Hot, Hot, Hot!

     It's July and here in the Mid-Atlantic States it's just plain hot, with a double dose of humidity.  Recently I've commented on some iconic foods that have "hot" in their name:  Nashville's Hot Chicken and Louisville's Hot Brown.  Following that theme today's topic is Minnesota's Hot Dish, a misleadingly plain term for a rousing culinary phenomenon.

    
      Hot dish is never served as merely a side and is never trivial.   It is center stage, a deluxe casserole at a variety of venues: be it a church social, an Independence Day picnic, or a 50th wedding anniversary.  At a pot-luck event it is the star of the show, a full meal in a casserole. While some may bring things like beans, salad,  pie or cookies, only the accomplished cooks assume the weighty responsibility of providing the hot dish.

     The hot dish casserole includes meat, (usually beef), vegetables (most often canned) and a starch in the form of rice, noodles, Tater Tots, and/or a topping of biscuits, cornflakes or crumbled Ritz crackers.  And another common ingredient is Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup.

     Jane & Michael Stern in their book, The Lexicon of Real American Food have this to say on the matter, "A phenomenon we have noted whenever hot dish is served is that it never is anonymous.  That is Gail's Tater Tot Casserole or Brenda's Tuna Bake or Linda's Pork Roll Supreme."