Tag: Iowa

Only In Iowa

If you’ve ever made graham crackers from scratch (which are miles better than the store-bought ones), there’s a step in the recipe where you have to get your hands dirty. Take a stick of butter, cut it into very small pieces, dump the pieces into the mixture of dry ingredients, and dive on in with your fingers until the dough starts to clump together. It may be the only time butter and my hands ever come in contact with each other. Which is also to say, I won’t be sculpting a butter cow any time soon.

Sculptor, cow

Creating art out of food seems like an inevitable destination. I mean, back in Michelangelo’s day everyone was taking a block of marble and seeing what they could do with it. Then all but one of them quickly realized there was only one Michelangelo. The others probably turned to an easier material to work with like wood or clay. 1,000 years on, we’re sculpting food. Chocolate is a popular medium. Cakes are shaped into just about everything imaginable. But a cow made out of butter – what’s that all about?

A more fitting Hawkeye State image

We turn to Iowa to learn more about this oddity.  Most people prefer to fly over Iowa but since you’re reading and not flying, let me enlighten you.  On the list of 10 Things to Know About Iowa, there is no butter and there is no cow. There are a lot of pigs (the most of any state) and millions of acres of corn (also “the most”), and Iowa’s “Hawkeye” nickname is a reference to the birth of the red delicious apple (who knew?).  But none of this gets us to butter and cows.

The “10 Things…” list does mention the Iowa State Fair, and it is here that we find real cows by the hundreds… and a life-sized one made out of butter.  The Fair, whose 2025 edition wrapped up three weeks ago, has been making “buttered cows” since 1911, thanks to five Iowans who’ve passed the butter baton down over the years.  The latest, Sarah Pratt, has been making the cows for the last nineteen years, and only after apprenticing with the last sculptor fifteen years before that.  Some people blog; others make cows out of butter.

The 1911 original

Like papier-mâché, a butter cow is created on top of a frame built from wood, wire, and/or metal.  Then we heap on some fun statistics.  600 lbs. of “low moisture, pure cream, Iowa butter” is applied to create a cow that’s five-and-a-half feet tall and eight feet long.  The sculptor’s “studio” is a walk-in cooler set to 40ºF.  After the cow is displayed at the fair, all that butter is recycled for use on the next ten years of cows.  Unless you’d rather use it for toast, which would butter 19,200 slices.

Michelangelo didn’t stop sculpting after his famous David, of course, and neither does Sarah Pratt with her butter cows.  Also following tradition, she creates a “companion sculpture” to keep the cow company.  Sometimes the companion is an homage to Iowa, such as a John Deere tractor.  Most years the companion is a random anniversary, like the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon (totally random because Neil wasn’t born in Iowa).  This year the sculpture featured the characters from “Toy Story”, denoting the movie’s 30th anniversary.  You get the feeling Sarah enjoys sculpting butter so much that a life-sized cow just isn’t enough.

Woody, Buzz

For all of my research, I can’t figure out why a cow made out of butter and Iowa belong in the same sentence.  Nearby Wisconsin and Michigan are better known for dairy cows.  California tops the list of the five states producing the most butter (and Iowa isn’t one of the other four).  No matter, this tradition isn’t stopping anytime soon.  The butter cow even has a place in the Smithsonian Institution (thankfully, as a replica that will never melt).

I love butter, but more on top of baked goods and in graham cracker recipes than in the shape of a cow.  I will admit to buying my butter by the brick instead of by the stick.  But now that I know about Iowa’s annual creations, I’ll never look at my morning toast again without thinking, mooooooooo.

Some content sourced from the Iowa State Fair website, the U.S. News article, “10 Things to Know About Iowa”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

A Baker’s Half-Dozen

If you’ve ever been to an IKEA home furnishings store, you know the shopping experience is more about navigating a vast warehouse than a cozy “store”.  IKEA retail covers several football fields worth of showrooms and merchandise, with clever navigation arrows projected onto the floor so you don’t lose yourself in the maze.  Before or after your purchases, IKEA offers a spacious sit-down cafeteria, so you can fuel or restore your energy levels as needed.  And it is here – in the IKEA cafeteria – where I can’t help but picture the Swedish Chef from the The Muppet Show.

You remember Swedish Chef, don’t you?  Even if you only occasionally glanced over the shoulders of your children as they watched The Muppet Show, Swedish Chef left an indelible impression.  Chef had those big, bushy brows completely covering his eyes.  He always had a handful of utensils, inevitably launched into the air of his kitchen as his gibberish songs ended with “… BORK, BORK, BORK!”  Chef sported a colorful bow tie, a white apron, and the distinctive toque blanche (white hat) on his head.  Swedish Chef was always my favorite Muppet.

Chef could be working behind the counter of the IKEA cafeteria, because naturally; IKEA serves Swedish food.  My favorite entree (as if I dine at IKEA regularly) is the Swedish meatballs in brown sauce (köttbullar), served with a side of the crepe-like potato pancakes (raggmunkar) and a dollop of lingonberry jam (Sweden’s famous “food freshener”).

There’s another fellow in the States who reminds me of Swedish Chef, and he doesn’t work in the IKEA cafeteria.  Ever heard of Mimal, “the Man in the Middle of the USA”?  Mimal lives in the Midwestern states, and he’s a big boy.  In fact, Mimal’s so big he barely fits between Canada’s border to the north and Mexico’s to the south.

Have a look at the map.  Mimal (sometimes called “the Elf”) is a silhouette of a chef, represented by the outlines of seven American states.  MIMAL is quite literally (M)innesota, (I)owa, (M)issouri, (A)rkansas, and (L)ouisiana.  He holds a pan (Tennessee) of fried chicken (perfectly represented by Kentucky).  Mimal can thank the west bank of the Mississippi River for the shape of his five-state body.  He also looks like he’s about to march his chicken right off the map, over the Atlantic Ocean, and on into Europe.  Maybe he’s headed to Sweden?

Whoever discovered Mimal hiding in America came up with a clever way for children to memorize a handful of states.  Appropriately, Mimal the chef is made up of a baker’s half-dozen of them.  A baker’s dozen (13) began in the 11th century, when an extra loaf was added to the bread basket to guarantee the minimum sales weight.  A baker’s half-dozen then – rounded-up – is seven loaves.  Or seven American states.

Leave it to Americans to deny Mimal his innocence.  Based on one or more unsolved mysteries in the MIMAL states, the elf-chef was once connected with a real-life kidnapper/murderer.  The legend claimed if you drove straight from Minnesota to Louisiana – through each of Mimal’s five “body” states, you’d be abducted (never to be seen again) once you crossed Louisiana’s northern border.  My logical brain asks how said abductor knows you made it through all five states?  But this is legend we’re talking about, much like the monster in Scotland’s Loch Ness.  Tabloid fodder at best.

Educators expanded on Mimal’s seven-state profile, including all fifty American states in a story designed to help students memorize names and locations (would’ve been helpful back in my school days, when I’d confuse Wyoming with Colorado).  Still, I prefer to limit the game to Mimal’s baker’s half-dozen.  I can’t help but see a big chef every time I look at a map of the United States.  I also can’t help hearing him sing, “…BORK, BORK, BORK!”

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”, and the Laughing Squid blog.