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.

I usually have friends I know pretty well over, but I'm all "Hey, I'm thinking maybe roasted chicken with potatoes and a salad. Anything you don't eat?"

KC is pretty much as expected, but I'm happy to say that parts of it are much more integrated than I expected, and that's good.

I went to the flickr part of that map, and suddenly the reason why we always thought of the southside of Indy as more redneck makes sense--apparently all the black people live on the northside, and only white people live on the south side. Huh.

I like the challenge of trying to cook for all kinds of different kinds of eaters. But, I also know a few people that have lots of problems with all kinds of foods, if they want to bring something so they know there is something they can eat - great. Even before I was diabetic, I was interested in what food had in it - and I can get a bit obsessive on the topic. So people have to tell me to hush occasionally.

now to the population website

My usual response to an invitation to dinner at someone's house is, "That would be great! By the way, I'm vegan. Would you like me to bring something?" But most of the dinners that I go to are the sort where everyone brings something.

I always ask for dietary restrictions/preferences when I'm going to be cooking for someone I don't know. I'd much rather know in advance and be able to make something everyone will enjoy eating!

The only time that I've given up on this is with one of my cousins, because it's just too frustrating. She says no dairy, no gluten, no sugar. OK. No problem. My mom makes brisket. I make a vegan main dish that has gluten, but a potato and spinach side dish that's gluten-free. My mom makes a vegetable dish with margarine instead of butter. Cousin comes to dinner. Cousin won't eat the brisket, because there's a little bit of flour in the gravy. OK, that makes sense -- flour does have gluten. She won't eat the vegetables, because she insists that all margarine has dairy in it, even though there's one vegan and one kosher person there pointing at the label that says "Non-dairy" and "pareve" and every other formulation of "Does not contain milk" on the margarine container. She won't eat the potato and spinach dish, because "You never know what goes into things, it might have gluten," even though I made it, from scratch, and can tell her every single thing in it, can even show her the boxes that the very few processed things came in, and while she can't point to anything that actually has gluten, she still won't eat it, because "You never know."

Then she eats the matzoh balls. And the noodles. After a few years of this, I just stopped factoring her into my holiday cooking plans, since even making something that she eats is no guarantee that she'll eat it. My mother continues to make special things and then get disappointed when they're not eaten.