Maggie's Farm

I grew up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula not far from where many of my relatives lived on the Keweenaw Peninsula (that big “arm” that juts out into Lake Superior) which is also known as the Copper Country. The Cornish were, predictably, a big part of the underground, hard rock copper mining and where the Cornish went there were pasties.

Pasties are baked pastries made by placing an uncooked filling, typically meat and vegetables, on one half of flat shortcrust circles, folding the crusts to wrap the filling in semicircles, and crimping the curved edges to form a seal before baking. Their name is pronounced with a short 'a' (pass-tee) rather than the common error of using a long 'a' (pay-stee) as in the stripper's accessory.

The Finnish wound up dominating the local population, though, and showed no shame in adopting the pasty as their own and I grew up thinking that pasties were a Finnish invention. My aunts and grandmothers made as many as 100 pasties each fall once it was cold enough to use a secured spot in a garage or barn to keep them frozen. My folks, who had moved to the “big city” (Marquette), bought a freezer when I was about 6 years old and its first load was my mother’s initial effort at mass pasty production. This meant that we didn’t have to eat them all before the thaw, but we usually did anyway!

Today, everywhere in the UP but especially from Copper Harbor to Escanaba along US Hwy 41 and then along the north shore of Lake Michigan on US Hwy 2 there are many restaurants and road houses with signs consisting of the single word, “Pasty,” typically in red letters on a white background.

Finally, the pasty is a big part of how I wound up in California's Nevada County, the heart of the 1849 gold rush. I’m an engineer and my first job after graduating from Michigan Tech was at a TV station. This led to knowledge of a company named Grass Valley Group to which I applied for employment. I flew out to interview and drove around Grass Valley and Nevada City the evening before. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the Cornish Cousins had been here for the gold minig and that their trademark meal was readily available! I got the job and knowing that there would be pasties made in much easier to leave the UP and move more than 2000 miles from my family.

"Toot" derives from most MTU students being engineers and engineers drive trains and trains go "Toot-toot." I never felt that "Toot" was derogatory. Maybe because I grew up with the term as my father and his brother both attended and several family members sometimes refered to them as "Toots."