North Korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Pyongyang

The bombing of Pyongyang was conducted as part of a gradual and sustained United Nations Command aerial bombing of North Korea during the Korean War. The first bombing raid targeting Pyongyang occurred on June 29 1950, four days after North Korea's invasion of South Korea. By the time of the armistice in July 1953, 75 percent of Pyongyang's area had been destroyed.

Gotta remind me which major US city endured this kind of bombardment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_North_Korean_famine

The famine stemmed from a variety of factors. Economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support caused food production and imports to decline rapidly. A series of floods and droughts exacerbated the crisis. The North Korean government and its centrally planned system proved too inflexible to effectively curtail the disaster. North Korea attempted to obtain aid and commercial opportunities, but failed to receive initial attention

Or which US states suffered from a combination of regional depression, natural disaster, and global embargo to justify the skyrocketing cost of food.

Yes, all of the nation is well fed. Uh huh. Sure

The difference between the US and NK is that in North Korea in the late 90s, there was quite literally not enough food to support the population.

The US doesn't have that problem. We are in full on Grapes Of Wrath territory.

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.