Without divulging my exact age, I will tell you my generational status lies tucked in the crevasse between solid Gen X and millennial. In other words, I’m old enough to remember having a landline telephone and waiting for dial-up internet. I grew up during the slow march toward the homogeneity of interconnectedness. Cable news cleansed us of striking regional accents and nomenclature. At the same time, microwave meals and fast-food drive-throughs became staples for two-parent working families and busy schedules.
I’m a born and bred Minnesotan, from a state settled and populated with an abundance of Norwegians, Swedes and Germans and a spattering of Finns, Poles and Russians who recognized their homeland in the frigid winter tundra and bountiful farmland. Their hearty culinary traditions prevailed just as the homesteaders did. Up to a few decades ago, before organized religion took a real hit and people found community in other spheres, the local Lutheran church basement was where families and friends congregated to share kinship, coffee, sweet baked goods and savory bites. And as renowned as the silver-haired grandmothers who ran the church’s Women’s Auxiliary were the massive amounts of strange yet delectable delicacies they produced for expectant crowds.
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