If I had to name one food that is distinctly Minnesotan I would say Hotdish. Then I would probably go on to explain that it’s usually meat, with canned or frozen vegetables, combined with a can of soup and often topped with some sort of potato– the one I’ve seen the most is tater-tots. Now depending on your region of Minnesota is the real determiner of the salt and pepper ratio in the dish. However, that is really what makes up the dish.
The most common one I’ve had is the tater-tot hotdish, but I do know that there are other kinds of hotdish.
After all there must be since there are competitions on who makes the best hotdish.
My family never makes hotdishes. No, for us is something that we only had if someone else had made it and it was at church. Since we are Minnesota transplants we did not make hotdish nor had we heard about it until we moved here.
However, my husband is a born and raised tru Minnesotan. He and his family are Minnesotans who make and consume hotdish.
In fact my husband loves hotdish to the point that he desperately wants to go to Oronoco to get a flight of hotdish. When I told him that I had seen it on a menu while there without him two years ago he wanted to have a flight of four types of hotdish desperately. The only problem is every time he’s been down in the area since it's been a Monday and they’ve been closed. At some point we will be there when it's open and hopefully it's still on the menu.
