The Truth About The Montana Tradition of The Pasty

Fall season is here, and I think of falling leaves, cold weather and comfort food. Soups, stews, hot sandwiches and a the Butte staple, the pasty.

It is something that my Butte native mother always had on the table especially during the colder months of the year and they always hit the spot.

Although the pasty isn't exclusively a fall dish, somehow it's just right for a cold, brisk evening dinner.

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What's the story on a pasty?

According to Distinctly Montana, the pasty holds it's origins all the way in Cornwall, England over one-hundred years ago. English miners heard of a new world full of precious metals that were waiting to be dug out of the ground.

They heard of places like Michigan, and New Mexico for mining copper, but it wasn't until Butte came into the picture as "the richest hill on earth" producing the most copper out of anywhere in the United States.

When the miners migrated to Montana, so did their tastes and food traditions.

What they brought with them is a tasty meat pouch called 'The Uncle Jack Pasty' that helped feed an army of hungry miners and later in history, many people in Butte and the rest of Montana. Fun fact according to Distinctly Montana, wives of miners would scribe the husband's initials into the crust before baking to earmark their own lunches.

Many legendary businesses in Montana like Nancy's, Wind's, and Joe's Pastry Shop still bring the best of what a pasty should taste like, and continue to keep tradition and history in Montana.