11 Things People Always Get Wrong About the Midwest

Food halls defy the “meat and potatoes” stereotype of the Midwest. This includes Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis (food influences are Jamaican, Cambodian, Japanese, Moroccan, Nepalese, and Indigenous) and Global Market and Food Hall in Madison (Asian vendors sell everything from winter melon and red bean pastries to steamed Chinese buns). And let’s not forget about college towns in the Midwest, such as Iowa City, where food skews global, like at I Love Fu Fu (African). Oh, and remember that James Beard Award-winning restaurant in 2022 that features Indigenous food? Sean Sherman’s Owamni in downtown Minneapolis is his veritable love letter to his Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe and super popular. Also, the current (and 21st) Top Chef Wisconsin season is set in the Dairy State for a reason: the food’s amazing and diverse.

One Parisian notes that Cleveland is her absolute favorite city in the U.S. for culture, art, and food. Detroit, the birthplace of Motown, is full of diverse and historic dining, museums, and parks. Even before Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus opened in Lower Manhattan, the Milwaukee Art Museum welcomed his first U.S. commission 15 years earlier, in 2001, and features similar design principles. Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens boasts the only Thai pavilion outside of Thailand, a gift from Thailand to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And, as the country’s third-largest city, Chicago is loaded with culture, whether it’s browsing Claude Monet’s haystacks at the Art Institute of Chicago or learning about Mexican art at the National Museum of Mexican Art in the city’s Pilsen neighborhood. Minneapolis, too, is an arts mecca with three art museums (Minneapolis Institute of Art, Walker Art Center and Weisman Art Museum) and the country’s only museum of Russian art (the Museum of Russian Art). Also, one of America’s most well-known artists—Grant Wood—hails from Iowa and America’s most famous architect—Frank Lloyd Wright—from Wisconsin. On tours of their homesteads (American Gothic House Center and Taliesin), you learn more about how the Midwest inspired them. Small-town Sheboygan, Wisconsin, hosts one of the country’s few museums about Outsider art (John Michael Kohler Arts Center).

It’s more that Midwesterners are more likely to buy food from a farmer, through a community-supported agriculture subscription, farmers’-market stand, or natural-foods cooperative. One of the best natural-foods stores I’ve seen is in Wausau, Wisconsin, spanning nearly an entire block (Downtown Grocery), Iowa City’s New Pioneer Food Co-Op dates back to 1971 (and Milwaukee’s Outpost Natural Foods a year prior), and the country’s largest producer-only farmer’s market is the Dane County Farmers’ Market in Madison. Plenty of urban farms exist, too, including Alice’s Garden on Milwaukee’s North Side, which Venus Williams started in 1972. The demographic of Wisconsin farmers also skews from “old, white male farmer,” as some are LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and first-career farmers, given that land is cheaper than, say, New York or California. Speaking of the Golden State, Wisconsin ranks second to only California in its number of organic farms.

Just because Midwesterners are known for being polite doesn’t mean they aren’t raging inside. We just know how to keep it in check and also know there are times we can’t win an argument and our mental and emotional energy is best spent elsewhere. There are many museums and attractions in the Midwest that are examples where people spoke out and invited change, including the Civil War Museum in Kenosha, America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, and Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois. Of course, these museums don’t shy away from discussing the tragedies that led to these movements.

Amtrak just opened up a new line (Borealis) from Chicago to St. Paul/Minneapolis and if you stand in Union Station in downtown Chicago long enough, you’ll soon see this is a major rail corridor. Everything from vintage street-car trolleys (like in Kenosha, Wisconsin) to public buses, along with shared bicycles and scooter rentals, can be found in the Upper Midwest. I’ve even seen rickshaw drivers in Illinois and Wisconsin. Chicago also has a water taxi and in Madison, people have been known to kayak or canoe to work if their office and home are strategically located.

While a rural farming community likely doesn’t have diversified culture, there are many, many small towns in the Upper Midwest hanging on tight to their ethnic heritage, including the Amana Colonies in Iowa (German); Kenosha, Wisconsin (actor Mark Ruffalo isn’t the only Italian who grew up there) and Door County, Wisconsin (so Scandinavian you can go to a fish boil and pick up a Dale of Norway sweater). Metro areas in the Upper Midwest offer diverse neighborhoods just like in L.A. and New York City, including Milwaukee’s South Side Hispanic community, Chicago’s Polish Triangle (among the world’s largest outside of Poland), and Minneapolis’ Somali community (the largest in the U.S.). And did you know that 29% of Wisconsin’s residents are Hmong? The gay community is also finding more accepting destinations to live in the Midwest from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Columbus, Ohio, and loads of places in between. Plus, the Midwestern drag scene is also thriving!

When people travel to the Midwest from the coasts and stand on the shores of one of the Great Lakes (such as Lake Superior or Lake Michigan) they are almost always astounded. You mean I can’t see the other side? And there are waves? If in Duluth, the waterfront options include Cedar + Stone Floating Sauna, and in Milwaukee and Chicago you can take a dinner cruise out on Lake Michigan. What this means is that most people live near a river or a lake, and chances are there’s a kayak, canoe, or sailboat in their garage. Another point: Sailing Magazine is based in Port Washington, Wisconsin, and the Dairy State is also home to a handful of yacht and boat builders even today. Take a trip to any of these Upper Midwest states in the winter and you’ll likely encounter ice fishers, too.

I own more dresses than I do jeans and I know I’m not alone in this. Upper Midwesterners like to be comfortable. But we also know all about fashion. Due to our four distinct seasons, we like to explore the depth in our wardrobe because maybe we only have three months to wear that floral frock or a cashmere sweater. As further proof, there are several fashion-school programs in the Upper Midwest, including at the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Iowa State University, and Mount Mary University in Milwaukee, and what else are we supposed to wear to the Lyric Opera of Chicago if not a black dress or suit?

Most every major Midwestern city boasts a handful of designer-label boutiques and high-end spas and that includes Chicago’s Mag Mile along North Michigan Avenue, as well as Minneapolis and Milwaukee. So do resort towns like Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and Lake Forest, Illinois. And among the country’s best spas is Kohler Waters Spa in tiny Kohler, Wisconsin, a company town that’s more known for its plumbing fixtures than spa treatments, although their products—like a Vichy shower—are artfully folded into the pampering sessions. And when you look at this list of the country’s top-20 affluent towns, three are in the Midwest: Glencoe, Illinois; The Village of Indian Hill, Ohio; and Winnetka, Illinois.

This is where I raise my hand and ask how to use a fishing pole or a rifle because I literally don’t know. I have never been on a hunting or fishing trip. This is not to say that these hobbies are not prevalent. There’s a thing called Deer Widow’s Weekend in Wisconsin the weekend before Thanksgiving, timed with the opening of deer-hunting season. But we’re not country bumpkins here and we do appreciate urban culture and soft adventure (like hikes and bicycle rides), too.

Thanks to climate change, winters in the Midwest are growing milder. This means that instead of two feet of snow to wade through during a three- or four-month winter like years ago, now snowstorms are few and far between, and rarely more than a few inches of snow falls between January and April. Should you be so lucky to visit during winter, think of it this way: now you can try out cross-country skiing or snowshoeing (many sports shops and nature centers rent out equipment), or maybe even build a snowman.