Iowa. There's more than just corn here.

Iowa, my current home and a big part of the corn production in the US. Since I’ve lived in Iowa for 8 years, I've come to figure out what it's like to live in a small town in Iowa. Not many extremely exciting things happen here, so when they do it's always enjoyable.

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Chili and cinnamon rolls: a weird combination.

We started this project when we were making chili and cinnamon roll scones for dinner. I looked at Mom and said, “This is a weird combination.” She said, “Well, this is a popular combination in Iowa and central Illinois.” So that’s one of the foods we considered for Iowa. But we continued to research and found some other options.

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Another weird Iowa food: the Maid Rite.

What’s the state food of Iowa, you ask? Maid rites (not to be confused with taverns and barbecues) and sweet corn.

My mom grew up with a sandwich called barbecues. I grew up calling them taverns. Basically, they're both ground hamburger with a sauce.

What’s the difference between a tavern, a barbecue, and a maid rite you ask? The tavern and barbecue are two different names for the same thing, but the maid rite has less sauce and is noticeably dryer.

Since the maid rites were supposed to be prepared hours before serving and we only had an hour so we did a bit of corner cutting. We browned the burger, added some seasoning and let the meat simmer. Then warmed some buns in the oven.

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There's enough corn in Iowa to swim in it.

I've actually done it. My family and I visited an apple orchard in Des Moines and they had a well-sized pool filled with corn kernels. I got corn stuck in places corn shouldn't be.

My family eats sweet corn a lot and we have plenty of it, so that wasn’t hard to get our hands on. During the summer we grow our own sweet corn, freeze it, and get to eat it all year long since we enjoy it so much.

Shortly before the maid rites were done, we started on the sweet corn, which wasn’t really that hard to make, but was quite enjoyable, as it usually is. The maid rite’s meat finished frying, was put onto buns, and was served with sweetcorn.

I think the Maid Rites were quite delicious. I definitely liked them more than taverns.

Want to make them yourself? Here's the recipe we used: Maid Rite Copycats.