The 2024 Midwesterner Gift Guide

A dozen very Midwestern ideas for the holidays

Midwestern cooks and craftspeople have a way of making the ordinary extraordinary. This collection proves it, with mail-order-worthy flour tortillas, an heirloom-caliber rolling pin, and a top-shelf brandy made from wild berries most people overlook. Here’s the heartland ingenuity, creativity, and care that we celebrate all year, curated for holiday gifting by a panel representing the whole region.

Midwestern Food 101

Midwestern Food: A Chef’s Guide to the Surprising History of a Great American Cuisine by Paul Fehribach
Paul has surfaced long-lost culinary ephemera from yellowed newspaper clippings, church pamphlets, dusty cookbooks, and he's assembled the definitive account of Midwestern foodways in one book. I think the phrase “yeoman's work” was coined to describe Paul Fehribach. —Kevin Pang, contributor, NYT Cooking

Entertaining, Minnesota-Style

Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others by Amy Thielen
Every modern Midwestern food writer owes a debt to Amy Thielen, who published a definitive regional cookbook, The New Midwestern Table, in 2013. Her latest, Company, is a guide to cooking for friends and family (and having fun doing it) that radiates the warmth of her cozy home in Park Rapids, Minnesota. —Jed Portman, Midwesterner

A Forager’s Guide to the Midwest

The Aromatic Wild Herbs and Spices of the Midwest by Marika Josephson
“Did you know that you can make a year-round substitute for maple syrup by boiling maple bark? Or that you can brew a homegrown ‘chai’ from ginger, turmeric, spicebush, and sweet clover? Have you ever considered making your own filé powder from the sassafras leaves in your backyard... or using it as a pizza topping?”

That’s how I introduced this handbook from Scratch Brewing co-founder Marika Josephson in 2021. Earlier this year, after two sold-out printings, Marika and I released an updated digital edition. You can’t put this version under the tree, but it’s easy to access on walks in the woods and convenient for last-minute gifting. (And if you want to print it out, be my guest.) Take it from me: The hickory cream soda recipe alone will change the way you see the Midwestern woods forever. Thanks to Marika, I have a bag of hickory bark in the kitchen right now. —Jed Portman

A Great Lakes Staple

Sa'be Wild Rice, Big Grassy First Nation, just north of Minnesota
Consider supporting Indigenous communities this holiday season by giving the gift of wild rice, an ingredient that’s unique to the Great Lakes region. The nutrient-rich, hand-harvested wild rice that we sell through our Indigenous Food Lab Market is not only delicious, but also a meaningful gift that helps sustain traditional, sustainable harvesting practices and empowers Native food producers. —Sean Sherman, executive director, NATIFs, and founder, The Sioux Chef

Midwest-Grown Hazelnuts

Hazelnut Kernels, American Hazelnut Company, Viroqua, WI
If you want a gift that will surprise someone, give them nuts! Not just any nuts, of course, but the most carefully sourced, freshest, sweetest nuts you can find. Lately, I’ve been loving these Minnesota- and Wisconsin-grown hazelnuts, which I discovered at the Minneapolis winter farmers’ market. They’re small, sweet, and freshly harvested—which is important, because hazelnuts contain a lot of fat and will go rancid quite easily. You’ll want to keep these in the freezer, and take them out when needed. —Amy Thielen, cookbook author

Award-Winning Tortillas

Best of Yoli Bundle (Pork Fat), Yoli Tortilleria, Kansas City, MO
I hear Yoli Tortilleria’s Sonoran-style flour tortillas make an excellent taco. I may never know. I can’t stop eating them right off the griddle, in all their steamy, chewy, leopard-spotted glory.

The Kansas City-based tortilleria, which won the 2023 James Beard Award for Outstanding Bakery, specializes in deceptively simple, supremely flavorful comforts. Grab the shop’s Best of Yoli Bundle to try them all: nixtamalized corn tortillas, a creamy-hot avocado and tomatillo salsa, and those supple Sonoran-style flour tortillas, made with pork fat. (If you don’t eat pork, don’t worry—the avocado oil versions are just as luxurious.) Both the corn and flour tortillas freeze well, so you and your loved ones can stock up and serve them all winter.

For a stocking stuffer, grab the shop’s signature “Sin maíz, no hay país” (“Without corn, there is no country”) beanie—a message that resonates in the Midwest in much the same way it does in Mexico. —Liz Cook, Haterade

Chocolate with a Mission

Dark Chocolate + Red Raspberry CollaBARation Bar, Askinosie Chocolate, Springfield, Missouri
Maybe it’s not true that good people make good food, but Askinosie Chocolate makes you want to believe. A former criminal defense lawyer, Shawn Askinosie has spent his second act working with cacao farmers all over the world, bringing them into his business in a way that goes way beyond fair trade. He and his suppliers work together to ensure that their processes are effective, sustainable, and ethical, and they share in the company’s profits. Askinosie has partners in the Midwest, too. For the past few years, this berry-flavored collaboration with the Michigan jam makers American Spoon has been my favorite stocking stuffer. (For what it’s worth, I’ve also given out a dozen copies of Shawn’s soul-searching book, Meaningful Work.) —Jed Portman

Hoosier Meat Snacks

Cured meats, Smoking Goose, Indianapolis
In 2007, long before the word “charcuterie” would hit its trendy stride, Indianapolis couple Chris and Mollie Eley opened their tiny butcher shop, Goose the Market, in the city’s revitalized Fall Creek Place neighborhood. In the years since, the Eleys have added a Smoking Goose Meatery production facility and expanded their line of small-batch, hand-crafted sausages, salami, and smoked and cured meats to include more than 40 varieties, all available online.

The marquee proteins include a sturdy Stagberry Salami that blends elk with dried blueberries; whole-hog Kitchen Sink Sausage fortified with bacon, piment d’ville, mustard, and parsley; and a spreadable, country-style rabbit-and–pork cheek terrine with a lovely hit of kitchen spices. But do not miss the outliers like the skinny Saucisson Rouge salame, dense and funky with pork heart and liver fortified with red wine, and limited-release smoked honeycombs that turn any wooden board spread into a work of art. —Julia Spalding, features editor, Indianapolis Monthly

The World’s Best Potato Chips

1.5 pounds of Grippo’s Bar-B-Q Chips, Cincinnati
The holidays are a good time to share comfort foods. What’s better than a big box of crunchy, salty, spicy, craveable regional barbecue chips? —Dann Woellert, food etymologist (Dann covered Grippo’s for Midwesterner in 2021)

A Northwoods Kitchen Heirloom

French-Style Rolling Pin, Enger Grove, Bemidji, Minnesota
A former Minnesota Public Radio journalist, John Enger now lives and works way out in the Minnesota woods with his family. In addition to his full-time gig doing timber-frame construction, he also writes novels and makes thoughtful, utilitarian kitchen utensils. His French-style rolling pin is fashioned from local bur oak and polished to a soft, glassy finish. Hefty, but not heavy, this pin rolls like butter and feels good to the hand. John clearly understands the little details that make a tool beautiful, useful, and essential, and his rolling pin is one of those that you will pick out from the drawer again and again. —Amy Thielen

A Heartland Aperitif

Apologue Persimmon Liqueur, Chicago
I love the approach that the folks at the Chicago-based Apologue Liqueurs take. They source fruits, roots, and other ingredients from Midwestern farmers and turn them into unusual but delicious liqueurs. Bottles include Aronia Berry and Paw Paw, but I particularly like the Persimmon, which is made with Midwestern persimmons, rhubarb root, hibiscus, and spearmint, for a bittersweet flavor profile. Its easiest use is anywhere you'd use a red bitter, such as in a Negroni or spritz. —Amy Cavanaugh, American Weekender

The Plains in a Bottle

Yote Yip Chokecherry Brandy, Long Dogs Distilling, Arapahoe, Nebraska
Let’s get this out of the way up front: It’s $150 for 375 milliliters, or half a standard bottle of booze. Now, consider that each half-sized bottle packs the flavor and aroma of 27 pounds of tiny, hand-harvested wild Nebraska chokecherries. Made without compromise in Willa Cather country, this is a mind-blowing taste of place for anyone who loves the Great Plains and their native flora. To me, it’s priceless. (It’s also super-small-batch. Order now, while you can.) —Jed Portman