“Ok, uhh, my mom’s family is French Canadian, and they have the recipe for “pasties” in their family. So, um, whenever the family gets together to get, to have a reunion…every year, everyone gets together in the kitchen and makes them and the recipe gets passed down between generations. Um, it’s like meat and cheese and potatoes all wrapped up in some sort of bread product, some kind of like bun thing that you bake. And then everybody eats it together, and it’s really delicious. Uh, my mom has five siblings, and…and so when…when everybody gets together, it’s like her five siblings and then all of the cousins and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles that are all together. Um, so there’s like three or four generations in the kitchen together. At the same time, and everybody makes it. And the older generation kind of talks about their parents and like where the recipe came from and that history. And they tell the younger generation about that. And then the younger generation, I guess, learns the recipe and learns the story and everything.”

According to my informant, ‘pasty’ is actually an English recipe, but was passed down through the French Canadian side of her family. She suspects it traces back to England through her family somehow, although she is unsure of the specifics. She also added that her great-grandparents were both bakers, which makes the recipe even more of a personal connection to her past. I find it interesting that so many generations would be in the kitchen at the same time because of one item of food. Another thing I noted was that the ingredients are all relatively inexpensive and easy to find nowadays. Pasty, which has Cornish origins, has been made as a hearty and affordable worker’s meal in the past. However, it also once served as fare for royalty, with more expensive cuts of meat inside the dough exterior.