In the Kitchen

#52ancestors

Our family has many recipes that have been handed down through at least 4 generations, but the first one that comes to mind is pasties. My first memories of pasties was watching my Grandma, Laura Crawford, making them in my mom’s kitchen. Cornish pasties are basically a meat pie, or as my son-in-law says, the first hot pocket. Miners would carry them into the mine and eat them like a sandwich. Our pasties have a tough pie crust folded over meat, onions, and potato, then baked and served with chili sauce. Learning to make pasties was a bit more of a challenge… grandma didn’t really measure, but said things like “mix the shortening and flour until it feels right…” After some struggles, I could make them proficiently by the time I was 20. Every time I was with grandma, we tried to make them hoping I would get it down.

There were 10 first cousins in my generation, and as adults we lived in CA, SD, ND, CO, IA, and TX. We were gathered at a reunion and discovered we all made ‘Grandma’s Pasties’, but our recipes were different! It turns out that grandma modified the recipe at her convenience or changed it depending on the price of various cuts of meat. The fun part was discovering we all made pasties at home.

In my home we make pasties for Christmas dinner. It is a tradition that started about 22 years ago when our daughter came home from college. Like Grandma, we have learned to modify and adapt. I like my pasty with the traditional beef, potatoes and onions. My husband likes his pasty with venison, potatoes, jalapeños and carrots. Now I enjoy sharing pasties with my grandchildren. Hopefully we will start making them together so at least a few will master the crust and assembly and share it with the next generation.