What Do People Eat In Utah?

Apparently the week-long bout of bad health luck I've been having is not quite over. This morning my lower back started to hurt to such a degree that I actually drove myself to the hospital to get it checked out.



Whenever I think of the emergency room I think of Brian Regan and his bit about the emergency room which is pretty much exactly what it is like every time I've ever been. The only difference being that now that we live in a ridiculous yuppie community our emergency room actually does have valet parking.

After researching my symptoms I feared that my kidneys might have decided to start working against me rather than with me. My doctor agreed and thought I had kidney stones. After a battery of tests, being interrogated by two doctors, and a trip through the CT scan machine they decided that I had back pain and told me to put ice on it and take some Tylenol.

I had a lot of time to lie there and think in between tests and doctors. I also had a lot of time to listen to the guy in across from me who was convinced that his sister-in-law's severe back spasms were caused by her not having enough potassium in her diet. No one, not the doctor or his sister-in-law, could convince him otherwise no matter how many times he brought it up.

He brought it up a lot.

Jen is currently in Utah for work. As I laid there in the hospital with time to think I wondered, "What do people in Utah eat?" I did a bunch of Google searches to see if I could find any local Utah cuisine so that maybe I could make something for dinner that was some sort of specialty of the region. I got nothing.



They eat anything. They eat Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, American, and other fast food places. They eat meat, vegetables, fruits, different variety of drinks, and desserts.

The best I could come up with was this result on Ask.com.

Jeeves would be rolling over in his grave.

Sadly that was the best information I could find on the subject so I decided to eat like a Utahan. A Utahonian? A Utahite? Someone from Utah.



I ordered Chinese takeout! It said it right there on Ask.com, they eat anything! Including Chinese! So I picked up some steamed broccoli and tofu with brown rice and black bean sauce on my way back from the hospital.

The doctor prescribed me some pain medicine but I'm just not that big a fan of pain medicine. Pain doesn't actually bother me that much. It's not because I'm tough, in fact, I'm pretty much a world class, grade A wuss. The fact is that pain always makes me worry that something on me is going to fall off, turn green, or become cancerous. After I took a few trips through the CT scan machine and the doctor said my kidneys looked perfect I felt better. Well, the pain was just as bad, but my worry about a small vole burrowing its way through my insides or a tumor engulfing my pancreas quickly faded.



In place of Vicodin I chose to have a single beer. I guess it does something to ease the pain but it's just a lot more fun to drink a beer than take some vicodin. It's probably healthier too.

I was able to pick this Organic Wyld beer from Unita Brewing in Utah! This was exciting because it was the first beer I'd ever had from Utah. I must say, this was a good way to initiate myself into the world of Utah beers. Utahian ales! Beers from Utah.

This beer was remarkably good, possibly the best pale ale I've ever had. It had a wonderful grapefruit taste but more like fresh juice than like the rind.

It didn't really cure my back pain 100% (or even 10%) but I didn't really care. There was no listing for ABV but I'm guessing somewhere between 5-6% as I didn't really feel anything after having a glass.

Also, I have to say that the Unita Brewing website may be one of the best laid out brewery websites I've ever seen. Sure, they don't tell you the ABV of this beer but it's still a pleasure to view.

I just wish WebMD was as useful as this site. While WebMD doesn't offer as concise and detailed information I've found it a useful tool to panic myself about having cancer.

Cheers!