Massive food festival to feature one ‘iconic dish’ from each state. The Maine pick is no surprise

Flavored Nation, a festival reportedly set to take place in St. Louis as early as the spring of 2018, is being promoted as an event showcasing the one “iconic dish” from each of the 50 states.

“We want to elevate the ‘food destination’ profile even further, come back year after year with this Midwest signature event and, ideally, do for St. Louis with food what Comic-Con did for San Diego,” Flavored Nation executive producer Richard Gore told St. Louis Magazine. “That’s the vision.”

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nebraska’s dish at the festival is something called a Runza sandwich — it involves ground beef and a mystery sauce — while South Dakota’s bringing a traditional cubed meat dish called “chislic.”

Minnesota’s got a casserole called “huddish,” which is apparently a slurred version of “hot dish” and includes tater tots, creamed soup and vegetables over meat. North Dakota will have knoephla, which is a kind of dumpling stew, and not the lead singer of Dire Straits.

“There are certainly some strange ones in the bunch,” Gore admitted.

The choice for Maine isn’t one of the strange ones, though. Representing our state at the big food festival will be none other than our famous lobster rolls. Cold ones, in particular. Connecticut is bringing hot lobster rolls, because I guess they started running out of ideas once they got up to New England.

Folks in Maine may roll our eyes a little about the idea that, once again, we’re being asked to bring lobster to the big national meal. And you know darn well where Connecticut is probably getting the lobster for it’s “iconic” rolls.

But you have to look at things from everyone else’s perspective. If I was inviting Maine to dinner once a year and I lived in St. Louis, I’d ask it to bring lobster, too. We’ve got the most lobster and the best lobster, so let’s flaunt it.

Next year, maybe we can bring our wild blueberry pie.

Do you think the lobster roll should be considered Maine’s “iconic” dish? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook.