Eating like a local: Regional food specialties--The U.P and the pastie.
Over the summer I took a road trip and did the Lake Michigan Circle Tour (for entire trip report, click the link) The drive took us around the entire lake and up into the U.P where we stayed a few days in Marquette, MI located on the shores of Lake Superior. First of all, for any of you that like to get in the ride and just drive, during summer this is a dope ass trip. Its best done in the dead heat of summer. We were always a short drive from a great lake, which I believe to be some the best beaches in the country during summer. You cant beat the fresh water. Just like every other region of our country there is a popular food that all the locals eat and is hard to find outside the area. Most people grow up taking the local specialties of where they are from for granted. Its not til you move away that you realize your beloved dish inst available everywhere.
Up there in the U.P that dish is the pastie Pronounced: pass-ty. Everywhere you go there is a local pastie joint and every place sells them from the gas stations to the bar. I first heard of and ate a pastie at a place called "Myle's Teddy Wedger's" up in Madison, WI. Before then I thought they were what the strippers wear at garbage strip joints. I liked this type of pastie, they were great eats during the cold months in Wisconsin. The best way to describe a pastie is "almost like a beef stew wrapped in a doughy crust". Although the pastie comes with many different fillings, including chicken, breakfast's like bacon, eggs, cheese and hash browns and ones with all veggies, the beef with potato, onions and maybe carrots is the original and to this day the most popular. If you live in or are from the U.P, you love pasties and you have a favorite spot to get them. Pasties come with all sorts of different fillings and were brought to the UP by the cornish miners who would bring them into the mines for lunch, they stayed warm and filled the miners with fuel for work. To this day they are popular up there and make a great early morning eat for anybody that needs a little boost for snowmobiling, skiiing and hiking...they are loaded with calories.
Pasties are as common in the U.P as hot dog stands are in Chicago.
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