LISTEN UP Y'ALL: The Midwest is great. It has awesome cities, amazing people, and (for the most part) delicious food.
Need some examples? Well, here are a few of the most offensive foods from my childhood:
1. The endless variety of "creative" cheese flavors that come out of Wisconsin.
2. Jerky made from every damn animal and the strange subculture associated with it.
3. Hot canned tuna in the form of tuna noodle casserole topped with crushed potato chips.
4. Those gray bratwursts that sit in a lukewarm pot of bath water at every outdoor party.
5. Those butter burgers that give you a stomach ache every time you eat them.
6. Those creamy, bound mixtures that Midwesterners actually consider a salad (AKA ambrosia/watergate salads).
7. That gross, vomit-like concoction of processed cheese and cheap beer.
8. Those starchy casseroles that people call hot dish.
9. That sickly sweet snack fittingly called puppy chow that's covered in way too much powdered sugar.
10. Goulash (or what I used to call cafeteria slop).
11. Friday fish fries (both the gross fried fish and the event itself).
12. Gelatinous (and aggressively fragrant) lutefisk that many Midwesterners were forced to eat during the holidays.
But despite these few outliners, I still consider the Midwest the KING of comfort food.
CORRECTION
Ambrosia salad is not made with mayonnaise and cod (or local freshwater fish) are the fish of choice for Friday fish fries. An earlier version of this post misstated these facts — apologies to the heartland and the outpouring of passionate Midwesterners who proved me wrong.