Some years back, shortly after circumstances (a modern practice euphemistically labelled “downsizing”) forced me to take early retirement, I worked at a few odd jobs to keep boredom at bay and bring in a few extra dollars. One such endeavour was as a background player – an “extra” – in movies and television programmes. This is the classic example of an old phrase, “Hurry up and wait”. You do a lot of sitting around while the technical people fiddle with the set, the equipment and the lights as the principal actors rehearse their lines in their private trailers. Then you get called to the set to shoot a scene, and after a spell of that, you go back to “holding” to wait some more while they re-arrange the set for another shot.

In all this waiting, the crew and cast have to be fed. There is usually a snack table with ingredients for rudimentary sandwiches, as well as urns with coffee and tea and coolers with water and soft drinks. Periodically, the caterers come around with picnic coolers containing a warm snack. In Toronto at least, the coolers usually contain either hot dogs or patties, the latter being the hands-down favourites. In today’s politically conscious world, the patties come in two varieties – beef or vegetable. I always sneered at the veggie variety, remarking, often to knowing nods from others, “That’s not a patty!”

It is remarkable how foods travel with migrants and how quickly and firmly they can entrench themselves in new surroundings. When I first moved to Toronto 40-odd years ago, there were a few small establishments in the city that sold “Jamaican patties”. That is how they were known in the early days, but not many years afterwards a sign jumped out at me from the cafeteria in my own place of work, advertising “Patty and Pop, $1.50”. The snack was self-explanatory – the folks who ran the cafeteria didn’t feel it necessary to explain the origin of the patty.

Now, the patty is ubiquitous across Canada’s biggest city, as well as in other centres with significant clusters of Jamaican immigrants. All the supermarket chains carry frozen patties with a variety of fillings – beef, chicken, lobster and vegetable. And with a large influx of Muslims from South Asia and the Middle East, you can find patty cartons proudly proclaiming themselves as “Halal” – made according to strict Islamic food rules.

On Thursday of last week, a Jamaican group in Toronto organised a celebration of the humble meat pie at a bookstore known as A different Book List, which specialises in books about black and Caribbean subjects. There was a significance to the date – February 23. It was on that day in 1985 that what became known in some quarters as the Patty War was settled.

Earlier that month, federal food inspectors gave notice to patty vendors in the city that they had to stop using the traditional name for the popular item they sold. As the inspectors saw it, a “patty” comprised only meat, seasonings and flavour enhancers. No flour, bread crumbs, oats or whatever else patty makers used to fluff up their concoctions. They told the vendors they had to remove all references to “beef patty” from their advertising, bags and packaging.

The patty manufacturers weren’t amused, and many public figures – including some local politicians – joined in crying down the bureaucrats’ attitude. The local press had a field day and the Jamaican consulate was inundated with irate calls. There were threats of lawsuits in the air and so a summit was arranged to thrash out this tempest in a patty pan. After considerable negotiation, the tunnel-visioned bureaucrats backed off and the vendors could continue as before, as long as they didn’t describe the savoury pies merely as “beef patties”. To celebrate, one of the big patty makers, Michael Davidson of Kensington Patty Palace, held a bash on February 23, offering celebrants a patty and a ginger beer for a dollar. As you can imagine, meat inspectors were not welcome.

Now, more than a quarter-century later, the patty is firmly entrenched and nobody confuses it with the frozen meat pucks sold in boxes to be cooked on the barbecue and served on a hamburger bun. Davidson moved his establishment from its cramped surroundings downtown to a spacious campus in the suburbs. It’s now a multi-million dollar automated operation which churns out thousands of patties a day under its own label as well as under house brands for big store chains.

It appears that almost every nationality has a form of patty – a pastry shell containing some combination of meat and vegetables. The English have their Cornish pasty, which some people suggest may have been the origin of the Jamaican patty. Somewhat fatter than the Jamaican concoction, it usually consists of chopped-up steak combined with potatoes and seasonings. The Hispanic countries have their empanada, which much more closely resembles the Jamaican patty, but again extremely mild in taste. South Asians have the samosa, made of two triangles of pastry stuffed with meat or vegetables and usually deep-fried, but sometimes baked.

What is common to all these pies is that they are compact and easy to eat. Cornish miners favoured the pasty because they didn’t have to have elaborate storage or utensils to have their lunch. As a schoolboy, my lunch often consisted of a hot patty squeezed between the folds of a coco bread eaten out of a paper bag and washed down with a glass of juice, soft drink or milk. The samosas of my acquaintance are small items held between the fingers and consumed in a couple of bites.

I made my first acquaintance with the empanada 30 years ago while covering the Falklands/Malvinas war in Buenos Aires. I went into a small establishment in a suburb of the city and saw the familiar semi-circular yellow pastry in a glass case. I ordered one and tucked into it, only to find a pleasant, but extremely mild filling. A request for salsa picante (hot sauce) produced only a sauce strong on onion and garlic, but without the tang of the Scotch bonnet or even a chipotle or tabasco. It wasn’t a patty, but was still a pleasant experience.

People of my generation grew up with the patties of a famous establishment in Cross Roads known as Bruce’s. Another place which at the time was known for excellent patties was the old Kincaid’s Drug Store on King Street in Kingston. It had an old-fashioned soda fountain with a marble counter and made an excellent malted milkshake to go with the patty.

Perhaps the best patty of my youth came from an establishment in Spanish Town, right next door to the old penitentiary. At the time we lived in Trelawny, and on his regular visits to Kingston my father always made a point of stopping by the little bakery to pick up a dozen or so. What made them memorable was not only the extremely savoury filling, but also the delicious crust. It was obviously lovingly made with lots of butter and carefully rolled out so that it crumbled into thin flakes which we made sure were caught in the brown-paper bags in which the patties were sold, to be carefully extracted and savoured after we had consumed the patty.

But today’s customers aren’t short-changed – Juici and some of its competitors are worthy successors to the patty-making tradition.

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca