Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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Say Yah To Da U.P., Eh! [Discovering Pastys)

Posted Oct 9, 2008 by Jeff Houck

Updated Oct 9, 2008 at 02:05 PM

I was lost. Not horribly lost, but lost nonetheless. Instead of heading west toward Lutz on State Road 54, I drove my truck east toward Zephyrhills. Gotta love my GPS.

Anyway, I turned around and headed back in the correct direction for a few minutes when I saw a strip mall on the right. One of the stores had a sign in the window that read “MICHIGAN PIES.”

Michigan? I don’t stop. Pies? I do.

Another U-turn.

Yes, the window said Michigan Pies. The entire sign said “Famous Michigan Pasty Pies.” Above that was the name of the restaurant: Ye Olde Miners Pasty Shop.

A miners pastry shop out there in the middle of nowhere. This ought to be good, I thought.

I went inside and met owner Allan Gower, who has operated the eatery with his wife, Cassie, since January. He politely and patiently schooled me on what a pasty is. (I’m such a noob when it comes to regional cuisine.)

Turns out that in the 1800s, Cornish immigrants brought their cuisine to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Working as iron miners, the men would head to work every day with meat pies for lunch made by their wives. (They’d warm the pastries in the ventilation shafts.) Each pastry had a crusty handle on it so that they could hold and eat it without getting iron in their food.

Gower, a former manager with the Outback Steakhouse chain, sells thee varieties of the baked pasty for $4.99:

* Da Yooper (filled with meat, potato, onion and rutabaga);

* Da Troll (chicken, potato, onion, rutabaga, mushroom, asparagus);

* And, on Fridays, there’s Da Veggie (potato, onion, rutabaga, carrots, corn, black beans, mushrooms).

The taste is not unlike the potpies I grew up eating as a kid. Lots of veggies, flaky pastry, warm, delicious and filling. The hearty gravy Gower serves with it is perfect for dipping.

And to think I had never heard of a pasty, much less known that it had an anatomy.

Gower says response to their shop has been strong, especially among the Upper Michigan snowbirds (known as Yoopers because they hail from the Upper Peninsula), he says. Business has been slow during the summer, but Gower expects it to pick up again when they return.

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In case you get lost, the shop is at 35201 S.R. 54 and is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday.