December 20, 2011

• Worth a Trip

  

  “Only in Iowa” Food Experiences

  First published in The Iowan

  God, and the last Ice Age, blessed Iowa with the best soil on earth for growing things to eat. In the minds of coastal elitists though, it’s used for producing huge quantities of commodity foods, not foods of distinctive quality. So when network television food shows come here it’s usually to film overeating. It’s time for a change. Iowa has all the assets of a major food tourist attraction: farm-to-table freshness, artisan magnificence, rich ethnic traditions, unique peculiarities, and big food events.

  Third millennium Iowa produces diverse foods of amazing quality, many unique to Iowa. Red Fern Farm near Grandview grows some of the best pawpaws, persimmons, chestnuts and specialty pears in America.

  

  Rancher Richard Garrelts feeds his elk Iowa delicacies – oak and maple leaves. One can taste the difference they make at Mt. Pleasant restaurants like Jerry’s and The Brownstone. Hogs at Becker Lane Farm near Dyersville dine on acorns, to simulate the pre-World War II diet of the most famous hams on earth – prosciutto di Parma. At Rustik Rooster Farms in NE Iowa, the famous German Swabian Hall breed has been rescued from extinction by crossing Chinese Meishan pigs with Russian Wild Boars. Yes, if you cross a Russian with a Chinese you get a German but only in Iowa. It’s meat is like a cross btween pork and duck. La Quercia in Norwalk buys both Becker Lane and Rustik Rooster pigs to make such historically correct products from high on the hog while reviving lost Italian arts. Lincoln Cafe in Mount Vernon buys both kinds too.

  

  La Quercia’s Herb Eckhouse with Lincoln Cafe’s Matt Steigerwald

  Farm to fork networks now allow diners the best local foods that the black Hawkeye soil can produce. Places like The Rubaiyat in Decorah, Pepper Sprout in Dubuque, Devotay and Red Avocado in Iowa City, Lincoln Café in Mt. Vernon, The Café in Ames, Mojo’s on 86^th in Johnston, Farmers Kitchen in Atlantic, and Museum Café in Waterloo all tout numerous local farmers’ contributions. The last five years, the James Beard Award for the Midwest’s best chef placed more chefs from Des Moines among its top 20 than from all but one other city.

  Still Iowa’s food charms flow defiantly outside the mainstream. In fact, Sioux City developed a unique, independent fast food culture because big franchise operators once considered it demographically challenged. As a result, Tastee Inn & Out’s onion chips, and chili dogs from Milwaukee Wiener House and George’s Hot Dog Shop became as iconic in Siouxland as Big Macs elsewhere.

  

  Similar isolation inspired unique honey simmered Two Mit Burgers in Elkader as well as statewide obsessions with two sandwiches that remain pretty much unknown outside the Midwest – pork tenderloins and loose meat sandwiches.

  In the late nineteenth century, Czech immigrants began substituting pork loins for hard-to-find veal in Cedar Rapids’ style schnitzel.

  

  Today Iowans find such fried, breaded tenderloins in fine dining establishments, diners, concession stands, and even gas stations. Those at St. Olaf Tap (St. Olaf), The Depot (Shenandoah), Joensey’s (Solon & Center Point), B&B Grocery, Meat & Deli (Des Moines), Tojo’s (Jamaica), Townhouse Supper Club (Wellsburg), Augusta (Oxford), Darrell’s Place (Hamlin), Dairy Sweet (Dunlap), Fifth Avenue Diner (Coon Rapids), PJ’s Drive Inn (Panora), Susie Q’s (Mason City) and Shack’s Lounge (Bayard) have cult followings.

  

  Loose meat sandwiches found fame when Muscatine’s Maid-Rite launched a small chain in 1926. Iowans responded to the original design of those cafes in which cooking and serving were done within three sided counters, facilitating group discussions.

  

  Some even say Maid-Rite enabled the Iowa caucuses. Iowans feel so passionately about such traditions that Taylor’s Maid-Rite in Marshalltown has gone to legal war with corporate headquarters to resist modernizing. Loose meat love has room for more than Maid-Rites though. Siouxland bars began offering similar sandwiches during to the Depression, still called “taverns” in at Miles Inn and Gus’ Family Restaurant (formerly Yee Old Tavern) in Sioux City, and at Bob’s Drive Inn in LeMars. Similarly adored are “Rossburgers” at Ross’ Restaurant in Bettendorf, “beef delights” at Pro’s Sandwich Shop in Mason City, and “canteens” at Canteen in the Alley in Ottumwa – a diner so adored that developers built completely around it.

  Other quirky old fashioned diners charm seekers of blue plate comfort. From Butch’s River Rock Café in Oakland Mills to Lewright’s in Eagle Grove, from Boozie’s in Davenport to the Vaughn’s in Clarinda, from Walt and Jake’s Fort Diner in Fort Madison to Stoner Drug Store in Sidney, visitors show up with nostalgic appetites, and cameras.
  Iowa’s rich ethnic history created culinary diversity.

  

  Swedish-Americans in Stanton, where water towers in shpaed like coffee pots, preserved gubbegott (apple sauce and Graham cracker dessert) and ostakaka (almond cheesecake), still found at Susie‘s Kök there. In Elk Horn one expects to find a smörgåsbord of ethnic delights at the Danish Inn, and kringle at Mill Hus Bakery, but even the convenience store there offers rullepølse (rolled pork pastrami). Historic German ambiance comes with sauerbraten and jager schnitzel in places like Hausbarn in Manning and at Ronneburg, Colony Inn and Ox Yolk Inn in Amana. Norwegian delights abound at Oneota Food Co Op and historic Dayton House in Decorah. In Cedar Rapids, Zindricks offers a full menu of Czech and Slovak fare. While the Irish Shanti in Gunder serves “Irish sandwiches” that substitute potatoes for bread, their main draw is the Gunderburger, so large it has literally kept the dying town on Iowa’s map. Greek restaurants like Northwestern Steak House in Mason City and Vernon Inn in Cedar Rapids lend time warp experiences. So does the Lebanese The Palm’s in Fort Madison. Packing house towns like Denison, Postville, Perry, Columbus Junction, Dubuque and Storm Lake are filled with fabulous immigrant cafés from Mexico, Central America and Eastern Europe. Des Moines’ Vietnamese cafés employ scratch cooking techniques that others gave up 50 years ago. South Asians led a Fairfield food revival that now boasts more restaurants per capita than San Francisco, many of them Asian, several Ayurvedic.

  

  Calabrese have dominated fine dining in Des Moines since World War II. Café di Scala, Tursi’s Latin King, Sam & Gabe’s, Noah’s, Mama Lacona’s, and Chuck’s all have southern Italian family histories that go back more than half a century. All serve versions of steak de burgo, a dish that is found everywhere in Des Moines and hardly anywhere outside the city. Gateway Market in Des Moines might well be the only place in America that makes nduja, a Calabrese salami with the texture of a pâté and the edge of an illegal import.

  Ethnic groups inspire many of Iowa’s big food events: Nordic Fest in Decorah, Tivoli Fest in Elk Horn, Italian-American Heritage Festival in Des Moines, Taste of the Amanas in Amana, and Houby (morel mushroom) Days in Cedar Rapids. Specific foods are honored at Ice Cream Days in LeMars, Strawberry Days in Strawberry Point, Sauerkraut Days in Lisbon, and Des Moines’ Bacon Fest. In celebration of old agricultural traditions, the Iowa State Fair draws a million visitors in its best years, Old Threshers Reunion brings 100,000 to Mount Pleasant each year, and Seed Savers’ Heritage Farm near Decorah attracts thousands to singer Greg Brown’s annual fundraising concert, plus hundreds more in autumn to pick the orchard’s rare apples.

  Regions of the state evolved distinctive food specialties. Formally cattle country, western Iowa is rife with old fashioned steak houses. Doon Steakhouse, Hawarden Steakhouse, The Fireside in Anthon, Theo‘s in Lawton, Archie‘s Waeside in LeMars, and The Mineola all have huge personalities that belie their small town settings. So hillocky its terrain was never suitable for plowing over, northeast Iowa developed the most diverse crops in the state. Organic and other niche farmers share such produce at extraordinary farmers markets in Decorah and McGregor. Buffalo love the steep terrains near the Mississippi River and local bison are famous on menus at places like Pepper Sprout in Dubuque and Kalmes’ in St. Donatus. Across southern Iowa, the Mormon Trail dispatched many Mormon artisans who produced magnificent old buildings still in use in Van Buren County, like Bonaparte Inn in Bonaparte and Mason House in Bentonsport. Later artisans inspired extraordinary local cheeses (Milton Creamery) and Amish products found at Dutchman Store in Cantrell. The loam rich Loess Hills blessed western Iowa with distinctive fruits like those at Mincer Orchard in Hamburg and Small’s Fruit Farm & Pie Parlor in Mondamin. Like most of the foods above, they taste like no where else.

  Like Iowa.

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