In Myrtle Beach, I was in a foursome where one of the locals described an ‘Italian’ sub as salami on Wonder bread with mayo! In the early 90’s I went to...at the time, one of the few Dunkin Donuts on the Grand Strand. Asked for an iced coffee....got a blank stare and got served up two cups, one with coffee and one with ice! Unless it’s the women on Food Network that live on hundreds of acres of local sourced farms....most ‘food critics’ do hail from the Northeast, CA etc. Nobody wants a critique on a Raising Canes or the like...unless you have a fledgling YouTube channel.

Reminds me about when my father and mother got married. My mother had been brought up as a “lady” and she was not even allowed to go into the kitchen because she could “get kitchen smells on her clothing”. My father’s mother was a farmer and not only did she do her own cooking but grew her own vegetables, and had her own chickens etc too. My mother would bravely attempt to make some meals which were disastrous but my dad managed to swallow them down somehow. Mom said, that’s how it was made where she came from.

A year later, my parents were invited to stay at my mother’s parents but my dad was very unwilling to go thinking he is never going to be able to eat a bite. But he really cared for my mother and decided to go anyways for her sake. To his great surprise his mother-in-law made delicious meals for them and that is when my dad realized that my mother simply didn’t know how to cook. When they went back to his mother’s house dad’s mother gently and persistently taught my mother how to cook. And how to enjoy cooking.

My dad never gave up on mom. She was the love of his life to the day he died. And vice versa.

I think you meant food "snobs'...

Yea, probably more accurate.

Pizza is good
 

Are you really from New York City?

I've had a home in FL for 20 years, 15 in the Tampa area.

In my experience, the majority of Snowbirds in Tampa are from the Northeast and Canada.

Until moving to TV (to my knowledge), I had never met anyone from Iowa, Nebraska, Utah, Oregon, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Kansas, the Dakotas, Montana, Missouri. Arkansas.

A gross generalization and strictly anecdotal:

People from the Northeast, generally don't seem to move too far away from an ocean (most everyone I met in Sarasota/Ft. Myers/Naples is from the Northeast).

Folks in "middle America" never lived by an ocean, so they're not biased and TV works just fine for them.

& I think the "food experts" are from the more metropolitan areas and don't have much experience living on a farm.

Apologies; I assumed you had dined at the North Harmon location which is well below Mallory's level.

Uh oh....this may trigger some of our faux ‘critical thinkers’!

You're not in Kansas anymore Toto..........Look at TV phonebook.
The largest segments are from the NE......NY, NJ, etc.
Example: Iowa less than 1,000 with NY thousands.
All the great food experts living in & supporting TV.

I agree with your last sentence
The posters point stands up to reason. Those from metropolitan areas are exposed to more diverse and non chain culinary options. Therefore, by default they bring a more expanded and educated view of the dining ‘landscape ’....
in comparison anyway. Not that gator nuggets and key lime pie is not topical, it’s just a shorter thread on here.

This is the poster's statement:
Given The Villages is the largest displaced population of middle America, I often wonder if that's just how middle America eats on a regular basis. Maybe they just don't know the difference in Peoria?

Which is incorrect (& a slam).

Where is it incorrect?

Go walk around Naples/Sarasota/Ft. Myers and ask folks where they're from. The vast majority are from major metropolitan areas. (for simplicity sake, "blue states").

Walk around TV and you'll find a disproportionate number of folks from middle America ("red states").

PA, OH, ID, MI perhaps being exceptions.

& I don't mean to start anything political, merely to illustrate the migration pattern in a logical, visual way.

He can answer that for himself. I think there was a little sarcasm built into it but even you know how well that goes on here.
My interpretation of it was NOT that middle America represents the majority of TV....but it’s a population nonetheless. Of course the NorthEast has the larger demo....not just in TV, but in FL.
As far as the rest of his post, and my response to yours, I stand by it. I don’t see the ‘slam’ unless he said Chicago....but that’s just me

TV is home to disproportionate number of middle Americans. Sociology & Demographics 101.

Cost. Distance from the coast. Business model. TV was created to appeal to middle America and they did a great job at it.

Everything was better back where you came from. Everything was better in the good old days.
Even I was better in the good old days, back where I came from.
If it tastes OK, eat it, and enjoy it. Things could be worse.
😉