The Cornish pasty — a crimped pastry stuffed with meat and vegetables — is not just a food in Grass Valley, it is a cultural artefact. Cornish miners brought it to California in the mid-19th century as a practical working lunch: the thick crust served as a handle that could be discarded if hands were contaminated with arsenic from the ore.
Marshall's Pasties on Richardson Street carries that tradition forward and is widely regarded as the best place in town to try the original. The pasties here are made with proper shortcrust pastry and filled with combinations of beef, rutabaga, potato, and onion. Order the traditional and save the contemporary variations for later.