My daughter suggests I run an occasional restaurant review in this space to leaven the loaf of politics. I suspect she may be attempting an intervention, to take my mind off a) seasonal affective disorder, b) Trump elective disorder, and (after a failed knee operation) c) joint defective disorder.

But giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming she really thinks this is a good idea, there are a few objections to the plan. First, my readers, if any, due to the magic of the internets may be nowhere near the restaurants at which I dine in Podunk, so have little interest in them

A second bigger objection is the fact that I reside in Podunk where the culinary choices are woefully restricted; a palette confined to beige and tan with only an infrequent splash of color. For that reason we keep eating at the same half-dozen or dozen establishments.

The rest of the bleak landscape is made up of vile national chains, middling Southern joints serving meat and three, BBQ joints or friers of fish, and tired imitations of the same national chains recycling the same burgers, sandwiches, country club and ladies-who-lunch tropes or belatedly catching on to already played out fads from the big city. Farm to table, anyone? Pizzas with gourmet toppings?

The problem is that it takes a certain critical mass of humanity to support a foodie culture, including enough prosperous diners to spring for bespoke food six nights a week, 52 weeks a year. Thus, when it comes to dining choices, size really does matter.

So, though the Metropolitan Statistical Area of which my Podunk is a part numbers 750,000 hungry souls, that is bush league. It is only two-thirds the size of the more educated, prosperous and cosmopolitan Raleigh and only one third the size of Charlotte and neither of them can hold a candle to real foodie meccas. The borough of Brooklyn alone is larger than Charlotte.

And size isn’t the only necessity for a place to compete when it comes to eats. The South, with the spectacular exception of New Orleans and the honorable mention of Charleston, has never ben a hotbed of dining excellence. This is partly because of a lack of diversity, a kind of cultural and culinary inbreeding. It was peopled by Anglo-Saxons whose boring cuisine was mercifully enriched by African additions, but slavery also kept away the waves of varied immigrants whose food traditions enlivened American dining elsewhere.

The great food cultures tend to be at the crossroads of peoples, cuisines and ingredients — France and China, Italy and Spain, California and New Orleans all benefitted from waves of cultural crosscurrents, immigrants enriching the stew, and fresh ingredients from land and sea creating a fertile mash-up of foods and styles of cooking. Isolated places at the fringes or those not blessed with a rich larder tend to produce wan, monochromatic cooking — think Scandinavia or Great Britain.

The same can be said of the South. But it was also true of Minnesota where I had the misfortune to spend several chilly years contemplating with horror such regional favorites as hot dish (the dreaded casserole of the 1950s), walleye and lutefisk.

So the places we find to eat in our neighborhood are rarely purveyors of the local specialities but islands of otherness in a sea of homogeneity.

The best Chinese in town is available at Captain Chen’s Gourmet Chinese, located in a nondescript strip mall but a rare gem. It is the work of a native of Szechuan who came to the local University, missed the tastes of home, and stayed to open a restaurant offering the real thing — a fantastic flaming fish and bean sprout stew, a velvety pork and garlic dish, seared green beans to die for, sweet, brothy baby bok choy, succulent Chinese eggplant with a ground pork garnish.

The best old school Italian is at Salvino’s where a yen for a lovely veal piccata, say, can be satisfied. The best nouveau Italian is at Osteria which offers Emilia-Romagna dishes — a nut, blue cheese, shaved endive salad, ribbons of homemade pasta with wild boar ragu and so forth.

The best Indian in town is Sona’s with a tandoori that puts to shame all others I have ever tried and a selection of dishes from various regions of the country.

Three hours from an ocean we have looked in vain for a seafood specialist worth getting excited about, though some places are willing to overcharge for giving it a try. One place is trying on the idea of tapas, but the results are variable and the little plates soon add up to a mighty bill.

A couple Mexican restaurants are satisfactory, including El Camino Real where I live and Señor Bravo thirty minutes further afield, but none can hold a candle to the average dive or food truck in California, New Mexico or Texas where breathtakingly authentic fare is on every corner.

I have never warmed to vinegary, rather dry North Carolina pork barbecue compared to the world-beating excellence of Tex-Mex purveyors in the Lone Star State or some honorable runners-up in Nashville and Memphis, though with all due respect to Calvin Trillin, I found his home town Kansas City versions a letdown.

In the next town over the Athena Greek Taverna serves up a really nice plate of old reliables including grape leaves, sausage, green beans, and lemony potatoes. But being distant from the sea ties one hand of the Greek chef behind his back.

I can assure the forlorn diner in our town that we do boast the best burger ever on a brioche bun and accompanied by cajun fries at Big Burger, long may it reign.

There used to be a legitimate, no-kidding French restaurant in a town down the road a piece, but it is long gone and those lonesome for the king of cuisines will be compelled to saddle up for a road trip to another state.

I could name a few more reliable stops in town, and be mean to dozens that overcharge and underperform, places that think a bottle of wine, an over-written menu and an inflated tab spell fine dining. But if the ingredients are punk, the cook without technique, the menu without imagination, the food will be without soul.

Having been bitten more than once, I am increasingly shy about trying new places that turn out to be poseurs who only leave me poorer in fortune and in spirit. Better to save up for a run to Washington, Charleston, New Orleans, California or points further afield where food eating is dining, a way of life not just a way to stay alive.But if I do ever get out of this place, I’ll let you know what I found worth eating.