Midwesterners: Why So Afraid Of Seafood?

Question

It seems as though every midwesterner I talk to seems to hate shellfish and other seafood. Wherever I go in the Midwest, from Iowa to Illinois to Indiana, South Dakota, Michigan and even Ohio, people here are afraid to eat seafood.

The funny part about that is they would rather eat crap like tater tot hotdish (Casserole to those outside the upper Midwest) and fattening mashed potatoes and gravy than shrimp, fish or even crab legs.

Midwesterners: Seafood won't kill you. In fact, try it sometime. You might even like it.

As a note, I live in Minnesota and I see this aversion to seafood all the time. Everywhere I go in the Upper Midwest, everybody has an aversion to seafood.

Answer 1

So you've meet every person in the Midwest?

Answer 2

Ok, I live in Minnesota as well. It kind of makes sense that Midwesterners don't like seafood because the sea is nowhere near the Midwest. That means no access to fresh seafood. When somebody has bad experiences with something, they tend to stay away from it. When all seafood in the Midwest tastes like crap, guess what? We stay away from it. I bet Midwesterners eat seafood when they go places...I don't know...by the OCEAN. Next time try not to make such a broad generalization about people. It only makes you look like a dumba ss.

Answer 3

I spent about 6 years at Ohio State and being from the east coast I can tell you that the seafood is NOT good in the midwest. Even if you go to specialty seafood grocers, your not gonna get the quality of seafood you would on the coast. I did however know a bunch of folks in Ohio that liked Seafood, don't know where you're meeting people. But generally I wouldn't eat seafood from the midwest

Answer 4

I'm a MIdwesterner, live in Wisconsin, but lived for several years in South Carolina. I unlike ALL MIDWESTERNERS as you say like seafood. I however don't like unfesh seafood which is almost everything we can get here. We don't have the conveinence of an ocean nearby to get fresh shrimp, scallops, crabs, lobster, etc. After living in SC I greatly miss the luxury of the fresh seafood. I eat seafood every now and then here but it isn't the same. Its mostly frozen before hand, which destroys most of the taste to me. I want some fresh seafood but since we can't get it here, I choose to rarely eat seafood.

And next time don't group EVERY midwesterner into one group until you ASK EVERY one of us.

Answer 5

People tend to eat what they produce. Have you seen a shrimp farm in Minnesota? Beef and vegetables are readily available, though. The seafood shipped to the midwest is of poor quality, and frankly, seafood restaurants smell funny. I don't mind eating seafood once and awhile, but it's nothing I crave.

In case you missed the news, Minnesota was ranked the healthiest state in the US recently. I guess our aversion to seafood isn't hurting us after all!

Answer 6

We have allot of seafood restaurants in the Midwest and they don't seem to go out of business. In fact they seem to do pretty well. Never heard of a tater tot hotdish. Shrimp are probably as fattening as mashed potatoes, especially fried shrimp.

Answer 7

Probably for the same reason us folks on the Chesapeake Bay won't eat frozen, canned, or imported seafood. It just tastes bad. Since there are little fresh sources for seafood in the Midwest it pretty much all has to be imported.

Seafood is one of those things that pretty much needs to be fresh to appreciate. If it is canned it is just plain YUCK. Frozen can make it rubbery or mushy. They will also add breading or preservatives that don't do it justice.

Plus, if you aren't around it you may not know how to fix it properly or it is just foreign. When we went to Colorado we ordered a "Maryland Crabcake". It was so awful. No lump crabmeat, no Old Bay and it dared to call itself a crabcake!

Answer 8

I live in the midwest and I work in a seafood resaurant and my store alone makes a profit of over a million dollars a year. I never really noticed a problem with nobody liking seafood around here.

Answer 9

So --- you've talked to six midwesterners who don't like shrimp? And you conclude that all they'll eat is tater tots? Never say "never" or in your case "every". Actually, sometimes your best bet in choosing food is to choose the local favorites. So -- maybe, just maybe, they do shrimp and crab better closer to where they net them.

Personally I would feel kind of silly going to what I know is a great steak house in the middle of Iowa (that's beef country in case you haven't heard) and ordering crab legs. It would also be sort of silly to go to a Maryland crab house and ask for a steak.
When in Rome ... or stay home!

Answer 10

Minnesota is known as the hotdish state I do believe. Its where a lot of people came from, their parents cooked it they cook it and so on. I don't like to eat a lot of fish and stuff but because I dont care for fish all the time I eat it maybe 3 times a year but I eat shrip about 6 times a year. I am a meat and patatoes guy and yeah. Personal prefrance and heriatage. There are large German towns and Irish towns still around.

Answer 11

I live in Minnesota too and I love Walleye! People in Minnesota love fish so much they buy shacks on frozen lakes and drill holes through the ice so they can go fishing in the winter. Personally I prefer to go to Whole Foods.

Also, I eat a ton of sushi. There are lots of good sushi restaurants in the cities; I can think of two that just opened recently. And they are always busy.

I grew up in Ohio and we didn't eat a lot of seafood there, but quite honestly, Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River used to be so polluted that I don't think you were allowed to eat fish, especially bottom feeders like catfish. Never understood why people in Florida would want to eat catfish!