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Cuisine of the Midwestern United States

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Midwestern cuisine is a regional cuisine of the American Midwest. It draws its culinary roots most significantly from the cuisines of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe.

Midwestern cuisine generally showcases simple but hearty dishes. Its culinary profiles may seem synonymous with "American food." Quoted in an interview with the Daily Herald published Jan. 17, 2007, Chef Stephen Langlois described it: "Think of Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and cranberry sauce and wild rice and apple pie."

Characteristics

Sometimes called "the breadbasket of America," the Midwest serves as a center for grain production, particularly wheat, corn and soybeans. Midwestern states also produce most of the country's wild rice.

Beef and pork processing always have been important Midwestern industries, with a strong role in regional diets. Chicago and Kansas City have been traditional stockyard and processing centers of the beef trade, while Iowa remains the center of pork production in the U.S.

Far from the oceans, Midwesterners historically ate little seafood, relying on local freshwater fish, such as perch and trout, supplemented by canned tuna and canned or cured salmon and herring, although modern air shipping of ocean seafood has been increasing Midwesterners' taste for fish.

Dairy products, especially cheese, form an important group of regional ingredients, with Wisconsin traditionally known as "America's Dairy Capital," although other Midwest states make cheese as well.

The upper Midwest, a prime fruit-growing region, sees the extensive use of apples, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, peaches and other cold-climate fruit in its cuisine.

As with many American regional cuisines, Midwestern cooking has been heavily influenced by immigrant groups. Strong Scandinavian influences exist in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Throughout the northern Midwest, Northern European immigrant groups predominated, so Swedish pancakes and Polish pierogi are common. Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas and Illinois were destinations for many ethnic German immigrants, so pork sausages and potatoes are prevalent. In the Rust Belt, many Greeks and Greek Macedonians became restaurateurs, imparting a Mediterranean influence to corner diners. Native American influences show up in the uses of corn and wild rice.

Traditional Midwestern cooks typically used a light hand with seasonings, preferring sage, dill, caraway, mustard and parsley as opposed to hot, bold and spicy flavors. However, with new waves of immigrants from Latin America moving into the region, these tastes are changing.

This section of the country is also headquarters for several seminal hamburger chains, notably McDonald's in Oak Brook, Illinois (founded in California, but turned into the iconic franchise by Ray Kroc beginning with a still-standing store in Des Plaines, Illinois). The Midwest is also home to Culver's in Sauk City, Wisconsin; Steak n Shake, founded in Normal, Illinois, and now based in Indianapolis; Wendy's in Dublin, Ohio; and White Castle in Columbus, Ohio.

Urban centers

Major urban areas in the Midwest often have distinctive cuisines that can be very different from those of the region's rural areas.

Chicago

Chicago has a distinctive cuisine featuring many restaurant foods exclusive to the area, like Italian beef, the Maxwell Street Polish, the Chicago-style hot dog, Chicago-style pizza, chicken Vesuvio and the jibarito, as well as a large number of steakhouses.

Chicago also boasts many gourmet restaurants, as well as a wide variety of ethnic food stores and eateries, especially Mexican, Polish, Italian, Greek, Indian and Asian, and German, often clustered in ethnic neighborhoods. Many of these cuisines have evolved differently in Chicago than in other areas of the US. For example, saganaki was first flambéed at the table in Greektown.

The Midwest is sometimes thought to be behind the coasts in culinary trends, yet, perhaps ironically, Chicago is now the country's leading center of molecular gastronomy.

As a major rail hub, Chicago historically had access to a broad range of the country's foodstuffs, so even in the 19th century, Chicagoans could easily buy items like live oysters[1] and reasonably fresh shrimp. Chicago's oldest signature dish, shrimp de Jonghe, was invented around the turn of the 20th century. Today, O'Hare Airport brings Chicago fresh food from all over the world.

Cincinnati

Cincinnati is known for its namesake Greek-influenced chili, piled onto spaghetti. Goetta, a sausage made from pork and oats, often eaten at breakfast, and opera cream chocolates are less-famous local specialties.

Columbus

Both Wendy's and Max & Erma's originated in Columbus, Ohio, the former in Dublin, the latter in German Village. Katzinger's Delicatessen is also in German Village.

Detroit

Detroit specialties include a style of hot dog known as a Coney Island hot dog, found at hundreds of unaffiliated "Coney Island" restaurants. Famous examples include Lafayette Coney Island and American Coney Island which stand next to each other serving Coneys all night in downtown Detroit.

Detroit also has its own style of pizza, a thick-crusted, Sicilian-influenced, rectangular type called square pizza. Other Detroit foods include zip sauce, served on steaks; the triple-decker Dinty Moore sandwich; and a Chinese-American dish called warr shu gai or almond boneless chicken.

The Detroit area (particularly the city of Dearborn) has many large groups of immigrants, most notably the largest Arabic-speaking population outside of the Middle East and the most Lebanese storefronts outside of Lebanon. It also has a substantial number of Greek restaurateurs. Thus, numerous Mediterranean restaurants dot the region and typical foods such as gyros, hummus and falafel can be found in many run-of-the-mill grocery stores and restaurants.

Polish food is also prominent in the city, consisting of popular dishes such as hot dogs, oh suzannaes and borscht. The Polish paczki is also celebrated in the Detroit area, especially on Fat Tuesday. Polish bakeries concentrated in the Polish enclave of Hamtramck, Michigan, a suburb within the city, sell a selection of paczkis whose ingredients have diverged slightly from the original.

Indianapolis

Indianapolis was settled predominately by Americans of English decent, Irish and German immigrants. Therefore, much of the cities food draws upon these influences. Later immigrants included many Jews, Poles, Eastern Europeans and Italians all of whom influenced local food. Two of the cities most distinct dishes are the pork tenderloin sandwich and strawberry shortcake.

A fast growing immigrant population from places such as Mexico and India, are also beginning to influence the local food. It is also important to note that there are many locally owned ethic restaurants in the Indianapolis area, such as German, Greek, Italian, Irish, Spanish, Cuban, Mexican, Russian, Hungarian, Moroccan, Egyptian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. There are also nationally and internationally renowned restaurants such as The Oceanaire, St. Elmo's Steak House, and the Slippery Noodle Inn (which is said to be haunted) located in Indianapolis.

Kansas City

Kansas City is an important barbecue and meat-processing center with a distinctive style. The Kansas City metropolitan area has more than 100 barbecue restaurants and proclaims itself to be the "world's barbecue capital."

Milwaukee

Milwaukee, known for its strong German influences, serves loads of bratwurst and beer. Frozen custard is also very big in the Cream City.

Like most large Midwestern cities, Milwaukee offers a diverse selection of ethnic restaurants, including African, Cuban, Greek, Irish, Italian, Middle-Eastern, Mexican and soul food restaurants.

Minneapolis and Saint Paul

Despite being major food-producing cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul offer few unique dishes of renown, instead sharing many tastes with the rest of Minnesota.

The Twin Cities share the obscure distinction (along with Green Bay, Wisconsin) of being associated with the neighborhood booya, a sort of mixture of cuisine and cultural event. Also, because of the strong influx of Asian immigrants over the past few decades, a form which combines traditional Midwestern dishes with Asian techniques and spices is developing.

The Twin Cities-based University of Minnesota has been a strong location in food research in recent years, such inventions as the Honeycrisp apple have come from the "U of M." Additionally, many important agricultural conglomerates including General Mills and Cargill make their home in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

The all-American corn dog probably made its first appearance in the Twin Cities, as well as the Pronto Pup, as did the ubiquitous Betty Crocker. Several of the most important agricultural companies in the US, including Cargill, International Multifoods, General Mills were founded and have either their headquarters or major offices there.

One dish associated with the Twin Cities is the Jucy Lucy (or "Juicy Lucy"), a hamburger with a core of melted cheese. Several national restaurant chains such as Buca di Beppo and Famous Dave's got their start in the Twin Cities area.

Twin Cities residents eat more ice cream per capita than in any other region of the country[citation needed] (despite the area's notoriously long and cold winter), and most neighborhoods have at least one and often many ice cream parlors, each with its own house style of ice cream. Dairy Queen is headquartered in the Twin Cities.

Immigration from Somalia has brought a unusual number of restaurants serving cuisine from that country. The Somali Resource Center's website [1] lists twenty Somali community restaurants, most of them concentrated in the South Minneapolis and West Bank neighborhoods. In St. Paul there is a preponderance of restaurants serving cuisine from Southeast Asia, including Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian food, along University Avenue.

Omaha

Main article: Cuisine of Omaha

Omaha boasts unique steakhouses, several of which are Sicilian in origin or adjacent to the Omaha Stockyards. Additionally, both Central European and Southern influence can be seen in the local popularity of carp and South 24th Street contains a multitude of Mexican restaurants. North Omaha also has its own barbecue style.

The origins of the Reuben Sandwich reputedly come from Omaha. Reuben Kulakofsky (sometimes spelled Reubin, whose last name is sometimes shortened to Kay) was a grocer from Dundee, a neighborhood in Omaha. Kay was the inventor of the sandwich, perhaps as part of a group effort by members of Kulakofsky's weekly poker game held in the Blackstone Hotel from approximately 1920 to 1935. The participants, who nicknamed themselves "the committee," included the hotel's owner, Charles Schimmel. The sandwich first gained local fame when Schimmel put it on the Blackstone's lunch menu.[2]

Bronco's, Godfather's Pizza, and the Garden Cafe are among the chain restaurants that originated in Omaha.

St. Louis

St. Louis, reflecting its varied immigrant influences, is known for dishes such as "toasted" ravioli (which is breaded and fried), frozen custard, gooey butter cake (a rich, soft-centered coffee cake), and for popularizing the ice cream cone.

St. Louis-style barbecue uses pork steaks or St. Louis style short ribs and large quantities of sauce, it is popular but not as well known as its western Missouri cousin Kansas City Style barbecue. St. Louis-style pizza has a crispy thin crust and is usually made with Provel cheese instead of traditional mozzarella cheese.

The large number of German immigrants have made "beer and brats" (bratwurst) the standby at baseball games and street festivals. Neighborhoods like The Hill have many Italian restaurants. Mayfair salad dressing was invented at a St. Louis hotel of the same name, and is richer than Caesar salad dressing.

A St. Paul sandwich is a unique St. Louis treat available in Chinese-American restaurants. A Slinger is a diner and late night specialty consisting of a plate smothered with breakfast staples and chili, cheese and onion.

Regional specialties

Indiana

A popular dish seen almost exclusively in Indiana is sugar cream pie, which most likely originated in the state's Amish community. Another very popular food is the pork tenderloin sandwich, which is also considered to be a state food.

Iowa

Cuisine of Iowa includes the pork tenderloin sandwich, consisting of a lean, tenderloin-cut pork chop which is pounded flat, breaded, and deep fried before being served on a seeded hamburger bun with any or all of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and dill pickle slices. The main ingredient of this dish bears a striking similarity to schnitzel and as such, may be related to the large population of German immigrants that originally populated central Iowa.

Iowa is the center for loose-meat sandwiches, such as those popularized by Maid-Rite, although they can also be found in western Illinois, Indiana[3] and Nebraska.[4]

Michigan

Western and northern Michigan are notable fruit-growing and wine-making regions.

Miners looking for a convenient meal to bring to work popularized the pasty, which is now the iconic dish of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Minnesota

Known for many delights, the most common three are walleye, hotdish, and lutefisk.

Walleye is the state fish of Minnesota. Its popularity with Minnesota residents means that the residents of that state consume more of the fish than in any other jurisdiction. In 2004, it was revealed that some restaurants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region had been substituting the less expensive, imported zander for the walleye indicated on the menu. Zander (pikeperch) is a closely-related species and is almost impossible to tell apart by taste, so the television station that did the exposé had to send samples of food for DNA testing. Though sold as "walleye", several samples were found to be zander, which is considered an illegal practice by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Hotdish is any of a variety of casserole dishes popular in the Midwest of the United States and especially in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

It consists of a starch and a protein (meat and/or a vegetable) mixed together with a binding ingredient (most often canned soup or a sauce) and a topping.

In practice, typical ingredients are potatoes, ground beef and corn, with canned soup added for flavor and as a sauce, and seasoned with salt, pepper or tabasco sauce. Another popular hotdish is made with Kraft macaroni and cheese or plain noodles, canned tuna and peas, with canned soup - usually cream of mushroom - for binding. Cream of mushroom soup is so ubiquitous in hotdish that it is often referred to in such recipes as "Lutheran Binder," referring to hotdish's position as a staple of Lutheran-church cookbooks, although also made and enjoyed by all faiths in the region. Hotdish even made its way into books; Hotdish to Die For, a collection of six culinary mystery short stories in which the weapon of choice is hotdish, is a upper regional bestseller in Minnesota. Panko (Japanese bread crumbs) have in recent years become a popular topping, replacing the traditional (and higher in fat) potato chips.

Hotdishes are generally filling, convenient and easy to make, and well-suited for potlucks; they can be eaten either on a plate or in a bowl and may be considered comfort food.

Lutefisk is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) and soda lye (lut). In Sweden, it is called lutfisk, while in Finland it is known as lipeäkala. Its name literally means "lye fish", owing to the fact that it is made with caustic soda or potash lye.

Ohio

A buckeye candy is a peanut butter and chocolate candy made to resemble the nut of an Ohio Buckeye tree, available throughout the Buckeye State (Ohio).

Wisconsin

The Friday night fish fry, typically fried perch or walleye, is ubiquitous throughout Wisconsin, while in northeast Wisconsin along Lake Michigan, the Door County fish boil holds sway.

Besides beer, Wisconsinites drink huge quantities of brandy,[5] often mixed into the unique Badger libation, the "brandy old fashioned sweet."

Seymour, Wisconsin, claims to be the birthplace of the modern hamburger, although several other locations make similar claims. The southern Wisconsin town of Racine is known for its Danish kringle.

Wisconsin is home to numerous frozen custard stands, particularly around Milwaukee and in cities and towns along the Lake Michigan corridor.

Wisconsin is also well known for bratwurst and cheese. Several small cheese factories can be found in the state. Cheese curds are common as a snack or, when fried, as an appetizer.

Dishes

These dishes, while not all exclusively Midwestern, are commonly thought of as typical or exemplary of Midwestern foods or tastes. Many are shared with Southern cuisine and Northeast cuisine, though some are unique to the Midwest, or have a Midwestern preparation style.

Serving

In the home, Midwesterners traditionally serve meals family-style or as a smorgasbord or buffet, rather than in set courses.

Language

Most Midwesterners refer to carbonated beverages as "pop." However, "soda" is more common in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Indianapolis and the surrounding areas.[7]

References

  1. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20010323/ai_n13895232
  2. ^ (nd) History of the Reuben Sandwich What's Cooking America? website. Retrieved 6/9/07
  3. ^ lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=9469
  4. ^ www.beerorkid.com/Lincoln/tastees/tastee%20inn.htm
  5. ^ http://www.onmilwaukee.com/bars/articles/brandy.html
  6. ^ http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/64176/50c/2/
  7. ^ http://www.popvssoda.com
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