Rural American. Stand-up comedian. Chef. Travel blogger. Fan of pork tenderloins. What do any of these have in common? They all offer a glimpse into the life of JayJay Goodvin, better known as The Iowa Gallivant, who has a cult-like following after traveling through all 99 Iowa counties to find the best pork tenderloin.
His love of rural America and the importance of supporting local food places throughout the country motivate him to bring those passions to light through his blog, The Iowa Gallivant.
Goodvin grew up in the Cedar Rapids area, but his parents were from rural Iowa so visiting small towns and farms was part of his childhood.
“Growing up in the metro areas, that was my fantasy land when I would visit the farm or the small town,” Goodvin says. “It’s been a part of my travels since I was a baby. I’m still just as excited to get out to small-town Iowa and small-town America whenever I can.”
In the late 90s, Goodvin left Iowa and traveled the country to Arizona, Cape Cod, the Florida Keys, Montana, Austin, Texas, the Black Hills of South Dakota and Central Illinois. He lived in Phoenix because he wanted to be close to Las Vegas and L.A. — to try his hand at comedy. He said it didn’t pay very well while he was starting out, but he could always find a job as a cook and found himself gravitating toward the restaurant industry.
“I ended up really loving that culture,” he says. “I think it was Anthony Bourdain that said, ‘it’s like, pirate culture — we’re all a bunch of scallywags in the kitchen and things like that.’ And I just learned how to make great food under really great chefs.”
He says it was a great way to see the country, too.
“I worked with a lot of other cooks, but there was just all sorts of things that happened due to those travels, due to working in that industry that made for some very positive outcomes,” he says.
In 2010, Goodvin came back home and combined his love of food, traveling and family into his blog. What started as a family scrapbooking project on WordPress turned into a travel vlog and now has taken on a life of its own.
“It morphed into my first book, Rural Iowa Sausage, from another project that we did, which is very pork related, called Iowa’s Wurst Road Trip — Casing the State for the Best Sausage,” Goodvin says.
This trip was a bit of a full circle moment for him as his grandfather had his own meat locker in northwest Iowa.
“As we went along with Iowa’s Wurst Road Trip, I realized just how vital that industry was and needs to be,” he explains. “I learned in the 1970s at its peak, we had over 400 lockers statewide. Now we’re just north of a hundred. COVID actually gave it a renaissance period because a lot of people realize how important it is.”
He says more people want to know where their meat comes from.
“You can literally go to one of our local lockers and shake the hand of the person that you’re helping to keep employed. And that’s huge,” he says. “The revenue mileage on buying a pack of brats at our local lockers goes a lot further, it seems. Because when you when you can actually see how that’s helping somebody put their own food on their table, it’s like, come in and eat, or we all go hungry.”
To hear more of Goodvin’s adventures, upcoming projects and why he finds it so important to share about the food and communities of rural America, watch the latest episode of The PORK Podcast here or on your favorite podcast channels.
