Mmmmm!

October 18, 2004 5:33 PM

Pastiesare delicious! Smother them in ketchup, but be sure to use Heinz. Help the old folks in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and sample a complete meal in a tidy compact envelope of flaky pastry goodness. Don't forget to check out the beautiful pasty cam pictures.
posted by Shike (30 comments total)

Heh. Pasty.com is located in my hometown, and my first job was working for the local ISP that originally hosted it. And ironically, I hate pasties.
posted by aaronetc at 5:36 PM on October 18, 2004

Wow! I spent my summers in Jacobsville growing up. Never thought I'd see a genuine yooper on MeFi. My grandfather owned the old lighthouse at Portage River.
posted by Shike at 5:39 PM on October 18, 2004

Ya sure, you betcha! More pasty information here. I couldn't get enough of those as a kid. A bunch of us yoopers around, apparently.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 5:46 PM on October 18, 2004

Ketchup?! Screw that. Gravy! And lots of black pepper.
posted by lodurr at 5:49 PM on October 18, 2004

Then there are the NSFW kind of Pasties...
posted by wendell at 6:01 PM on October 18, 2004

Yeah, wendell. When I discovered a booth called "Grandma's Pasties" at the Wisconsin State Fair, I just about lost it.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:20 PM on October 18, 2004

Wow. I never knew pasties had crossed the Atlantic. When folk over here think of pasties, they think of one place.
posted by kersplunk at 6:31 PM on October 18, 2004

Nothing beats a cornish pasty.
posted by shoepal at 6:35 PM on October 18, 2004

That's funny, you don't look Cornish...

/old, old joke
posted by wendell at 6:48 PM on October 18, 2004

"Back in the day" before American fast food companies really took over (in the early 80s where I grew up) about the only fast food you could get were pies or pasties.

The ones here contained diced carrot. *shudders*

It wasn't an uncommon question to ask, "Are you a pie or pastie man?"

And yes, we spelt 'em "pastie" not "pasty".
posted by uncanny hengeman at 7:13 PM on October 18, 2004

Note, also, that strippers wear paste-ees, and in the UP, you eat pass-tees.

This is important.
posted by eriko at 7:37 PM on October 18, 2004

I guess I'm the only one who refers to the cotton mouth sensation after smoking a joint as "the pasties". This link scared me as I wondered aloud "WHAT DOES KETCHUP HAVE TO DO WITH IT!?"

Lesson learned, read more carefully.
posted by Dark Messiah at 8:17 PM on October 18, 2004

Yoopers and better Michiganders than myself: if one is stuck in the LP, somewhere in the wilds between Detroit and Ann Arbor, where might one find a somewhat authentic pasty?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 8:17 PM on October 18, 2004

eriko, I also love that it is pass-ta not pahstah.
posted by shoepal at 8:32 PM on October 18, 2004

heh. when i'm asked what languages i speak, i tell people i'm bilingual - english and yooper. my mom's side of the family is yooper, dad's a troll (from "under" [south of] the bridge, for those of you not from the great lakes state). 4th of july, every year i can make it, is at grandpa's lot in paradise, on the shores of lake superior.

and while you're browsing the glorious websites (and foods) of the UP, don't neglect trenary toast! it's the yooper biscotti!
posted by caution live frogs at 8:44 PM on October 18, 2004

PST: I know you can get pretty good, if not very spicy, pastys in Interlochen -- about 10 miles S-SW of Traverse City. Can't remember the name of the place, but it's a little bakery about 3/4 mile north of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. On the left as you head south. They also have fantastic cherry pies. And I don't really like cherry pies.

Outside of that, I'm told by my sis-in-law (who teaches at Interlochen in the summer) that they're perilously hard to come by.
posted by lodurr at 9:05 PM on October 18, 2004

PinkStainlessTail, if you're ever around Flint, you can get a pretty damned good one at King Arthur's (map). They've been making them for years and are pretty damned easy to come by.
posted by Dean_Paxton at 9:57 PM on October 18, 2004

Wow, lots of fellow Yooopers on MeFi! I really want a pastie now! There's a little shop just outside of St. Ignace on US 2 that has decent pasties. Can't remember the name of the place, but it's obvious as you drive west out of St. Ignace. Otherwise, Lawry's Pasties in Marquette are the best I've ever had.
posted by mrbarrett.com at 10:03 PM on October 18, 2004

Wow! I grew up eating pasties - there were two pasty joints on either side of my elementary school, and we got to go over there for lunch if our parents gave us lunch money.

This was in California, too: lots of Cornish miners came over during the Gold Rush, and the pasty was one of the things to stick in the Gold Country.

King Richard's, Cousin Jack's, Marshall's... hell yeah!

Thanks, Shike, now I'm all hungry, and googling for "Berkeley pasties" yields nothing but strip club etiquette links. =o)
posted by Coda at 10:41 PM on October 18, 2004

Rydhsys rag Kernow lemmyn!
posted by ed\26h at 1:20 AM on October 19, 2004

When buying lunch the other day in town, I wandered into the bakery/sandwich shop and saw, to my utter delight, a Balti Pastie! Get IN!!
posted by metaxa at 2:26 AM on October 19, 2004

Oh, and incidentally, tomato ketchup on a cornish pastie sounds horrid. Tomato ketchup belongs in one place, and one place only - on top of a hot dog.
posted by metaxa at 2:27 AM on October 19, 2004

Tomato ketchup belongs in one place, and one place only - on top of a hot dog.

A small word of advice. Don't visit Chicago and say such heretical things.
posted by eriko at 6:30 AM on October 19, 2004

I'm blanking on the name of it, but I believe there's a golf course restaurant in Royal Oak run by a pair of brothers from Hancock that serves pasties (they also have Hancock and Houghton burgers). Also, a second for Lawry's -- a friend of the family who grew up in the UP but now lives in Green Bay stops at Lawry's whenever she's up that way and brings a dozen pasties home.

And a quick plug for Tony's in Laurium (assuming they're still in business) -- when I was in high school, we sold Tony's pasties door to door to raise money for band, and they always sold like crazy.
posted by aaronetc at 7:27 AM on October 19, 2004

A Balti Pastie! Get IN!!

Heh, I must admit to letting out a similar exclamation when I first saw one of those for sale.
posted by ed\26h at 8:04 AM on October 19, 2004

I've been informed that Tony's is where we get the pasties for this large gathering in the UP I've been attending, so, as of late July, Tony's is still a going concern.

Tasty Pasties, to boot. Pronuciation is left as an excercise to the reader.
posted by eriko at 9:21 AM on October 19, 2004

Whoa. If you click on the Bridge Cam link at the bottom of the page, you can see a great picture of a bridge my grandfather designed years ago! An unexpected bonus from an already fun link!
posted by sarcasticah at 9:28 AM on October 19, 2004

MetaFilter: A bunch of us Yoopers around, apparently
posted by aaronetc at 10:06 AM on October 19, 2004

Then there are the NSFW kind of Pasties...

Yummy and potentially vegetarian (but notsafe/work.)
posted by Shane at 11:47 AM on October 19, 2004

Mmmm...the place I miss.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:28 PM on October 19, 2004