited quanity.

Numero Honorable Mentions:

Suomi Restaurant, downtown Houghton.

Chassell VFW.

Sheldon's Bakery (in Houghton)

Pat's Foods/Festival Foods (Calumet, Houghton, Hancock, Ontonagon.)

[darstar]

No doubt , the best of the best Pasties come from Marquette,westward and northward. The ones you get frozen , and from Troll Land , are not worth eating !.... But , then again , any port in a storm........I guess. Just one more reason to come to Gods Country, The western UP, where everything is better, . The place where being a blond just comes natural....

[merit1sje]

There's something about Michigan that everyone loves..... Isn' it great!

[darstar]

Originally Posted by jeeg

Sorry..... Marquette, Michigan. The north central U.P. on the Superior coast!

Guess I thought I was infamous enough that everyone knew where I live

Seriously, if you google Jean Kay's Pasties, you'll see where I like to get mine. They're made with real steak instead of the ground beef most imitators use (yuck!).
(the site has pictures of them too!)

Never had a Pastie made with anything but steak , Ground Beef ? no-no !
I would have to say , like anything else , the first time is always the best. I remember 30 years ago , those Pasties we devoured while hiking in the Keweenaw ....

[thimbleberry]

Try Toni's in Laurium, the kaleva in hancock, The Suomi Restaurant in houghton and if you can believe this the memorial union at MTU in Houghton serves a good pasty. It is unbelievable how pasties differ from cook to cook even though the ingredients are basically the same. Soem people then use ketchup, or gravy, or butter to enhance the flavor. I watched a show on the travel channel which featured pasties being made in Cornwall, England. I think they cam from England but were then adopted by the Finns who added carrots to the mix of meat, potatoes, rutabaga, and onions. The carrots give the pasties a little sweeter taste. All visiotrs to the UP should try one; but remember, they vary so much in taste from restaurant to restaurant. If you don't like one at one place, try another. They do grow on you and make a pretty hearty meal. If you make it to the Kaleva in Hancock, try their breakfasts and ask for home bread toast and also check out the bakery.............yummy and cheap.

[MICoastieMom]

Pasties originated in either Devon or Cornwall, in Southwestern England. It was a way to provide a hot meal to the tin miners who often could not return to the surface for their noon meal. They were made in such a way that they woud stay warm for eight to 10 hours. Originally, they wrapped in a cloth and carried inside the clothing, next to the body to keep the miner warm. Since they could not wash up before their meal, the miners could hold onto the thick crimped part of the pasty as a handle and eat the rest without touching it. The remaining part was then discarded to appease the "knockers", the spirits who lived in the mines and might lead the miners into danger.

A traditional pasty is made from beef, potato, onion, and rutabaga (called a yellow turnip in Conwall). I believe this may be the origin of the expression "meat and potatoes," as pasty bakers would make custom pasties during the height of the tin mining era. Some bakers even formed the miner's initials from extra dough and attached to the crust. This was done where the mining company kept ovens warm in the mines; the miner could eat part of his pastie for breakfast and the rest at noon.

Rutabaga does get "sweet" when it is baked or roasted, carrots were considered a sign of an inferior qualitiy pasty. My guess is that it may have been because carrots' cell structure takes longer to break down when cooking so they may not have been completely cooked. Or it may have been that since originally the idea was to have the juices from the beef and the starch from the potatoes and rutabaga combine to make a gravy inside the pouch, maybe carrots, by their nature, didn't contribute much to the equation. And while carrots are a root vegetable, they do take more tending than either potatoes, onion, or rutabaga do.

At any rate, tin mining in Cornwall was pretty much played out by the 1860's so many came to the U.S., and a significant number landed in the U.P. to work the copper mines. There pasties were introduce to the Finns, and the rest, as they say, is history. Curiously, it is only in the U.P. that pasties are thought of as Finnish. Many Cornish also settled in Pennsylvania, and many churches there still hold pasty suppers for fund-raisers. Some Cornish miners migrated to work the silver mines in Hidalgo, Mexico and took pasties there. They also ended up in Australia, where there is a difference between a pasty and a meat pie.

Thinmbleberry, maybe you can help me. When I attended my brother's graduation from MTU many years ago, we ate breakfast one morning at a Finnish restaurant that was a block north of U.S. 41. And 41 was a two-way street then. I think there was one more block before the canal. I tried a dish called Pannukakku; loved it so much that I had to buy a Finnish cookbook.

The last time I was in Houghton/Hancock was about four or five years ago when my son was stationed at Dollar Bay. Unfortunately, I did not get to do much sight-seeing. The reason for my visit was to nurse him back to health, he had been injured in an accident so we spent most of our time at the hospital or doctor's offices. The only time I went to Houghton was to drive over to attend services at Trinity Church. The roads were so different from what I remembered that I was unable to get my bearings to see if the restaurant even existed any more. Even tried to start from the old Douglas Hotel, but everything just looked unfamilar, and of course, I was distracted by other things.

Any idea if that restaurant is still around? Everyone really enjoyed the food.

[crazyme4878]

The thing about our family recipe is that is make ALOT! My husband and I keep saying we should make some and freeze a bunch. My husband swears by the pasty shop in Ironwood, but I forgot the name already. Their original store is downtown, but now they have opened one on the highway. The last time we went there was right before we moved out of state and they were closed for vacation or emergency!

[crazyme4878]

Originally Posted by jeeg

Simply google "Yooper pasty" and the first site that pops up will be a bunch of native recipes I've never tried them because we are oddballs and rarely eat anything with meat (call ourselves quasi-vegetarians) so the rare times we do, we're happy to buy them prepared for us!

(as mentioned above..... the truly good ones are made with some form of steak, NOT ground beef <yuck> )

We are vegetarians. I don't think I have ever had a "true" pasty, but I could have in my childhood and not remember. My grandmother was a yooper and now I have married one. I'm sure you have tried them, but I remember both Jean Kays and Lawrys as having pretty good veggie ones. JKs puts a dollop of goat cheese in theirs. I definetly like the veggie pasties in Ironwood (Joe's? I think that is it) the best.