Marrone - Dishing Up Minnesota: 150 Recipes from the Land of 10,000 Lakes

The New York Times devoted the majority of its food section on November 18, 2014, to a list of Thanksgiving dishes that evoke each of the 50 states. Minnesota was saddled with grape salad, a kindergarten-simple dish in which green grapes are mixed with sour cream and brown sugar, broiled, then chilled before serving. Although versions of the recipe did appear in a few old church cookbooks, almost no one had heard of the stuff, much less eaten it.

Reaction was swift and hot. Within hours, social media exploded, and the hashtag #grapegate became a sounding board for outraged Minnesotans. Across the state, newspaper and magazine columnists joined the fray both in print and online, and the story was covered on news broadcasts, including the NBC Nightly News. Grapes?! Where was the wild rice? The pie made with Honeycrisp apples, a Minnesota-born variety? Pheasant in cream? It was the same old story that has quietly annoyed Minnesotans for years: Like Rodney Dangerfield, we cant get any respect.

In reality, Minnesota is a pretty interesting place. It has a rich and vibrant food culture, although its not always easy to pin down. With divergent influences from native Dakota and Ojibwe peoples, the Scandinavian and German immigrants of the 1800s, the newest residents hailing from Southeast Asia and Somalia, and current-day chefs, farmers, and artisan producers, Minnesotas food scene is a study in opposites: traditional and contemporary, rustic and elegant, country and city. These threads are woven into whole cloth, however, by the bounty of top-notch local ingredients that appear in the best of each cultures dishes.

Abundant lakes, rivers, and streams give Minnesota its license-plate slogan, Land of 10,000 Lakes and yes, there really are that many. These waterways also provide some of the best regional ingredients. Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake on Earth, harbors lake herring, trout, whitefish, smelt, and salmon. Inland waters abound with game fish, including walleye, largemouth and smallmouth bass, panfish, and trout. Wild rice is harvested from large, shallow lakes as well as from some rivers and streams. Many lakes boast seasonal populations of waterfowl, which are eagerly hunted and cooked by many residents each fall.

Although large expanses of Minnesota are devoted to the production of corn, soybeans, and industrial livestock, the state is home to numerous small farms, many committed to sustainable practices. Minnesota is also the sixth-largest dairy state. Much of the milk is converted into cheese and butter; producers range from huge corporations to small family farms. Minnesota-produced artisan cheese and butter, eggs from free-range hens, grass-fed beef, and top-quality produce are highly prized by discerning chefs and home cooks. Farmers markets, co-ops, and CSA farms are found throughout the state. Agricultural areas also provide habitat for deer, pheasants, and small game, and the fall hunting season is a major event in the state.

In 2014 (the #grapegate year), over 100 new restaurants were opened in the Twin Cities, the metropolitan area that includes Minneapolis and St. Paul and is home to about 60 percent of the states population. Craft brewing has also exploded; even Grand Marais, a town of 1,300 on Lake Superior just southwest of the Canadian border, boasts two microbreweries. In restaurants and home kitchens, Minnesota cooks are going back to their roots, crafting bacon, sausage, and other charcuterie, as well as cheese and artisan-style or heritage breads. Foraging, particularly for mushrooms and berries, is a popular pastime for many Minnesotans, who make up a pretty outdoorsy group in general.

Weve got a few heavy hitters in the food world, too, both individuals and corporations. Lynne Rossetto Kasper, host of American Public Medias radio broadcast The Splendid Table, makes her home in Minnesota. So do television food personalities Amy Thielen (host of Heartland Table) and Andrew Zimmern (host of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern). Zo Franois, coauthor of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and a string of related titles (many written with fellow Minnesotan Dr. Jeff Hertzberg), has a long history in the Minneapolis food scene and lives here with her family.

Minnesota megacorporation General Mills is a food manufacturer and marketer whose current brands include Wheaties, Cheerios, Betty Crocker, Hagen-Dazs, Yoplait, Bisquick, and Nature Valley, as well as natural brands Annies, Cascadian Farm, and Muir Glen. Hormel Foods, based in Austin, Minnesota, is a huge brand name in itself; Hormel also encompasses the Jennie-O Turkey, Spam, Skippy peanut butter, and Di Lusso Deli brands. Other major Minnesota food corporations include International Dairy Queen, Land OLakes, Malt-O-Meal, Michael Foods, and Buffalo Wild Wings.

Dishing Up Minnesota celebrates Minnesotas food and heritage, with 150 recipes ranging from traditional to modern. By the way, on November 25, 2014, as a follow-up to its earlier article on Thanksgiving foods, the New York Times ran a Web feature on Thanksgiving Recipes Googled in Every State: Which Foods Are Unusually Popular in Each State on Thanksgiving. Minnesotas was wild rice casserole. You betcha; that sounds about right.

Are there really 10,000 lakes in Minnesota?

Actually, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), our state has 11,842 lakes of at least 10 acres in size (the official dividing point between lake and not-lake) but Land of 11,842 Lakes isnt such a catchy license-plate slogan.

Only 4 of Minnesotas 87 counties have no natural lakes. At 12 acres, Dickeys Lake in Hennepin County is the smallest official lake in the state; according to DNR data, it is populated mostly with bullheads. The largest lake that is wholly inside state borders is Red Lake, a walleye hot spot in Beltrami County; its two basins total almost 289,000 acres.

Minnesota shares majestic Lake Superior with Wisconsin, Michigans Upper Peninsula, and Ontario; roughly one-quarter of its 20-plus million acres is considered Minnesota water. We also share Lake of the Woods with Ontario and Manitoba; the Minnesota portion of this 950,400-acre lake is in the so-called Northwest Angle, a small rectangular bump in northern Lake of the Woods County that was born from a mapmakers error.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, on Minnesotas northeastern border with Ontario, contains more than 1,000 pristine lakes. This roadless, canoe-only area occupies over 1 million acres, and the paddlers paradise continues across the border into Quetico Provincial Park. Lake Vermilion, in St. Louis County, has the states longest shoreline, listed at 290 miles by the DNR. We also have almost 70,000 miles of rivers and streams, including 589 miles of officially designated Wild and Scenic Rivers and 1,900 miles of trout streams.