REAL DEL MONTE (AP) – Isabel Arriaga Lozano carefully fills a small pastry with a savoury mix of meat, potatoes and chili pepper. She is crafting a “paste” (pronounced PAH-stay), a beloved Mexican snack with a rich history.
Originating in the mining town of Real del Monte, in the Mexican central state of Hidalgo, the “paste” was introduced by British miners in the 1820s and has since become a local culinary tradition. Each year, food enthusiasts converge on Real del Monte to celebrate the International Paste Festival, honouring its delicious heritage.
Pastes are popular across Mexico, with fillings ranging from spicy Mexican mole to sweeter concoctions like pineapple or blueberry with cheese. And although many are unaware of their surprising origin, a graveyard at the top of a cobbled hill holds the clue: around 700 graves sit covered in moss and lichen with distinctly English names. These are the graves of the hundreds of miners who traveled to Mexico in 1824 to work in Real del Monte, extracting silver, copper, zinc, gold and mercury.
The miners came from Cornwall, a region on the southwest of England which had a similar strong mining community in the 19th Century. They brought with them this iconic snack, known in England as a “Cornish pasty.”
Cornish pasties date from the 13th Century, when they were the food of nobility and the upper crust. By the 19th Century, they became popular with working class Cornish families.
A simple shortcrust pastry case was filled with cheap cuts of meat alongside potatoes, rutabaga and onion. The pastry was then crimped at the side, sealing the ingredients and giving the eater something to hold onto. The crimped side would serve as a sort of handle, meaning that the miners could hold onto their lunch without getting the rest of the pasty dirtied with mud and grime from working in the mines.
Arriaga said she has made pastes for 30 years. She married into a paste-making family and took over the business when her husband passed away. Pastes, she said, have become a crucial part of life in the “magical town” of Real del Monte. “I think around 50 per cent of us here make a living from this,” she said, highlighting a very special ingredient that goes into every snack. “It’s, above all, the love we put into every paste that makes it a good product.”
