Why a Savory English Pastry Is Beloved in a California Town

In a charming former mining town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, you can taste pieces of California history dating back nearly 175 years.

Their crusts are buttery and flaky, with steaming layers of meat and vegetables inside. These are pasties, crescent-shaped hand pies that originated as a lunch food for miners in Cornwall, England, and have become a mainstay in Grass Valley, 60 miles northeast of Sacramento.

The pasty — pronounced “pass-tee,” rhyming with “nasty” — arrived in California with Cornish workers who began emigrating to the gold fields in the 1850s to toil in the rich mines near Grass Valley, like the Empire mine. By the end of the century, three-quarters of Grass Valley residents were of Cornish descent.

Grass Valley, which is home to roughly 14,000 people, hosts an annual festival for St. Piran, the patron saint of Cornwall, and celebrates Christmas with Cornish carols and folk tunes written long ago by homesick miners. And, of course, the town still cherishes and serves up the pasty.