Tag Archives: St. Louis

America’s Worst Regional Culinary Dishes (Part 2)

“Just because you like something doesn’t mean the rest of you should like it too. Quentin Tarantino likes licking feet, that doesn’t mean that it is something that the rest of society accepts and embraces.”

~AFFotD Food Critics Dressing Down St. Louis-Style Pizza Fans

mess of a burger

Okay so at some point we should stop ragging on St. Louis-style pizza so much. We’ll admit that. When we started listing the worst of America’s Regional Culinary dishes, we were thinking about St. Louis’ cracker-thin travesty of a pie, but really, in digging through the worst foods that America has to offer, we’ve come to appreciate it, and maybe even begrudgingly respect it.

No, you’re still wrong if you like it, and no, we’re not going to take you up on your offer to get some fucking Imo’s, get that shit out of our faces, but at least it tries to be something delicious and normal. It fails on both fronts, but it tries dammit. There’s no offal or rolled balls of fat and meat powder in play. No bad ideas, just really, really, really bad execution.

With that semi-apology out of the way, we’re going to delve into more of America’s worst regional dishes. And we’re sorry.

We’re so, so sorry.

America’s Worst Regional Culinary Dishes (Part 2)

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St. Louis: America’s Weirdest Culinary City

“…The hell is wrong with your taste buds?”

~AFFotD’s Resident Food Critic

st louis pizza oh dear

St. Louis.  We don’t ever really know how to talk about the second largest city in the state of Missouri.  For a time in the 1800s, it appeared that St. Louis, and not Chicago, would grow into the main population center of the Midwest, but the city’s leaders actively fought against the proliferation of railroads and greatly stunted its growth during the largest population boon the area would ever see.  Still, it’s by no means a small town—while the population of 300,000 ranks it as the 58th largest city in the nation, the whole metro area has nearly three million residents, good enough for the 19th largest market in the nation.  Hell, they’re big enough to warrant a good hockey team, a usually not that good football team, and a baseball team filled with the most frustratingly smug fans in all of the nation.  They’re a real city, and honestly it’s kind of condescending of us to spend so much effort trying to bring that point home.

St. Louis has culture, is what we’re saying—you could probably argue that they have more regionally specific cultural touchstones than most similarly sized cities, but that might be us giving the Arch too much credit.  And where there is culture, there is food.  And in St. Louis’s case, where there’s food…well, things get weird.  We’ve talked about it before in passing, but we’re going to go into some more detail for you, because so far, in our extensive search for weird food in America, St. Louis has the title of…

St. Louis:  America’s Weirdest Culinary City

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The Five Worst Regional Pizzas In America

“Pizza is a lot like sex.  When it’s good, it’s really good.  When it’s bad?  It’s still pretty good.  And when it’s God awful, you find you can’t stop screaming, and it takes years for the nightmares to finally stop.”

~You

 grossa

Previously, we showed you the five best regional pizza styles in America, with a hidden agenda of angering New Yorkers.  Today, we’re looking at the dark underbelly of pizza.  Because, as great as America is at making pizza, not everyone can get it right.  Hell, Brazil makes and eats 1.4 million pizzas every day, but even with all that practice they still do shit like put chocolate on it.  So as great as pizza is, it’s not always a winner.  The best pizzas?  Are glorious.

These pizzas?  Are terrifying.

The Five Worst Regional Pizzas In America

gross american flag pizza

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The Future of Goose Island (As Owned by Anheuser-Busch)

“What?  No…Nooo….NOOOOOOOOOOO.”

~People who like beer


One of the most common misconceptions in America can be found in the beers we consider to be “American.”  Many assume that the Bud Lights of the world are the ultimate American beer, because they’re cheap, low quality, and people still buy the shit out of them.  Except that most of the shitty beer, like Bud and Natty Ice, is from Anheuser-Busch InBev, based in…Belgium.  The shit is that?  Sure, Budweiser got its start in St. Louis, a city with a rich American history based around…uh…arches?  But any attempt to forgive the low quality of Budweiser because, “Well, it’s an American beer,” flew right out the window.

“But there’s still Miller Lite, right?  It’s Miller Time!”

Nope, that shit’s based out of England.  Get your head out of your ass, American beer consumer.

Fortunately, the great bastion of American liquor resides in craft beers.  While it has been established that going to a party with Milwaukee’s Best will likely result in you getting shot, if you go to a party with an American craft beer from a microbrewery, 90% of the people attending that party will get laid.  True story.  Craft brews, though more expensive, are delicious enough that you can find one that will be even be palatable for the girl at the party who keeps going on about how, “I don’t like beer,” as everyone else glares at her and silently judges the person who invited her.  Plus, they tend to have two or even four times the alcohol content of your Budweisers and Millers out there.  Better taste and more alcohol?  How is that not more American?

The microbrew culture in America has gone from laughably poor to universally respected in a fairly short period.  Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, and Anchor Brewing helped reinvent the American brew, and since then many notable breweries have formed in America, making delicious, highly intoxicating beverages for Americans to get drunk on without nearly as bad of a hangover as you’d get from Icehouse.

While the beer industry has decreased by one percent this past year (we don’t know why this would be, we can only blame French immigrants) craft brews were up 11%, proving that more Americans appreciate the American notion of American made artisanal beers.

And we at AFFotD are sad to report that one of our classic American brewing institutions again has been assaulted by foreign powers.  And while we are strangely powerless to stop it, at the very least we at AFFotD can take a moment to reflect in the passing of an old friend.

That’s right.  Chicago microbrewery staple, Goose Island, has been purchased by Anheuser-Busch.

We’re all clearly very upset.

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