minnesota cuisine

Back when we lived in Boston, we had a running half-joke about opening a restaurant that specialized in "Minnesota cuisine"--hot dish, walleye, jello with marshmallows in it, and so on. Occasionally it would dawn on one of us that there might be a Minnesota cuisine worth sharing, but that ruined the joke, so we quickly forgot it.

Now I live in San Jose, and in this week's Metro, food critic Stett Holbrook broaches the subject again:

While sampling food at restaurants like the Bank (set in a gorgeous old bank lobby), the Cosmos and Craftsman, I was struck by how much pride the chefs had in sourcing local ingredients and how they celebrate the farms, dairies and waters of the upper Midwest. Walleye, paddlefish caviar, Minnesota duck, local dairy cheese and even house-made sauerkraut turned up on the menus. Who knew the Mini-Apple had so much going on?

Maybe our time has finally come.