July 9, 2025–What if Texas was a country (some say it is) and each of the other 49 states represented a foreign culture (some say they do)? How would you describe new arrivals in the frame of all the other “hyphen-Americans?”
Here’s how that might sound from my perspective as a once-upon-a-time “Iowa-American.”
We wear our culture on our sleeves, literally. You can easily identify us in a crowd by our “farmer tans,” where the golden umber on our arms ends abruptly at the sleeve.
In fact, the way we dress gives us away. When I crossed the Red River, I was asked why all Iowa-Americans wore baggy pants. I didn’t understand that, until my mom pointed out all the long-legged cowboys wearing tight creased Levi’s with Skoal can outlines in the hip pockets. The only outlines visible in our jeans was a used tube of Chapstick.
Iowa-Americans have their own food culture, which is foreign to the Lone Star State. When I took my bride back to the land where the tall corn grows, she didn’t understand why no one made it into cornbread. She didn’t recognize what we called “chili.” It had cans of kidney beans in it and no peppers. And the local Hy-Vee didn’t sell okra or jalapenos.
One time she offered to make another Iowa-American nachos.
“Nachos? What are nachos?” he asked. She proceeded to show him, and he fell in love, both with her and her nachos. Even without the availability of Pace Picante sauce.
The food confusion continued when my brother visited us in Texas.
When my in-laws called and invited us to a dinner of smoked brisket, he thought I had married into a poor family, because for Iowa-Americans, brisket is the last part of the steer we consume, right before the tongue and the tail. Even then, we boil it and serve it with watery noodles. But after only one taste of home-smoked Texas BBQ brisket, he moved here.
Iowa-Americans do excel at other items on the farm-to-table scale, which is literally putting food from the farm onto the table. We had huge gardens outside the back door, and really did run from the corn patch to the table with the ears so they didn’t lose any flavor.
During harvest time, aunts and grandmas circulated among everyone’s homes to pitch in with picking and shelling, canning and freezing, and putting up jars of jams and jellies.
Besides butchering a fatted calf every year, we made our own bread, plucked our own chickens, and canned our own mincemeat. I have no idea what mincemeat is.
We walked to school year-round, through snow, across cow pastures, and over barbed wire. We wore four-buckle overshoes, and weren’t embarrassed because everyone else did, too.
Girls learned to sew in 4-H so they could make their own clothes to wear to the Saturday Sock Hop. Mom made quilts to keep us warm in underheated houses. Dad cut our hair with dog clippers, and treated agues with Vicks and horse liniment.
For college, we all went to state universities, because they were cheap and close.
For fun, we drank beer in taverns that lined every street, and listened to country bands that played in every VFW hall.
In summer we swam in “cricks” and in winter we skated on frozen ponds, wearing hand-me-down skates.
Sadly, Iowa-Americans are losing their uniqueness, thanks to star links and tick tocks. But if you ever are in a situation where you want to know if someone is a true Texan or a hyphenated-state-American, there is one fool-proof test: offer them a bowl of chili without beans.