For the Michiganders...

[Emerald]

Suet. Beef suet makes the OG pasty crust. They needed something that held up well. Lard is respectable if suet is unavailable, though. Our friend makes pasties with an all butter crust, and while delicious, they would not have survived a trip tied up in a tin pail and reheating on a shovel blade.

SUET!! that is what I was thinking of last night and such a brain cramp last night I couldn't remember it!!

 

[Blue Egg Jo]

My fiance was born in Iron Mountain and I didn't know what a pasty was until I met him. Then I said, "Don't you mean paste-y?" He got a kick out of that one. But I tasted one when he took me up there and I LOVE IT. Then I ate one from Toni's Country Kitchen in Calumet or Laurium, whichever town it was in, and I would cross this whole country for that pasty. Maybe not, but that's how good it is. And it has rutabaga.. I still have a lot of other pasty places to traverse to until I know *for sure* which one is "the best." And I can't find any beef suet around here, so I made it once with veggie shortening and it was good...but I might have to try it with pork lard.