Image by Nathan Forget/flickr
Nearly a week before Thanksgiving, The New York Times has effectively wiped out it’s credibility with foodies across the country, in particular; Minnesota.
In a blatant attempt at click-bait, the NYTimes Food section went about compiling 52 ‘traditional Thanksgiving dishes’ from America, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C..
The result is sketchy, at best.
The Minnesota Misstep
While Iowa is represented by what is basically a modified (added walnuts? and cloves?) Snicker-Doodle recipe , and Wisconsin is assigned a dish made from Minnesota’s state grain: Wild Rice with Mushrooms, the Gopher State gets stuck with a dish that no one from International Falls to Worthington has ever heard of… Grape Salad.
David Tanis, writer of a weekly NYTimes dining column, City Kitchen, stuck Minnesota with the dish, claiming that the suggestion “comes from a Minnesota-born heiress, who tells me it was always part of the holiday buffet in her family.” As Jessica on Twitter pondered;
WTF is “grape salad”? But really, WTF is a “Minnesota-born heiress”? http://t.co/ZxGUHuoiNB
— Jessica (@jsf_mpls) November 18, 2014
You betcha, Jessica.
Now it’s just possible that this deep-wounding misstep was a mis-communication between Tanis and his ‘Lake-State born high-faloutin’ heiress’ single source for Minnesotan cuisine. Is it possible she meant Fruit Salad and hasn’t a clue it sometimes is called Ambrosia , because the family chef never let her near the kitchen? You know, it’s the easily-combined sweet jumble dessert made from grapes, pear chunks, pineapple, mandarin oranges, mini-marshmallows, walnuts, maraschino cherries, and apples all lightly resting in four gallons of Cool-Whip and vanilla pudding (well, that’s my Mom’s version, anyhow).
At any rate, from the insanely hilarious comments made on the Facebook page attached to the Minnesota entry, it looks like we’re not the only ones scratching our heads over this one… Our favorite response comes from the Star-Tribune Food Editor:
So much for Minnesota Nice, eh? Let’s rectify this atrocity, in the comments below give us YOUR PICK for what dish best represents Minnesota on the Thanksgiving table.