Jeff Gill

A story of the Minnesota tater tot hotdish. Tater tot hotdish is not just a casserole in Minnesota. Do not call it just a casserole. A regular casserole is something people in other states make when they have a recipe and a plan. Tater tot hotdish is what Minnesota makes because there is a funeral, a church potluck, a hockey tournament, a blizzard, or a Tuesday. The formula has three parts and every Minnesota family that grew up eating it knows them without being told. A starch on top, which is tater tots, arranged in rows by somebody with strong feelings about it. A binder, which is a can of cream of mushroom soup, occasionally cream of chicken, and if somebody uses both there will be discussion. And a protein, which is ground beef browned with onion, plus green beans or corn, and which vegetable you use tells everyone exactly how your grandmother made it. That is it. A handful of ingredients, most of them from cans or the freezer, all of them available at the Cub Foods in Minneapolis, the Hy-Vee in Rochester, or the Walmart outside a small Minnesota town at ten at night. The tot placement is where personality shows. Some people dump the bag. Some people line them up in tight, perfectly straight rows like they are shingling a roof. That second group is not doing it for aesthetics. They are doing it because their grandmother did it and they can still hear her telling them not to leave any gaps. The pan is 9x13. It has always been 9x13. It goes in the oven at 350 and comes out when the tots are golden brown, and anybody who pulls it early and serves pale, soggy tots has failed the household. It travels. That is the actual genius of it. Foil over the top, dish towel underneath, straight into the back seat of a Chevy Silverado or an old Ford, and it arrives at the church basement still hot. In small-town Minnesota, that matters. When somebody passes away, food starts showing up before anyone has figured out what to say. When a neighbor has surgery, somebody brings dinner. When the high school hockey team has a fundraiser, folding tables appear and half the town shows up carrying something baked in a rectangular glass dish. Nobody asks who organized it. Nobody needs instructions. Somebody just says, "I'll bring a hotdish," and everybody understands. And every Minnesota family has that one relative who insists theirs is better because they add extra cheese, use a different soup, or put the tots in a pattern that looks like somebody measured it with a ruler. There will be arguments about whether the green beans belong in it. There will be somebody who says their mother never used cream of mushroom. And there will always be one person scraping the crispy corners out of the pan before anyone else gets a chance. Thats me! Every other state has comfort food. Minnesota has a delivery system for grief, celebration, hockey season, and winter, and it comes in a rectangle.