> Greentext

I was raised in and lived in a very rural area for a while and you would be surprised at how good the food is at a lot of small town places. I still take weekend trips out to a lot of those places because they've just got good cheap food. I'm not going to argue that the high budget options aren't better in cities because they definitely are, but when it comes to afordable good food, the rural areas still have the city beat, at least in my area. Not to mention, many rural places use mostly locally grown food. If you grab a burger at the bar then it wouldn't be unusual to have the guy that raised the cow sitting next to you.

For example, in my area we have:

• A authentic norwegian resturant that also wins every pie competition that they bother to enter in.
• Plenty of fairly authentic mexican food. (Large immigrant population)
• Half a dozen farms that serve pizza for some reason. Each of them has their own style.
• A vinyard that serves awesome pasta.
• An awesome indian place. (Although that one is on the outskirts of a city so I'm not sure if it counts)
• Probably a dozen steakhouses and fish places.
• Plus of course all your standard "american" fare except its usually made with fresh ingredients.

The big problem for non locals is that everything I just described is spread out over an area over 100 miles wide and none of it is advertized. So if you aren't a local who is very familiar with the area and used to rural distances then you have no way to know any of that exists. If you just rolled into that rural town, then all you're going to see are the subway, the shitty chinese place, and the bars. But if you ask a local then odds are they can point you to some dirt cheap damn good food.