In Mexico, before tacos came Cornish pasties — and football

MEXICO CITY, July 3 : Ciro Peralto Urbano’s bakery is filled with all things soccer — and all things Cornish.

In the Mexican hilltop town of Mineral del Monte, Ciro has been serving traditional Cornish pasties — meat-filled pastries — since 1975, preserving a recipe brought here by English miners more than 200 years ago. In the corner of his shop, a television shows England’s 2-1 victory over DR Congo, the result that booked the Three Lions a place in the World Cup last 16 — and a return to Mexico on Sunday.

For Ciro, the connection runs far deeper than this week’s fixture. The English miners who arrived in these mountains in the 19th century did not just leave behind the Cornish pasty. They also brought organised football, helping sow the seeds of what would become Mexico’s national sport.

“The connection with football comes from the English,” Ciro said. “The football tradition should be preserved, together with the tradition of pasties.”

Cornish miners first arrived in Mexico in 1824, travelling inland to Mineral del Monte, also known as Real del Monte, where they brought both the pasty and football. As more English families settled in the mining town, the game took root.

“They brought football in an increasingly organised form,” said Wilfrido Soto Jarillo, a former chairman of a Cornish cultural heritage group. Amateur matches were played in the yard of the Dolores mine, he said, on ground now occupied by a parking lot.

The mine has long since fallen silent, but the Cornish pasty remains a local staple, its original recipe adapted over generations. Mexican chilli and spices have been added to the traditional potato, onion, and meat, while the game introduced by the miners grew into the country’s favourite sport.

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