In Defense of Home: A Ballad of Wild Roses & Beefsticks

While waiting to see the dentist yesterday, I flipped through the well-worn pages of a travel magazine. Most of it was filled with images of sand-blanketed beaches, rustling palm trees, and bright, easy sun. Then I happened upon something altogether different and unique: a look at the 50 U.S. states through a snack food each state has made popular in the national consciousness.

New York has those delicious black-and-white cookies; California the delectable and delectably-named Abba Zaba bars; Florida the coconut patty (my personal favorite); Vermont the eye-bulging sweetness of maple syrup candy. And what was my home state of Iowa's contribution to the Wonderful World of Snack Food?

Beef sticks.

Beef sticks?!? Even Tennessee was credited with something funky and retro (Moon Pies) and Iowa was relegated to the hillbilly caviar known as beef sticks?

Oh, hell no.

You see, it's supposedly-enlightening material like this that makes the rest of the world think Iowa is a redneck backwater with no electricity and a toothless populace. Thousands of people are going to pick up this magazine and regard Iowa as no more than a flat-chested state with nothing to offer the country except dueling banjo music and Ashton Kutcher. Most people think this already anyway, if they think of Iowa at all. The great majority of people consistently view Iowa as the state with all the potatoes. (The potato crown, incidentally, belongs to Idaho, not Iowa. It's tough, I know. Those "I"s are baffling letters.)

Iowa is more, so much more, than a land of beef sticks and Mr. Demi Moore. Had I written this blog ten years ago, you would've heard a far different voice: one decidedly more critical, lambasting all the things the Hawkeye State lacks. But with maturity, moving away, and traveling, I've come to view my home state in a softer, and I think more realistic, light.

It's true that Iowa is predominantly a farming culture. It's also very flat: drive just a mile or two outside of any town and you can see all the way to the horizon in any given direction. People tend to talk in Midwestern twang, not unlike what we heard in the movie "Fargo". There's not a heck of a lot in Iowa. It's a very spare, very stark place.

All of these facts are reasons I love my home. Farmers play a vital role in the function of any society, and these men and women live their lives with an intimate, powerful knowledge, not only of tractors and combines and crops, but of the earth, the sun and moon, the cycles of life itself. The land is indeed a level landscape. In winters, the snow can reach to a place where it meets the sky, and in summer, the sun can wash the fields and grasses in lambent dazzle all the way to the tip of the world. There have been many July evenings I've looked to the horizon, only to see an eternity of flickering candles: fireflies hovering with their unassuming grace.

Outsiders will note that Iowans talk funny; we drop our "g"s and infuse much of our language with lightness, with ease, with laughter, and we are friendly to a fault. And Iowa is far from many of the modern conveniences the rest of the country find so necessary: one minor airport, infrequent cell phone towers, scores of unpaved roads.

But I ask you: what exactly is wrong with this? Boasting these, I think positive, attributes, how did Iowa grow to be regarded as a mecca for yokels and trailer parks? I must have missed the memo that said farmers are backwards, unspoiled land is offensive, and regional dialect is laughable. Where is the unsophistication in saying "Good morning" to a stranger, or "Thank you" to someone who has patronized your store? I've been around the world, and I've yet to encounter a place with the singular beauty of Iowa.

I spent many years as an adult in Iowa. I always found things to do (to briefly dispel another myth, there is plenty of culture to be found; for example, Des Moines has an opera, most communities have local theater troupes, and headlining musical acts come to Iowa just as readily as they play anywhere else). As a grown man, and a gay one, I never experienced any discrimination. As a Buddhist, there is a huge Zen retreat center near Decorah. As a Democrat, I was never without like-minded liberal friends (let's not forget that, contrary to popular belief, Iowa is more often than not a blue state).

So how the hell did beef sticks get to be our state food? With goldfinches our state birds, and the wild rose our state flower, we deserve better than poor man's Slim Jims as our entry into the Snack Food Hall of Fame.

Even corn, in all it's abundant Iowa glory, would've been a more appropriate choice. Corn, at least, is vegan.