Limited Edition Zine: Hotdish

connection to the foods she found. As she braved this frozen tundra to raise my sister and me, she began to
adapt recipes from the old country with readily-available midwestern ingredients.
When we visited grandma we ate hotdish with jello salad, and back at home, we had lumpia with pancit
guisado. I was very fortunate to have grown up in a loving coexistence of food cultures. Like me, many
Minnesotans on this land hold multiple identities. We need Minnesota's food symbol to hold space for the
coexistence of our food cultures.
Today, Minnesota is more diverse than it has
ever been. People of color make up 20% of
Minnesotans, low compared to the national
average of 40%, but a big change from 6% in
1990 and only 2% in 1960.(1)
The Twin Cities alone has the nation’s largest
Hmong and Somali refugee communities,(2)
and the Midwest is home to over 35 Native
American tribes.(3) Despite this, the number of
Hmong, Somali, and Native restaurants is
disproportionately low.
Unfortunately, this lack of representation is
also reflected in agriculture. The USDA’s
Census of Agriculture found that 96% of
American farm owners are white, while the
majority of the U.S.’s 2.4 million farmworkers
are people of color.(4)
It’s time we
reckon with
inequity in our
food system, and
we can start by
learning from
culinary leaders
of color.
Meanwhile, access to fresh, local, and healthy food is disproportionately inaccessible for low-income
communities of color, creating food insecurity. This means that despite an abundance of food, 1 in 10 families
are food insecure in America.(5)
At their core land ownership, earning liveable wages, and healthy food access are all rooted in white
supremacy. It’s time we reckon with inequity in our food system, and we can start by learning from culinary
leaders of color.
Starting with our favorite state dish, we've teamed up with two incredible chefs to dive into its layers and to
rebuild it from scratch (literally–stay tuned for our recipe of mushroom and wild rice hotdish with sautéed
mustard greens, tots, and warming cream of sage béchamel.)