Perhaps because they were so practical, pasties were quickly adopted by ethnic groups of the mining region who all left their unique stamp on the food. At the turn of the 20th century, many languages were spoken in Michigan’s Copper Country including Greek, Arabic, Polish, Finnish, Yiddish, French, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Slovenian, Croatian, Italian, Welsh and English in Cornish, Scottish and Irish accents. America’s Melting PotĪfter the first wave of Cornish miners, unskilled laborers would come for decades from Europe. The beloved meat-and-potato pie is pronounced with a soft “a” – pasty – not the hard “eh” of the costume accessory used by Las Vegas showgirls.
The men have carbide lamps, which replaced oil wicks.
Pasties were probably in the lunch pails of these miners at the Ahmeek, Michigan, mine in the 1940s.
