bitch writes: "The heavy use of seafood also makes sense since the US was such a coastal area to begin with."
Being in the middle of the country, good seafood wasn't available in Kansas City until the early 80s. One of the reasons I easily made the switch to vegetarianism is that I didn't have to give up seafood. Growing up in KC in the 70s, "seafood" involved fish sticks, tuna fish out of a can, Long John Silver, and Midwest fish like perch, catfish, and so on. I don't think I ate shrimp for the first time until my late teens.
The only meat I missed after becoming a vegetarian was tuna fish sandwiches.
Bitch writes: "I am surprised this list isn't filled with casseroles (tuna casserole, party casserole, chicken divan) and things like green bean casserole, jello salad, toll house cookies, etc. T"
Casseroles are very much a signature dish of the Midwest, although I suspect that it is dying out with the availability of so much microwave food. Typically, when you attend a church picnic, family reunion, or funeral, people always bring casserole ("hot dish up north"). I remember a family funeral in southeast Kansas several years ago where the post-funeral lunch included an entire card table filled with various jello salads that people had brought.
Obviously, it's been a long time since I've eaten jello, but as a kid I was always partial to orange jello salad with shredded carrot in it.
Kansas City at one time was a pizza town, so much so that one NFL star called KC the "most pizza-eating-est city" that he had ever visited. There really isn't a Kansas City style of pizza. You can get Philly-style pizza at a place called Grinders in the Crossroads District, in fact, they get their dough directly from Philly.
Of the vegetarians I know here, we tend to use barbecue sauce alot in several dishes.
Chuck
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Kansas City cuisine
The American Hereford Association bull and Kemper Arena and the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange Building in the former Kansas City Stockyard of the West Bottoms as seen from Quality Hill
Kansas City is most famous for its steak and barbeque.
Kansas City steaks
During the heyday of the Kansas City Stockyards, the city was known for its Kansas City steaks or Kansas City strip steaks. The most famous of the steakhouses is the Golden Ox in the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange in the stockyards in the West Bottoms. The stockyards, which were second only to those of Chicago in size, never recovered from the Great Flood of 1951 and eventually closed. The famed Kansas City Strip cut of steak is largely identical to the New York Strip cut, and is sometimes referred to just as a strip steak.
Kansas City-style barbecue
Along with Texas, Memphis & North Carolina, Kansas City is a "world capital of barbecue." There are more than 90 barbecue restaurants[3] in the metropolitan area and the American Royal each fall hosts what it claims is the world's biggest barbecue contest.
The classic Kansas City-style barbecue was an inner city phenomenon that evolved from the pit of Henry Perry from the Memphis, Tennessee area in the early 1900s and blossomed in the 18th and Vine neighborhood. Arthur Bryant's was to take over the Perry restaurant and added molasses to sweeten the recipe. In 1946 Gates and Sons Bar-B-Q was opened by one of Perry's cooks. The Gates recipe added even more molasses. Although Bryant's and Gates are the two definitive Kansas City barbecue restaurants they have had little or no luck exporting the barbecue beyond the Kansas City metropolitan area.
In 1977 Rich Davis, a child psychologist, test-marketed his own concoction called K.C. Soul Style Barbecue Sauce. He renamed it KC Masterpiece and in 1986 he sold the sauce to the Kingsford division of Clorox. Davis retained rights to operate restaurants using the name and sauce, with a restaurant in the suburb of Overland Park, KS.
One of the most popular and recognized BBQ establishments in Kansas City is Fiorella's Jack Stack Restaurant. As of November 2006, the Fiorella family has 4 restaurants in the Kansas CIty area. Russ Fiorella started the chain in 1957 and then continued by his son, Jack and Jack's wife Delores. Jack and Delores are responsible for introducing hickory-smoked meats and side-dishes to the menu. Jack Stack has a reputation as one of the highest quaility BBQ restaurants, offering seafood, lamb, Angus beef and chicken.
More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City-style_barbecue