Fresh Midwest Modern recipes from the heartland

Although practiced in thousands of homes across America's heartland, Midwestern cooking has a reputation for overly relying on processed ingredients. Casserole concoctions (regionally dubbed "hot dish") invariably have a can or two of condensed soup and a load of processed cheese. Raised in Minnesota, King believes that Midwestern cooking can equal any other American regional cuisine. Given the vast acreage of farms and accessible gardens in the Midwest, King wants to refocus the cuisine on what is local, seasonal, and most flavorful. The traditions of descendants from nineteenth-century Scandinavian and Danish immigrants still appear in recipes for intensely spiced cardamom rolls and kringle. But pork chops come with apple mostarda, an Italian influence. In fact, King admits her recipes tend to have much more spicing in them than the bland foods of her childhood. And her repertoire of salads eschews any of the gelatin-based concoctions popular in the 1950s. King offers menus for special occasions and get-togethers, and as for her versions of hot dish, only one of them calls for frozen tater tots.

In this solid debut, King, a recipe developer and Minnesota native, updates dozens of dishes "straight out of the Midwestern comfort food canon" with a mix of influences from her Scandinavian heritage and her family's own go-to recipes. An adaptation of cheesy potatoes (a staple, she writes, "at church potlucks across the Midwest") riffs on her grandmother Nancy's recipe, while renditions of Scandinavian classics--such as lefse (a mashed potato flatbread), a smorgasbord featuring smørrebrød (a Danish, open-faced sandwich), and Swedish meatballs--reflect the flavors of Minnesota's large Norwegian and Swedish populations. King also cleverly integrates Scandinavian influences into other traditions: her kraftskiva incorporates both the traditional flavors of Swedish crawfish boils as well as Cajun-influenced spices, and she adds aquavit (a popular Scandinavian spirit) to French-style moules frites. Readers will appreciate King's straightforward recipes just as much as her charming headnotes and essays, an entertaining blend of anecdotes and fascinating cultural context (in an introduction to her Bootlegger Jell-O Shots, King shares that "the bootlegger cocktail was created by the Minnesota country club set during Prohibition to mask the taste of harsh bathtub gin"). The result is a wonderful introduction to Midwestern cooking and its rich traditions. Agent: Leigh Eisenman, Wolf Literary. (Sept.)