I’m sorry I haven’t blogged as much lately. I’ve been working on a few freelance stories, one of which has taken me to Pachuca, an industrial town about one-and-a-half hours from Mexico City.
In the 19th century, Cornish miners came here to work the silver mines. They brought the savory beef pies known as pasties with them. (Not the other pasties, ahem.)
Pasties are everywhere here. Except they spell them “pastes.” There are even pastie chains, including Pastes Kiko’s, where I grabbed a quick, crispy mess of a pastie yesterday, filled with chicken in green mole sauce. I left with crumbs all over my lap. They also had pasties filled with rice pudding there.
Last night I went to Restaurante Mina La Blanca, a place near my hotel, and the waitress brought a plate of pasties to the table. She looked at me like I was a complete idiot when I asked, “What are these?”
I dug into the red mole version — that’s the half-eaten one above. It tasted like an empanada, but with a crisper, buttery crust. And it didn’t shatter or fall apart like the one at Kiko’s. I don’t even want to think about the amount of butter in that thing.
Might try to make pasties at home someday. Maybe I could find some Cornish mining songs to play while I work. Or the theme song from Pastes Kiko’s.