It's a Wrap
From empanadas to pasties, Southeast Michigan is home to wrapped foods from around the world
FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, people from all over the world have been making and enjoying simple yet filling foods. While each culture has its own version, many of these meals, snacks and desserts have one thing in common: They’re wrapped. Whether based on thick dough made with lard or thin layers of dough spread with butter, these dishes still appeal to today’s diners.
Somewhere between 8000 and 5000 BCE, indigenous peoples in what is now Guatemala and Mexico created tamales. These consist of stuffed masa—or corn dough—wrapped in a banana or corn leaf and steamed.
As early as 2800 BCE, ancient cultures, possibly around Turkey and Greece, created baklava, a treat made with phyllo dough containing nuts and soaked in butter or sugar.
In the 1400s, miners in Argentina needed a convenient meal that was good hot or cold and could satisfy them during their long workday. The solution was empanadas, a flaky dough filled with vegetables, cheese or meats. Sweet versions contain cream cheese, dulce de leche or cookies.
And in the 1850s, another group of miners in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula were served pasties—a dough made with lard surrounding a filling of beef and vegetables. They were wrapped in newspapers and carried into the mines as a midday meal.
Today, these foods, as well as other types of wrapped fare, continue to be popular and can be found all over Southeast Michigan. Many of these dishes are rooted in cultural traditions.
Raised in a family of Southwest Detroit restaurateurs, Adriana Jimenez grew up cooking, including making large quantities of tamales for holidays.
“With wrapped foods, there is such an abundance of flavor,” said Jimenez, co-owner of Detroit’s Vecino. “There is so much flavor because all the ingredients are concentrated inside filling.”
Nada Shatila, of Shatila Bakery, began making baklava with her father, Riad Shatila, an immigrant from Lebanon, when he founded the business in 1977. As children, Nada and her two sisters often served as their father’s taste testers and helped at the bakery on holidays, including Christmas, which is the company’s busiest season.
Today, the bakery has three locations—Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and West Bloomfield—and ships its products all over the United States and worldwide. Nada, along with her sisters and mother, took over the business after her dad passed away in 2013.
“Wrapped food is more satisfying,” Nada said about the appeal of filled foods like baklava. “The wrapping makes it seem like a fuller meal or dessert.”
“These types of foods exist everywhere in the world. They’re easy to carry and you can eat them anywhere.”
—GONZALO COLLAZO
Gonzalo Collazo, owner of empanada restaurant Empacho on the east side of Detroit, also sees the clear appeal of portable meals.
“These types of foods exist everywhere in the world,” he says. “They’re easy to carry and you can eat them anywhere.”
Empacho opened in 2023 when Collazo settled in Detroit after leaving Argentina and living in several other countries including Australia, Finland, the Netherlands and Spain. Constant economic and social changes in Argentina, along with his curiosity about other cultures, encouraged Collazo to leave home and explore the world.
As an entrepreneur with an interest in food and food-service-related projects, Collazo created Empacho to share his culture with Detroit. The dining area at Empacho is small, so most customers pre-order food via the Empacho app. The restaurant also sells a variety of Argentinian products.
In Livonia, Kim Isaac, who runs the uniquely named My Dad Nick’s Copper Country Pasty Factory, appreciates the ease of wrapped foods. “They’re convenient and you don’t need silverware,” she said. “And the food is fresh, so you know what you’re getting.”
The Pasty Factory opened in 2019 and is owned by Wayne Hendrickson—who hired Isaac, a family friend, to run the business. Nick Weldon, Hendrickson’s father, owned Weldon’s Pasties, which opened in 1982 and closed shortly before he passed away in 2019. Despite being a separate business, Hendrickson’s restaurant is in the same location as his father’s and uses the same recipe, which was developed in Calumet, Michigan, and has been passed down through the generations.
Although My Dad Nick’s Copper Country Pasty Factory, as well as Shatila and Empacho, is focused on one specialty dish, some restaurants serve many different types of wrapped foods. This includes the three restaurants at the Detroit Athletic Club (DAC) where Shawn Loving is the chef.
“These foods feature different flavors that are hidden. They bring forth conversations because they’re not like traditional dishes.”
—SHAWN LOVING
The DAC’s menus are always changing, but some wrapped foods that Loving serves include tea sandwiches, stromboli, wontons and turnovers.
“With these foods, it’s a textural thing,” he said. “And people like the element of surprise inside. They’re easy to eat and pick up.”
Making Wrapped Foods at Home
For home chefs interested in experimenting with dishes featuring stuffed dough, Loving recommends starting with solid cooking techniques, using a familiar food or recipe and experimenting.
“Things that are wrapped can seem intimidating,” he said. “Start by experimenting with ready-made items that you can find at the grocery store, like crepes or naan bread.”
For pasties, the key to success is in the dough, which is made by hand with flour, lard and water. Isaac makes all the restaurant’s pasties by hand, from dicing the fresh vegetables to mixing the dough.
“The dough needs to be just right,” she said. “It doesn’t like to be too hot or too cold.”
Collazo has similar recommendations for the temperature of the dough for empanadas and advises that folding the dough will take some practice.
“The dough has to be cold, not warm,” he said. “The first few times you fold the dough, it will probably be oddly shaped. But if it doesn’t look great, at least it will taste great.”
When it comes to baklava, dealing with the many layers of phyllo dough is the main concern.
“Make sure to butter between all of the layers,” Nada said. “And when it comes out of the oven, soak it in sugar or honey so that everything will be absorbed.”
At Vecino, the masa is made with organic heirloom corn shipped from Mexico and the dough is made fresh every day. What makes Vecino’s dough unique is that the culinary team uses an indigenous practice called nixtamalization (for more on nixtamalization at Vecino, go to page 40).
“Most tortillas and similar products are just a delivery method,” Jimenez said. “It’s different with masa like ours. It has a completely different smell and taste that stands apart from most varieties.”
A challenging aspect of making tamales is folding them. Jimenez urges patience and acknowledges that in the beginning, only half of the tamales may emerge from the steamer in the proper shape.
Shaping a Legacy
Baklava, which is common in the Mediterranean and Middle East, is quickly gaining popularity in other regions. Shatila reports a strong increase in demand, and its products are now featured in many gourmet stores and are even served on American Airlines. Nada attributes Shatila’s success in part to its custom-made dough, which has a different thickness than other phyllo dough brands. It also has the right amount of moisture so that the baklava doesn’t fall apart and is easier to form into a variety of shapes.
“I grew to love this business,” Nada said of the bakery’s success. “I’m just as proud of the pastries and our family legacy as my father was.”
In the kitchen of Vecino, Jimenez and her staff describe their cuisine as modern Mexican. They use traditional techniques with seasonal ingredients from Michigan. For tamales, they use a Oaxacan recipe that calls for banana leaves and a pork filling, although tamale fillings can be any combination of meat and vegetables or can even be made sweet with a fruit filling. They are steamed on low heat for three to four hours.
“Tamales are big for holidays,” Jimenez said. “Families spend a lot of time making them together. For a lot of us, we have warm memories of making tamales and being with our families.”
At My Dad Nick’s Copper Country Pasty Factory, Isaac is proud not only of her homemade product, but also of the relationships she’s formed with customers. The business does not advertise and doesn’t even have a website but is constantly busy with pasty fans—a U.P. treat that is scarce in Southeast Michigan. Although the restaurant is carryout-only, customers enjoy lingering in the lobby, which is full of items celebrating the U.P., many donated by the customers themselves.
“We have pictures of miners and a lot of memorabilia from the U.P.,” Isaac said. “Our customers are proud of their heritage, and I love to hear their stories. Between the current restaurant and Weldon’s Pasties, some people have been coming to us for more than 30 years.”
For Collazo, his source of pride, in addition to Empacho, is his adopted hometown: Detroit itself.
“I’ve been traveling for more than a decade,” he said. “This is the first place where I felt like I wanted to stay. It feels like home. There are great people and great conversations here. It’s more relaxed than other big cities.”
Just like Detroit’s ability to bring people together, the wrapped foods at the DAC have often accomplished similar feats.
“These foods feature different flavors that are hidden,” Loving said. “They bring forth conversations because they’re not like traditional dishes.”
Shannon Mackie is a marketing professional and freelance writer. Also a self-published author, she lives in Detroit with her family.
