Hotdish and Casserole

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi Martha, this is Emily. We’re calling from Boulder, Colorado.

Wee?

Wee, I’m sitting next to my friend T.R. here.

Okay. What’s on your mind?

I’m from Minnesota and grew up saying hot dish, tater tot hot dish, green bean hot dish, and so on. My friend T.R., who’s actually really close with my husband, is from Iowa, and they call everything casserole. And so we’ve had this kind of debate going back and forth for several years now. I think it’s a pride thing more than which one is appropriate.

So we’ve got hot dish in Minnesota. We’ve got casserole in Iowa. Is there any difference at all in the ingredients or the preparation or the serving vessel?

Not necessarily. So, for example, this usually comes up when I’m making my specialty tater tot hot dish. But whereas I call it hot dish, he and some of our other friends will call it casserole.

Okay. So, no, same thing, you know, kind of glass Pyrex dish, a meat, a starch, a can of mushroom soup, and some frozen vegetables topped with tater tots and baked in the oven.

Sounds really good. And it doesn’t matter what kind of dish you put it in, but it’s probably like you said a Pyrex dish, like a 6×9 or something?

Yeah, yeah, like a 6×9 baking dish.

So it is a dish and it is hot.

It’s a dish and it’s hot.

One word or two?

Hot dish.

One.

One, okay, wow.

All right, so your friend’s sitting there.

We’ve got the casserole advocate nearby.

Yes, he is.

He’s right here.

Let’s talk to the casserole advocate.

Hello, this is the casserole advocate.

Yeah, I’ve got a question. I’ve put my oven at 350 and I want…

No, never mind. That’s a different show.

So here’s the question for you. You’re from Iowa. You call this a casserole. A dish that she described, would you call that a casserole?

I would call it a casserole, but, you know, I can understand why she calls it a hot dish, because she didn’t sell it. I would have described a casserole much better and had fresh ingredients. A little bit more oomph goes into the casserole than the hot dish, apparently.

I see. So hot dish is for lazy people. Is that what you’re saying?

Hot dish is for lazy people. That is perfect. Casseroles taste better is what you’re saying.

That’s what I’m hearing. I can summarize it in one sentence. Hot dish is a word, an adjective, a verb maybe. A casserole is an experience.

Oh, wow. Okay, bring in the game. Did she know that you were bringing your A-game? Because she was very conciliatory.

I have to bring my A-game in it. And frankly, I was going to cook a casserole this morning and be chewing it just to fill my desire behind the casserole. And seeing that Tuesday morning, I decided against it.

All right. Can she hear us? Because I wanted to just drop a little science on you two, all right? Just kind of round off some edges here.

Here’s what we know. Hot dish is primarily used in Minnesota, but it does bleed out into Nebraska and the Dakotas and Wisconsin and other nearby states. It’s usually spelled as one word, and it can refer to the same things that are called casseroles elsewhere, but doesn’t always. You might call a hot dish a kind of casserole, but not every casserole can be called a hot dish.

Now, I’m saying this knowing full well that if you Google hot dish versus casserole, and I recommend that you do this, you will find many people arguing at length in exactly the same way that you two are arguing about why a hot dish is not a casserole. Because they’re very particular, and they’re proud of this thing that they grew up with and proud of the language that belongs to them and the food that’s associated with it. And it’s all really yummy. I don’t care what you call it. Serve me up extras.

Anyway. So that’s what we know about this. If you want really, really nerdy information on this.

Of course they do.

They called us.

We do.

Yes. There is a paper that was written by a bunch of North Dakota State University students called Hot Dish or Casserole.

Oh, no. Hot Dish or Casserole, what is your preference? It’s from 2012. It’s not a bad paper. I recommend that you Google that. And you’ll get everything that you ever wanted to know, and they figure it out, and they survey a bunch of respondents and kind of get into the etymologies and talk about culture and history and food and, yeah.

Wait, so who won the Smackdown?

There’s no winner here because hot dish is a valid term for the dish if you live in Minnesota, outside of Minnesota. The Minnesotans probably should accommodate the locals because the locals are going to go cock an eyebrow and go, eh, hot dish? They’re all hot. But really what we’re talking about here is an idiomatic use of hot dish. So you’re both good to go. This is a draw, okay?

Wonderful. Thank you for your time, Grant and Martha.

It’s our pleasure.

Thanks for calling, Emily.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Have a good one.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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