Years ago, I encountered a profound societal problem, and I’m here to educate you on it today. I don’t want to have to be the one to tell you about it. But I guess thems the ropes when it comes to the life of a baker.
I am a baker, but that’s not the problem. Oh no, the real problem runs much deeper than that, my friends. Much deeper.
The dilemma I am facing is due to the fact that I married an English man. I’m Canadian, and if only I had the forethought to marry a fellow Canuck, this issue would have never hammered down upon me. I would never have had to feel the deep sting of public humiliation. I would have been in the clear.
Alas, that is not the case.
Of course, the lingo barrier of marrying someone from across the pond has caused a few problems in our ten years of marriage. That, I will not deny. When he asked me once to pop the bonnet of the car, I looked at the guy like he was a crazy person.
Once when the kids required rubber boots, my husband texted me on my way home from work, asking if I could stop by the shop and pick them up a few pairs of wellies, and it took a good ten minutes of awkward back and forth to understand what the hell he was asking.
But never in our ten years of marriage have I had to adhere to the humiliation I did when the subject of pasties came up.
My husband is a chef, so we eat very well. One of his favourite things to make is a convenient freezable pastry called a pasty (rhymes with nasty, except it’s anything but). It’s a folded pie — sweet or savoury — that can fit into the palm of your hand and is delicious to dig into on those cold and stormy evenings at home.
These tasty treats were not something I had ever tried before marrying my darling Englishman, so I did not know the Canadian term and took on the name my husband used for them.
Then, we opened a business and put pasties on the menu. I should also mention that the company we opened was not in his homeland but mine — Alberta, Canada, arguably the prairiest of all the prairie provinces. Within minutes of advertising such a name, we had many a big burly man saunter into our bakery, asking if I would model the pasties on offer.
Confused, I said, “Well, they’re held hot, so that might be a little uncomfortable, don’t you think?” And the sparkle in their eyes — despicable!
Things went on for a whole week like this. Me blathering on about our fresh and tasty pasties, customers asking if they were edible and me, indignantly saying, of course, they are!
Most of the time, these patrons would leave in a huff. I was confused as to why we were offending so many customers as of late.
Then it happened, a kindly younger man was sitting at one of the tables and happened to glance over at me as I wrote the new pasty special on the specials board. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “do you know what pasties mean?”
“Uh, yes, of course I do. It’s like a homemade pizza pop,” I explained, speaking to the man like he was a raccoon. After all, who wouldn’t know what a pasty is?
“No. It’s the nipple tassels that strippers wear.” His face was deadpan, and he stared at me with the eyes of a man who had just revealed the most significant secret in all the lands.
The silence was long and palpable for some time as I thought about all the disparaging moments I’d had with customers over the past week. It was becoming abundantly clear that we had made a terrible mistake.
I thought of the funny look the radio producers gave me when I told them what I wanted our ads to say. “Use the word pasty at least 7 seven times in the 30-second ad to ensure people know what we’re selling,” I had communicated with authority.
I recalled the strange comments and stripper GIFs that kept popping up on our Facebook-sponsored ads. All the meaningful glares from older women and the opposite kinds of looks from the anticipatory single people.
“The term you’re looking for is hand pies, I think,” The young man said.
I surreptitiously picked up my phone to Google this newfound information. As predicted, it was all true. Hand pies are the proper North American term. Pasties (the hand pie variety) are what they call them in the UK.
I have yet to learn what UK citizens call stripper nipple tassels.
We call them pasties here in michigan too.. lol