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New Kansas slogan should include food

It's time to put Kansas' state slogan --"As Big As You Think" -- out to pasture for something food-related. I'm thinking: "Kansas: Meat. Wheat. Chew on that."

Or: "Kansas: Open wide."

Or, as my colleague Suzanne Perez Tobias suggests: "Kansas -- everything you need on a bun."

Go ahead, take your pick.

What got me thinking along these lines is the country's foodie revolution and the current business vogue for branding.

Thanks largely to the Food Network, more people know more about good food than ever before. (You hear stories about college kids lying around the dorm in their underwear watching, the way we did with MTV.)

And they're willing to go to great lengths and expense to get good food, as the explosion in the restaurant and specialty food industries shows.

Has Kansas done all it could to capitalize on these trends? Not that I've noticed.

But with the right moves, people could start thinking of Kansas and food the way they do of California and wine.

Here are some ideas:

• Cook-offs: They attract good publicity wherever they're held. Cargill recently brought chefs from around the nation to Wichita for a burger cook-off (we featured the recipes in Monday's WichiTalk), and the Kansas Wheat Commission is thinking about doing something similar here next year. What about one for steak or pot roast, held each year at the Kansas State Fair?

• Advertising/promotion: Thanks to a couple of billboards along the interstates, practically everybody knows that a steak house in Amarillo offers a free 72-ounce steak to anyone who can eat the whole thing in an hour.

Why doesn't Kansas start a similar campaign that gets people salivating over the idea of enjoying a T-bone or tenderloin in Kansas as they tool down the highway?

And don't forget the value of junkets to the state for a few well-placed food writers, restaurateurs and others in the biz.

• Labeling: Kansas City has the strip steak, but most of KC is in Missouri. Maybe the smart folks at Cargill or Kansas State University can come up with a new cut of meat -- we'll just go ahead and call it "The Wichita" -- the way researchers in Nebraska developed the successful flat-iron steak a few years back.

Or maybe there's a preparation or recipe that could be associated with the state. Maybe there's already one out there. Nominations, anyone?

• Upscaling: Not long ago, the Kansas Wheat Commission put out a cookbook of recipes from its first 50 years, and I dutifully wrote about it. But frankly, the recipes were a little fuddy-duddy.

What's hot now is artisanal bread, not Grandma's refrigerator rolls. Kansas wheat is going into those lovely loaves that have put Paneras on every other corner, but I'm not sure most consumers make the connection. A nationally recognized institute for artisanal baking would be a perfect fit for the state.

Reach Joe Stumpe at 316-269-6752 or jstumpe@wichitaeagle.com.