My father, the son of two Finnish parents, grew up in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan in a town called Calumet, in an area affectionately called “Copper Country” for all its mines. If you live there, you’re called a Yooper, and if you’re a Yooper, you’ve assuredly eaten a Cornish pasty: oven-warmed wrapped piecrusts encasing beef, onion, potato and rutabaga (think: a peasant calzone without the cheese).

My family would take month-long trips to our little log cabin off Lake Superior, and for dinner we would eat either fresh fish we caught or pasties. A U.P. specialty, pasties were invented in Cornwall, a county in the UK rife with mines (indeed, mining in Cornwall started in the Bronze Age), much like the U.P., and the tradition migrated to the Yoopers because of their convenience.

“Miners could set the pasty down and pick it back up and it stayed warm because of the wrapped dough,” says Raymond Gould of the U.P.’s famous Lawry’s Pasty Shop, which sells hundreds a day. “Pasties migrated over this way and became a U.P. thing because there’s a lot of Finns and Swedes over here working in the mines.” So perhaps it’s no surprise that pasty shops exist in Seattle: We have a big Nordic population (by 1910, Scandinavians were the largest ethnic group in Washington), and the weather is right for them.

I have many fond memories of big, hefty, crusty, hot pasties, so I wanted to search out the dish in Seattle to compare how they match up. My first stop was Twisted Pasty (2525 Fourth Ave. twistedpasty.com), a hop, skip, and a jump from the Space Needle. The ambience of the place, open for only about six months, is more upscale than the hole-in-the-wall spots in U.P. towns. But their miner pasty, the most traditional on the menu, is rich and fantastic. They use the standard recipe: potato, rutabaga, and onion with beef. While its crust isn’t as thick as those I remember from my youth (and my selfish side wishes they didn’t cut the dish in half), I am more than satisfied with Twisted Pasty’s version. It’s served with a rich red wine-and-beef gravy and a choice of soup, salad, or fries (note: Their house curry ketchup is amazing). I also tried the spinach-packed Greek veggie pasty, a good introduction to the dish for vegetarians.

Photo by Cassie Ulrich

“Our pasties,” says Twisted Pasty chef Mark McNutt, “have a lot of layers—I like to call them layers of love. Without these layers they don’t taste right. We slow-roast the beef and marinate it over eight hours. But the really important thing about a pasty is our dough; the traditional pasty has a thick and crunchy dough. When the owners here started the place, they wanted to go with something a little thinner and crisper.”

Kells Irish Restaurant & Pub

(1916 Post Alley, kellsirish.com) was next. Sitting at the dimly lit bar, I notice the handful of patrons are all drinking Guinness. I order the corned-beef pasty (with Swiss cheese and cabbage) and a cup of split-pea soup. While Kells is obviously an Irish establishment (and not, say, Finnish or Michigan-based), their pasty menu is plentiful. They offer four versions in addition to the corned beef: a seafood pasty with crab and shrimp; a beef pasty with mushrooms; a chicken pasty with a tarragon cream; and a vegetarian pasty with three cheeses, garden vegetables, and a mornay sauce.

I’m told by the hurried bartender that pasties are also traditional Irish dishes. Makes sense—in Ireland’s cold, blustery climate, any dish made hot that keeps hot is welcome. The day I walk into Kells, in fact, it’s so rainy and windy that a few of the porch umbrellas jump out from their resting places and blow over.

My corned-beef pasty is small—daintier than the giant ones from Michigan—cheesy, and made with puff pastry rather than a big pie crust. It’s very good, though, hearty and satisfying. But still different. “Traditionally,” says the bartender, dressed in a gray vest and bowtie, “the Irish ate their pasties with their hands.” Well, then!

The British Pantry in Redmond (8125 161st Ave. N.E., thebritishpantryltd.com) and the Hummingbird Saloon in Columbia City (5041 Rainier Ave. S.) also serve pasties. It seems that the cuisine I grew to love as a child in Michigan is in good hands here.

food@seattleweekly.com