To repost:
If there's actually a zombie apocalypse, I imagine the cities would empty out pretty fast as people follow the same (flawed) logic, and rush out onto the highways where they get nommed while attempting to escape to the country, achieving not an escape from the crowds that followed them but only from the security forces that could protect them... a countryside which is now full of roaming zombies that had the same idea. If you're already far enough out you might be fine, like in a small town. But then you'll be cut off from information, and you'll likely be ill prepared for the threat.
And the idea of zombies being poisonous if kind of stupid. If the virus was so powerful it could survive a good cooking, everything the zombies ever touched would be infectious. You'd literally have no chance, ever, unless you were immune... and then you could eat the zombies anyway.
But anyway, the most important first task in any zombie apocalypse is getting someone relatively secure, which the city has in abundance, which can be reached without traveling on the now clogged roads.
Then, you need to capture some frickin' zombies, and have enough people to act as lab rats (drawing the short straw) to figure out exactly what's going on and what rules you are operating under. Because if you don't understand what sort of zombie apocalypse you're in, you're dead. It's that simple. And a (smallish) city is most likely to offer the pockets of security and numbers that are likely to result in that knowledge while leaving you alive.