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.

Anonymous wrote:Hey, at least in most major Midwestern cities, you can find good Italian, Greek diners, pizza, bakeries, coffee shops, burgers, and delis. These are all things that they just can’t seem to master in the DMV.

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:Don’t people garden and can there? Isn’t the Midwest more rural in overall. Sure there are cities…but more small towns.

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?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Please tell me that you are not this clueless! Ever heard of the Midwestern Friday fish fry where people eat walleye, bluegill and lake perch that is from the Great Lakes? If you don’t know that, then you really have no business commenting and you can just sit down.

I'm from Michigan. Grew up in a town about an hour from Lake Michigan. My entire family was averse to the idea of eating fish, which I have always thought of as cultural and directly related to being from the Midwest. And never in my life did I ever hear anything about a fish fry, let alone attend one and eat fish.

I also have family in Michigan and only one person of an entire clan and extended clan eats fish. And that’s because he will eat anything, even someone else’s messily eaten leftovers with dirty napkins piled on top. I have seen signs for a fish fry, but I mean, it’s fried. Eating fried fish and fried shrimp don’t really mean much to me. You could fry the inside of a shoe and people would it eat. It’s fried.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You know - people ate like this in every state in the country. I'm not sure why people want to single out the midwest other than it's fashionable to sneer at the midwest for apparently having all the sins holding America back from sublime sophistication....

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).

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.

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.

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).