Family Memories and Midwestern Niceties Converge in Melissa Joseph's 'Casserole Culture'

Family Memories and Midwestern Niceties Converge in Melissa Joseph's 'Casserole Culture'

Unlike the coasts, Midwestern culture is synonymous with the manual labor of blue-collar jobs, resilience necessary in harsh winters, and a certain friendliness that lends itself to a deep-rooted sense of community. These humble tenets grounded Melissa Joseph’s childhood in Saint Marys, a small, rural city in Pennsylvania, where she was born to a mother with Irish heritage and a father from Kerala, India. The melange of biracial life, Midwestern…