We Minnesotans believe in low-key. We don’t make a big deal about it unless it’s about our kids. And so one morning last week, when I ordered steak and eggs for breakfast and got a splotch of ovular grease and sirloin of Percheron and stale toast, after I sawed away at the horsemeat and the waitperson asked how everything was, I said, “Fine.” It dawned on me in that very moment that I have never ever not even once sent food back to the kitchen.

It was a revelation. I think I would complain if a cockroach was swimming in the soup or a colony of ants resided in the wedge salad, but a breakfast like the one I got, I accept as the luck of the draw, same as you accept potholes or panhandling drug addicts. This is a Minnesota point of view: “Who do I think I am to complain about a tough steak in a world where so many go hungry?” I always regarded this as virtuous, but now it seems like cowardice, the fear of unpleasantness. 

Flattery is offensive to a Minnesotan. My mother recoiled if someone praised her cooking and I do the same when someone praises a book I wrote. My wife says, “Accept compliments gracefully,” and she’s so right, but you can tell when you’re being buttered up and when people speak from the heart. I was walking along Wabasha Street in downtown St. Paul last week (after the breakfast) and a couple passed me and the man said quietly, “It’s good to see you again, sir.” A quiet welcome from a city I left years ago and it touched me. The modesty of it said that he’s a Minnesotan too.