S/O: What explains the Midwestern palate?

[Anonymous]

My in-laws are from Chicago and they only eat insanely bland beige food. No spice whatsoever (not even black pepper). It’s all meat, potatoes and carbs except maybe shrimp now and then but only if breaded and deep fried. Look, I’m not saying all midwesterners are like this but stereotypes usually exist because there’s some underlying truth to them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My in-laws are from Chicago and they only eat insanely bland beige food. No spice whatsoever (not even black pepper). It’s all meat, potatoes and carbs except maybe shrimp now and then but only if breaded and deep fried. Look, I’m not saying all midwesterners are like this but stereotypes usually exist because there’s some underlying truth to them.

So n=1?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I’m from a small town, and while there wasn’t a huge variety within my actual town limits, the general, drive-able area actually had a lot in the late 70s/early 80s. A Greek restaurant, BBQ, an Amish restaurant, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, and a New York style pizza parlor (family owned, not a chain). I’m not saying it was as much as a city, but even the Marsh chain of grocery stores was carrying sushi before I moved out of the Midwest. The grocery stores when I visit home are fully stocked with the same few aisles of “ethnic foods” as you would find most places out here, with entire separate Latino markets. It’s stupid to generalize “the Midwest,” even.

Well, my hometown in Kansas had one Mexican restaurant, and one Chinese restaurant. No place had sushi, ever. This was in the 1980s and 1990s.

Your experience may not be shared by many OP. Several of my old friends had never even tried Chinese food, because their parents weren't interested.

DP here who agrees with this. Not all midwesterners grew up with bland food. But growing up, I had never had Chinese food (outside of La Choy a few times), let alone any other Asian, never had Greek (for real), no Indian, Middle Eastern, the only Mexican was Old El Paso tacos. Had my first real Chinese when I went away to college on the East Coast. We did eat a lot of spaghetti and meatballs and we'd go to the Italian market for salami. We also had a lot of fresh vegetables in the summer. But I think we had 3 types of starches at every meal. Corn with every meal too!

[Anonymous]

I once went to a conference in the Midwest and the participants who were mainly from the region found Greek food exotic and thought sushi was disgusting. So there is a reason for the stereotype, but it seems that certainly less cosmopolitan areas would be more likely to eat bland food like potatoes and meat and corn and not have as much access or interest in other cuisines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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).

This has been exactly my experience as a transplant to Michigan. The family I married into has very similar roots - Irish, German, Scottish, tiny bit French.

This was my experience growing up in eastern Massachusetts, English mother whose ancestors came off the Mayflower and German father whose ancestors came off the boat at Ellis Island in the very late 1800s - my father grew up in NYC in the 40s/50s.

My parents are the same food all their lives until they died. We lived out in Arizona for a few years and then they retired to rural Maine. Even when they ate out, it was places that served bland American food or the most exotic was bad small town Chinese. Considering that my father loved heat and was always adding crushed red chili to anything and everything, it’s too bad he never became culinarily adventurous, but I also know the biggest reason he didn’t was his bigotry - he simply didn’t love food more than he loved to denigrate people.

I have mixed feelings about how my life unfolded, because I was the one kid who went to college and not just college but ultimately two advanced degrees including a professional degree from an elite university. Over the years I enjoyed some really fabulous meals because of my far ranging cultural experiences. I also became somebody who eats very differently as an adult than I did as a child - although I do occasionally still reach for the blue box macaroni, mostly I cook my own food and it’s crazy flavorful and fresh stuff - I create my own recipes and use a lot of garlic and chilis and spice in nearly everything.

I know if I hadn’t left small town America for college and beyond, I’d still be eating a bunch of the tasteless American stuff I grew up with and not even knowing what I was missing.

[Anonymous]

And why do they only use ranch dressing for salads. It’s like a bowl of ranch dressing with a few pieces of lettuce under it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve lived all over the country and understand some of the threads of seen here about Midwestern in laws. But why? I understand that when our grandparents were raising their kids, canned vegetables were common, and then convenience foods exploded. But there are plenty of older folks and rural areas in the coasts. And plenty of money and wealthier enclaves in the Midwest. Yet with a couple of exceptions like maybe Chicago, the Midwest seems very different to me. And even in Chicago and near Chicago, most places heavily emphasize simple carbs and meat. I don’t think it’s a matter of money or education or age, because like I said, I’ve been to rural/urban/suburban areas all over with a mix of all ages. What do you think?

Chicago has a lot of nice restaurants but MOST of the restaurants and most of the food locals eat is typical boring Midwest fare. Those nice restaurants downtown are expense account swipes, not places local families or Big Ten graduate yuppies are going a couple times a month.

Let me guess, you went to Chicago once for a paper pusher’s conference and you truly have no idea what real Chicagoans eat on a daily basis.

This x1000. It’s sad that Zaytinya is still the recommendation I get when I ask a DC person “restaurant recommendation for a group of 8, some vegetarians”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Good Lord, woman. I would take to my bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And why do they only use ranch dressing for salads. It’s like a bowl of ranch dressing with a few pieces of lettuce under it.

So tired. Yawn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having lived in the Midwest and DC, I encounter at least as many picky judgmental people here as there. They might have different foods they like and don’t like, but all the people here posting “gross” or “ew” about people’s food aren’t Midwesterners.

My theory is that some of the strife about the IL’s starts out with a DIL who is judgmental about what her MIL serves, which makes the MIL defensive.

I thought this too! The DIL clearly looks down on her DH’s family because of where they are from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having lived in the Midwest and DC, I encounter at least as many picky judgmental people here as there. They might have different foods they like and don’t like, but all the people here posting “gross” or “ew” about people’s food aren’t Midwesterners.

My theory is that some of the strife about the IL’s starts out with a DIL who is judgmental about what her MIL serves, which makes the MIL defensive.

I thought this too! The DIL clearly looks down on her DH’s family because of where they are from.

Who are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Having lived in the Midwest and DC, I encounter at least as many picky judgmental people here as there. They might have different foods they like and don’t like, but all the people here posting “gross” or “ew” about people’s food aren’t Midwesterners.

My theory is that some of the strife about the IL’s starts out with a DIL who is judgmental about what her MIL serves, which makes the MIL defensive.

I thought this too! The DIL clearly looks down on her DH’s family because of where they are from.

Who are you talking about?

Basically all of the OPs who start these stupid threads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

I grew up in Potomac in the 1980s-1990s and I remember well when the international aisle of Giant at cabin John and the magruders had italian seasoning and minced garlic in a jar. You couldn't buy ginger at the grocery store- had to use powdered or go to Maxim's on University. I think maybe magrudedr's n rockville pike had it. The papayas were tiny, bitter and barely orange let alone pink. (in my culture you use green papaya to tenderize meat). And there were a lot of asian immigrants plus 2nd generation European Jews who all shopped at specialty stores and Rodmans but the Giant and Safeway thought international meant El Paso and Italian seasonings. It wasn't just the midwest. goat milk was considered so off beat that it was shown as alien food on that one show with the aliens. I remember it cilantro being this huge "new" herb and fresh herbs were not as ready available- most people who used fresh herbs grew them and there was a vigorous neighborhood trade in figs and herbs. It wasn't even easy to get olive oil- only pompei.

[Anonymous]

What’s surprising to me is that a midwestern palate exists in 2023. There’s so much variety out there in terms of ingredients and techniques and cuisines, and it’s as simple as using Google and watching a YouTube video. Why would anyone like unimaginative bland food is beyond me. They’re missing out.

[Anonymous]

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.

Swedish American here - I’m sorry to say that candied/marshmallow yams, green bean casserole, and spray cheese are not swedish delicacies!! My relatives come to the US and always complain about the awful bread, large portions, fried food, frozen entrees, and lack of fresh food.

Now if you want to talk about awful fish pies and fish casseroles, we can blame my people!