Reply to S/O: What explains the Midwestern palate?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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). [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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