Looking for traditional Ukrainian or Uzbek food? Head to America’s Midwest

25.07.2023 - 21:15 / nationalgeographic.com

America’s breadbasket, ripe with green fields and grazing dairy cows, is known for its simple but hearty dishes. But if you think the Midwest’s menu boils down to the traditional staples of cheese curds and bratwurst, then think again.

Conflicts in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and beyond have fueled a surge of immigration to the United States in recent years. Amid the heartbreak and loss, these communities are breathing life into Midwestern cities, many bringing with them culinary delights not typically found in the region. 

As you set out on your highway travels this summer, skip the drive-thru and follow this culinary road trip through Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky to some of the best immigrant-owned restaurants and cafés in the region. 

On any given afternoon, a steady stream of customers files into Mama Maria’s Ukrainian Kitchen to buy cabbage rolls, chenaky (stewed pork, potatoes, and carrots), and savory borscht (beet soup with pork and vegetables).

“On a busy day, we’ll make 250 orders of half-dozen pierogies,” says George Salo, Maria’s son who now runs the restaurant as well as the State Meats Deli next door. 

One of the first Ukrainian-owned businesses in Parma, a Cleveland suburb that’s been home to Ukrainian immigrants for the better part of a century, Mama Maria’s has been a local staple for about half that time. “It was my mom’s place for decades before I took over.” 

In recent months, Salo and his staff have been working to offer a slice of home to thousands of resettled Ukrainian immigrants who’ve been forced from their country by the Russian invasion.

“It reminds me of home because they make authentic Ukrainian food that you cannot really find anywhere else,” says Viktoriya Skubyak, a regular customer who is originally from Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine. 

Mama Marie’s Ukrainian Kitchen, 5342 State Road.

Gulnaz Makhmudova runs the Turkish halal Dayton Village Pizza restaurant. Born in Uzbekistan and raised in the Krasnodar region of western Russia, she recalls a childhood spent cooking for her siblings as her father worked the fields and her mother sold harvested crops at the local market.

“My parents were out all day, [so] since I was eight years old, I was cooking for my family,” she says. Today in Dayton, those ties to the land remain. Behind the restaurant, which serves Uzbek and Turkish dishes, as well as regular pizza, her father, Sabirzhon, has built a small greenhouse for growing watermelons and vegetables for the restaurant. 

(Here’s how to take a European road trip without leaving America’s Midwest.)

The diner has become a safe haven for local Ahiska Turks. Many of them arrived in Dayton in the 1950s after fleeing persecution in Central Asia, and Village Pizza now serves as a