# "Midwest" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 7, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247 "2010-06-07T04:46:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/121 "2010-06-09T04:42:06Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > “Coast” trumps any other potential regional designations… everything left over is the midwest. So Wisconsin and Minnesota can be The North Coast? Cool… Literally. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/122 "2010-06-09T08:08:12Z")
I was never sure about Ohio; I always thought that was more “Eastern-but not-quite-coastal” like Pennsylvania. Besides they’re on Eastern time there. They are next to a Great Lake, 'tis true, but then so are NY and PA, not to mention the Canadian provinces on the opposite shores. And not all the Midwest is flat and dry and brown; at least not the areas near the lakes. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/123 "2010-06-09T16:10:40Z")
Wisconsin looks a lot like Ireland, actually. (I say this both as someone who’s visited Ireland more than once, and as someone who’s been told that by an Irish expat family.) ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/124 "2010-06-09T16:42:17Z")
I grew up in Texas (Dallas/Fort Worth). I’m aware that there are many definitions of “The South” that - with justification - include Texas, but I never got the feeling that Texans as a group consider the state to be a part of The South. I always thought of The South as states to the east - Alabama, Mississippi, places like that. I always considered Texas to be part of the Southwest growing up. Those from New Mexico and Arizona, it seems, often take exception to this self-categorization, but it’s pretty widespread. [WBAP (820 AM)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBAP_%28AM%29), a Fort Worth radio station, trumpeted itself as “the 50,000-watt voice of the Great Southwest,” and still uses a variant of that tagline according to the linked Wiki page. I have many relatives in West Virginia, and always thought of that state as “northern.” Yeah, I know, but _they have winters there_ with real snowfall, and the nearest big city is Pittsburgh. It sure felt northern compared to Texas… ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/125 "2010-06-09T17:00:41Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Rick Bayless is famous for bringing Mexican food to Chicago only in his own mind. Yeah, Rick Bayless did not bring Mexican food to Chicago. (Tortillerias, for example, have been making fresh masa and masa and flour products around Chicago since the 50s.) He’s famous for bringing and popularizing non Tex-Mex varieties of Mexican food to middle America, but Chicago’s had plenty of Mexican food for quite awhile now. If you’re interested in regional Mexican cooking, it’s probably the best city in the US for that. L.A. is the only city I’ve been to that is comparable in quality of Mexican food (and I prefer the options in Chicago, but I’ve had much more time to explore my city.) Anyhow, as for Ohio being the Midwest, I think of Ohio as straddling the Midwest, South, and East, depending on what part of the state you’re in. Western Ohio is definitely Midwestern in character. ---
**Author:** ![redtail23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@redtail23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/redtail23)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/126 "2010-06-09T17:01:27Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > Oklahoma is considered a southern, a midwestern and a western state all in one. You forgot “southwestern”. It depends on who’s making the list. And truly, OK sorta blends all of those regions. I’ve actually seen region lists that included every state _but_ Oklahoma; I think they just forgot it because they were pulling the states in each region from a different source and none of them included it. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/127 "2010-06-09T20:56:10Z")
I thought Minnesota was the [Land of Sky Blue Waters](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHhETCI5-io&feature=related). ---
**Author:** ![Eggerhaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@Eggerhaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eggerhaus)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2010, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/128 "2010-06-09T21:14:31Z")
Native Minnesotan now living in the western part of Missouri checking in. East coast, West coast. I call here the Midcoast.🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/129 "2010-06-10T03:02:54Z")
> [@brad\_d](#): > > I grew up in Texas (Dallas/Fort Worth). > > I always considered Texas to be part of the Southwest growing up. Those from New Mexico and Arizona, it seems, often take exception to this self-categorization, but it’s pretty widespread. [WBAP (820 AM)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBAP_%28AM%29), a Fort Worth radio station, trumpeted itself as “the 50,000-watt voice of the Great Southwest,” and still uses a variant of that tagline according to the linked Wiki page. We never got this “Voice of the Great Southwest” where I grew up. Are you, by any chance, of a younger demographic? Because as I said, I never experienced my corner of West Texas referred to as Southwest until well into the 1980s and 1990s. Younger folks are probably more used to hearing that. Where I grew up, there was a vague recognition we were South, no doubt due to having belonged to the Confederacy, but mostly we were the South Plains. That was our big label. ---
**Author:** ![brad\_d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@brad\_d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brad_d)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247/130 "2010-06-10T05:18:22Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > We never got this “Voice of the Great Southwest” where I grew up. Are you, by any chance, of a younger demographic? Because as I said, I never experienced my corner of West Texas referred to as Southwest until well into the 1980s and 1990s. Younger folks are probably more used to hearing that. Where I grew up, there was a vague recognition we were South, no doubt due to having belonged to the Confederacy, but mostly we were the South Plains. That was our big label. I’m 39, and lived in the Metroplex between 1972 and 1993 (at which time I moved to California, although my parents still live in Texas so I visit there often). So, yeah, it probably would have been the late '80’s and early '90’s that I’m recalling. Dallas/Fort Worth doesn’t really refer to itself (IME) as being on the southern end of the Great Plains, which is a bit surprising considering how profoundly that fact affects the weather there. Which reminds me that “North Texas” isn’t the part of the state that you’d guess if you simply looked at a map… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midwest/542247.md?page=6)