Before you think this is a story about restaurants that have converted to QR codes for menus (ugh), that's not what this is about. It may be the case that no self-respecting pasty shop in Michigan has or needs a menu.

Pasties are a regional food with Cornish origins that are exceedingly popular in Michigan's Upper Peninsula with a reach that extends well into Lower Michigan.

The thing is, at most pasty shops, the offerings are purposely pretty limited. The pasty, if you've never had one, can best be through of as a dry stew in a turnover pastry. Within the crush is a meat (generally beef) and vegetables like onion, carrot, rutabaga and potato.

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There very little customization or choice when it comes to the filling. Maybe beef or chicken. Maybe with our without rutabaga. But that's it. The choices are deliberately so limited there's little need for a menu at a pasty restaurant.

pasty
Photo by Scott Eckersley on Unsplash
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The concept became a jokey meme on a Facebook group dedicated to Michigan's Upper Peninsula depicting a conversation at a pasty shop with a patron asking for a menu and a simple one-word reply, "NO."

Commentors where quick to jump in and agree:

The menu might read…..
1. With
2. Without
Pretty much covers it.

In Philly, it might be wit whiz or witout to denote cheesesteak Cheez Whiz preference, in the world of pasties, it's with rutabaga or without.

The other question to answer is gravy or ketchup. Those are two, and only two - never mayonnaise, condiments that can be used garnish the pasty. And it's a fierce debate among gravy/ketchup partisans.

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