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A cornish dish stands out in a town of Irish

Posted: Feb 20, 2013 5:12 PM by Katy Harris KXLF News

BUTTE-As we near St. Patty's day it will be all about the Irish, but there is one Cornish dish that has been around for decades and continues to survive in Butte, the pasty.

"The original idea was for the miners in Cornwall and various parts of Great Britain to take them for lunch when they were working in the mines under ground and it came over to this country when the miners came over here," says Joe's Pasty Shop owner Tom Laity.

To start a pasty you have to have dough, and like I should've known, there is a secret recipe that Laity can't tell me.

Laity says,"We don't want to talk about that...well the Pasty Shop secret. The family-the Joe that started this, started it when his kids were coming back from World War II."

A large bowl full of the mix, "will make a couple dozen pasties. It's meat, potatoes, onions, seasoning, salt and pepper," adds Laity.

The pasty dough is sliced into pieces then flattened out.

Laity says, "For each individual pasty, use this to measure the filling and fill the pasty. Fold it over, crimp it and then we'll bake it."

The original pasties in Cornwall, England kind of had a handle so that the miners in England could lift up the pasty.
Laity says that extra crust was a way for miners to not have to touch the main part of the pasty with their dirty hands.
Today that extra crust is cut off from the pasty.

One of the last things to do is dab cream or milk on top of the pasties before baking for an hour.

Laity says making pasty's is like making a little piece of history every morning.
"It's still basically the same thing. We've had people tell us that it's the same thing they had when they were here as little kids and we've had people come in from England and Cornwall and different places and say that they think they were home because it tastes very close to what they would get over there," he says.

Laity and his wife have been operating Joe's Pasty Shop for almost 20 years.