An IRPS pasty—unique in its crust, seasoning, and all local ingredients! And oh sooooo good.
The all-locally sourced pasty returns this October for the fourth annual Iron Range Pasty Festival! The pasty is a staple of Iron Range cuisine, having come originally from the tin mines in Cornwall, England via Michigan’s copper mines and then to the iron mines starting up in northern Minnesota. The pasty tells an immigration story: when Cornish miners migrated to Michigan’s upper peninsula in the 1840’s to help open copper mines, they brought their lunchbox staple with them. When Minnesota mines recruited experienced miners from Michigan to open the iron mines in the 1880’s, the pasty came with them. Historical records show that pasties were present in 13th-century England, but mostly consisted of cuts of meat wrapped in pastry dough. The Cornish pasty had to be more nutritious—fueling the hard-working miners for the rest of a long day after lunch. They contained potatoes, rutabagas, and onions as well. Some say that the Finns here were the first to add rutabagas, and others claim that the Finns often substituted carrots for the rutabagas. Whatever the case, all the ingredients could be produced locally, right on the Iron Range. Today, pasties tend to be sold “with” or “without” rutabagas. And traditionalists claim that a real pasty must have rutabaga. I’m in that camp.
The story about pasties in the Cornwall mines includes the notion that pasties allowed miners to eat them without washing their hands (a tough feat underground). They held the braided crust and then threw that away. In my opinion, the braided crust is the best part! The story also refers to the Cornish pasty as the Cornishman’s harmonica or mouth harp. Whatever it was called and however it was consumed, everyone agreed that it kept well in a lunch box and packed a wallop of warm nutritious ingredients for hard-working miners. When served in the home, pasties were topped with ketchup or gravy, or, in some cases, cut in half and buttered so that the butter melted into the meat and veggies. There are, of course, still diehards in the ketchup vs gravy vs butter camps.
Pasty makers today have improvised gluten-free and vegetarian pasties as well as breakfast pasties with eggs and sausage, chicken and wild rice pasties, scotch egg pasties and many, many more. There are even dessert pasties: pumpkin pasties, berry pasties, apple pasties…. you can bake pretty much anything into a crust, I guess. In whatever form you eat a pasty, it seems to represent regional comfort food. And on the Iron Range, the traditional pasty honors the history of iron mining and the hardworking folks of the Range.
Last year, board members and friends of the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability made over twelve hundred pasties! But we don’t have the peoplepower to do that volume this year, so we’re planning to make 500. Two hundred forty are being sold as part of a meal with slaw and a beverage at the festival with three seating times available: 4pm, 5pm, and 6pm. Messiah Lutheran Church fellowship hall will welcome ticketholders with the awesome smell of baking pasties. And the remaining two hundred sixty are being sold frozen with a limit of five pasties per order. Advance tickets are required and are on sale at www.tinyurl.com/orderpasty or by calling 218-969-6872. The festival will include entertainment by MorningBird, one of the Iron Range Original Music Association’s bands. There will be a DIY photo booth, free electronics recycling, a plastics informational activity, and, weather permitting, rutabaga bowling for the kids and a DIY Mrs. Rutabaga Head activity and contest. It's all happening at Messiah Lutheran Church, 8590 Enterprise Drive South in Mt. Iron on Sunday, October 9 from 4-7pm.
Rob Wheeler and Jill Burkes of MorningBird, entertaining during dinner at the Pasty Festival this year!
This year’s pasties are being made with local beef and pork from Willow Sedge Farm in Palisade, carrots, potatoes, onions and rutabagas from Elm Creek Farms in Orr and Skunk Creek Farm in Meadowlands. The fresh thyme that gives our pasties their superb taste is grown by the students at Mesabi East Environmental Learning Center in Aurora. The coleslaw is being made by GoFigur’s with cabbage from Ed Topping’s farm in Palo. And Kudrle Farms of Hibbing is making the ketchup. A pasty meal is $15 and frozen pasties are $10.
Last year’s Mrs. Rutabagahead!
Why go to all the trouble to source these ingredients locally? First, because buying local food supports our local economy. Every dollar we spend on the ingredients goes into the pocket of a farmer in Orr, Palo, Meadowlands, Hibbing, and Palisade. Second, it makes these pasties unique, and we think a pasty festival deserves unique pasties. And third, because this is the only fundraiser for the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability, and we want to use this fundraiser to illustrate our values—we believe in local! IRPS doesn’t have an office or a phone; we have only one very part time paid staff person, and we depend on this fundraiser to do the work that we carry out. You can support IRPS by buying a pasty and by becoming a sustaining partner. Learn more about us at www.irpsmn.org