What is Your Kansas City Comfort Food

The food that reminds us of home. The food that you miss when you move away from the city or town you grew up in. Or worked and lived in for years. The restaurants you miss. We can talk about comfort food that is the foods you grew up on, remind you of home, or that you enjoy without guilt on a bad day. But what is your comfort food or comfort restaurant that reminds you of your home town?

I grew up in Kansas City, moved away to college, and returned two decades later. I would visit Kansas City one or twice a year for holidays. So I’ve been in the position of having lived far away from Kansas City, for years, while maintaining connections to friends and family.

Let’s start with foods I’d have shipped to me or that I’d get in KC and take back with me to wherever I was living.

Barbecue Sauce

I may be a lifelong vegetarian, but I grew up in Kansas City so I love barbecue sauce. I use it more as a condiment than ketchup. These days I like to dip tater tots and fries into BBQ sauce. I like veggie burgers with barbecue sauce.

When I was living in Lawrence, Kansas in the late 1980s, I discovered the hickory smoke tofu from Central Soy. As a new vegetarian, I discovered that this could be used to create a vegetarian version of Sloppy Joes, a comfort food from my youth. Meat analogs like Morningstar Farms crumbles did not exist in these years.

I moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1989 to attend grad school, a few months after making a full time commitment to a ovo-lacto vegetarian diet. I was living in the Rivendell housing co-op, where I started cooking and eating tofu on a regular basis. Somebody introduced me to the method of freezing blocks of tofu to change the texture. This greatly enhanced my veggie Joes.

When I moved to Washington, DC in the 1990s, you could find bottles of KC Masterpiece sauce at most grocery stores. You might dismiss mass distributed KC Masterpiece sauce as a very middle-of-the-road take on Kansas City sauces, but for me it was much better than the sauces put out by the big food corporations.

I would guess that freshly prepared Kansas City barbecue would be the Kansas City comfort food that most Kansas Citians would miss if they moved elsewhere. If this describes you, leave a comment below.

Barbecue sauces can make up for not being able to go to a KC BBQ joint and many of them are available via mail order.

Yello Sub / Planet Sub

*The original Yello Sub in Lawrence, Kansas*

I have written elsewhere about my fandom of Yello Sub and the current Planet Sub chain. When I came back to Kansas City during the 1990s for visits, I would make an effort to go to Planet Sub to enjoy one of their baked sandwiches. Sometimes I would drive to Lawrence to visit the last Yello Sub location (at 23rd and Iowa).

Yello Sub / Planet Sub have always had a big selection of vegetarian and vegan sandwiches, which was pretty important to me in the 1990s when fast food vegetarian options were hard to find. I loved their Meatless Masterpiece and their off-menu Tempeh Reuben. Baked subs were an uncommon sub sandwich format in the 1980s. Quizno’s was the bigger chain that made that style popular among American eaters.

The quality of Planet Sub’s sandwiches have slipped in recent years, but that is grist for a future review. The chain is still one that I will patronize, because I like that style of sandwich and I love their offerings.

What is the Kansas City comfort food that you’d miss if you moved away?

If you moved away from Kansas City (or have in the past), what Kansas City food would you miss? What restaurant dish would you miss? How about specific Kansas City products, like a barbecue sauce, a bar drink, a beer, or a dessert? A very special cinnamon roll?

Which Kansas City restaurant would be a mandatory visit if you moved away and only visited KC once a year?

If you moved away from Kansas City and returned for visits once a year, which one or two restaurants would you make sure you dined at during your visit? Would you be having a specific dish or drink? Would it to be to see a chef or staff? Is it a vibe thing?

Barbecue Veggie Joes Two Ways

These recipes approximate how I’ve made Veggie Sloppy Joes from scratch over the decades.

Using Veggie Crumbles

Ingredients

1/2 cup Finely Chopped Onions
1/2 cup Celery
1/2 cup Bell Pepper chopped
1 teaspoon minced Garlic (or garlic powder
Barbecue Sauce (bottle of your choice)
1 cup Veggie Crumbles (e.g. Morningstar Farms)
Buns, rolls or bread (I like a ciabatta roll from Trader Joe’s)

Instructions

Sauté veggies in water (or oil if you are feeling bold). Add garlic.
Add BBQ sauce. Simmer on low heat.
Add veggie crumbles (you can also microwave for one minute before adding)
Serve on buns or bread and enjoy!

Frozen Tofu (the classic 1980s-1990s method)

If you want to use tofu, you can always make this with a block of tofu, skipping the freezing step. Freezing the tofu gives the tofu a spongey texture, which really absorbs the BBQ sauce while cooking.