[jimmygrapes]

Perhaps the restaurant selection reflects that most people in the region don't eat out? I too live in the general area of the "Midwest" (not really but close enough), and everybody I know cooks at home far more than they eat out, and more/better restaurants wouldn't change that behavior much since we are all poor. The problem then becomes what is cooked at home, and how much is eaten, and those aren't great. It's not for lack of available ingredients (although prices of "better" ingredients tend to play some role, like I'm not going to buy an "organic" bag of dirty carrots for 3x more than the regular dirty carrots from the same brand in the same package). In my unstudied and ignorant opinion, it comes down to a cultural thing, specifically a line of recipes and behaviors stemming from the Depression era. "Eat everything on your plate" is a common refrain, even when the plate is too big and too full. The same sort of calorie dense foods are made, but as scarcity decreased, gluttony increased, and that part simply hasn't gone back down yet.