Fifty Nifty United States
A Fourth of July Appreciation
(Fellow Gen-Xers, do you now have that song stuck in your head too?)
Because I live in Europe, people sometimes ask me, “What is it like in America?” and “What do Americans think about [issue]?” Which cracks me up. America is large! We contain multitudes! My family and I have lived in wildly different places and cultures, all within the US—a small town in Minnesota populated entirely by the descendants of Scandinavian immigrants; a Minnesota town that was once second only to the Vatican City in the percentage of its residents who were Catholic; the South Side of Chicago; San Francisco; Washington, DC; and a suburb of New York City. You could argue that the US, with our fifty nifty states, is culturally as diverse as the entire continent of Europe. Heck, a single New York neighborhood, Jackson Heights Queens, where 160 languages are spoken, is likely the most diverse place in the world.
But you will be relieved to hear that today’s post isn’t actually about all fifty states. That would get way too long. Instead, let’s talk about one of my favorite topics, food. We Americans grew up eating regional specialities—dishes created from ingredients local to our communities and from the traditions of our immigrant ancestors. Below, I’ll share a few authentic Minnesota recipes, and I hope you will share your own local specialties too.
About ten years ago, the New York Times published recipes that they claimed were representative dishes from all fifty states. I don’t know about their choices for the other states, but the selection for Minnesota—a warm “salad” made of grapes, brown sugar, and sour cream—was not only icky and weird, but also unfamiliar to actual Minnesotans. (To be fair, my mom vaguely remembers her mom making grape salad once for her bridge club, back in the 1950s. But once! Seventy-five years ago! Warm grape salad is not a thing in Minnesota!) Harumph. What were those editors thinking? A midwestern writer pictures them jeering at us:
“You know what evokes your state? A bowl of grapes mixed with sour cream, covered with sugar, and heated up, and then chilled again. That’s you. That’s how you are.” After this, I imagine them laughing, high-fiving, and refilling a glass of chardonnay.
In fact, Minnesota cooking uses simple, pure flavors and fresh, local ingredients, especially at this time of year. And so, to correct the grievous wrong of that grape salad and restore my state’s reputation, I present:
An Authentic Minnesota Supper
Fishing is a beloved Minnesota hobby. Our family used to go Up North to the Lake every summer. My dad, brother, and I caught sunnies, our dad cleaned them, and our mom fried them up for dinner. Nowadays my brother fishes catch-and-release, so our mom obtains her fish at Lunds & Byerly’s, a local grocery chain.
Walleye is a large freshwater fish that is native to the northern US and Canada, and fried walleye is a Minnesota tradition. This recipe comes from my Norwegian great-grandma and was handed down to my grandma, mom, me, and now you. It makes a hearty main course for when the whole family is coming over. My mom has made a few adaptations to the original recipe, which are noted below.
Pan-Fried Walleye
Ingredients
3 eggs, beaten
3c crushed saltine crackers (my grandma crushed them with a rolling pan, but you can use a blender or food processor; my mom also likes to use Panko crumbs)
8 walleye filets
butter and vegetable oil for frying
salt and pepper to taste
Method
Have the crumbs ready on a plate and the beaten eggs ready in a bowl next to them.
Rinse the walleye filets and pat them dry.
Dip the filets in the eggs and then in the cracker crumbs. Lay them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and refrigerate briefly to set the coating.
Heat the oven to 120C/250F.
Put the butter and oil in a skillet or electric fry pan and heat to about 190C/375F. (My mom says that you should use at least two parts butter to one part oil for maximum flavor.)
When the oil is hot, add two filets to the pan and cook until browned on both sides. This takes about 3–5 minutes per side depending on the thickness of your filets. Transfer filets to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and keep warm in the oven until all the filets are fried. (Note: To expedite the frying, my mom has a pan on the stove and an electric fry pan going simultaneously, so she can fry four filets at a time.) When the last filets are done, serve immediately.
Corn on the Cob
I have fond childhood memories of biking to a local farm, buying sweet corn that had just been harvested, and racing home, where my parents would have a pot of boiling water waiting. We shucked the ears, plunged them in the water for a few minutes, and dug in. There is nothing like corn on the cob straight from the fields—so sweet and delicious!
If you don’t enjoy shucking corn (I do; very satisfying!) or steaming up your kitchen with all that boiling water, you can try a technique for cooking corn in the microwave that my dad taught me. Simply cut off and discard the stem ends and zap the ears in the microwave, husks and all, using the timing guidelines below:
1 ear: 1-1/2 minutes
2 ears: 3–4 minutes
4 ears: 7–8 minutes
Then, wearing an oven mitt (rubber ones work best), grasp the silk end of each ear and kind of shake it until the cob falls out. The husk and all the thready bits will come right off in one fell swoop, and you will have a perfectly prepared ear all ready for butter, salt, or chipotle mayo. (Note: Obviously, chipotle mayo is not authentically Minnesotan—but it is delicious nonetheless!) Here is a helpful video that shows the technique.
Oven-Baked Wild Rice
If you are feeling fancy or have a lot of people coming over, this casserole is a terrific side dish. The recipe is easy and showcases wild rice, a flavorful, nutritious grain that grows in only a few places in the world, northern Minnesota among them.
This recipe makes enough to feed an army. It is also a classic Minnesota side dish for Thanksgiving.
Ingredients
3c vegetable stock (my mom uses Better Than Bullion)
1c wild rice
2–3T butter
1 onion, finely diced
4 stalks celery, minced
8oz mushrooms, sliced
salt and pepper to taste
Method
Heat the oven to 175C/350F. Pour the rice and stock into a large casserole, cover, and bake 1 hour.
Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables. In a large sauté pan, melt the butter and sauté the onion, sprinkling a bit of salt over it to help it along. When the onions are translucent but not brown, add in the celery and a bit more salt. When the celery is softened, add in the mushrooms and a bit more salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms have given up most of their liquid.
Remove the rice from the oven, give it a stir, and return for another half hour.
Remove the rice from the oven, stir in the vegetables, and serve.
And of course no Minnesota summer supper would be complete without sliced tomatoes fresh from the garden (or your neighbor’s garden; at this time of year everyone is eager to give away their surplus tomatoes). I like to chop a clove of garlic together with salt and fresh basil and sprinkle that over the sliced tomatoes, with a drizzle of olive oil and some freshly-ground black pepper. But my mom just serves the tomatoes as they are, in all their flavorful bounty. Or you can try my dad’s heretical idea: He thought of tomatoes as dessert, so he would sprinkle sugar over his slices. Tomatoes are a fruit, after all.
But if tomatoes with sugar aren’t your jam, how about some ice cream? Just load up the car and take everyone to Dairy Queen, a Minnesota institution. Blizzards all around!
How about you, readers? What are some special dishes from your state? Please share your thoughts—and links to recipes!—in the comments!
The Tidbit
“Rhode Island Is Famous for You” is a delightful way to celebrate our fifty states. It starts out reasonably enough (“lobsters come from Maine”) and gets progressively sillier as it goes. (Although I can attest that minnows do indeed come from Minnowsota.) I promise that this little ditty will give you the giggles.
Your dad was right about tomatoes! Summer afternoons I'd come home from spending hours at the pool, famished. My mom would send me out to the front stoop with my special pink metal bowl filled with whatever was coming out of the garden that day. When the tomatoes were ripe she'd pour sugar in the bottom of the bowl and I'd dip my tomato in the sugar before each bite. Heaven.
I love your input about wild rice. A must to enjoy, I would order the soup off any menu when visiting MN and it became a tradition to pick up a bag at the airport on my way home! Which "up north" lake would your family visit when you were young?