Minnesota turns 150

Minnesota celebrated its sesquicentennial today (that's 150 years) so I thought I'd report on some of the icons that help define where we now live.

1) Hormel foods of Minnesota introduced a food 'classic' in 1937. Have a guess as to what this is then read on to find out the answer.

2) The jolly green giant first appeared as a scowling white ogre in 1921 then turned green and jolly in 1946.

3) Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox
The legendary lumberjack and his ox appear all over Minnesota, most famously in Brainerd.

4) The Loon, voted by schoolchildren and sportmen's groups in 1961 as the state bird (the unoffical state bird is the mosquito)

5) Lutefisk, Minnesota has a massive Norwegian heritage and lutefisk means 'lye fish', cod, dried, soaked in lye and boiled

6) Post-It notes, invented by two 3M scientists, 3M is also a Minnesota company, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing.

7) The cultural icon formally known as Prince

8) Garrison Keillor, inventor of the fictional Lake Wobegon and satirist

9) The Coen brothers - cool writer/directors of Raising Arizona, Blood Simple and of course Fargo (compulsory viewing before visiting yah)

10) International Falls - situated in the NorthEast of the state, this is usually the coldest place in the US.

Back to the food quiz, did you guess, it was of course



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