Iowa’s new old thing

Yesterday, Jim Duncan posted a brilliant essay that I linked in the Daily Slop, a section in the sidebar to your right. But reading his piece again, I wanted to talk about it here so that more people would see it.

He argues that we Iowans spend a lot of time and money trying to both attract people to our state and convince those from elsewhere that we’re just as with with it as, say, New York or Seattle or San Francisco.

We aren’t, and so we do it at the expense of something we do very well.

His suggestion:

Mainly, Iowa needs a new attitude, one that chauvinistically acclaims the quality of our best foods rather than resuscitating tired rhetoric about record-breaking harvests and largest-in-the-nation hog populations. More than ever, travel is food oriented. Yet Iowans seem ashamed of their agriculture roots and do little to promote some of the best tasting things in the world.

I’ve always thought of Iowa the way of thought of my little brother: I’m allowed to make fun of it, but you better not.

But no matter what credit Jim gives me at the end of the piece, I’m partially at fault here; when ploting a foodie weekend, I think of going four hours east to Chicago instead of two hours west to Des Moines.