S/O: What explains the Midwestern palate?

[Anonymous]

I mean…what explains Marylanders eating crabs?

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Michigan. We ate a lot of food that had no taste. Very little seasoning was used. Generally nothing beyond salt and pepper. Every dinner had an iceberg lettuce salad with bottled dressing; canned vegetables (usually green beans, corn, or peas) and/or a starch (usually fried potatoes or boiled new potatoes); and a meat -- meatloaf, cubed steak, steak on the grill, ground beef cooked in a pan with onions, chicken pieces tossed in flour w/ deminimis salt and pepper. Once in a while we veered off and had tacos (with hard corn shells from a "kit") or spaghetti with bottled sauce and garlic bread from the frozen foods section of the store. My entire family wouldn't eat fish because it tastes "fishy." They were disgusted when a hibachi restaurant came to town and I ordered some sushi. Potlucks meant a 7 layer salad (iceberg lettuce, peas, red onion, bacon bits, shredded cheese, and all of this sealed with a layer of mayo). I don't know why this is how we ate, but the midwestern palate is definitely a thing; fwiw my family were many generations removed from immigration (most of my ancestors are Scots, English, Irish, or, to a lesser extent, German).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you never been to the Midwest? People there eat all kinds of food, including "spicy" or "exotic" food native to other countries.

There are plenty of restaurants too.

This is fairly recent in most non urban metro parts of the Midwest. Anyone age 40+ would have had much more limited options unless in a major city.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s because people tend to cook at home most of the time, even in larger cities. Meat, starch, vegetable is an easy way to make a meal.

I still can’t get over how often people pick up take-out for their entire family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you never been to the Midwest? People there eat all kinds of food, including "spicy" or "exotic" food native to other countries.

There are plenty of restaurants too.

This is fairly recent in most non urban metro parts of the Midwest. Anyone age 40+ would have had much more limited options unless in a major city.

Yeah. Because most people in rural midwestern areas can’t afford to go out to eat all of the time.
I don’t think this is very different for rural areas of the east and west coast.

A lot of my family is from Yuba City, CA, and their diet isn’t much different than described by the OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently there are lots of Reddit threads about this phenomenon.

“ So, in the 1800s there were two big things that moved people towards eating bland food in the Midwest. The first was a little xenophobia. There were a lot of eastern and southern Europeans moving to the US at this time. The paler, and more importantly Protestant, descendants of English and German settlers looked at these new comers as sensual slaves to the pope and to their own bodies. Prejudice against Italians was high on the east coast, and that extended to the way they cooked. Highly spiced dishes were thought of as unrefined and likely to heat the blood too much.

The next and arguably bigger deal was a religious movement that swept the nation in the 1800s. People were going to revivals constantly to renew their faith. These preachers were very strict about the pleasures of the flesh. They weren't very keen on any pleasures outside of reading the Bible and occasionally having children. Food was a big deal for these people. Several of the religious sects that showed up after the great disappointment in 1844 (the Seventh Day Adventists being the largest and longest lasting) had tons of guidelines about what to eat.

Ellen White the prophet of the Adventist Church declared even black pepper to be bad for you as she considered it an irritant. She recommended a vegan diet with very few spices. She believed that animal products, tea, coffee, powerful spices, and basically anything other than seeds, beans, and fruit, would be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.

John Harvey Kellogg, another Adventist, also advocated lots of bland foods, mostly whole grains and plain yogurt. He invented the first breakfast cereal as a bland sort of grain bar that shattered into little flakes in the oven. He even recommend yogurt enemas, though sadly this practice did not catch on in the Midwest at large nearly as well as extremely bland cereal did.

The inventor of the Graham cracker made it bland on purpose as well… Basically, all of these strange extremely Protestant religious movements swept through the Midwest for the better part of 100 years preaching anti worldly pleasure messages and telling everyone bland foods were the best thing you could eat.”

None of this has to do with meat and potatoes. Meat especially is a pretty much non-negotiable staple in Midwest.

Eating other living beings when there is access to other foods is about as wordly pleasure as one can get.

Meat is a non-negotiable staple everywhere in the US

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently there are lots of Reddit threads about this phenomenon.

“ So, in the 1800s there were two big things that moved people towards eating bland food in the Midwest. The first was a little xenophobia. There were a lot of eastern and southern Europeans moving to the US at this time. The paler, and more importantly Protestant, descendants of English and German settlers looked at these new comers as sensual slaves to the pope and to their own bodies. Prejudice against Italians was high on the east coast, and that extended to the way they cooked. Highly spiced dishes were thought of as unrefined and likely to heat the blood too much.

The next and arguably bigger deal was a religious movement that swept the nation in the 1800s. People were going to revivals constantly to renew their faith. These preachers were very strict about the pleasures of the flesh. They weren't very keen on any pleasures outside of reading the Bible and occasionally having children. Food was a big deal for these people. Several of the religious sects that showed up after the great disappointment in 1844 (the Seventh Day Adventists being the largest and longest lasting) had tons of guidelines about what to eat.

Ellen White the prophet of the Adventist Church declared even black pepper to be bad for you as she considered it an irritant. She recommended a vegan diet with very few spices. She believed that animal products, tea, coffee, powerful spices, and basically anything other than seeds, beans, and fruit, would be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.

John Harvey Kellogg, another Adventist, also advocated lots of bland foods, mostly whole grains and plain yogurt. He invented the first breakfast cereal as a bland sort of grain bar that shattered into little flakes in the oven. He even recommend yogurt enemas, though sadly this practice did not catch on in the Midwest at large nearly as well as extremely bland cereal did.

The inventor of the Graham cracker made it bland on purpose as well… Basically, all of these strange extremely Protestant religious movements swept through the Midwest for the better part of 100 years preaching anti worldly pleasure messages and telling everyone bland foods were the best thing you could eat.”

None of this has to do with meat and potatoes. Meat especially is a pretty much non-negotiable staple in Midwest.

Eating other living beings when there is access to other foods is about as wordly pleasure as one can get.

Oh come on. Eating meat is just easier. We are Catholic and don’t eat meat during Lent. I have 5 kids, two in-laws who live with us, and a full-time job. The amount of cooking I have to do during that time nearly kills me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And not just meat and potatoes and bread, but the lack of spice. Why? Isn’t Penzey’s originally from the Midwest? Yet most people I know from the Midwest have significant food aversions compared to people from the coasts.

Spice is traditionally used in hot climates with rotten meat. Good fresh meat like beef and chicken doesn't need spice.

As a relatively recent immigrant to US from the lands of "bland" foods, it's very interesting to me that American definition of flavor only includes the more "Southern" spices. Our food traditionally doesn't use hot peppers or cumin, but with long winters and relatively short agricultural season, there was lots of brining, pickling, salting and smoking various stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And not just meat and potatoes and bread, but the lack of spice. Why? Isn’t Penzey’s originally from the Midwest? Yet most people I know from the Midwest have significant food aversions compared to people from the coasts.

Spice is traditionally used in hot climates with rotten meat. Good fresh meat like beef and chicken doesn't need spice.

As a relatively recent immigrant to US from the lands of "bland" foods, it's very interesting to me that American definition of flavor only includes the more "Southern" spices. Our food traditionally doesn't use hot peppers or cumin, but with long winters and relatively short agricultural season, there was lots of brining, pickling, salting and smoking various stuff.

I actually think that stuff like sauerkraut, pickles, sausage, smoked meats, etc are pretty common in the Midwest.
Eating fish isn’t as common because catfish are gross and anything else has to be flown in.

[Anonymous]

This feels like more outdated DCUM stereotyping to me. Sure, my grandparents cooked pretty bland food (though with plenty of garlic, salt, and pepper) bc that was what was available in a small Indiana city 50 years ago. Now, that same town has multiple international grocery stores and even the older people I know back home love all sorts of food from around the world. The only person I know who eats the stereotypical white bread, anti-spice diet is not even from the Midwest.

[Anonymous]

I grew up near Kansas City, and for my entire childhood, "ethnic" food meant Mexican or Italian or maybe Chinese. There just wasn't anything else available in my suburban Kansas town. Now when I go back home, the tech industry has brought a ton of immigrants, so I can get good Indian or Thai or other more exotic stuff that I eat here. But my parents still have that midwestern palate, having grown up in small midwestern towns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe cause the main countries of origin of folks from the Midwest are Germany, Ireland, Sweden, etc. Have you had food from there? Those are the foods people grew up with and passed on to their kids.

I don't think it's food aversion as much as lack of access.

Many people from the Midwest have to go back multiple generations to find their German ancestors. They aren't passing on recipes from generations ago for daily meals.

They eat what they are used to which is what their parents served them. You like what you grew up with, and it is what you learned how to cook. People pass down family recipes and recipe files.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently there are lots of Reddit threads about this phenomenon.

“ So, in the 1800s there were two big things that moved people towards eating bland food in the Midwest. The first was a little xenophobia. There were a lot of eastern and southern Europeans moving to the US at this time. The paler, and more importantly Protestant, descendants of English and German settlers looked at these new comers as sensual slaves to the pope and to their own bodies. Prejudice against Italians was high on the east coast, and that extended to the way they cooked. Highly spiced dishes were thought of as unrefined and likely to heat the blood too much.

The next and arguably bigger deal was a religious movement that swept the nation in the 1800s. People were going to revivals constantly to renew their faith. These preachers were very strict about the pleasures of the flesh. They weren't very keen on any pleasures outside of reading the Bible and occasionally having children. Food was a big deal for these people. Several of the religious sects that showed up after the great disappointment in 1844 (the Seventh Day Adventists being the largest and longest lasting) had tons of guidelines about what to eat.

Ellen White the prophet of the Adventist Church declared even black pepper to be bad for you as she considered it an irritant. She recommended a vegan diet with very few spices. She believed that animal products, tea, coffee, powerful spices, and basically anything other than seeds, beans, and fruit, would be both physically and emotionally unhealthy.

John Harvey Kellogg, another Adventist, also advocated lots of bland foods, mostly whole grains and plain yogurt. He invented the first breakfast cereal as a bland sort of grain bar that shattered into little flakes in the oven. He even recommend yogurt enemas, though sadly this practice did not catch on in the Midwest at large nearly as well as extremely bland cereal did.

The inventor of the Graham cracker made it bland on purpose as well… Basically, all of these strange extremely Protestant religious movements swept through the Midwest for the better part of 100 years preaching anti worldly pleasure messages and telling everyone bland foods were the best thing you could eat.”

Like 99.99% of reddit, this is bulls**t hogwash and staggeringly ignorant of history.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to point out, especially to the fool who thought the copy/paste from reddit had any merit to it, that what people like to mock as "bland midwestern" was pretty much the same across the entire United States until fairly recently. And actually still is. And plenty of people up and down the East Coast eat the same casseroles and meat and potato diet.

It's popular for certain people to mock the midwest probably because they get a self-righteous thrill mocking "white bread" people. But, of course, they're only ignorant and childish and, when you get down to it, outright stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Michigan. We ate a lot of food that had no taste. Very little seasoning was used. Generally nothing beyond salt and pepper. Every dinner had an iceberg lettuce salad with bottled dressing; canned vegetables (usually green beans, corn, or peas) and/or a starch (usually fried potatoes or boiled new potatoes); and a meat -- meatloaf, cubed steak, steak on the grill, ground beef cooked in a pan with onions, chicken pieces tossed in flour w/ deminimis salt and pepper. Once in a while we veered off and had tacos (with hard corn shells from a "kit") or spaghetti with bottled sauce and garlic bread from the frozen foods section of the store. My entire family wouldn't eat fish because it tastes "fishy." They were disgusted when a hibachi restaurant came to town and I ordered some sushi. Potlucks meant a 7 layer salad (iceberg lettuce, peas, red onion, bacon bits, shredded cheese, and all of this sealed with a layer of mayo). I don't know why this is how we ate, but the midwestern palate is definitely a thing; fwiw my family were many generations removed from immigration (most of my ancestors are Scots, English, Irish, or, to a lesser extent, German).

.

I could have written this word for word. I’d add hot dog night with rippled potato chips and canned beans with fried onions sprinkled on top.

I am from Nebraska and I grew up in the 60s and 70s. But here’s the thing my relatives who also grew up eating that and still live in Nebraska are very adventuresome eaters now in their 40s and 50s because life has changed and globalization, you know? it would’ve been a big ask to expect my parents to feed us South Indian food and sushi in 1973 in Nebraska but my family certainly eats that now.

This is why I am sort of irritated when ultra sophisticated people on DCUM from worldly places like Paramus New Jersey and Merion PA mock the Midwestern palate of 1955. You were eating that, too, if you were Euro-American. Even in LA. Please stop pretending that locally sources artichokes and freshly made pesto graced your table as you watched Electric Company