
Looking for a wonderful, easy way to serve a hearty winter meal? If you love the Deli’s Pot Pies and are curious about other amazing options, the Bakehouse’s Cornish Pasties could be just the ticket!
A bite of pasty history
A classic in the English region of Cornwall for centuries, pasties became a staple in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula thanks to Cornish immigrants who arrived in the area in the 1830s. This was around the same time the house and barn at Cornman Farms were being built. Many of these Cornishmen found work in the mines, just as they had done in their home region. Food writer William Grimes says, “As a symbol, the pasty is to Cornwall what the shamrock is to Ireland, or the thistle is to Scotland. It is sold in every bakery. It features on countless postcards.”
Pasties also have loyal adherents anywhere that Cornish immigrants have settled around the world. They’re particularly prominent around the California town of Grass Valley, where Cornish immigrants started coming in the years before the Civil War. Gage McKinney, a California historian of Cornish ancestry says, “You bite into a pasty, it connects you with all this legacy, which is only vague in your mind, but becomes visceral in your mouth.” Pasties, it seems, are also quite popular in the Wisconsin town of Mineral Point—home to Hook’s 7-year cheddar, a staple at the Roadhouse—and in the region of Real del Monte, Mexico.
Pasties got their start, so the story goes, from a time when tin miners took them down into the mines. The pastry wrapped around meat and vegetables made them a very practical way to eat lunch when you were stuck underground all day. Each pasty was pretty much the ultimate in convenience food. You could eat part of it in the morning and save the rest for later. You had meat and vegetables and “bread” all in one handheld meal.
Word has it that superstitions abound about pasties. Miners would throw part of the crust deep into the mines for the “imps” or “knockers” that lived there—little mystical creatures (the folkloric equivalent to fairies in Ireland) who could cause great havoc in the mines if they were not appeased with their favorite treat. And to this day, Cornish people consider it bad luck to bring a pasty aboard a boat!
Cornish Pasties at the Bakehouse
Here at the Bakehouse, we make two versions. The standard version is potatoes, rutabaga, and onion, with a little cheddar cheese to make it all the richer, packed into an all-butter pastry crust. For the beef version, all of the meat is from naturally-raised animals that don’t receive added growth hormones. The vegetables (onion and rutabaga) are all hand-chopped as well. Consistency of size is critical to ensure even cooking in its lovely lard-pastry crust. And just to be clear, all the ingredients always go into the pasty pastry uncooked. As one former Bakehouse staffer who spent time in the UK shared upon her return, “It would equate to a ‘mortal sin’ to do otherwise.”
Take note that we mark each Bakehouse pasty with a hand-cut “C” (for the vegetarian cheese pasty) or “Z” (on the meat version). This isn’t just a modern-day marketing maneuver—the tradition in the mines had much the same sort of thing going. In the old days, the miners would place the pasties on top of one of the ovens in the mine so they would stay warm until lunchtime. The only problem was figuring out which pasty belonged to each miner, as they all looked similar. Each miner would form their initial out of the raw dough and put it atop their particular pasty.
Pick up a pile of pasties from the Bakehouse’s freezer case whenever you’re over that way. Pull one out and pop it in the oven for about 55 minutes to bake whenever you’re thinking about what to make for dinner this winter! Wonderful aromas will be wafting through your whole kitchen and a great meal will await! Or swing by on Sunday or Monday. We bake some off at 11 am so you can have one for lunch!

Ari Weinzweig
In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.
Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.
Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Ari regularly travels across the country (and world) on behalf of ZingTrain, teaching organizations and businesses about Zingerman’s approach to business. He is a sought-after Keynote speaker, having delivered keynotes for Inc. 500, Microsoft Expo Spring Conference, Great Game of Business Gathering of Games, Positive Business Conference at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the American Cheese Society. Most recently, Ari and Paul Saginaw were invited to address an audience of 50,000 for the University of Michigan 2015 Spring Commencement.
One of Zingerman’s Guiding Principles is being an active part of the community and in 1988, Zingerman’s was instrumental in the founding of Food Gatherers, a food rescue program that delivers over 5 million pounds of food each year to the hungry residents of Washtenaw county. Every year Zingerman’s donates 10% of its previous years profits to local community organizations and non-profits. Ari has served on the board of The Ark, the longest continuously operating folk music venue in America.
Over the decades, the Zingerman’s founding partners have consistently been the recipients of public recognition from a variety of diverse organizations. In April 1995, Ari and Paul were awarded the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award. In 2006, Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the James Beard Foundation. In 2007, Ari and Paul were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit magazine for their work in the food industry. Ari was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Cheese Society in 2014. And Ari’s book, Building a Great Business was on Inc. magazine’s list of Best Books for Business Leaders.
Notwithstanding the awards, being engaged on a daily basis in the work of 10 businesses and 21 partners, writing books on business and in-depth articles on food for the Zingerman’s newsletter, Ari finds time to be a voracious reader. He acquires and reads more books than he can find room for. Ari might soon find himself the owner of the largest collection of Anarchist books in Ann Arbor outside the Labadie collection at the University of Michigan library!