Your guide to the "Minnesota-isms" you may encounter during the HITEC Conference.
Skol and welcome to Minneapolis! We’re honored to be hosting the HITEC conference this year in the Great North. We’re a tenacious lot who love to talk about the weather, collect as many different patterns of flannel as we can, and dump cream of mushroom soup into recipes with reckless abandon. If this is your first time visiting Minnesota, you may come across a few aspects that are unique to The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. But fear not, we are also known for our “Minnesota Nice” and more than happy to give you a couple tips to help you enjoy your visit to the Twin Cities to the fullest. Rest assured, you’ll be wearing Red Wing boots and baking your own hotdish in no time.
The Eats
Now that you’ve worked up an apetite, I wanted to share a few things to help you blend in like one of the locals while checking out our culinary scene. “Soda Pop” was apparently too lengthy of a term for sugary carbonated beverages, so Minnesotans decided to save themselves a little time and simply call it “Pop”. “Mom, can I have a pop?” is not a request for violence or an inquiry about a new father. Get that kid a soda and have him run off the sugar in a razzle-dazzle game of “Duck, Duck, Gray Duck.” Say “Goose” and prepare to suffer the consequences.
Along those lines, “casserole” is another swear word in these here parts. If you’re planning on tossing a bunch of meat, cheese, veggies, noodles or rice, and cream of mushroom soup into a dish and baking it, you just made yourself a hot dinner in a dish, or as Minnesotans like to call it, “Hotdish”.
Where our creativity fails us with naming hotdishes, we make up for in our salads. Yes, we’re aware and are huge fans of Cobb, Caesar, Wedge, Southwest, and the rest of the gang, but have you ever had Snicker Salad? Allow me to paint you a sweet, delicious, calorie-saturated picture. The usual suspects you may expect to find in a fruit salad are all present: strawberries, apples, and grapes. But you know what would go really well with all those healthy, vitamin-rich fresh fruits? Whipped cream, pudding, marshmallows, and candy bars. A necessary loop hole we figured out when told “...maybe toss in a couple salads here and there.”
Another quick note on shareables. Never, I repeat, NEVER take the last of “the food” at happy hour. I don’t care if the rumbling of your stomach has its own echo, do NOT take that last cookie. If you absolutely can’t resist, the cookie is usually cut in half and left for someone else to internally grapple with. It’s not entirely uncommon to see half of a half of a half of a cookie beckoning to hungry passersby. We know it’s absolutely ridiculous, but we don’t want to be “that guy” and deprive someone of a bite of cookie. It’s also our way of keeping our caloric intake down after all those “salads.”
The Celebs
While eating that Snicker Salad or sipping on a pop, you may find yourself conversing with locals. A topic we LOVE to talk about is the famous people who came from Minnesota. The list is short, but easy to remember.
Of course topping the list is our prince, Prince. His impromptu memorial party literally shut down traffic around the iconic venue, First Avenue, where he started his ascension to stardom, and the lights of Downtown blazed purple for several days.
In Minnesotan’s eyes, nothing compares to [him]. So, take a page from Prince’s book, put on a raspberry beret, and party like it’s 1999 while you’re walking his streets.
The final thing you should know about Minnesota is the art of a Minnesotan Goodbye. On the opposite end of the spectrum as an Irish Goodbye where one leaves without so much as a wave, Minnesotans take nearly an eternity to say “goodbye” before leaving. They go around the room dishing out “goodbyes” like Oprah handing out cars. And not just saying “see you later” and moving along, but needing to yap about weekend plans, well wishes for that rhubarb plant that hasn’t bounced back yet from winter, and, "Surprise!", we’re back to chatting about the weather. To the chagrin of angsty teenagers everywhere, mothers are especially well practiced in the Minnesota Goodbye. I’ve personally witnessed my own mother making not one, but two rounds on multiple occasions. It’s common for people to start saying their “ta-ta’s” a solid hour (or two) before their planned departure. Or, just “Irish it” and come up with an excuse for your "rudeness" later.
On that sentiment, I hope this helps shed some light on how to be a Minnesotan and you feel empowered to grab Babe the Blue Ox by the horns and confidently to go chit-the-chat with some locals. Heck, maybe you’ll even be able to pass off as one with all this newfound knowledge. “Oh, so you’re not from around here, eh? Sorry! Ufftah, could’ve fooled me.”
Be Minnesota Nice and Pass this Post!
