Meatless in the Midwest: Pretty awesome, really

Yesterday, the New York Times published an article called Meatless in the Midwest: A Tale of Survial in which the author, A.G. Sulzberger, basically rakes Kansas City (a mere 40 minutes from my desk) over the coals for being non-vegetarian friendly while perpetuating the ignorant, meat-hungry stereotype of Midwesterners. I was about to just let it go for being completely inane (a rarity for the Times, in my opinion), but thought I should at least mention a few things. Of course by the time I got to my desk, I found this great response by Kansas City chef Amber Shea that sums up a lot of the counter argument and another from the Hungry Vegan Traveler listing some of the offerings in the city.

I also wanted to make a comment on his attack of small, Midwest towns. I’ve been to a great number of them and yes, it is hard to find a solid vegetarian options in a lot of restaurants. However, I’ve never run into a rude, non-helpful waiter or waitress who wasn’t willing to accommodate me in some fashion. Plus, what do you really expect? They don’t have a LOT of niche markets filled in small towns and they also don’t have the economic support of 12 million people, a large percentage of whom eat out a LOT. It’s like comparing apples to … well, New York. They also have these innovative, progressive establishments, not unique to small towns, called grocery stores where you can buy fresh food and prepare it yourself; a novel idea, I know.

I’m sure there will be a lot passed around about this in coming days and I won’t make more of a deal about it, but I can safely say that the assessment (and research) in that article is just wrong. Plus, there’s no need to beat down any city, especially one that tries hard like Kansas City.

Update: Here’s one last post that has a positive spin on things.