Midwesterners and Northeasterners: It's All About the Bread

I painted the basement electrical room today.  It always feels good for a Midwesterner like me to complete some sort of home repair activity successfully.  Here in North Jersey, it's not all that important to fix things yourself.  In fact, out here in the East it is more impressive to have someone else do the work for you.  But where I come from it is shameful to have to hire someone to do your home repair or mow your yard.  So for me, there is often a battle between the old Midwesterner and the new Northeasterner in me. 

There are other battles between these two diverse dispositions inside of me.  The Midwesterner in me desires food in bulk, which means all-you-can-eat buffets and smorgasbords are the preferred eating establishments.  The quality is not nearly as important as the quantity.  Why not have a taco appetizer along with some fried okra from the food bar while waiting for the sirloin steak to come with the baked potato dripping with butter and sour cream?  And after the meal, how about a twist cone with some butterscotch syrup and crushed peanuts poured over the top?  This is my heritage as a Midwesterner and I still find myself longing for quantity sometimes.

But alas, I am in Northern New Jersey, and the new surroundings tell me to say no to such foolishness as food bars.  Those places are a rarity here in New Jersey. But I have also found that by nature I am a kindred spirit to those who would drink beer, belch and eat juicy BBQ sandwiches at a tailgate party in the Giants Stadium parking lot.  That would probably be the closest thing I could get to a Midwestern dining experience, although it is impossible for me to afford to actually go to a professional football game here. 

Where I live, though, the Bergen County bourgeoisie types are looking for a place with waiters in white shirts to beckon at their every whim for calamari and pasta and Italian bread. Oh yeah, the bread, I almost forgot about the bread!

The Midwesterner in me prefers breads from the heartland such as biscuits, biscuits and gravy, doughnuts with thick glaze, and pancakes.  Notice those breads are all soft!  Eat those breads in the morning and you remain calm and relaxed.   You bounce out to the car and jump in for the nice little drive to work.  Not so the Northeasterner!  Oh no, they're eating bagels first thing in the morning, and boy what a battle that is!  Unlike the soft biscuit that nearly falls apart in your hands, the bagel requires a sharp knife to slice in half--a butter knife won't do.  Then you bite into one of those suckers--cream cheese or not, it really doesn't matter--and before you know it you're gnawing on that bagel, trying to subdue each bite.  To be honest, it seems that the bagels are belligerent!  After battling and ultimately overcoming through sheer grit and determination, the Northeasterner then heads out to work confident and assertive from conquering a worthy foe (the bagel), yet aggravated by the extraordinary effort required to tame that little roll with the hole!  So the Northeasterner is now less patient and more volatile than their Midwestern counterparts.  In my mind, this accounts for the different dispositions between Northeasterners and Midwesterners, and why the edgy people are out East running our major corporations while mild-mannered Midwesterners are farming the fertile plains. It all boils down to their breads. 

In the end, I have tried to find a happy medium to satisfy these conflicting culinary desires between the Midwesterner and the Northeasterner with me.  That's why I now eat an English Muffin most days because not only is it a dignified bread, but it will also put up a fight if you toast it a little too much. Besides, an English muffin tastes really good with peanut butter and jelly!