Grape Salad

The New York Times shocked everyone with their "The United States of Thanksgiving" article where they match a specific dish to each state.  They made some goofy choices, but the one which has most people scratching their heads is the choice for Minnesota, grape salad.  Here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/18/dining/thanksgiving-recipes-across-the-united-states.html

I've never had grape salad, for either Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other Minnesota based meal.  I've had fruit salad, which may or may not have grapes, but the recipe they describe in the article is about as Minnesotan as lobster, grits and persimmons.  No Minnesota friend of mine has ever had a grape salad.  The only person I know who claims to have had it is a listener who had it back in the 70's at a fondu party in Stillwater (savor that image).  She said it wasn't that good.

The New York Times food people are not taking the unwillingness of Minnesotans to accept what they say is a good Minnesota dish, lightly.  Julia Moskin, a reporter with the Food section, is quoted with the following:

“The recipes were not intended to be traditional, popular, or fully representative of the state’s traditions — agricultural, Thanksgiving, or culinary,” she wrote in an email to me. “We didn’t make stupid errors, or fail to check our facts with perfunctory phone calls. We worked hard — writers and especially editors — to generate a mix of 52 recipes that would not be cliched, repetitive, unhealthy, or unappetizing.”

If that's true, why does the article state, "we've scoured the nation for recipes that evoke each of the 50 states..."  Grape Salad does not evoke Minnesota!  My grandparents were stranded in the Duluth Hotel in a blizzard long ago, and they were forced to eat crackers, peanut butter and horseradish, together!  I would not play that off as a Minnesota favorite, even though my family occasionally has it, as a fun salute.

This error, and the resulting comments from Ms. Moskin, at least from our northern tier view, reek of East Coast elitism.  Don't come and tell us what we eat, come see what we eat and then write about it.  If the New York Times wants to publish recipes they like, more power to them, but leave the 50 states out of it.  If you'd have done that, you wouldn't be getting the grief you are getting now from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Ask us next time, don't tell us.  Wild rice, walleye, heck even Spam would be more representative of the state than grape salad.  At least the New York Times can take credit for what one listener pointed out this morning (@RaisingOneBrow); the Minnesota State Fair is almost guaranteed to have deep fried Grape Salad on a stick in 2015.