In this series, we’ll pick some of our favorite things about Minnesota and share some related book suggestions. (We’re open to your suggestions! Comment below or email us and tell us some of your favorite MN things!)

Food is an important (and hopefully, delicious!) aspect of everyday life, and can change dramatically depending on where you live or grew up. So here are some food memoirs to enjoy from Minnesotans!

If you’re interested in other food-related books or cookbooks, make sure to listen to our Reading With Libraries podcast episode on the topic!

Give a Girl a Knife by Amy Thielen
“Before Amy Thielen frantically plated rings of truffled potatoes in some of New York City s finest kitchens for chefs David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten she grew up in a northern Minnesota town home to the nation s largest French fry factory, the headwaters of the fast food nation, with a mother whose generous cooking pulsed with joy, family drama, and an overabundance of butter. Amy Thielen’s coming-of-age account brims with energy, a cook s eye for intimate detail, and a dose of dry Midwestern humor.”

In Winter’s Kitchen by Beth Dooley
“In the national conversation about developing a sustainable and equitable food tradition, the huge portion of our population who live where the soil freezes hard for months of the year feel like they’re left out in the cold.

In Winter’s Kitchen reveals how a food movement with deep roots in the Heartland—our first food co-ops, most productive farmland, and the most storied agricultural scientists hail from the region—isn’t only thriving, it’s presenting solutions that could feed a country, rather than just a smattering of neighborhoods and restaurants. Using the story of one Thanksgiving meal, Dooley discovers that a locally-sourced winter diet is more than a possibility: it can be delicious.”

All the Wild Hungers: A Season of Cooking and Cancer by  Karen Babine
“When her mother is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Karen Babine–a cook, collector of thrifted vintage cast iron, and fiercely devoted daughter, sister, and aunt–can’t help but wonder: feed a fever, starve a cold, but what do we do for cancer? And so she commits herself to preparing her mother anything she will eat, a vegetarian diving headfirst into the unfamiliar world of bone broth and pot roast.

In these essays, Babine ponders the intimate connections between food, family, and illness. What draws us toward food metaphors to describe disease? What is the power of language, of naming, in a medical culture where patients are too often made invisible? How do we seek meaning where none is to be found–and can we create it from scratch?”