Pasty

Cornish miner migrants helped to spread pasties into the rest of the world during the 19th century. As tin mining in Cornwall began to fail, miners brought their expertise and traditions to new mining regions around the world. As a result, pasties can be found in many regions, including:

* The slate belt mining region of eastern Pennsylvania, including the towns of Bangor, East Bangor, Pen Argyl and Wind Gap where many churches to this day hold "pastie suppers" or sell the items as a means of making money for their parishes.

* Parts of Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. In some of these areas, pasties are a significant tourist attraction, including an annual Pasty Fest in Calumet, Michigan in early July. Pasties in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have a particularly unusual history, as a small influx of Finnish immigrants followed the Cornish miners in 1864. These Finns (and many other ethnic groups) adopted the pasty for use in the Copper Country copper mines. About 30 years later, a much larger flood of Finnish immigrants found their countrymen baking pasties, and assumed that it was a Finnish invention. As a result, the pasty has become strongly associated with Finnish culture in this area.