this is incredibly dumb, but I get such a warm feeling out of something if I feel it's "Connected to History" in some vague narrativized way.

had this happen last night where I got a small block of chihuahua cheese as a snack for the walk home, and eating it prompted me to meditate on Chicago as the largest "trade outpost" in the US -- the confluence of wheat, soybean, dairy, and meat shipments by rail or by barge (likely via the northern branches of the Missouri, but the Mississippi may be involved) and the connection to the Mississippi shipping system (by way of literally reversing the flow of the Chicago River, no I will not shut up about that) producing meatpacking plants in the city itself, bringing about a local cuisine culture that heavily relies on cured/smoked/otherwise naturally preserved meats, then that logistics network combined with the icecar brings about the possibility of the dairy farmers of Wisconsin beginning to specialize in their creameries, leading to further developments in the Americanization of various foreign foods, such as the Michigander adoption of "brick cheese" as a component of a pizza cheese mix that I've seen slowly get reincorporated into the newer pizza places' recipes (god, if only I could track regional incorporation of Muenster as a pizza cheese over time).

Why do I think like this? I'm not even sure I've gotten all the facts right!