I am ashamed to say I had no idea there was a large black population in Milwaukee. Was there industry that attracted people there during the Great Migration? I don't know a damn thing about Milwaukee, I realize.

They could be part of "Asian".

They could be part of "Asian".

Yeah, or Caucasian, depending. That was what I was wondering. It took me a while to decide Dearborn was just less dense.

I was disappointed there was no Minneapolis. Minneapolis has large black and native-American populations.

I wish Salt Lake City was there. I know it would be a huge swath of red dots, but I'm curious about the distribution of everyone else.

Something like not eating meat, or some category of meat, I think I'd just say "I'd love to come for dinner. I don't eat red meat though - I hope that's not a problem?". For an actual bbq, telling them "I'm happy to bring something I can grill" would also be nice, but I'm betting nine times out of ten the response would be "oh don't worry about it, we can take care of you." Or it ought to be.

What Brenda and Jessica and...well, everyone else! said. I think these days "vegetarian" (or even pescetarian) is pretty darn common, and nobody should be shocked and it shouldn't be too hard to work around. If someone is specially inviting you to an opening of a new steak restaurant, then maybe more of a "I might not be the right person for that..." but, really.

Kate P, that's like a nightmare dish for me! Eggplant AND mushrooms?! Ew. But like you said--unless it's a close friend and/or it's just the two of us doing dinner, I wouldn't normally mention the mushroom thing, figuring it's probably going to be a side dish or I could eat around it.

If your issues are super complicated ("I am allergic to A, B, C, D, Y, Z" like one of my friends, whose list I can never remember even though we've been friends for years...) or drama (as in "I might die if I eat something that touched X"), then yeah, maybe to offer to bring something. Or just go out. (This is why I usually make my vegan friends pick the restaurant when we go out--I figure they know where there is good vegan food, *I* sure haven't been paying attention to that, generally, except when out with other vegan friends!!)

I should say I can't get through to the actual site yet so I don't know if any of this is explained there.

Re Milwaukee, yes. The breweries, Allen-Bradley and other heavy industry, the shipyards and stockyards. IIRC, a great deal of the migration was from Tennessee and that part of the south, as opposed to other areas.

I have heard that you can see artifacts of the migration pattern in the type of barbeque that is common in Northern industrial cities, though I can't for the life of me remember where I read that.

Since I went pescetarian I find "I just don't like the taste of it" or "it doesn't agree with my tummy" to be the best answers when people ask me WHY I don't eat most meat. They end up not feeling judged, I end up not eating meat.

(Now WHY do they feel judged and SHOULD they feel judged are whole other matters... but I've decided to stop pondering the motivations of peole regarding these things.)

Barbecues are easy because I can bring a box of veggie burgers and slip them on the grill. Sit-down dinners with an unknown host usually have sides and salads and "it looks lovely/smells delicious but I'm afraid ____ doesn't agree with me. These carrots are WONDERFUL" generally does the trick.

Migration is fascinating, isn't it? I remember the epiphany of building towns next to water (I think I was reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books) and then rushing to the Atlas to see the evidence.

I have heard that you can see artifacts of the migration pattern in the type of barbeque that is common in Northern industrial cities, though I can't for the life of me remember where I read that.

True enough out here, where we tend to get Texas and Oklahoma style BBQ, with a fair amount of Louisiana style Southern in Oakland.