This episode was first published July 17, 2023
This is host Jeannie Sur. Today I'll be discussing with you one of my favorite states, Minnesota. And today I'm just going to highlight one aspect of Minnesota that gives us a snapshot of its food culture.
And since it's also the summer, it seems fitting that I'm going to discuss the Minnesota State Fair. The Minnesota State Fair is one of the largest state fairs in the U.S. ranked around second behind Texas, with over 2 million visitors a year.
A bit of history of the Minnesota State Fair: Minnesota received statehood in 1858, and the first state fair was held in 1859. Its location moved around to various cities before it found its permanent home in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Some interesting facts about the fair: the Minnesota State Fair has been held every year except for six instances, in 1861 and 1862 because of the Civil War and the U.S. Dakota War, 1893 because of the conflicts with the World's Fair in Chicago, 1945 due to World War II travel restrictions, 1946 polio epidemic, and of course 2020 because of COVID.
Now to discuss the most important aspect of the Minnesota State Fair, the reason I think so many people attend, and that is of course the food. I wondered what would be considered the fair's most famous foods.
The first is corn roast, which seems very midwestern but simple fair food and not very unique. But something unique to the Minnesota State Fair is Sweet Martha's cookie jar cookies, which to me is most famously in a plastic bucket. Before I ever attended the fair, I remember seeing the plastic buckets in a lot of friends' homes recycled for other items throughout the year.
Another very unique Minnesota State Fair item is the Pronto pups, which are very similar to corn dogs, although there are debates about the difference between a corn dog and a pronto pup, people say it's the type of batter. But according to Minnesota Public Radio, the real difference is actually sweetness.
Pronto pups are not sweet, while corn dogs are. So, there you have it. Then there is, of course, all types of dairy items: cheese curds, ice cream, milk, which brings us to the largest category of unique foods at the Minnesota State Fair, and that is anything and everything on a stick. This is a big part of the Minnesota State Fair, and every year there's something new that is fried on a stick.
There are the obvious items: candy bars, corn dogs, pronto pups. But some other more unusual examples are mac and cheese on a stick, spaghetti on a stick, deep-fried olives on a stick, s'mores, waffles, pies. You get the picture.
So, while there are the consistent famous items, every year the state fair also unveils its newest food items. Some examples this year are the crispy lutefisk steam bun, bacon wrapped waffle dog, fruity cereal milk biscuit, kind of a big deal pickle lemonade, walleye fritter pops, kalabaw a traditional mung steam bun, chicken momo with tomato chutney.
Momo is a Tibetan style dumpling. Here you see examples of Minnesota's early immigrants, the lutefisk, a Scandinavian delicacy of dried cod. More Swedish immigrants settled to Minnesota than any other state, and then you see this mixed in with classic Midwestern dishes such as waffles, walleye, dill pickles, along with then momos or kalabaw. With Minnesota having one of the largest concentrations of Hmong in the U.S.
But I'll leave you with my favorite part of the State Fair, and that is the dairy building. The best part of the dairy building is the carving and display of Princess K of the Milky Way. The Dairy Association crowns a new Princess K of the Milky Way every year, and while other pageants have tiaras, Princess K gets her face carved in a 90-pound block of grade A butter.
You can watch as they sculpt the butter, and then it is on display in a glass case that rotates the sculptures. And just in case you think butter sculpting is strange, is actually practiced in other sculptures. Suggest Tibet, where it is over 400 years old, and still done in events such as Tibet New Year, which is made with yak butter.
Thank you for joining us today on Eating the Past. Please join us on our website upr.org to listen to all of our previous episodes.
